“Who left that salt up there?”
“Must’ve been up there when we bought the place.”
“Oh, shit. Look!”
Black Beard was grabbing one of the women by her hair and dragging her from the room.
“That’s caveman foreplay.”
“You’re sick.”
“There’s no use letting it get to you, man.”
Black Beard took the woman upstairs into one of the bedrooms, pulled down her ski pants and pushed her forward onto the bed with her hands still tied, her pale bottom showing. She made no attempt to escape or to resist as he unbuckled his pants and knelt on the bed behind her. He pumped for two minutes and then it was over.
“ ’Least he didn’t beat her.”
“Check out your man, Doc. He’s making his move!”
The camouflage man was sneaking up the stairs with his shotgun lowered. Riveted, Michael stood watching as Vasquez switched the camera feed to keep up with the man now creeping into the bedroom. Black Beard saw him and grabbed for the shotgun lying beside him on the bed but he wasn’t fast enough. His comrade blasted him in the face at close range, and most of his head vanished from the beard up.
The gore-spattered woman rolled off the edge of the bed to avoid being hit by the body as it fell over onto the mattress.
“Hooah!” Danzig blurted, and everyone laughed, everyone except Michael, who was simply shocked.
The camouflaged man got the woman to her feet and pulled her pants up, taking her downstairs where he pulled her pants right back down, along with those of the other woman, and over the next half hour he smoked Forrest’s cigarettes and took turns at the women on the couch, seemingly in hillbilly heaven. When he was done, he divided the man meat up between four different trash bags, tying them together in pairs and draping them around the women’s necks. Once he had satisfied himself that his idea was superior to that of his dead associate, he put the meat bags on the floor and took a dog chain from his rucksack, chaining the women together at the neck and locking it with a combination padlock. The other end of the chain he used to bind their ankles together, locking it in the same fashion with a separate padlock.
“Ain’t takin’ any chances, is he?”
Next, the man unbound their wrists, presumably to restore the circulation to their hands. He then went up upstairs to take the shells from Black Beard’s shotgun, along with the Bowie knife, collapsible baton, and some other items from the dead man’s pockets too small to identify. Shoving Black Beard’s body onto the floor, he stripped the bloodstained blankets from the bed and went back downstairs, where he curled up on the couch and went to sleep, leaving the women to shiver on the floor. Within thirty minutes it was too dark to see what was happening in the house, and ten minutes after that it was too dark to see anything outside of the house. The time was six P.M.
“I guess that’s it for today,” Forrest said, looking grim.
“Come on, Captain,” Kane said. “I could slip in there and cut that dude’s throat so easy it wouldn’t even be a trick.”
“No,” Forrest said, “and I’ll show you why. Oscar, run it back to where they were feeding the women. Linus, call West in here.”
When Dr. West showed up, Forrest asked him to watch the woman seated on the end of the couch. “She how she’s hacking her ass off?”
West stood nodding. “She’s sicker than a dog. That could very easily be tuberculosis, which I would expect to see up there by now among so much starvation and deprivation, breathing all that crap in the air.”
“But the NBC suits would protect us from—”
“No,” Forrest said with finality. “We soldier up and soldier on. Hooah?”
“Hooah!”
A bit later Forrest found Veronica sitting with Erin and Taylor in the cafeteria. There were some children about and a couple of other women, but everybody was growing accustomed to the close quarters, learning to block out conversations that didn’t involve them in order to allow one another a sense of privacy.
“That sure took a while,” Veronica said. “Are they gone?”
He shook his head. “One of the cannibals killed the other and took the women for himself. Now they’re sleeping and it’s too dark to see anything. It’s total darkness up there at night now.”
“What if they don’t leave?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, shrugging. “They’re no threat to us.”
“Can we still see the tape?” Erin wanted to know.
“If you really want to, Erin, but it’s nothing but raw brutality from start to finish. I don’t think it’s anything you want in your dreams.”
“Believe me,” Veronica said. “I wish I’d never gone in there.”
“But we are allowed to see if we want to, right?” Erin was making sure.
“Yes, the Freedom of Information Act still applies. Should I go and have Oscar cue it up for you?”
“No,” she said with a pleasant smile. “I was merely making sure.”
“Christ, I’ve got the ACLU up my ass,” he said with a chuckle, glancing toward the counter to see that the coffeepot was empty once again. “I wonder who I have to fuck in this place to get a cup of coffee.”
“Is that your manly way of asking for someone to make you some coffee, King Jack?” Taylor asked.
“No,” he said affably. “It’s my way of finding out who I have to fuck in this place to get a cup of coffee.”
Taylor rolled her eyes and got up from the table.
“Taylor, he can make his own goddamn coffee,” Veronica said. “Sit back down.”
“No, I’ve indulged him all these years . . . it wouldn’t be fair to turn on him now.”
Forrest stuck his tongue out at Veronica.
“Keep it up,” she said, less than entirely pleased that Forrest held so much sway with these two women.
“Oooooh,” he kidded.
She got up and walked out of the cafeteria.
“Uh-oh,” Erin said.
“She’ll be fine,” he said with a wave. “She’s just upset about those maniacs upstairs—that, and I won’t kiss her ass in front of everyone.”
Erin shook her head. “You’ll never change.”
“What makes me such a bad guy?”
“You’re not a bad guy, but would it hurt for you to pretend to be a little vulnerable for her?”
“That’s what she’s pissed about? My lack of vulnerability? E, me walking around down here all weepy-eyed won’t exactly instill confidence.”
Taylor retook her seat. “Well, I don’t think that’s the issue, Jackie pie. The issue is that Veronica doesn’t know how completely full of shit you are when you do things like manipulate people into making your coffee. I do, so it doesn’t bother me. But she thinks that guy’s real, and she doesn’t know how to reconcile him with the one she cares for.”
“And,” Erin added, “I don’t think it helps that Michael so openly dotes on Karen now. Women like to be doted on, you do remember?”
“So does she want Mike back or what?”
Taylor looked at Erin. “I think his brain is made of clay.”
Erin laughed. “He’s playing the dullard.”
“Forget it,” he said. “How soon until that coffee’s ready?”
“I’ll give you some goddamn coffee,” Taylor said. “Go find that girl right now and tell her how much you need her.”
He sat looking at her.
“Go and tell her. Now.”
“Damn!” he said, getting up. “You two always think you can order me around.”
“I’ll keep the pot warm, honey.”
Forrest found Veronica sitting with Melissa, who was helping a couple of the children with their math homework. Laddie was playing ball with the kids and came over to sniff at his pants pocket, pawing at his leg. Andie had
managed to establish a genuine curriculum, and she’d done it with the complete support of the other mothers, which made it a joy for her as a teacher. And giving the children homework to complete outside of class kept them from playing the video games nonstop, allowing the video games to evolve into a kind of reward system.
“You’ve done an excellent job,” Forrest had said to her weeks earlier. “I was worried it might be tough to keep them occupied once they’d played every video game a thousand times.”
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” Andie had replied with a smile.
Forrest stepped up behind Veronica where she sat at the table, taking a dog treat from his pocket and giving it to Laddie. “Talk to you a minute?”
“I’m busy.”
“Taylor won’t give me any coffee.”
“I don’t blame her.”
“Are you guys in a fight?” Melissa asked, noting the tension.
“I think so,” Forrest said. “I’m not sure.”
“My mommy and daddy fight a lot too,” one of the children said. “That’s why mommy had to get a court order.”
Forrest laughed. “You gonna get a court order, V?”
“How would I do that? You’re the king.”
“Well, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”
She looked up at him over her shoulder. “What’s that mean?”
“We can talk about it later, I guess. Sorry I bothered you.”
She watched him leave the room, then went back to helping the kids with the puzzle.
“Why do you do that?” Melissa asked.
“Do what, honey?”
“Sit there when you really want to go after him.”
“One day you’ll know.”
“Seems like a waste of time to me. I’d just go see what he wanted.”
Veronica looked at her, then got up and followed after Forrest, catching him outside blast tunnel number two. “Step into my office?”
“Sure,” he said.
They stepped into the tunnel and shut the door.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
“Look, I’m sorry if I come off as not needing you. I need you very much. It’s just that I can’t walk around down here acting like Mr. Softy. Nice guys don’t instill any confidence. These people need to see me acting like nothing fazes me.”
“Nothing does faze you.”
“Well, so what, Veronica? I’ve seen untold amounts of heinous shit in my life. What fazes me is you. You faze me. I think about you all goddamn day. I’m so fucking grateful that Karen and Mike hit it off that I don’t even know how to tell you. I can’t even imagine being trapped down here without you now. But I can’t walk around down here like I’ve got Cupid’s dick stuck up my ass either.”
She smiled and used her thumb to squeeze the tears from her eyes. “Did T and E tell you to say that?”
“The Cupid part or the rest of it?”
“I know the disgusting shit is all you. The first part, the sweet part.”
“Of course they told me what to say. I’m too much of a goddamn man to think up mushy shit like that.”
She put her arms around him and they kissed.
The door at the far end opened and Tonya stepped into the tunnel from the missile silo, hesitating when she saw them.
“May as well come on out,” Forrest announced. “You’re busted.”
She came down the tunnel biting her lips between her teeth. “I was helping Marcus find the canned corn,” she said, averting her eyes.
Forrest laughed. “Well, the corn’s over in silo one.”
“Must be why we couldn’t find it,” she said, slipping past them and out of the tunnel.
Veronica slapped him on the shoulder. “That wasn’t nice!”
“She’s an adult. She doesn’t have to apologize for getting shagged. And I don’t have to pretend to the look the other way.”
A few seconds later the door opened again and Kane stepped into the tunnel, a grin spreading across his face. “Either of you see a cute little black chick pass this way?”
“She said she was looking for the canned corn,” Forrest said.
Kane laughed. “I told her to say we were looking for paper towels.”
“Well she cracked under the pressure.”
“You two are terrible,” Veronica said, still hanging against Forrest.
Kane laughed and stepped out of the tunnel, shutting the door after him.
“So are we okay?” Forrest asked. “Or do I need to grovel a little bit?”
She let go of him and pulled her hair behind her ears. “I’m sorry for walking off like I did. I’ve never been any good at . . . at arguing.”
“Don’t apologize. That’s not a bad thing.”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “I should do a better job of expressing myself when I’m upset. It’s a childhood thing.”
He kissed her again. “You’re fine.”
“Did they do anything terrible to those women upstairs?”
“Yes, they did. And that’s as much you need to hear. Let’s go get me some coffee.”
“Do you think maybe we can go looking for that canned corn later on? I understand it might be missing.”
“On second thought,” he said, taking her hand, “why don’t we go see if we can find it right now?”
In the morning, Forrest arrived with Laddie in Launch Control for a look at the monitors, and the first thing he saw was the man in the camouflage jacket laying faceup on the living room floor with the Bowie knife sticking out of his neck. “What the hell happened?”
“Like that?” Ulrich asked, looking up from a Popular Science article on wind power. “That’s what we saw with first light. Those girls got loose and did his ass in. They took both shotguns and all four bags of meat. Even the blankets.”
“Well good for them,” Forrest said. “I was worried that guy was going to move in for a while. We’d have had to do something.”
“Which would have been stupid,” Ulrich remarked. “I’m glad they’re gone.”
“How’d they get those locks open, you wonder?”
“They’ve probably watched and memorized the combinations by now.”
“But how’d they work the combinations in the pitch-dark?”
“First, light must come inside the house before the monitors pick it up,” Ulrich said, bringing up the bathroom feed. “See the chain on the bathroom floor? They needed the mirror to work the combination at their necks. One would assume their antagonist was dead by then.”
“One would assume,” Forrest chuckled.
“We’ve got another birthday today, by the way. Maria two’s kid. She’s seven.”
Birthdays were good days because everybody got a cake for their birthday, and it cheered everyone up, especially the child of the day who got to play video games while everyone else was in class.
“I’ll be back,” Forrest said.
He took Laddie with him to the cargo bay where he kept the novelties, sorting through crates of odds and ends until he found a coloring book full of pictures of a sponge named Bob, along with a brand-new eight-pack of crayons. “It’s not exactly a GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip,” he said to the dog, “but everyone’s gotta get something on their birthday, right?”
Laddie grumbled and sniffed around in the box, finding a blue racquetball and trotting off toward the door with it.
“Hey, it ain’t your birthday. Come put that back!”
Thirty-Four
Marty and his two Army buddies finally made their way back to his house on foot. The Air Force was all over town now, and it took the three of them two days to get back to his house and avoid the armored vehicles. Twice during the day, they were spotted and forced to fight a running battle until they finally lost their pursuers. Now
Sullivan stood looking over Joe’s four-door Jeep Rubicon in the beam of his red light, noting the bad dents left in the hood by meteorite impacts, the hole in the hard top.
“This is about the most aggressive tire tread you can get on a civilian vehicle,” he said. “Good call, Miller.”
But Marty wasn’t paying him much real attention. He was busy looking at the ruins of his home through the night vision device, thinking of his wife and child beneath the rubble, feeling that the weight of his despair might crush him. He wished Emory and Sullivan would take the Jeep and leave without him so he could sit down in the midst of the ruins and blow his brains out—and had he thought for even a moment that he might actually get to be with Susan again on the other side, he would have done exactly that. But he knew better, so he turned around and walked over to Sullivan in the darkness.
“I’d rather you didn’t call me Miller,” he said quietly. “I’d consider it a personal favor.”
“It was just a joke.”
“Anything but Miller,” Marty said. “I’ve got his blood all around my neck.”
Emory found a roll of duct tape in a garage across the street and used it to black out all of the brake lights and turn signals. She taped over the headlights so that only an inch-wide horizontal space was exposed across the center of each lamp.
Sullivan bumped Marty on the shoulder, and Marty turned around to see him standing there with a red, one-gallon gas can in his hand. “Strip that tunic a minute.”
Marty took it as an opportunity to practice stripping his gear, and handed over the mandarin-collared ACU jacket. Sullivan then asked him to hold the light while he poured gasoline on the collar of the jacket and scrubbed it against itself to get the blood out. He then squeezed the excess gasoline from the cloth and gave the jacket back.
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