It felt like he had been in there for hours when the door crashed open. His balls crawled further up into his stomach as the new people's three main guys and the dyke marched in. Their footfalls echoed in the big, empty room and they wore dark and angry expressions.
He hated himself for it but he couldn't help babbling as soon as they walked in. "Look, guys I don't know what's going on here or what you think I've done, but I'm innocent. Please, you gotta believe me- I didn't do anything."
His captors didn't reply. The cowboy who taught the class on how to put down the biters and the dyke glared at him while the two older guys checked his zip-ties.
His face grew hot with anger over his treatment. "Man, this is bullshit. You can't keep me like this. The country might be fucked to hell and back but this is still America. I have rights!"
They ignored him. The boss guy — was his name Will? — pulled out a can of chew and took a dip. He put the can back in his pocket and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He glared down at Rohon, his cold, hard eyes showing no pity.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah, you’re the new people's boss. But I’m not sure of your name. Please, sir, I guess there's some confusion-"
The boss guy with the hard eyes interrupted him. "Just answer the questions you're asked. We searched your clothes and can't find the note. Where is it?"
"I don't know about a note, sir. I don't understand what you're talking about. If you would untie-."
"Are you aware of her plans, or are you just a lackey, doing her dirty work for?"
In a spasm of rage he tried to pull his hands free from the chair, but his zip-ties held tight. "God dammit, I said I don't know what you're talking about. I took a walk, two people jumped me, brought me back here, stripped me, and now here I am. I don't know shit-all about any note or this woman. Now let me the fuck out of here!"
The boss man gazed at him with an impassive face. "That's the way you want to play it, then?"
"I'm not playing anything. I'm telling you the truth."
His interrogator nodded his head once and turned away. "He doesn't want to talk. Let's get Coy and the Doc and get started on this thing." They moved toward the door in a single-file line without another glance at their prisoner.
He ranted at their backs. "Yeah, go get whoever you want. My story’s not gonna change because it's the truth." Spittle flew from his lips and landed on his bare leg. The door slammed shut, leaving him alone in the dim lantern light. "Fuck," Rohan muttered to himself. "Fuck!"
He remembered a movie he saw where they’d tied a guy to a chair. In the movie, the guy got the chair as high in the air as he could in and fell to the ground, breaking it into pieces. He tried that several times, but only banged the chair legs against the floor and turned himself ninety degrees to the right.
He tried to come up with a plan and drew a complete blank. Anger took hold and he let loose a shower of curses, yelling them as whipping his head back and forth. When he finished he laid his head back and panted with exertion and pent-up frustration.
Having turned himself in a quarter-circle, the curtain hung on his right. A ruffle in it caught his eye, and he turned his head toward it. Just when he decided it must've been his imagination the curtain moved again, more this time.
And Rohon heard the distinctive snarl of a creeper.
Eighty
* * *
The same group reentered the warehouse a few moments later, this time with Coy and the Doc in tow. Rohon was going plum crazy.
He whipped his head from side to side, trying to get a good view behind him. He filled the air with screams and curses. "You can’t do this, you fuckers! I haven't done anything wrong. Keep that God damned biter away from me! You can’t scare me into saying shit because I don't know shit." He fixed his eyes on the Doc. "Please, you gotta help me. Don't let them do this to me, Doc! I don’t have a note, I don’t understand what they are talking about!"
Doc Joseph gazed back at him, unperturbed. "I can't help you- I'm only here to keep you alive. But you can help yourself. All you have to do is answer the questions."
That sent Rohon back into a paroxysm of rage. He bellowed and screamed, and made another attempt to stand despite having his ankles, thighs, and waist tied to a chair. This time he tipped himself over and he and the chair landed crashed to the floor. He laid on his side on the concrete and tried to buck his way out while he alternated between pleading with and threatening the other people in the room.
He certainly had the creeper stirred up. One of the dead in Danny's training class, it snarled and snapped its teeth behind the curtain. The fabric billowed out in places as it tried to reach through to the meat on the other side.
The curtain-covered cage was a duplicate of the one Danny used for his class, except this one was on wheels. Taking care to stay low and as far away from it as possible, Danny and Coy looped lengths of rope around the front wheels. Their hands moving lightning-fast, they secured each rope with a knot and stepped back, pulling the long end back with them.
Rohon had grown still and watched the cowboys work; their plan became clear and he sobbed while Jiri and Will righted his chair, facing him toward the still-covered cage. Willa and Tara pulled the curtain away, revealing the creeper. Four feet separated Rohon and the creature's outstretched hands. It was old and ravaged- its skin was gray and fissured, and chunks of it had sloughed away. One eye socket was empty; in the other, its milky-white eye blazed at him. Its belly was torn open; tissue and ropy intestines bounced and jiggled as it struggled to reach him. The fingers on its left hand were gone, and the middle and index fingers on its other hand dangled below its outstretched hand. Will gave a nod; Danny and Coy used the ropes to pull the cage a foot closer to Rohon. A dark stain appeared on the crotch of his jeans and piss pooled beneath the chair. Tara pointed at the pool and laughed.
Will clapped him on the back. "You don't want to piss yourself, Rohon. The dead smell your urine and it fires them up even more."
Rohon barely heard him. He stared at the creeper, his eyes as big as saucers, and tried to stop crying.
Will squatted next to him and leaned in until his mouth almost touched the traitor's ear. "What happens here today is your choice. We’ll keep pulling in your friend there until he's close enough to reach out and grab you. You don't want to experience what happens after that. Have you ever seen one of these things take a person down? I mean, been right there next to it when it happened?"
Rohon didn't reply, his eyes still glued to the creature.
"I didn't think so. It's an ugly way to die. About the ugliest I've ever seen." Will leaned even closer; his lips brushed Rohon's ear when he next spoke. "And just so you’re aware, we'll pull it off before it kills you. I'm going to let you turn. Put you in a cage right there and keep you as long as I'm able. That's what should happen to a traitorous piece of shit like you."
Will stood and patted him on the top of his head. "Or you can tell me where the note is and answer the rest of my questions. That'll take place in a nice, quiet room with no dead guys in it. Hell, I bet somebody would even get you a dry pair of underpants."
Rohon wailed. "I don't know anything about a note. Why are you doing this to me?"
Will's eyes met Jiri's, and for a split second he wavered. What if the man was telling the truth? He saw a picture in his mind, a long line of people walking up the hill out of the quarry, carrying their meager possessions in packs, bags, and whatever else they could find. He pictured Becky and Coy at the head of that column and steeled himself. He motioned to the boys and they pulled the cage forward.
Rohon screamed, Rohon cried, and Rohon buckled in his chair as best he could.
"Be careful, asshole," Danny said in an amiable tone of voice. "If you fall over again your head will land in your own piss.".
When they pulled the cage close enough that two feet separated him from the creeper’s grasping hands, he broke. "My boot! It's in my boot! I hollowed out the heel of my right
boot and the letter is in there. Please, please get me out of here." He sobbed the great braying gasps of a man laid bare.
Will turned to Willa, who was smoking a cigarette and gaping at the sobbing man. He had to call her name twice before she noticed. When he had her attention, he winked at her.
"Go get the man's boots."
Eighty-One
* * *
Tara and Willa cleaned up Rohon after he broke, while Coy and Danny disposed of the cage and the creeper. The Doc gave him a close going-over and pronounced him healthy, and then Will and Jiri walked him into a small, windowless office in front of the warehouse.
That had been thirty minutes ago, and they yet to come back out. Danny was one of a handful of people loitering outside the office. His fevered imagination kept replaying scenes of Rohon finding a way to get the drop on his Jiri and Will; his emotional state progressed from bored to worried to borderline panic. He was trying to decide which would make Will angrier- Rohon escaping while Danny paced outside, or Danny kicking the door in and finding everything in the room okay. To his relief, the big man opened the door and motioned for Terrence and Coy. And he caught Danny's eye and gave him the thumbs up sign.
Terrence and Coy were only inside for a few minutes before they reappeared on either side of Rohon. The traitor’s hands were zip-tied behind his back again and each man had a firm grip on one of his arms. They marched him out the tunnel and turned left, presumably headed for Terrence's office and the two small rooms next to it he used as jail cells.
Will motioned Danny over to him. His expression was grim. "That son-of-a-bitch has sent Coy's church lady information on the camp here for the last five months. She sent them over here to fill that role." He clutched a piece of paper in each gnarled hand and waved the one in his right hand in the air. "He was on his way to drop this off when we nabbed him. It's an accurate inventory of our weapons, including the ones we just grabbed over in Joplin.
A mile-and-a-quarter down the road, there’s a Burger King- it's the first thing you come to as you head into town."
Danny nodded. "Yeah, I've seen it."
“This is how their scheme worked. Back behind the restaurant, a chunk of limestone about the size of a tablet of paper sits on the ground near the northeast corner. Underneath the rock, there’s a hole with a Ziploc bag in it. When Rohon had information to send he’d write it down and seal the envelope in a particular way. The envelope goes in the bag and asshole there makes a chalk mark on the front of the store.
“Once a day, a crew from that church drives by. If they don’t see the mark by the front door, they turn around and go back. But if they do, they stop, grab the note, erase the mark and deliver their find unread to Crazy Lady over there.”
“That’s fascinating, but why are you telling me in so much detail?”
Will offered him the other note. “Go ahead. Read it.”
Danny took the paper. Handling it with care, he took a look. The writing wasn’t in Will’s small, sloppy print, but an elegant script instead.
The boy made it back this morning with your ultimatum and the leaders met this afternoon. I was not privy to the deliberations; suffice it to say it took less than thirty minutes to reach a decision. The people here are tired and discouraged. They have very few effective weapons and almost no ammunition. I think many are relieved to have a reason to make a fresh start somewhere else.
Please note, as a fleeting act of defiance, they will utilize every day of the two weeks you have allowed. If your army arrives early they will fight it, to the extent they are able. But on the morning of the fifteenth day, if you march in you will find your new home deserted. Salud.
When he finished, he looked up and gave Will a cold and humorless smile. “You had Rohon write this.”
Will smirked by way of an answer.
“And we’re going to leave it behind the Burger King so they’ll think it came from him.”
Will’s smirk grew wider.
“And now what?”
Will didn’t answer right off; he’d fixed his gaze over Danny’s shoulder. When he refocused, his eyes were smoldering embers. “We spend every minute of every day for two weeks laying traps and getting ready. And when they come down that hill, we unleash hell’s own fire on them. We’re going to blow that bitch and her people off the face of the Earth.
Storm Horizon: A novel of the zombie apocalypse (Haven Book 3) Page 28