by Brad Munson
But Peck’s work was clearly done for the moment. He stepped aside and opened the door. “Get out,” he said.
And a huge, ugly woman lunged through the suddenly vacant frame and screamed – screamed – like a dying cougar.
“MY BAAAYYYBEEEEEEE!!!”
Three hundred pounds of shapeless human flesh, wrapped too tightly in flowered plastic and glittering with raindrops, stumped on trashcan legs into the middle of the room. It appeared to be wearing pink lipstick and a hat made of dirty human hair; it took Linda a long moment to positively identify it as a wig of some kind.
Big Jennifer Toombs had arrived.
“SHE GONE! MY BAY-BEE GONE!”
The timing was too good, Linda thought. Five bucks said Big Jennifer had been lurking in the hallway, soaking wet, while she waited for the perfect moment to make her grand entrance to get her audience with The Man.
“Mrs. Toombs,” Peck said, carefully keeping his distance. Linda grinned to herself. Oh, she thought, so we’re not first-name with EVERYBODY, after all? “We’re all sorry about what’s happened, but we’re all –”
“Don’t you lie to me!” Big Jennifer warbled. “You din’t look for her the last time, and you ain’t lookin’ for her now!”
“She came home the last time, Mrs. –”
“No thanks to you, you son of a bitch! NO THANKS TO YOU!”
People were starting to stand up. The crowd noise was rising. Peck shot a look at two of his boys. “Mrs. Toombs, you’re upset. Bo? Carl? Why don’t you find Mrs. Toombs a seat in the back of the ballroom – the back, where it’s nice and quiet? And we’ll talk to her one on one after the presentation.”
“No!” Big Jennifer said. “No, don’t you … don’t you …”
The cops got her by both arms, and one step at a time got her out of the room, into the hall. Peck closed it quickly behind her. Only the sheriff and the events planner – the only woman who truly understood him, she knew – were left inside.
“That went well,” she said.
He scowled. “Peachy.”
She dared to put a hand on his arm to comfort him. The fact of the matter – the sad, pathetic, slightly twisted fact of the matter – was that Linda Kramer loved Donald Peck, and had for years. Even when she learned all the horrible things he did, and the even darker thoughts and plans he harbored, she still loved him. And she would until the day they both died.
He looked down at her hand as if she was going to leave a stain.
“Don’t worry, Donnie. You do what you have to do.”
“No, I don’t,” he said, and shrugged the hand away. “I do what I want.”
Twelve
The door-chain sounded like a robot tongue sliding over robot teeth, but the noise didn’t scare Katie; it made her sick to her stomach.
Hours had passed and nobody had come to rescue them. Most of that time, Little Jennifer had pretended to be sleeping while Megan just cried and cried.
And where was Terri? she wondered. What happened to Terri?
But Katie didn’t care about them. She just cared about getting out. That was why she almost ignored TEACHER when the door first opened; instead, she strained to look past the heavy metal door to see what waited for them outside. All she got was a glimpse of some grimy storage shelves filled with torn boxes and cleaning supplies. It looked like the back room of Daddy’s store, but much darker and dirtier.
For the ten thousandth time, she pulled at the chains that held her tight. The loops of metal around her wrists were cheap but thick handcuffs, just like the police had. A short length of cable wrapped in plastic, like a chain of a bicycle lock, connected the cuffs to a huge eyebolt that was screwed deep into the underside of the desk. It wasn’t a long chain. She couldn’t even lift her hands as high as her shoulders.
She tugged at the cuffs again, as hard as she could, but they wouldn’t give at all. She stopped trying and set her jaw as TEACHER slipped inside and slammed the door shut. The BANG! was so loud it made Katie’s head hurt all over again.
“Attention, class! Attencione!” TEACHER clapped very fast – pop-pop-pop! – eyes bright with anticipation. “I don’t have much time now, so let’s get right to work!”
“I’m hungry,” Little Jennifer grumbled, head down inside her folded arms.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” TEACHER sad, brushing her aside. “Now –”
“I can’t do no work if I’m hungry,” Little Jennifer said, and coughed into her desktop.
TEACHER stopped moving. Just … stopped, like a statue … then turned, oh so slowly, to face the fat little girl.
“Are you making a joke?” TEACHER asked politely.
Katie almost shuddered when she heard Little Jennifer’s chains shift and snarl. “Who, me?” the girl said, sniffing insolently.
“Seriously,” TEACHER said. “That has to be a joke.” The smile got even wider and uglier. “Don’t you know how fat you are, honey? How hideously, horribly fat? Why, you look like a hundred pounds of tapioca packed in a plastic sack! You’re disgusting.”
Little Jennifer looked positively indignant. Katie couldn’t believe it. “You can’t say that!” she whined. “That’s –”
“I CAN SAY ANYTHING I WANT TO!” TEACHER bellowed. A fist flashed out on WANT! and shattered an ancient writing desk with a single, stunning blow. “I AM THE FUCKING TEACHER!”
In three short, vicious steps the kidnapper was right in front of the sweaty little girl whose piggy eyes had suddenly gone cartoon-wide. Katie found Little Jennifer’s expression almost comical. It’s like she’s finally figured out where she is, Katie thought. It was actually kind of funny.
“You should thank me for what I’m doing!” TEACHER hissed at her. “I’m saving your filthy, ignorant, unimportant life by putting you on a strict diet!”
TEACHER pulled up Little Jennifer’s head by her greasy hair with one hand. A squat black box with stubby little antenna appeared in the other.
Katie recognized that box. It was what had brought her here.
“Yes: thank me for helping you, Little Jennifer,” TEACHER hissed and held the black box right under her nose. “Thank me for giving you one last chance to be somebody. To be somebody.”
Little Jennifer just glared.
“Thank me!”
TEACHER jammed the taser’s studs against the side of Little Jennifer’s neck and pulled the trigger. The snapping TZZZ! was like an explosion. It knocked Little Jennifer – all of her, body, chair, desk and all – flat on to the grimy linoleum
“THANK ME!” TEACHER bellowed, straddling the little girl’s wriggling body. The taser poked downward, looking for naked flesh, looking for a place to –
“NO!” Katie shouted. She was stunned at the sound of her own voice. “NO! Don’t hurt her!”
TEACHER whirled around, found Katie with sparkling eyes, and jumped at her. Katie saw the taser leaping for her, rushing up and –
The world ripped away with a horrible, jagged shock. She felt nothing else, not even nothing, for a long time after that. Then …
“Katie? Katie, can you hear me?”
She was back. Her eyes were closed and her head hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. She dragged in a breath and opened her eyes. TEACHER’s face filled her vision, just inches in front of her, grinning and grinning.
“Can you hear me?” TEACHER asked again. A hand gently, insistently, stroked Katie’s cheek.
“… yes …” Katie said, choking on the word. Her throat was so dry.
“Can you understand me?”
“Yes,” Katie said again, more strongly this time.
“Good,” TEACHER said, and jabbed the taser into Katie’s neck again.
RIIIIP!
TEACHER was waiting for her when she came back the second time, too – waiting impatiently. A finger flicked Katie on the cheek to rouse her. When she didn’t focus fast enough – flick again.
“Come on, come on. Are you here now? Are you awake?”
Katie closed her eyes very tightly and nodded. She was braced for another attack.
“And you remember what happened?” TEACHER said, sounding very severe.
She nodded again. She would never forget.
“Good,” TEACHER said, quite satisfied. “Then we won’t have to repeat this lesson, will we?”
Even now, Katie didn’t respond fast enough to please her captor. TEACHER slapped her across the face, hard.
“Will we, Katie? Will we have to repeat this?”
“No!” Katie cried out. “No, no, no, not ever, not ever!”
And deep inside herself, down where even her parents couldn’t see, Katie said: Not ever. Because I’ll KILL YOU before you hurt me again. I will I will I will KILL YOU.
Right under the desk, just inches from TEACHER’s ugly grin, Katie still pulled and pulled and pulled at her chains. But on the outside, where TEACHER could see, all Katie did was cry. Big, hot tears squeezed out between her tightly closed eyelids.
TEACHER was very pleased at that.
But time was up. “God fucking damn it,” TEACHER muttered, suddenly nervous fingers running through wet hair, “I have to get back. I have to get back and be ready.” Katie realized that whatever little lesson had been planned was abandoned now.
TEACHER rummaged through the flat drawer of the ancient desk at the front of the “classroom” and pulled out Power Bars and plastic bottles of water. They were distributed with the grim efficiency of a real teacher who’d done something like it a million times before, complete with an entirely false and empty smile: “Enjoy your little snack! Just to keep your hopes up!” TEACHER said, as if doing them a tremendous favor.
Then, turning away, the drawer was closed and locked, cuffs were checked and double-checked, and the snarling of the chains came again.
They were alone. Just like that, the taser burns still sizzling on Katie’s neck.
That was when she finally let herself smile.
Because the pulling had done some good. Her wrists were aching and her heart was pounding and her breath wouldn’t come back –
– but the eyebolt under the desk had moved. Just a little, just a fraction of an inch, but it had moved. With a little time, she knew, and all her strength, she could unscrew it all the way. She could be free.
“Never,” Katie said again, but it was a cruel, edgy, mocking sound now. “No, no no, not ever ever never.”
And she went to work.
Thirteen
Tyler Briggs stood in his makeshift armor, flat-footed on the cracked asphalt of Highway 121, and confronted the huge black monster in front of him. It hunched. It loomed. It roared at him with a deep grinding voice.
He recognized it. He knew it all too well.
The M3 Bradley CFV was the U.S. Army’s most abundant and despised tool in the Middle East wars. It ran like shit. Its tech was years out of date. And IEDs pierced its notoriously fragile armor so easily that soldiers died inside of it all the time, so fast they never saw the sun again.
Now a fully outfitted M3 was blocking both lanes of Highway 121, so wide and thick that it was impossible to drive around it without putting one set of wheels on an embankment and risking a slide down into the hungry landscaping on either side. Even trying to walk past seemed like a bad idea. Ty knew exactly what was pointing at him or the truck or both: chain guns and missile launchers and a fucking submachine gun. He’d seen them up close and personal many, many times. Now the stubby armament and glints at the weapons ports made any kind of movement seem like a bad idea.
So Tyler just stood there, tire iron gripped in one hand, and let the rain fall on them both.
He waited a long time.
After a third sharp flash of lighting and rumble of thunder, he heard the guttural ratchet and thump of the rear hatch opening. A moment later four men in BDUs and combat armor appeared, two on each side of the huge, squat tank. Two had M4s at the ready. Two others – the ones clearly in the lead – had holstered side-arms. They all approached him with the careful, over-aware movements of experienced combat veterans.
Once again, Ty recognized them, in general if not in particular.
He dropped the tire iron. He raised his hands without being told. He noted that one of the men was black, another was Hispanic, and knew immediately it didn’t matter one damn bit. They were soldiers.
“My name is Tyler Briggs!” he shouted. “I got no beef with you-all! I just want to get the hell out of this storm, any way I can!”
Ty could tell the leader-man was an arrogant ass. That much was apparent already. He was the only one without a helmet for no damn good reason. He wore black wrap-around sunglasses that had to be interfering rather than helping his vision in the whipping rain. But he still stepped forward, eying the idling tow truck and giving Ty the once-over. Then the twice-over.
“Colonel Michael Danziger,” he said. “U.S. Army.”
Yeah, Ty thought, his arms still high. Kind’a figured out that last part already.
“You can put your hands down.”
“Thanks.”
He did, but very slowly, and he kept his hands away from the side of his body. Those M-4s were still pointing in his general direction, and he didn’t like that at all.
“We’re block— ”A slash of lightning, directly overhead, lit up the scene; the thunder came so fast behind it there was no pause at all. Danziger looked annoyed. “We’re blockading the highway out of Dos Herman–”Another slash of lightning, another explosion of thunder.
Danziger’s second, the Hispanic without a rifle, took one step forward. “Sir, maybe we should take this inside. It’s not real safe out here.”
“Fine,” the colonel said. “Come on.” He turned on his combat-boot-heel and walked behind the Bradley. Ty hesitated before he moved; the Hispanic took a step towards him. “Name’s Diaz,” he said. “Come on; it’ll be okay.” As he turned, Ty got a glimpse of his shoulder and immediately said, “Sure thing, Sarge.” Diaz stopped long enough to look back at him, think about it, and nod.
As they ducked through the storm along the side of the vehicle, Ty got a better look at it. He’d been in too many of these motherfuckers back in Iraq. Smelly, cramped, horribly out of date, and the mainstay for ground troops, like it or not.
So what the hell was it doing here?
The wind was so strong at the moment that the rain was nearly horizontal. As Ty rounded the back of the vehicle, he saw a MRAP, basically an armored truck, parked fifteen feet further up the road, its lights burning bright. The MRAPs were actually safer vehicles than the stunted tank-like organism the Army had been using for decades, but it always looked like a comically over-armored version of one of the short busses the school districts used for special kids. Now it just sat there, rumbling and belching steam from its exhaust pipe into the storm.
He humped his way up the treaded ramp and into the interior of the vehicle, grateful to be out of the rain even for a few minutes. He was just a little bit too tall to stand up straight, so he immediately lowered himself onto the long bench at the right, next to four other grunts in full gear. Diaz took one of the scout jump-seats; Danziger was standing straight and tall in the turret tunnel that Ty knew led up to the driver and the other two members of the crew. He was no larger than five ten outside his gear, with an impressive jaw line and a nose that was too perfect for nature. His look, his stance, his facile expression – the guy was just impossible to like.
Somebody told somebody to button up; the ramp to Ty’s left levered upward and almost closed, blocking out most of the wind and rain. Good enough, he thought, and shook off as much of the rain water as he could manage.
Diaz was looking at him hard. He was the first to speak. “You spent time in the sandbox,” he said. It was more of a statement than a question.
Ty nodded. “OEF,” he said. “But I was private sector. Contractor.”
“Pogue,” muttered one of the grunts to his left. He knew the term. It wasn’t polite, but he let it slide.
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Diaz ignored it too and nodded at Ty. He had the creased and lumpy look of a professional solder, and a barely suppressed scowl that said he didn’t like where he was standing or what he was being forced to do. “See any action?”
Ty shrugged. “Spent a lot of time outside the wire,” he said. “Long time ago.” And it was: so much had happened since then …
“Good,” said Danziger, crossing his arm. “Makes this all easier. So maybe you can help us.”
Ty suppressed the temptation to tell the colonel to go fuck himself. “If it earns me a ride out of town,” he said instead, “I’m in.”
Danziger shrugged. Every movement of this man made Ty like him even less. “Eventually,” he said, “but we have business to attend to, first. Intel on what’s been going on here since it started.”
“’It’?”
Danziger smirked. “The rain?” he said, and twirled a finger to include everything, all around him. “The fucking storm?”
“It’s crazy,” Ty said. “Way crazier than you want to know.”
“Yeah, well, we know plenty,” Danziger said. “We’ve been waiting for this.”
Ty raised an eyebrow. Danziger smirked again. It was a tiresome expression that was rapidly becoming annoying. “Pretty Boy?” he said to Diaz. “Fill him in.”
Diaz’s scowl widened at the nickname, but there was nothing he could do about it. “A hundred words or less?” he said to Ty, without even bothering to look at Danziger. “Something fell out of the sky out here, a long time ago. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Fact is, we were lucky it fell here, and not nine-two percent of the rest of the planet.” He put a hand on the back of his neck, sorting through the facts. “Whatever it was made this crater valley, and it left … pieces behind. Seeds, maybe. Any decent amount of water, even regular old rainfall, and those seeds sprout.”
“And make monsters,” Danziger said. “In some cases, big fucking monsters.”
Ty looked from one solder to the other, then back again. He would have thought they were both insane, or at least pulling his leg, if he hadn’t seen what he’d seen in the last ten hours.