The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel

by James Cook

  “You decent?”

  I wrapped the towel around myself. “Come on in.”

  She came inside and retrieved the two buckets, the soap, the comb, and the washcloth. “What do you want me to do with your old clothes?”

  “Burn them.”

  A nod. “Probably for the best.”

  A minute or two later, the runner boy, Nicky, knocked at the door. I let him in, and he handed me my clothes and the key to my home. His eyes widened as they roved over the scars on my torso. A few seconds passed while I waited for him to leave, but he didn’t budge. I snapped my fingers in his face. “Got a staring problem, kid?”

  He flushed, said, “Sorry sir,” and ran off.

  A quick peek in the mirror told me I had accomplished my goal. Anyone who saw me walk out the front door would not recognize me as the same man who went in.

  I dressed hurriedly and went back into the dining room. The newcomer with the medallion was still seated at the bar nursing a glass of grog. I nodded to the bartender on the way out, walked a block down the street, and ducked into an alley.

  Now it was a waiting game. If the table of men who eyed my trade so jealously were really going to rob me, they would not wait long to come out. Too much chance of losing my trail. Perhaps a minute ticked by, and sure enough, I saw all three of them emerge from the tavern.

  “Which way you think he went?” one of them said. He was short, older, thick beard, stocky build.

  “There’s his footsteps,” another said, pointing at my tracks in the snow. “Come on.”

  I eased back into the alley and waited.

  SIXTY

  They were good at their work, I’ll give them that much.

  One of them did the tracking while the second scanned ahead, the third watching their six. They moved up the street quickly, following my footprints in the dim silver light. Finally, they reached the alley. I stood back in the shadows near a big green dumpster, hidden from sight.

  The first of the three men, the short one, drew a pistol from under his coat and started slowly into the alley. By the way he held it, moving the barrel with his line of sight, I knew he had some measure of tactical training.

  “You want a light?” the third man asked, taking an LED flashlight from his belt. I tensed, making ready to leap out and cross the distance.

  “No. I can see just fine. Don’t want to make a target.” He took a few more tentative steps forward.

  “I don’t like this,” the second man said. “Too dark, too many places to hide. Use the flashlight.”

  Your friend is smart.

  Three more steps. He was less than six feet away now. I held my breath.

  “Okay, fine. Give me the-”

  He diverted his attention for just a second to reach for the flashlight. It was all the time I needed.

  Two steps brought me to his side. My hands flashed out and stripped the pistol from his grip. He stepped back in surprise, one hand reaching for another weapon. Rather than shoot him, I bashed him in the face with his own gun. When he stumbled back, I kicked him squarely in the balls.

  As he collapsed, I trained the gun on the other two. “Hands in the air. Do it now.”

  Slowly, they did as I said. The man I put down took a hand away from his groin long enough to try for his weapon again. I raised a boot and stomped on his throat—not hard enough to kill him, but enough to stop him from breathing for a while.

  “Don’t try that again, asshole. I’ve been nice to you so far, but I’m just about out of patience.”

  The man gurgled and sputtered, one hand on his groin, the other on his neck. A cut on his cheek spilled dark black liquid onto the snow.

  “You two,” I said to the others, “take off your jackets. Do it slow. Your life depends on it.”

  They removed their jackets and let them drop. I kicked them to the side of the alley and ordered the men to put their hands on the wall. When they did, I made them step back and separate their feet so they could not turn on me too quickly. Leaving them there for the moment, I grabbed one of the first man’s hands, put him in a wristlock, and forced him over onto his face. A search revealed a knife and a small .380 revolver, but no other weapons. I tossed them into a pile a few feet away and told him to join his friends against the wall. He whimpered and coughed while I searched the other two and tossed their weapons in the pile as well.

  Like most citizens in Colorado Springs, the men had IDs on them. One was an old Texas driver’s license, and the other two were simple government issue IDs distributed at the refugee intake center. When out in public, civilians were required to carry their IDs on their person at all times. Tonight, that rule played to my advantage.

  “I’m going to keep these IDs,” I said. “I know your names, and I know where you live. I could report you to the police, but it would be your word against mine, so here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to let you go. Your weapons belong to me now. If I ever see you again, I’ll shoot first and worry about the consequences later. Are we clear?”

  They uttered a frightened chorus of assent.

  “Good. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  They got.

  *****

  After caching my newfound loot in a nearby abandoned building, I found a rooftop from which to watch the tavern’s front door. I did not have to wait long. The man wearing the medallion stepped out into the frigid night, turned his collar up around his face, pulled his knit cap down tight over his ears, and started walking northward. I slipped down from the rooftop and followed.

  The first half-mile or so was difficult work. It is not easy to trail a person on empty streets without being spotted. My father and I used to make a game out of it in our neighborhood, him trying to spot me, and me trying to sneak up close enough to touch him without being detected. It took until I was about fifteen before I could beat him more times than I lost. Considering Dad was ex-Delta Force, it was an accomplishment.

  Finally, the man turned onto one of the main thoroughfares connecting the refugee districts. Even this late at night there were a large number of people moving back and forth on the street, most of them third shift people. They made it easier to follow my target.

  He reached a row of shipping containers perhaps two miles from where I lived and turned down a side street. I slowed my pace and watched him from the corner of my eye. The street was not long, only ten or eleven containers arranged around a cul-de-sac. I walked past, waited a five count, then turned and walked the other way. This time, I saw him climb a ladder, open a roof hatch, and disappear inside.

  Looking around, I committed as much information about the area to memory as possible. The first smooth, uncoiling tendrils of a plan begin to stir.

  It was long past time to pay a visit to Tyrel.

  *****

  After nearly two weeks of diligent surveillance and very little sleep, the time had come to make contact.

  The target’s name was Tom Dills. I sincerely doubted that was his real name, but the Army was still prosecuting deserters, so it made sense for Dills to assume a new identity. Another three months would pass before the president would realize the stupidity of what the Army was doing and issue an amnesty decree.

  Dills worked as a laborer on a construction crew on the south side of town; brick masonry, for the most part. He was a creature of habit, always walking the same route to and from work, occasionally stopping in for food and drinks at the tavern where I first saw him. He had very few friends, mostly just people he worked with, and occasionally visited a widow with a ten-year-old son who lived a few streets over. He was not the only man who visited her, and she did not appear to have a day job. It did not take much imagination to figure out what she did for a living.

  He seemed to live a mostly solitary life, almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. Almost. I’m sure he thought keeping his head down and minding his own business would make it tough for anyone to figure out who he really was. I did not know all of his story, but I knew one s
mall, extremely important detail of it.

  I knew where he got that medallion.

  It had belonged to Blake, once. His mother sent it to him for his nineteenth birthday, a plain gold disk inlaid with a silver cross surrounded by delicate ivy and roses in white gold. Blake was rarely without it.

  Now that is was in Dills’ possession, he wore it everywhere. Made no attempt to hide it. I even heard a few people comment on how nice it was. An Air Force officer tried to buy it from him, saying he wanted to give it to his nephew for his birthday. Dills politely refused. Why it meant so much to him, I could only guess.

  The setup was simple. Tyrel rented a horse and wagon from a man who knew better than to ask questions. We loaded it with a few relatively non-valuable salvage items: bundles of cloth, scrap wood, lawn furniture, empty buckets, and, most importantly, several large tarps. Ty parked the wagon not far from Dills’ container on an empty side street and pretended to brush down the horse while he waited.

  For my part, I walked slowly from one end of the main road to the other, eyes roving, waiting for the now familiar shape of Tom Dills to appear.

  True to his pattern, he showed up just after ten at night, head down, hands in his pockets, trudging wearily toward his favorite watering hole: the same tavern where I first saw him. I tailed him from a safe distance and waited at the end of the street until he went through the door.

  “Moving in,” I said to my radio.

  “Copy. Advise when en route.”

  “Wilco. Out.” I turned off the radio and hid it in my jacket.

  I waited a while longer. Dills usually spent an hour or so eating and nursing a few drinks before walking home for the night. When I thought he would be halfway done, I turned down the street and entered the tavern.

  It was much more crowded this night than the first time I had come here. It was also much earlier in the evening, and I was not waking up from my second drunk of the day. Despite my recent efforts at sobriety, which is to say, weaning myself off the booze, I could feel the first tremblings of withdrawal kicking in. Not as bad as a couple of weeks ago, but enough I felt compelled to have a drink to settle my nerves. It would not do to let the anxiety and paranoia that came in absentia of alcohol rattle me into making a mistake.

  Dave the bartender did not recognize me. A shave and a haircut and a couple of weeks of not trying to drink myself to death had altered my appearance. I had gained back some of the weight I lost, and my eyes no longer looked like dim blue lights at the end of a long dark tunnel. So when I gave him the name Bacchus, he blinked a couple of times.

  “Well I’ll be damned. You’re looking a hell of a lot better.”

  “Semi-clean living, my friend. You still have my bottle back there?”

  “Sure do.” He retrieved it and brought it to me.

  “Thanks.” I took the bottle to a table on the other side of the room and sat down near the fire. From there, I could watch the bar without arousing suspicion.

  It is difficult to explain what that first drink feels like when you have been abstaining for a while. I was at the point if I did not drink at all for two or three days, the withdrawal would cease to plague me. Not the cravings, mind you, just the worst of the symptoms. But when I poured a glass of grog and sipped it a few times, and the burn hit my stomach, and the pace of my heart slowed, and heat spread through my limbs and face, it was like a warm hug from a dear old friend. A tension I did not realize I was feeling began to ease.

  The urge to empty the glass quickly and pour another tall one was strong. It would have been very easy to pound the half-bottle, order another one, and see how fast I could drink it. Tom Dills was not going anywhere, after all. I could take him any time I wanted, and-

  NO.

  The time for waiting was over. No more drowning myself. I had a purpose now. And besides, Tyrel had paid good trade for the horse and cart. If I screwed this up because I got drunk, he would probably shoot me. Or at the very least dole out a sincere ass-kicking.

  I nursed my drink, felt it settle my nerves, and waited. If anyone sitting at the bar had turned and looked at me, they would have seen a young man sitting alone staring at the fire. Several other people at nearby tables were doing the same thing, further reinforcing the illusion. But the fire was the last thing on my mind.

  Tom Dills, or whatever his name was, finished a bowl of stew and ordered a drink. He sipped it slowly until it was empty, then ordered another. I palmed the Rohypnol pill in my pocket, dropped it into the last of the grog in my bottle, let it dissolve, and carried it to the bar.

  All the stools were taken, a few patrons standing behind them waiting for drinks. Dave worked busily to fill the orders, sweat standing out on his bald pate. I pushed in next to Tom Dills, bumping into him a little to get his attention.

  “Hey Dave,” I shouted, slurring my speech. “I’m done with this shit. You want it?”

  He looked up, flipped a hand at me, and went back to what he was doing. I looked at Dills. “What about you man? You want the rest of this? I’m done with it.”

  He blinked at me, eyes going to the bottle. “You sure, man?”

  “I gotta quit drinking this shit. It’s fuckin’ killing me.”

  Dills shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take it. Thanks.” He took the bottle. I backed away, shouting something about the dangers of grog to Dave the bartender, who studiously ignored me.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Dills uncork the bottle, sniff it, shrug, and pour himself a glass. He tossed it back in a single gulp. Inwardly, I laughed.

  Perfect.

  There was only enough left for two drinks, so I probably would not have long to wait. I went outside and took position across the street, leaning against the side of a building. A few minutes later, Dills emerged from the tavern looking unsteady on his feet.

  Time to move.

  I tailed him for a couple of blocks, threading through the crowd, staying close. His steps began to waver, leaving a serpentine trail in the snow. Finally, he stopped to lean against a doorway. He shook his head a few times and tried to move on again, but lost his balance and fell over.

  “Hey, easy now buddy.” I grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. He turned to look at me with bleary, unfocused eyes.

  “S’wa doon?”

  “Come on man, you can’t pass out here. Let me help you.”

  I put one of his arms over my shoulders and gripped him by the belt. He offered no resistance. A policeman up the street took notice of us and made his way over.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “Sorry officer. My friend here had a few too many. I’m gonna walk him home.”

  He eyed Dills with a mixture of pity and irritation. “See that you do.”

  “Yes sir.”

  As we stumbled away, I smiled.

  SIXTY-ONE

  I let Tyrel handle the unpleasant part.

  The Navy trained him for that sort of thing, after all. Interrogation was a particular skill he and the others never went into with me. I did not blame them. It is not exactly the kind of thing you teach a young child. “Here, Caleb. This is how you heat an iron over a fire. This is how you drill a hole in someone’s kneecap. This is how you twist skin with a pair of pliers until it bleeds. Tomorrow, we’ll do an introductory course in waterboarding.”

  Not that I was above it. If I was right about Tom Dills, and where he got his medallion, those were the least of the agonies I would inflict upon him. It was not squeamishness that kept me from participating. Tyrel knew me well, and he did not want me doing something drastic unnecessarily. We needed Dills alive for the moment.

  There was not much screaming. A little, but not much. Ty had to make sure Dills knew he was not messing around. He wanted answers, and if he was not satisfied with what he heard, consequences would follow. That was the key. Consequences.

  I sat on the ground in front of a round stone fire pit and poked the coals with a stick. The cabin behind me had
once belonged to Tyrel’s grandfather. Ty supplemented his income by renting it out as a hunting shack before the Outbreak. We were on the side of a mountain somewhere west of Pike’s Peak. If I had paid more attention, I could probably have memorized the route we took to get here. But on the ride over, I had been too preoccupied with the unconscious man under the tarps, and what he knew, to concern myself with logistics.

  Presently, Tyrel emerged from the cabin and took a seat next to me. It was dark outside, and cold, the stars shining brightly above. The hanging road of the Milky Way was a broad swath of purple-white cosmos floating against the endless black of the sky. Ty poured some water over his hands and I watched red stains sizzle into the coals, turning them dark, extinguished. The wind shifted direction, blowing smoke into my eyes. My breath steamed in the air when I said, “What did you find out?”

  The firelight cast shadows under the crags and valleys of Tyrel’s sharp face. “You were right.”

  “So he was part of the group that ambushed us in Boise City?”

  A nod.

  “Where are the rest of them?”

  “Didn’t get that far.”

  “Are we sure he’s telling the truth, and not just saying what he thinks we want to hear?”

  Tyrel took a sip of water from his canteen. “He knows details. Stuff you told me about. He was there when it happened.”

  I drew my knife and stared at its black blade in the orange glow of the fire. The steel felt cold in my hands. “I want to know where the others are. All of them.”

  Tyrel stood up. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

  Dills looked terrified. He sat in a pool of light thrown by the room’s single dim lantern. We came through the door and shut it behind us and stood staring stone-faced at the doomed man. The naked blade of my knife dangled from my right hand.

  Dills’ boots scrambled across the wood-plank floor as he struggled to push himself further into the corner of the cabin. Not that it would do him any good. The chains restraining him to the thick support posts were anchored by deep-driven eyebolts. He was not going anywhere.