Carly put her hands on her hips. "Man, this was a much better idea than what we did last time."
"Yes, far safer," Sarah agreed.
They both looked at each other then burst out laughing. When they composed themselves, they got in the cab and drove off while the number of scratchers in the back multiplied.
Wayne spit up blood on the floor in front of him and ran his tongue over his busted lip. He struggled again against his restraints, and at that moment he would have given just about anything for someone to release the handcuffs digging into his wrists. The steel chair was cold and made his back hurt almost as much as the rest of him. He raised his head slowly and squinted at the harsh white light coming from the fixture in the ceiling of the small room.
"Why don't you just kill me?" Wayne asked. "Been long enough."
"After everything you've done?" Jack Glass said. He loomed over top of Wayne, and his black clothing made him into a perfect silhouette against the blinding light. He wound up and drilled Wayne in the stomach with his bare fist.
Wayne let out a tortured cry and blood dribbled out of his mouth.
"I've just started saying hello," Glass said. He swung again, this time aiming for Wayne's cheek. He connected and Wayne's head slammed back and wobbled around on his neck like it was connected by only a thin, loose cord. The force had been so great that as Wayne's body rocked against the back of the metal chair he was strapped into, the bolts securing it to the cement floor strained against the impact.
Wayne's body began to tremble, and something happened to him that he would be ashamed for anyone else to see: he was experiencing fear. True, uncontrollable fear. "Kill me," Wayne said. "Please. No more."
Glass smiled under his mask. "Soon," he cooed. He stood squarely in front of Wayne and lifted his foot off the ground. Glass grunted and delivered a kick right in his sternum. The sound of bones cracking filled the small room as the bolts ripped out of the floor and Wayne was sent skidding along the cement on his back, still strapped into his chair. Wayne yelled in agony as he struggled to breathe.
Glass marched forward and stood over top of him, his footfalls sounding like loud thunderclaps. He bent over until his face wasn't far from Wayne's. The frightening purple skull stared down at him, and the blackness behind its eyes wasn't far from the blackness in Glass's heart.
He pulled off the mask and bared his teeth at Wayne. "You gave me this face and I'm going to make sure it's the last thing you see!"
The harsh light above lit the fringes of his head, allowing Wayne a slight view of his features. The skin all over his entire head was charred and badly damaged like he had been in a fire. But his eyes were just as dark and empty as what was on his mask.
Wayne wanted to say something, but his eyes bulged and he was choked by his damaged lungs.
Glass stood up and put his mask back on then took his wide-brimmed hat from a soldier standing at the edge of the room and snugly fit it back onto his head. The soldier opened the door for him and he left the room, then another soldier came in and the two men unfastened Wayne from the chair and dragged him back to his cell, a trail of blood marking his journey. They tossed him inside the frigid and tiny space and closed the door.
Wayne lay on the floor, shaking. Every bone and muscle in his body hurt, and he knew he couldn't hold out much longer. He moved his stiff neck and craned his head around, looking for something, anything, that he could use to end his life.
"So this is it, huh?"
"This is it."
Bill nodded slowly and leaned on the railing of the bridge, looking down at the thin river below.
Halcomb stood by and listened to their conversation as he endlessly sharpened his knife.
Bill turned to Sarah. "I gotta give you credit, you sure are persistent. This whole thing's unraveling by the seams but still you push on. I like that in a chick."
"Don't get all cutesy," Sarah said. "This is just business, and when it's done we'll all go our separate ways. You still want this, right?"
"I already told you I was in," he said. "If Wayne's in there, I want to bust him out."
"All right," Sarah said. "But we still need the bandits from Durham, otherwise this whole thing isn't going to work."
Bill reflected on this. "Tomorrow. You and I both make the trek out to Durham and we'll bring them over. Many as we can round up, anyway."
Carly stood next to Sarah as the two of them talked, and Halcomb's eyes wandered over to her and absentmindedly looked her up and down as he ran the leather against the edge of his knife. She caught his gaze and quickly looked away, scared. Halcomb's face widened in a look of sarcastic apology, then he shook his head and sauntered over to the other end of the bridge, already tired of the back and forth.
"And now the plan," Sarah said.
"I still figure there's only one way," Bill replied. "We just have to have the numbers."
"We'll get the numbers. We need to figure out positioning."
"I say we have a distraction in the front near the gate, then we use explosives on the wall. Blow it apart in two or three places and come in through those points. Surround 'em."
Sarah nodded. "Snipers on the ridge," she said. "We'll work our way in toward the building, then we'll see what we're up against when we get inside. Once we get to that point, it's going to be a complete mess; no real way around it. But the mission is simple: get Wayne and kill Glass. Fight our way back out if we need to. The bonus is destroying any equipment and infrastructure we can."
Bill nodded. "It's a plan to me. When are we doing this?"
"In two days," Sarah said. "We'll meet here at sunrise tomorrow and head to Durham."
Bill agreed and then he left back for his camp. Sarah talked to Halcomb and gave him all the pertinent information to relay to the rest of the bandits at Macklin's camp, now that she more or less left him in charge while she wasn't around.
There was still a lot of work to do, but she would get it done. The moment she had been working toward for the past two months was finally coming to fruition, and she would see that it went off without a hitch.
As Sarah and Carly left the camp and headed back for the farm, Carly asked if she really thought the plan was going to work.
But Sarah just smiled. "That's not the real plan."
12
Interrogation
"This is the plan?" Carly asked.
"This is it," Sarah replied.
"I don't see it."
"It's in there. You can't see it from here, but we can't get any closer right now; I heard the convoy on our way here... they should be coming back at any minute."
Carly looked at the road. "Are you sure this is going to work?"
"No," Sarah said.
"Well that's comforting."
"Just hush up and wait, I think I hear them coming."
Carly trained her ear as they waited behind the tree line at the edge of the road. She heard it too. The trucks were returning, though how many, Sarah didn't know. Carly's eyes scanned through the woods, following the direction of the sound as the tractor-trailers crawled their way over the bridge and through the narrow path. The two of them stared off in the distance down the dead-end road and eventually saw headlights shining through the darkness from behind the woods.
The first truck came into view and they hid behind a tree so they wouldn't be spotted. They listened as the convoy approached, coming from the dead end and passing the fork in the road.
Sarah held her breath and peeked out from behind the tree, watching the first truck roll by the trap they had laid. It passed without hitting it, and Sarah let out a sharp and disappointed breath. A second truck went by without incident, then a third. A fourth and final semi zoomed by in front of her, and just before it was clear of the railroad spikes she had rigged in the road, there was a loud pop and one of its rear tires shredded apart, leaving uneven strips of rubber strewn across the asphalt.
The truck rolled down the road, following the convoy. When they were clear, S
arah turned her head to Carly and said, "Okay, let's go!"
They jumped up from the spot behind the tree and ran off after the trucks, staying in the woods. Carly grabbed the wheelbarrow with the two dead zombies in it and shoved it up and over the uneven forest floor. The corpses' heads and limbs bobbed and rolled around like a twisted marionette routine.
Sarah kept her eyes on the semi-truck in the rear, almost trying to will it to stop. "Come on, come on," she muttered under her breath as she ran.
Brake lights.
The fourth truck slowed and pulled to the side of the road. It stopped and idled as the three trucks in front continued for a while without it. But eventually they stopped, too. The passengers sitting in each of the three trucks hopped out while the drivers stayed inside and kept the engines running. The three soldiers walked back down the road to the fourth truck that had been hobbled. The driver and passenger got out and walked around to the back, inspecting the damage.
Sarah and Carly stopped, still a little bit far from the truck, but not wanting to make any noise. They watched from the edge of the woods as the soldiers made some brief banter.
"Yeah, no big deal," the driver of the fourth semi said. "We'll call it in, you guys go on ahead."
The other three soldiers agreed and walked back down the road to their trucks while the driver pulled out a radio and said something unintelligible from Sarah's vantage point.
The three trucks started up again and carried on down the road, disappearing into the distance. The two remaining soldiers stared down at the fuzzy mess of rubber clinging onto the rim, shaking their heads. They walked around for a bit, staring off into the distance, before finally agreeing to get back in the cab and wait for backup.
As soon as their backs were turned, Sarah yanked on Carly's arm. "Now!"
The two of them left the wheelbarrow in the woods and darted up the road. Carly pumped her legs as hard as she could, skirting around the far side of the truck and coming up behind the passenger as Sarah headed for the driver. Just as the soldiers started to turn around, Sarah and Carly bowled into them as hard as they could. Sarah drove her arm into the driver's neck and Carly clubbed the passenger across his helmet with the butt of her shotgun.
The soldiers hit the ground like sacks of rocks and became disoriented after their heads clunked on the pavement. Sarah and Carly used the opportunity to yank their helmets off and aim their weapons at them. Sarah had a .45 revolver pointed at the driver's face, and the passenger wet himself as he stared down the double barrels of Carly's sawed-off shotgun.
"Toss your weapon," Sarah instructed the driver, and she heard Carly do the same thing to the passenger on the other side of the trailer.
They each only had a handgun in a holster on their hip, both of them having left their assault rifles in the cab of the truck. They complied, slowly reaching for the gun and tossing it next to them on the road, then they held their hands up in front of their chests, and neither one of them knew what their attackers were going to do to them.
Sarah and Carly forced their captives up to their feet and marched them to the back of the truck.
"Open it," Sarah told them.
The driver turned and unlatched the door of the trailer, sliding it up. "It's empty, lady," he said.
But she didn't care about that. "Over here," Sarah said, "on your knees." She pointed out a spot and they both sauntered over, kneeling down next to each other. "Hands on your heads."
The soldiers wrapped their fingers together on top of their heads as they stared off down the road with Sarah and Carly standing behind them, one trigger-pull away from death. "The colonel's gonna kill you," one of them said. "You know that, right?"
"The colonel doesn't know we're alive," Sarah said. She looked at Carly and nodded, and Carly nodded back. Sarah stepped forward and clubbed the driver in the back of the head with the butt of her revolver.
A dull clunk filled the air and he tipped over and hit the road with his face. He was out cold. The passenger started to shiver and plead things to God under his breath, but he tried to keep his composure.
Sarah stepped out to the side of the man and aimed her revolver at his face.
"You're making a mistake," he said, his teeth rattling together.
"Do it," Sarah told Carly.
Carly nodded and approached him from behind. The soldier squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth as Carly whacked him in the back of the head with the shotgun. He sank down onto his face too, unconscious.
"Let's hurry," Sarah said.
"Can we take the truck?" Carly asked.
"No, they'll be here soon. Get the wheelbarrow."
Carly set off into the woods to retrieve it as Sarah ran up to the cab and stole their rifles, extra ammo, and anything else that seemed of any value. Carly dumped the lifeless zombies onto the asphalt and she helped Sarah undress the two unconscious soldiers. They stripped them of their entire uniforms and all their gear, leaving them in nothing but their underwear. They slapped a set of handcuffs on each of them and pulled them up into the wheelbarrow in the zombies' place, then they began dressing the zombies in their uniforms as quickly as possible. Carly marveled as Sarah took one of the zombies dressed as a soldier, and with only one arm, managed to hoist it up onto her shoulders. Sarah walked it over to the back of the trailer and dumped it inside, and she helped Carly who was struggling with the other one.
When both of the zombies were inside, Carly gave Sarah a boost and she pulled the door closed and secured the latch.
"Get their pistols," Sarah said, motioning toward the guns they tossed away on the road. Carly complied and piled everything into the wheelbarrow with the naked soldiers. Sarah pulled out a rag and jammed it into the gas tank of the tractor. She produced a lighter and held the flame to the fabric. She waited for a while until the flame caught and the rag went up.
They cleared the road with their haul and headed for the gas station where Sarah and Tommy had holed up as they fled from Macklin two nights before. They stopped and watched the tank explode in a pillar of flame lighting the sky in a brilliant orange before curling up and disappearing into a wisp of smoke. Flames continued to pour out of the gas tank and lick up at the rest of the tractor. Before long, the trailer caught on fire, and it spread. When the whole thing was up in a good blaze, Sarah was satisfied.
"I think I hear someone coming," Carly said, staring off in the distance.
Sarah listened and heard the faint rumble. She was right. "Okay, let's get out of here," she said, and the two of them left the scene and headed off for the staging area they'd set up.
One of the soldiers started to wake, his eyes opening and snapping shut like a newborn baby. He looked around the dingy storage building at musty boxes and old drums of oil, trying to figure out where he was.
In the next moment, a flood of water hit him in the face and his head rocked back. At first he thought he was drowning, had been dumped into a body of water or something, but then the wetness rolled down his face and his naked torso, soaking his underwear and making it cling to his skin.
The man beside him woke up in a startle and began tugging at his restraints. The handcuffs were still clamped tightly to their wrists behind their backs, and there was a thick doubled length of rope wrapped around their midsections, tying them together.
"Rise and shine," Sarah rasped in a drawl. As the men looked up at her standing in the shadows, she shined a flashlight in their faces. They instinctively tried to throw their hands up and shield their eyes, then they resorted to snapping them shut and turning their heads.
"Who are you?" one of them said in a groggy voice.
Silence.
"What do you want with us?" he demanded.
More silence. And then footsteps. The man opened his eyes and tried to see what was coming, but the light was still aimed right at him and he could only see something black moving toward him—moving with purpose.
Something swung through the blinding light and then pain ripp
ed across his face and his jaw ached. His head hung limply to the side and tears were squeezed out of his eyes and rolled down his face. He tried to move his mouth, but the pain was too incredible.
The man beside him trembled. "What's going on?" he asked, voice full of fear. "Where...w-where are we?"
"That building in the woods..." Sarah said slowly. "The door on it has a keypad. What's the code?"
"Hey, you're just those two broads who hit us on the road, ain't you?" the first man said, finally working past the pain in his jaw enough to speak. "Don't tell them shit," he said, turning his head to the other man next to him. "They're a couple of lightweights."
Carly stepped through the blinding light again and hit him in the other cheek with the pipe.
He was silent after that and tended to himself for a while, spitting up blood and running his tongue along his teeth, making sure they were all there.
"The code," Sarah directed at the other one.
"L-Look lady, I don't know any code! I'm just a... I'm just a driver!"
"He was the driver," Sarah replied calmly. "You were the passenger."
The man was completely beside himself with fear. "Oh shit," he said. "I mean, I'm just in the truck! I don't know anything!"
"Hey, look at me," the driver said, raising his head again. He stared into the flashlight and defiantly held his eyes open, as if he was staring right past it into Sarah's eyes, though he couldn't see them. "I told you cunts earlier: the colonel will kill you. I don't know what kind of rinky-dink operation you have going here, but if you're trying to put the squeeze on us, you've got another thing coming, honey."
"The colonel," she said, emphasizing the word, "doesn't know we're here. He doesn't know you're here. After we knocked you out, we set your truck on fire with two bodies left to burn in the trailer. All the colonel will find after the blaze is a robbery with two charred skeletons in the back, wearing whatever parts of your uniforms that didn't burn off. They'll think you're dead. And if you don't cooperate, you will be."
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