by Paul Cave
The VW had led the small convoy along the roadway, twin headlights blazing, and the rest of the vehicles following in its wake.
“New recruits?” Deputy Anderson asked.
Rivers watched on. The three newcomers were just standing mutely in a small group around the parked VW.
None of them appeared to be speaking, just blank faces looking up towards the tower.
Meadows had left them there only moments earlier.
Anderson said, “Why are they just standing there?”
Rivers did not have an answer. He was just as confused as the deputy. What had Meadows been doing all this time. Waiting on the highway to pray upon unsuspecting travellers. Dragging them from their vehicles to see if they became infected.
A terrible picture flashed to mind. Not all would have been affected by the rain – and Rivers visualised a highway littered with the bodies of the dead, those that had been fit and healthy only moments before feeling the sharp steel that Meadows had to offer.
The dull thud of footsteps could be heard, as Meadows climbed his way towards them.
Rivers and Anderson were hunkered down just outside the cabin, the open access a dark mouth that was capable of spitting forth any kind of nightmare.
Wind and rain battered the roof of the cabin, but mercifully the overhang protected them from both.
The deputy had her weapon drawn. Rivers had a short steel bar in hand, something he had just prized off the cot he had occupied.
“Don’t shoot, unless you get a clear shot,” Rivers said.
Anderson nodded.
The footsteps grew louder.
Meadows was almost here.
A voice came from below – clear and full of intent.
“RIVERS.”
Just a single word, but enough for them to understand that the man calling it was not some mindless marionette that was only functioning on a blood-crazed level. That single word had been laced with awareness and had a challenging directness, too.
“I know you’re there – Rivers,” Meadows called.
“Yeah – I’m here,” Rivers said.
There was a slight pause, then Meadows said, “Private Jake Rivers, of the 25th Airborne Division. You are wanted for misconduct in the field of war. Treason of the highest order.”
Rivers shivered at the amount of detail Meadows was capable of.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“What do you say – Private?”
“About what?” Rivers asked.
“About the Sarge. About the fact that you killed him. Shot him dead, like the coward you are.”
Rivers looked to the deputy. She wasn’t buying it. He felt strength in that. The deputy rolled her hand in a circular motion – keep him talking, is what that meant.
Rivers nodded.
The deputy sidestepped around the opening. Bent at the waist and knees to find her target.
“It was Magnotta who was the coward. You forgetting what he did back in ‘Nam? In the village. The reason he was dishonourably discharged?”
A pause. Maybe Meadows was not quite in full control yet? Maybe he was somewhere between the killer, he had become, and the man, he once was.
“We were wrong. The Sarge understood what it meant to be brave. Take the next step. We were just too foolish to realise that,” Meadows countered.
Rivers dropped his head. Meadows was completely lost. Whatever changes he had undergone were pulling him further from the good man that he had once been. Rivers wanted to step out of the darkness, descend those steps that separated them, and embrace his old friend. Shake him. Tell him he was wrong. Remind him of the young man that had saved his life – willingly, bravely, and without recourse for his own safety. Tomas Meadows. Where had that spirit and righteousness gone?
“You’re wrong – Lieutenant. Magnotta used us. It was he who were the coward. You think he really cared about you. The illness?”
Silence again. Meadows unable to voice an immediate response.
Then he said, “Maybe you’re right - Private. Maybe he was looking out for himself. But the chain of command should never have been broken. The Sarge did not deserve such a shameful end. You got to pay.”
Rivers waited. Had Meadows been referring to the cash that had been taken. Pay, how?
“What do you want from me?” Rivers asked.
“What do I want?” echoed Meadows.
“Yeah – maybe we can end this. Without any more bloodshed.”
A sly and heartless chuckle came to them. “I don’t want blood,” Meadows said. “It’s the woman.”
Just for the slightest of seconds, Rivers did not understand. Then a sickening realisation hit him. Anderson. Meadows was speaking about Deputy Anderson.
The same understanding hit the deputy a moment later. She eyed Rivers with real fear.
“Never,” Rivers said. He looked into her eyes, and the sheer force of that word, that meaning, seemed to take her breath away.
She nodded in gratitude.
Rivers had heard enough. Fuck Meadows. The Sarge. The war. Everything that the past stood for. He was a free-thinking man and would never sell out a fellow human being that was both good and decent.
“Fuck you – Meadows,” he said. “You want her. You come get her.”
Rivers looked to Anderson, whispered, “You got a clear shot?”
The deputy shook her head. “Too dark.”
“Well – Meadows?” Rivers challenged. “Coming or not?”
Meadows sighed. His hand hammered heavily on the metal railing that led upwards. “You forgetting the fun we had – back in Da Nang? The young women. The innocence of them.”
Rivers waited until the ringing of metal had faded. “That was you - man. Your thing. The women. I was too busy getting stoned to be interested.”
Meadows chuckled slightly. “Yeah – always the gentleman, was Private Rivers. Even when it was there, on a plate. Too much of a loner.”
Rivers had heard enough.
“Like I said – motherfucker. You want her, you come get her.”
That awful sound of amusement came to them again. Meadows just tapped on the railing, a gesture of acceptance. His footsteps came, as he climbed slowly down the lower staircase.
“I’ll be seeing you – Private,” he said, his voice almost masked by the sound of rainfall.
Rivers re-entered the cabin quickly. He strode towards one of the larger utilities to be found within. A propane stove, heavy and bulky, and something with real mass. He was dragging it. Metal feet scraping noisily against the cabin’s floor.
“Help me,” he said.
The deputy moved over to him, her hands finding a firm grip around the stove.
They pushed the heavy unit towards the door. It got caught there for a second, a slight lip that was part of the framework, as both pushed and pulled, yet mercifully, it cleared the step and was pushed towards the stairway.
With one last burst of effort, they dropped the stove into the opening which led to the stairwell. It clattered noisily against the first two or three steps and became tightly wedged in there.
Now, the cabin had become inaccessible. Nothing was getting through to this level.
Rivers and Anderson staggered backwards, their immediate task done, and then they both collapsed in a heap on the opposite side of the threshold.
Chapter Forty-Two
It was one of those dreams that seemed so real, the type when all senses were being tested. Noise could be heard in the form of a rhythmic heartbeat, the steady pounding also adding pressure to eardrums. Smell came in sporadic wafts of the occasional spice, but mostly a coppery, metallic stench that rolled forth in great waves. That odd tinge also worked its way onto tastebuds, which turned sourer the longer the dream went on.
Ben Ronald was laid out on a gurney. The bright lights above burning through his eyelids, and the cold steel of the table leaking into his bones.
The coroner had already started his main incision – a Y-cu
t that would run from both shoulders, before joining into one as it split him down the centre.
Ben could feel the scalpel deep in his shoulder. He waited, expecting the cold bite of the blade to draw across his chest. There would be no blood, as Ben had been dead for some time.
He could not remember why he was dead. What had he done to deserve such an untimely exit? What was the last thing he remembered?
His friend – Cal, the trusted mutt had abandoned him. No note. No call, to say the friendship was over. Nothing. Cal had simply packed his bags and left town.
Ben found himself inside the casket. All dark and quiet. This was it. The end. He panicked for a second, were his last wishes to be cremated or buried? Neither one seemed overly appealing. Either a hot, fiery goodbye to the universe, or, a slow lingering decay as he festered in the ground.
Who would come to visit him if he were buried anyway?
Not Cal.
The mutt did not care.
Ben felt suddenly sad. If only they had had more time – maybe they could have patched things up.
An unexpected scratching noise came. Faint. But there. Ben did his best to listen. Another little bout of scratching, and was that a whimper he heard, too.
Cal dressed in black, here to morn his lost friend, maybe?
Ben tried to reach out, feeling the wood of the casket. The wood was not there though, but instead, the cold feel of metal. Was he back on the gurney?
That scratch and whimpering sound. So faint.
Ben forced his eyes open.
The dream popped like a burst balloon.
He was still in the diner. The lights were on. The darkness and the rain were still battering against the windows. And that terrible pain of Maggie’s knife was still twisting agony against bone and sinew.
The sour taste in his mouth told him he’d been asleep for some time. He tried to reposition himself so he could tilt his head towards the clock above.
Pain held him firm.
He looked to the windows instead.
The darkness was still there, ever-present on a seemingly never-ending night.
That faint scratching noise had somehow followed him into the realms of reality. It came again, somewhere from the rear of the diner.
Ben groaned.
What was this?
Maggie trying to dupe him into opening the fire exit.
He could not even if he wanted to. Weakness would not give him the ability to navigate around the chairs he had left in the hallway.
Still, he tried to climb to his feet. The shotgun helped some, as he used it to gain leverage against the floor. He climbed to his knees, and then used both shotgun and counter to find his feet.
The diner spun slightly – light-headedness sending it in a half-tilt, and Ben had to wait for a minute until the merry-go-round had stopped.
Another scratch. A whimper, or the wind, Ben was not certain this time. Yet, curiosity had him, and he gingerly made his way towards the rear. Unsteady legs took him beyond the single toilet cubicle, and then the office, with open door – which was still empty, to bring him up to another doorway, a simple internal door, which led to the diner’s food stocks. Ben had looked in here earlier for the missing shotgun. He did not think there had been a second doorway, a way to slip inside undetected, but he could not be totally sure.
A faint scratching of noise came from the other side.
Ben almost laughed. Pictured Maggie on her knees, scratching with bloodied nails, drawing him in. Little did she know he had the shotgun.
“Okay,” he said, raising the weapon. “Coming, ready or not.”
He used the muzzle of the gun to drop the doorhandle. A slice of darkness cracked open. Ben jammed the shotgun through the crack. Used it to pull the door open and shuffled backwards as quickly as he could. A full wedge of darkness opened out before him.
He held his breath – waited for that one chance he would get to blow the fucking crazy teenager to hell.
It did not come. Instead, the little mutt appeared with his tail wagging and whiskers smeared with something like mud.
“Cal!” Ben said.
The mutt offered a bark and another bout of tail wagging. He padded over to Ben, and stood on hind limbs as his two front paws found the trucker’s legs.
“Hey – boy, where have you been?” Ben asked, tears in his eyes.
The mutt woofed excitedly before returning to the pantry. Ben followed. A cord of string hung just on the inside. Ben pulled it to activate the light above.
Foodstuffs. Lots of it. Including the half-eaten roll of liver pate that Cal had munched his way through.
“Really?” Ben admonished. “All this time, and you’ve been in here, filling your face.”
Cal licked his lips.
The trucker thought back. Had Cal been at his side when first examining the pantry – whilst looking for the shotgun. Indeed, was it Ben’s own fault for locking his friend inside. Seemed the mutt had managed simply fine, however, when all hell had been breaking loose.
Ben turned his back on the storage area, and ambled his way back along the rear of the diner. Cal followed, tail high and paws softly padding alongside the trucker.
Both stopped dead the second they entered the main area. The main door had been left open, wind bashing it against its hinges. The wind was blowing in droplets of rainwater, and wet footsteps were clearly marked in their passing. The crooked figure of the teenager stood before them.
Maggie was back.
Chapter Forty-Three
This was it Jake Rivers thought – that haunting feeling that had been plaguing him since he had arrived at the motel. The sense that something dark was just there, on the periphery, ready to reveal itself in one terrible moment of dread.
They were coming. All the infected that had arrived with Meadows. The burly logger had taken the stairs, his size presumably needed to dislodge the propane stove.
Unbelievably, the old man and businesswoman were coming from the face of the tower itself. Both climbing up the east side, the rain granting them whatever terrible powers they required to do such a feat.
Meadows had remained at the VW. Seemingly confident in his new recruits’ ability to take them without his help.
Rivers understood the tactics that Meadows was using – divide and conquer.
Anderson had taken up position on the east side of the cabin, the windows hopefully giving her the view she needed. The design of the tower had hidden the two climbing, as they were masked by the cabin’s lower platform. Only once they scaled the railings, would she truly know their final approach.
Rivers looked her way – raised his hand towards her.
“Stay,” he mouthed.
He was confident they would climb all the way from the east side. A tactical advantage to them. The downpour giving them strength, and a shield, as neither Rivers nor Anderson could step outside safely, unless they were willing to expose themselves to the effects of the wind and rain that blew in that direction.
If nothing else, Meadows was thinking straight.
Rivers was hunkered down at the doorway – door open, and his body caught half in, half out. If fingers appeared around the stove, he had the metal bar ready to break them. However, his concentration was being split, as he had to keep looking behind him to see if the other two had arrived yet.
“Anything?” Anderson yelled to him.
“Nothing,” he called back.
He tightened his grip around the bar. Cursed his luck for not having anything more suitable. That shotgun that the cook had hidden would have been a welcome alternative. Or a flare gun. Anything with ‘gun’ involved or attached to it would have been better than this bar.
Still, Rivers held on to it tightly as if the simple weapon meant the difference between life or death.
Footsteps sounded, ponderous thuds of hollow noise. The logger had almost reached the top tier.
Rivers readied himself.
“Come on – fucker,” he breat
hed.
A sharp squeal of friction came to him. The stove moved slightly, just an inch to the side. More screeching and the stove rocked violently from side to side.
Rivers understood what the logger was trying to do. He was walking the stove fraction by fraction towards the edge of the step on his side.
With no other choice, Rivers had to leave the cabin and drop to the opposite side of the blocked entryway. He grabbed the body of the stove, his hand slipping along its edging until fingers found purchase. He dug his heels in and leaned back as far as he could in an attempt to use his body as extra weight.
Even with the added weight and traction, the stove still moved fractionally away from Rivers.
Dammit, he thought, redoubling his efforts. Meadows had just succeeded in his first objective – he had divided them.
The deputy had her full attention turned towards the rainswept windows. Her eyes were darting along the full length of the railings – expecting hooked fingers to appear at any second.
She had her firearm down at her side, with only four bullets remaining, she could not run the risk of wasting a single one. That second of hesitancy from hip to target would give her the pause she required to be confident that her targets were true.
Anderson did not think a glancing blow would be adequate to stop what was coming. Head shot is what she was thinking of. Put them down permanently. She didn’t give a fuck if she spent the next year doing nothing but filling out the paperwork for such actions.
She was not dying - or worse, falling into the hands of Meadows or his henchmen this night.
The first hand appeared, on the far side of the platform. Painted nails, and bright rings on a couple of fingers. The woman. Another hand reached over to grip the top edge of the railing. A mop of hair and a face demented with rage came into view.
The deputy brought her gun up, but understood that the distance was too great for her to be entirely accurate. The glass between them also a hinderance if the bullet veered even slightly upon shattering.
Anderson lowered her weapon, and that face looked back with a knowing confidence. Crazy as hell - but also functioning at a high enough level to understand the damage a firearm could do.