Pushing past them, Leonard gripped one of the fence bars, glanced around the field. The only thing moving—or making any sound, or smelling up the place—was the mass of undead inside the tennis court fences across the way. The imprisoned rattlers became a bit more active, interested by the movement inside the palisade fence.
Lenny said, “Don’t see no stragglers, so you all’s good to go. If I was y’all, I’d head—”
“Well you ain’t us and we know where the fuck we’re going.” TJ flipped the shotgun barrel to his shoulder, nodded at the gate. “Open the fucking thing already.”
Lenny sucked in another deep breath, then opened the gate. He was eager for these people to just… go away.
Metal clanked, and the gate rolled along the track a few feet, enough for the unwelcome guests to exit. Holding an upturned palm to the yellowed, sun-stained field, Lenny said, “Good luck to y’all.”
“Whatever,” Laura replied. “I’m so ready to get out of this fucking place. Oh, and thanks for the car. Jerk.”
The three of them slipped through the gate opening, and Lenny rolled it shut behind them, the latch catching, ringing the iron like a dull dinner bell. Lenny stood there, watching.
“You gonna watch us go?” Laura said. “You don’t even trust us outside the gate? Huh?”
The former NFL linebacker-turned-pro-wrestler held his hands high, turned on a mighty heel, and crossed back to the loading dock, shaking his head the whole way, his steps heavy.
The three troublemakers watched him until he disappeared into the building, the back dock door slamming shut behind him. They waited almost another minute before setting off toward the tennis courts.
“They are gonna so fucking regret this shit,” Toby Jack said, livid over their forced egress. He stopped, unbuckled his belt, then reached into his baggy pants, producing a pair of bolt cutters. “Ah, that’s better.”
Mallory laughed again. “They are so gonna regret this shit.”
“I know. That’s what I just said.”
“Let’s celebrate. Light one up, home skillet.”
Laura said, “Can’t you wait two fucking seconds? Let’s take care of business, then the festivities begin.”
As they neared the tennis courts, they scrunched their noses, frowned.
“Jesus,” Laura said. “What’s the fucking point? Why keep deadies penned up like this?” She cocked a thumb toward the south end of the building. “And in the pool, too?”
Toby Jack shrugged. “Bunch of sick fucks. If I had enough shells, I’d blast every last one of these things.”
“Seriously,” she said, “what kind of people do this?” Shaking her head in disgust, she added, “Probably best they kicked us out. I don’t wanna live somewhere people keep these fucking things as pets.”
“Right on,” Mallory said.
The three of them slinked toward the high fences with darting glances. The hissing and growling behind the chain link intensified as they neared the perennially hungry corpses.
“Shit,” Laura said. “They’re gonna give us away if they keep getting all crazy.”
“This’ll only take a sec,” TJ said.
They made their way around the courts, finally finding the main entrance door. The handle was padlocked.
Kneeling, Toby Jack held out his Mossberg shotgun to Laura, and she took it. Gripping the bolt cutter handles, he lined up the blades with the padlock’s shackle, and started to squeeze.
“Whoa, dudes. Living alert, living alert.” Mallory was trying to dip his chin toward someone walking in the field.
Laura and Mallory dropped to their knees and froze.
Toby Jack stared at the lone soul in the pasture, clippers still gripped tightly. “That a chick standing out there?” he asked in a low voice, but still loud enough to be heard over the undead’s dissonant chorus of moans.
“Think so,” Mallory said. “She see us?”
“Not sure. Maybe she’s a deadie…”
“Don’t think so, homes. Ain’t staggering around all drunk-like, you know?”
The three of them kept still.
After a few more seconds, TJ said, “She’s looking right at us. Just stay still. Don’t fucking move.”
“Yeah,” Mallory said, “her vision is based on movement.” A laugh trickled over his lips.
“Shut the fuck up, man. Jesus.”
Another tension-filled moment went by, the figure in the field staring, then started away, toward the tree line, occasionally glancing behind her.
TJ exhaled deeply. “Holy shit, dude. That was intense. Thought she was gonna come over here and bust us.”
Still holding the shotgun, Laura said, “I’d’ve handled that bitch.”
Mallory giggled.
Nudging TJ, Laura said, “Alright, let’s do this and get the hell out of here and find us a drink.”
Toby Jack spun on his heel, realigned the blades on the lock, and squeezed the handle hard. After a few seconds, there was a crisp snap, the restraining metal rendered impotent. TJ tugged the now worthless lock from the latch, and tossed it aside.
“Our work here is done,” he said, lifting the latch. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Before that bitch decides to come back.”
The three of them started away, and TJ said, “Be free you deadie motherfuckers.”
And Mallory laughed.
PART TWO
Show and Tell
Chapter 11
David didn’t get far. Didn’t even make it out of the building, let alone the back doors. She’d been waiting for him only paces away, barely beyond the door to his room.
“That’s it,” Luz said, pistol pointed at David, backing him up into the room he’d just exited. “Just leave it on the floor there.” Without glancing behind her, she shut the door with her heel.
He lowered the gym bag to the buffed tile, fingers splayed.
“Good. Now, very slowly, unbuckle your gun belt, and toss it in front of me.”
“Luz, look,” He tried smiling, though it only came off as patronizing and insincere. “You’re upset. I get it. But just listen to me for a second…”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” She swallowed hard.
“Roy, he was—”
“I said there is nothing to talk about. Unbuckle it, toss it over. Do it now.”
He pursed his lips, a flaring sigh through bruised nostrils. This disagreeable bitch was making things very difficult for him. He needed to leave. Now. He had the momentum of emotion, and he had to capitalize on it.
Doc was out there somewhere, getting away, and David aimed to finish what that coward started. He wondered if Doc’s wife was truly dead, or if running her over had jumpstarted her second life. Her undead one. And he wondered what he’d do to her if it was the latter…
An eye for an eye, Doc.
“Please, Luz. Doc… he’s out there.” His voice started to shake. “He… he’s chopping up… Natalee… my wife. For Chrissakes, please. I need to do this. I have to stop him—”
“And I have to stop you.” She brought the handgun up eye-level, gripped it with both hands, cocked the hammer. “Now if you ever want to see the other pieces of her, you’ll unbuckle that belt and throw it over here. Or I kill you, like you killed Roy. Comprende?”
David could only stare, his decimated heart and mind—and soul—processing Luz’s hateful, hellish words. An urgent ire for this woman surged inside him. She may as well be partnering with Holliday, have handed the faux gunslinger the hatchet to hack off Natalee’s hand. Handed him the box herself…
The two Docs. Two soon-to-be-dead Docs.
“Doc, listen…” He’d even started calling her, ‘Doc.’
“Goddamnit, David. I won’t ask you again.” She’d started visibly shaking, and David decided to cooperate, preferring to avoid an accidental discharge. If he was going to die, he would die for Natalee, not by an enemy’s unsteady hand.
Crouching, he released the leather to the floor, a
nd said, “Luz, Gabriel won’t be happy about this, what you’re doing. He won’t approve. So, why don’t you just put the gun down and let me—”
“Gabriel’s not in charge anymore.”
He paused to study her face, looking for lies or bluffs. “What do you mean?”
“In our meeting, this afternoon, after you’re little stunt. He abdicated. I run the show, now.”
“You? But why would—”
“Because I know how to keep this place safe and how to put murderous bastards like you in their place. Gabriel doesn’t. We can’t trust our lives to someone who can’t do what needs doing.”
Slowly, David stood. “I did what needed doing, Luz. With Roy. Don’t you get it? You’re a medical doctor for Chrissakes. You know that Roy was dead, that he’d turned. Scotty, too. I’m no doctor and even I could see it. I know you saw it. Why are you so adamantly denying it?”
She moved into the room and behind him. “Open the door. If you try for your gun—”
“Why, Luz? Why are you pretending? Turning a blind eye?” Stepping over his gun rig, he opened the door.
“Move.”
“Answer me. You owe me that much.”
“I owe you nothing. You’re a killer. And you’ve endangered us all by bringing your personal war here. We’ll not have it.” She leaned into his ear. “I won’t have it.”
He started out the door and into the hall at her urging. “So, what now?”
“Now, I handle what Gabriel should have handled.”
* * *
The tense trek down the hall was short, and the south wing was surprisingly devoid of life, barren, not a single soul to be seen. Eerily quiet, save for the jingle of keys Luz had retrieved from her white coat pocket. David guessed that Dr. Gonzalez had made sure no one would be around to witness this unfair march to discipline. She handed him the key ring, and he accepted it.
The Janitor’s key ring.
He’d never really paid attention to it before, when Gabriel carried it, clipped to a loop on his jumpsuit. It was just natural to see a janitor with a fat ring of keys, so much so that David didn’t really even notice it. Like a doctor with a stethoscope or a cop with a gun—as natural as the sky and clouds or the ocean and fish. It wasn’t until you saw them out of their element, in another’s hands, that they even became visible again, overtly noticeable.
Seeing Luz with the Janitor’s keys disturbed David, the cop’s gun in the bad guy’s hands. It gave credibility to her story. Gabriel was so wise, such a natural leader, that it surprised David that he would essentially give up, especially so easily. To hand off the keys, the baton of power, to someone like the doctor. David suspected there was more to the story than Dr. Gonzalez was revealing in her disingenuous version. He was sure of it. He planned to talk with Gabriel to get the real story.
In a low voice, Dr. Gonzalez said, “311,” and dipped her chin at the shiny plate tacked to the wall next to the door, the identifying number carved into the plastic. “Number’s engraved on the key.”
David started flipping through the keys like playing cards, searching for number 311. He glimpsed the doctor beside him, and he consciously worked to exude controlled calm, to not allow his anger to act. She still had the handgun trained on him, though she’d stopped shaking, finally. He gathered she was working on her own composure and poise, unused to wielding weapons that killed over implements that cured.
“Hurry up. They’re in order,” she said, her accent thick and her gaze steady.
He flicked his eyes at her, begging patience as he fumbled with the metal, losing his place. He really wasn’t afraid of Luz, but more apprehensive of an accidental misfire. The doctor didn’t come off as sadistic, like Sammy and Gills. Those two incorrigible bastards had meant harm and broadcasted the fact. Had made it well known to all parties involved that they intended to hurt and maim, death be damned. And welcomed.
Conversely, Luz didn’t exude those traits. Her bedside manner wasn’t the friendliest he’d ever encountered, but she was initially rather soft spoken, seemingly kind, with a touch of compassion. And she was exceptionally young, early thirties, perhaps, and pretty enough to be in movies. A very beautiful woman. Hell, despite the age gap, he could have envisaged them as a couple down the road, after he’d laid to rest his emotional anguish over Natalee.
Finally locating key number 311, he plunged the toothy metal into the slot, twisted. It opened with a robust click that vibrated the wood. He looked at her, and she nodded again toward the door, a nonverbal command.
Upon opening the door, a glut of questions arose.
“Move,” Luz ordered.
David crossed the threshold. “Gabriel. Thank god.”
Inside the room, Gabriel was sitting on a cot, his elbows on his knees, head bowed. He lifted his head when David spoke.
“Dave.”
Stepping into the room, David jabbed his thumb at Luz and said, “Gabriel, what the hell—”
But the door closed. Tumblers clicked, metal meeting the jamb. The ripping of jagged steel from steel. Jingling keys. Footsteps fading.
David tried the door, although he already knew it would obviously be locked. Seeing was believing, though. And seeing ignited a suppressed and seething choler.
He crossed the room, stood before the Janitor. “Gabe, what the hell is going on? Why are we in here?”
With both hands, the old man raked back his long silver hair, and straightened. “Welcome to the pokey, Dave.”
“The pokey?”
“Jail. Prison. The brig. Sing Sing. Call it what you will. Same damn difference.”
“You mean… we’re being held prisoner?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Because I won’t play the game, Dave. And if you’re in here, then that means you ain’t, neither.”
“The game?”
“The Denial Game, Dave.”
He shot the Janitor a perplexed look.
Gabriel said, “The Infirmaries. Remember them?”
A slow nod. “Yeah, the folks who think the dead are just sick.”
“Good. You paid attention. Well, seems they don’t take kindly to those of us who don’t see the world as they do.”
“But, I thought there was a chemistry to the group here. A camaraderie. Ain’t that what you said the day we arrived? Good people, a good thing?”
The Janitor nodded, chin hooked in his hand. “That’s what I thought, too, Dave. Call me a fool.”
“Is this… is this my fault? That we’re in here? Because of Roy?”
Gabriel shook his head. “Not entirely. I’d say it was the catalyst they were looking for. Roy was of the persuasive sort. He’d been rallying folks behind my back, turns out. Oh, I had a hunch. Lenny told me for sure, because Roy tried to work his silver tongue magic on him.”
“Lenny bite?”
Tapping his temple, the Janitor said, “Lenny’s a bright one. Ain’t a stupid man, though to hear him talk, you might get that uneducated vibe. He knows the score.”
“Is he locked up somewhere, too?”
“No. He’s pretending to play the game. Making the Infirmaries think he’s still on the fence.”
David breathed a sigh of relief. “So we have an ally.”
“We do. But we gotta play it smart, Dave.”
Rubbing his neck, David thought a moment, then said, “Why don’t the Infirmaries just kick us out of the Alamo? Make us leave? Send us on our merry way? I mean, why bother with us? We’d be out of their hair, and they could live in their fantasy world—”
The Janitor waved him off. “Because they think this is all just temporary. And that you, me, and anyone else they see as guilty need to pay for their crimes when this all finally blows over.”
“Crimes? You mean killing the dead?”
Gabriel simply stared at him with his usual one eye squinted, head at a slight twist.
David got it. He didn’t need the Janitor to explain it to him, to conne
ct the dots. He meant it as a rhetorical question, but he almost hoped the old man would expound on it some more—with wise words, taming tone and cadence, and his knowing gaze. They all had a surreal, calming effect. And David understood why the Janitor had heeded his calling, to abandon the corporate world to chase a simpler dream of consoling the elderly. The dying.
“They ain’t gonna let us go, Dave.”
Protection mode switched on, and David physically bristled. “What about Jessica? Bryan? Randy? Are the Infirmaries going to lock them up, too?” Already, David could feel clouds of fury swirling inside him, a spinning storm, turning faster and faster, a tornado about to touch down.
These people, these Infirmaries, were dangerous. Dangerous to themselves, dangerous to David’s group. His family. Dangerous to the Janitor, to Lenny. Those who believed the dead to be sick would not last, would get themselves killed. Get others killed. Like he’d nearly done to himself.
A sudden claustrophobia robbed him of reasoning, his breathing swift and shallow.
The Janitor said, “Dave?”
David looked up. He hadn’t been listening, too busy stirring the emotional pot with a stick of anger.
“There a plan?” David asked.
Gabriel pressed to his feet, his hand finding David’s shoulder. With a squeeze, he said, “Me and you are about to come up with one.”
Chapter 12
Jessica forgave David the moment she crossed the threshold of his room. She instigated it, after all. Played a dirty hand, hit below the belt. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and had only succeeded in pissing him off royally.
Note to self: Don’t play the ‘dead zombie wife doesn’t love you’ card again. Oh, and don’t play the ‘you have a thing for… fill in the blank,’ one, either.
Jess didn’t mean it, of course. Not sincerely. She’d just tried to upset him, get him focused on her instead of his foolish Kamikaze mission he deemed mandatory.
This ‘Doc’ guy was dangerous. She had thought so since the day his slick southern drawl had drifted from the two-way radio. How could he not be? Anyone who would hack off a hand, stick it into a box… sneak into the Alamo’s fence…
Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row Page 10