And for some military men it isn’t.
But Santos had never been in combat before.
Had never fired a weapon in anger.
And although many narrow-minded people would say it was impossible for a gay man to believe in God Santos was fairly religious.
Murdering another human being wasn’t something he was taking lightly.
But killing Manson was necessary.
Manson himself was causing a lot of tension.
His men had signed onto his plan to storm the bunker with the promise of unwilling but defenseless women being available after the battle.
And such women were available.
But they were mostly off-limits to the men.
Kara technically “belonged” to Parker, but he had no interest in her and spared her his advances.
Karen technically “belonged” to Manson himself, but kept him drunk and off his game so he generally wasn’t able to assault her.
Sarah technically “belonged” to the rest of the men, but did a good job in convincing everyone she and Santos had fallen for each other.
In a rare display of military honor, this bunch of mostly dishonorable men respected their boundaries and steered clear of “Santos’ woman.”
As a result, there was a lot of sexual tension in the bunker, along with everything else.
It wasn’t a happy place to be, not these days.
Even people who generally got along were snapping at one another.
Lindsey wasn’t even speaking to her mom anymore, and was secretly planning an escape.
In her view, as dangerous as the outside world was, it was better than staying in the bunker with a mother who’d given her the worst birthday gift of all time.
For it was on her seventeenth birthday she discovered her mom was carrying on an affair with John Parker.
A Stunning Betrayal.
It was a hell of a birthday gift, made worse by the fact Sarah never mentioned her daughter’s birthday at all.
She’d been so wrapped up in her newfound romance she’d forgotten it completely.
Karen thought what her sister was doing was despicable and sided with Lindsey in the impasse. She’d caught wind of Lindsey’s escape plans and told her she thought it was a risky idea.
But other than that she wouldn’t try to stop her.
Throughout the bunker, among the captors and hostages alike, there was the sense something big was going to happen.
Joe Manson, though, didn’t have a clue.
Manson, who everyone called “Scarface” because of a bad case of facial road rash he’d gotten in a youthful motorcycle accident, wasn’t the smartest cow in the pasture.
He was barely smarter than the smartest cow’s droppings.
Although the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, he was blissfully oblivious to it.
Oh, he was testy and short with the others; but he was always that way.
He’d always had delusions of grandeur. He was an angry narcissist who had no real right to be, for the rest of the world could see he was nothing special.
He saw himself a conqueror, the bunker his spoils. And he was a bit disappointed that conquering the bunker wasn’t all he’d imagined it would be.
In many ways it reminded him of prison.
It was cramped and claustrophobic and he never saw the sun shining anymore.
He knew that to go outside would be to risk death. He knew he wasn’t well liked by his men.
He also rightly believed that if he went outside they might not let him back in again.
He also, being a paranoid sort by nature, thought there was a good chance there were marauders in the woods around them.
Marauders awaiting their own chance to conquer the bunker and take it as their own.
If that were the case: if there were indeed marauders in the woods bent on taking what was his, they’d jump at the chance to shoot him should he ever show his head outside.
So he couldn’t go outside, and he felt cramped and cooped up on the inside.
And the smell of unwashed men’s bodies permeated the entire bunker.
After all they’d gone through to take the bunker and occupy it, he couldn’t deny the fact this was just like being in prison.
No wonder he got drunk as often as possible.
Chapter 26
Every bartender knows there are two distinct types of drunks.
One type gets sloppy drunk and becomes everybody’s best friend. His lame jokes suddenly and miraculously become hilarious. He hangs on people he barely knows and professes his admiration for them. He buys them drinks until he’s out of cash and then breaks out the plastic.
His favorite phrase is, “I love you man! You’re like a brother to me!”
His counterpart, the angry drunk, gets sullen and remembers every person who’s ever slighted him. He curses his boss, his family, and the guy on the next stool who he thinks encroaches upon his space.
He stiffs the waitresses who bring him drinks, and then curses them for not being in a big hurry to bring the next round.
He never, ever buys anyone else a drink, complains constantly about the pours and will pick a fight before the end of the night.
Every drunk is one or the other.
Joe Manson, as though he didn’t have enough problems already, was an angry drunk.
He grew even more surly with every toss of the bottle. And his surliness continued to get worse until he either emptied the bottle or passed out.
Sometimes he did both at the same time, passing out onto the floor and slinging the bottle across the room to spill out.
When he was drunk he was off his game.
Santos figured that was the best time to make his move.
Santos was playing poker with Sarah in the last shipping container in line.
Since it was the back corner of the bunker, no could approach it down the corridor without being seen or heard.
It was the best place to speak freely without being overheard.
It was also the best place for Sarah to be carrying on her shenanigans with John Parker.
But not tonight.
Tonight, Santos was losing badly.
Sarah was trying to teach him the fine art of bluffing, and he was trying to get the hang of it.
He had a handful of garbage when he drew an ace and smiled broadly.
He raised the bet and thought he’d suckered her into folding. She countered and wiped him out.
It seemed she was more than willing to let him have a single ace.
Because she had the other three.
Santos slapped the table and cursed loudly and Sarah tried to console him.
“Relax. You’ll get the hang of it.
“Besides, we’re just playing for toothpicks. Nobody gets mad when they lose a handful of toothpicks.”
But Santos did.
Now Santos was as surly as Manson.
Sarah got the sense something bad was going to happen.
But she’d say nothing.
If she said anything or egged him on, that would make her an accessory.
And although there would certainly never be a trial to hold her accountable, her own conscience wouldn’t let her get involved.
Well, maybe indirectly.
For while she certainly knew what was in the wind, she wouldn’t try to talk him out of it.
Nor would she try to warn Manson that Santos was coming after him.
“I’m damn tired of losing every time we play!”
“You don’t lose all the time, Robert. You kicked my butt a couple of nights ago.”
He ignored her.
“You know what else I’m tired of?”
“No, Robert. What else are you tired of?”
“I’m tired of not being appreciated around here. Nobody pays me any respect. They act like I’m a damn leper or something.”
“I appreciate you, Robert. I appreciate you very much. You keep me from being raped every day by thos
e animals out there. I appreciate you very much for that.
“And I’ll tell you something else. I used to hate you just as much as I hated the others. But now I consider you a friend.
“If they don’t appreciate you, to heck with them. I think a lot of you, I really do.”
“You don’t hate Parker, do you?”
He grinned.
She ignored him.
“Because I was walking down the corridor yesterday to get a bag of coffee when you and Parker were back here.
“With all the ‘oh babies’ and ‘oh yes, yes, yeses’ going on I got the impression the two of you were rather fond of one another.”
She was embarrassed. She turned away.
Then she grew sullen and confessed, “I think I may have to cool it with Parker. My daughter and my sister know.”
He feigned surprise.
“Well, no shit, Sherlock. We’re all confined in a hell-hole together, it’s pretty hard to keep a secret like that.”
“I guess we’re not all as good as you are at keeping our skeletons in our closets.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning nobody has found out your little secret yet.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Sarah.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“I think Manson knows.”
“He’s a moron. Why would you think he knows?”
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody told him. You didn’t, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“I didn’t think you would. You have too much to lose by him killing me.”
“Precisely. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I have no choice. I have to kill him first.”
She could have tried to talk him out of it. She could have pacified her conscience. The one screaming at her not to let a man be murdered.
Instead, she simply asked, “When?”
“Tonight.”
Chapter 27
At that moment Sarah finally realized why Santos had been so sullen, so distant during their nightly poker game.
It had nothing to do with the game, nor the mistakes he made.
He’d made the mistakes because he was distracted.
He was in deep thought, going over in his mind again and again his plans to murder Manson.
Trying to steel his nerves so he didn’t chicken out.
He only had one chance. With a man like Manson, he wouldn’t get a second one.
If he screwed up, he would certainly die.
“Don’t worry,” Sarah said, as though she could read his mind. “You’ll do fine.”
Sarah knew she was taking a big risk. She knew there was a chance that with Manson gone his men would figure his rules no longer applied. And that they’d come after the women with a vengeance.
But with Manson out of the picture, Parker would be in charge.
The men liked Parker.
Moreover, they respected him.
They’d follow him.
And more importantly, they’d obey his orders.
Sarah was depending on Parker to protect her and the others.
She looked Santos directly in the eyes.
She saw fear.
“Are you gonna be all right?”
“Yes. I think so. Yes.”
She wasn’t so sure.
He could see the doubt in her face.
And for some reason it became very important he prove his mettle to her.
He pushed back his chair and stood up.
“I’ll be back in a bit.”
Sarah waited a few seconds before she got up herself, wondering why her hands were shaking so.
She decided there was a very real chance she’d lose her friend tonight.
And if she did… if Manson turned the tables on Santos and killed him, so would die her protection from the others.
She heard voices from the corridor, and reached the doorway in time to see Santos walking towards the center of the bunker, Manson stumbling toward him.
The corridor was only twenty inches wide. The Dykes had minimized its width to allow more space in the shipping containers for storage.
Two people could not walk down the corridor shoulder to shoulder.
Two people meeting in the corridor could not pass unless one stood with his back against the wall and let the other squeeze past.
Manson was not typically happy about sharing the corridor with anyone he felt beneath him.
“Get the hell of my way,” he drunkenly growled.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Santos said as he pressed his back against the wall to let Manson pass.
But Santos wasn’t sorry. Not really.
Well, maybe he was. Maybe he was sorry he’d let himself be bullied by this brute of a man so long before he finally decided to stand up for himself.
Manson stumbled past Santos and into the next doorway.
His personal quarters, cramped as hell but still considerably larger than anyone else’s.
He sat down hard on his bunk, as drunkards tend to do, and leaned over to contemplate his combat boots and whether his fingers had the ability to unlace them.
He was too sloshed to notice, as he pondered his laces, that they fell into a dark shadow when Santos stepped into the doorway and blocked the light from the corridor.
He wasn’t even aware of Santos’ presence, until he felt someone grab a fistful of his hair and lift his head painfully upward.
But that wasn’t the last thing he felt.
The last thing he felt was Santos thrusting his survival knife directly into Manson’s throat, then sawing it back and forth toward his left ear.
It happened too fast for Manson to react, too fast for him to defend himself, other to raise his arms halfway and then drop them again.
His last thought was one of curiosity. Even as his throat was being cut he found it odd that it didn’t hurt as much as much as he’d thought it should.
He slumped forward against his killer’s legs. Santos took a step back and let him drop to the floor, then stood over him, knife at the ready, as though there were any fight left in him.
Actually, the fight was gone from both of them.
From Manson because he was already dead, his crimson blood rolling from his body and into an ever-widening puddle on the floor.
From Santos because he was mesmerized, and perhaps a bit shocked, by what he’d just done.
After all those months of shaking in his boots whenever Manson came near him it was over in a moment.
So why was he still shaking? Why was he unable to move? Why were his eyes starting to tear up?
Why on earth did he do what he did?
What gave him the right to take another life?
Who died and made him God?
If this was what it felt like to take another human life, he didn’t like it.
Some men love killing. They relish in the power it makes them feel.
Not Santos. He looked down and saw that the entire front of his body, from his waist to his shoes, was soaked in blood.
Blood from his victim.
His murder victim.
He was a murderer.
Chapter 28
He wasn’t the only murderer around. Not by a long shot. In the new world a fair percentage of survivors had killed at least once. Some had killed many times.
Santos had always considered himself better than that.
Now, if everything he ever learned from church was accurate, he’d just doomed himself to the fiery pits of hell.
He was about to retch.
He turned his head to avoid vomiting on Manson.
As though Manson would care.
As though it would matter.
His legs were moving again. He was no longer paralyzed by the shock of what he’d done.
He turned and walked toward the doorway, and the oddest thing struck him.
He could smell the blood.
He’d always thought blood had no smell.
<
br /> Yes, it had a very strong taste of sweet and sticky iron.
But he’d never associated a particular smell with it.
He raised his bloody hands to his nose and took a deep whiff.
He decided it didn’t smell bad.
He rather liked it.
He wondered if that made him a monster.
Without thinking he wiped vomit from the corner of his mouth, then realized he’d wiped blood across his lips and cheek.
Now he could taste his victim’s blood.
It made him want to retch again.
Instead he decided he had to get out of there. Had to get away from Manson.
Had to leave the scene of the crime.
Back in the corridor he took a deep breath.
He got the impossible sense the air was somehow sweeter there.
Perhaps because it lacked the scent of death.
Down the corridor he stumbled to the next shipping container. To where Parker’s bunk was located.
It was late.
Bedtime late.
In all probability Parker was lying on his bunk reading, as he typically did each night to relax before sleep.
He’d told Santos once the key to getting a good night’s sleep was to read half an hour before bed. He typically read romance novels, of all things, and took some ribbing from some of the men because of it.
But it relaxed him and washed away his day’s troubles and stresses.
And if it worked for him, then whose business was it what he read, really?
Parker was deeply engrossed in a tale of star-crossed lovers walking down a beach together and discussing their future when Santos suddenly appeared in his doorway.
He didn’t say a word, but to show Parker he was no threat he held out the bloody knife, handle first.
“Oh crap,” Parker exclaimed as he dropped his book to the floor and rushed to his feet.
“Are you hurt?”
It might have appeared to some to be an odd question.
But not really.
Parker knew ahead of time Santos was going after Manson. Santos had gone to him and told him. Not necessarily to get his blessing, though he’d have gotten it had he asked.
It was more a courtesy thing. A sign of respect. And to tell Parker that even after he took out Manson, Santos had no real desire to take control.
He wanted merely to rid himself and the others of a brutal dictator. He didn’t wish to elevate his own stature or standing.
A Stunning Betrayal Page 9