“You’re going to show me where your stash is,” he tells me as I slip on the gloves. “That’s step number one. Then you’re going to enter your humble abode like nothing bad ever happened to you in your whole life. But you’re going to come back out carrying your father’s head ten minutes after you go in. Not a single minute extra, not even if you eat your veggies. Do you comprehend my vibe, Kipper? Are you processing our palaver?”
Despite the nickname and the mannerisms, his voice is flat and serious, his face even more so. If this is a game, then it’s a totally new level for both of us.
“Or what?” I say. “What happens if I don’t come out in ten minutes?”
He leans toward me, clamps his hand around my neck, and draws me close. Our foreheads touch, and I have to endure his nauseating breath.
“Any funny business while you’re in that house, Kipper, and I’ll inflict so much pain on your little girlfriend that ripping off her fingernails will just be the foreplay.”
CHAPTER 10
On my way out of the warehouse, I see why the entire place reeks of gasoline.
The Colonel and his men have gathered a stockpile of it in the center of the main storage area. There are entire stacks of shelves loaded with red, five-gallon polyethylene cans. I see them only briefly in what little light Bandanna casts from the lantern as we walk by, but I can tell there are at least four full stacks holding twenty or more cans on each shelf.
It’s a rough estimate, but at the very least—assuming the cans are full—we’re talking about a few hundred gallons of gasoline. It’s the equivalent of a treasure chest full of gold coins for someone in pre-Outbreak society.
I dwell on these numbers as the Colonel leads me across the main storage area. My wrists are bound together by twine at the small of my back. More of it ties my ankles together, giving me enough slack so I can walk but not run. I shuffle along, taking in every detail I can, expecting to emerge into sunlight soon. Then maybe I’ll find out where this place is located.
Instead of leading me to the exit, the Colonel takes me to see Melanie.
She’s sitting on the floor in the corner, her back against the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest. In front of her is an empty stack. Sandwiched between the two, she looks tiny and vulnerable, like a homeless girl out on a cold night begging for change.
“Melanie,” I say.
Bandanna blows out the lantern, sets it on the floor, and turns on a pocket flashlight. He shines the beam in her eyes, making her wince. Her face looks puffy and her hair is a ratty, sweat-soaked mess that hangs in shreds over her eyes. Her right hand is suspended above her shoulder, dangling from a pair of handcuffs attached to a metal loop embedded in the wall.
“Kip?” she says.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’ll live,” she says.
The Colonel puts a hand on my shoulder to discourage me from getting any closer. I twist away from his grasp. He responds by grabbing the neck of my coverall and yanking me back.
“Not so fast, Kipper.”
I imagine sticking the barrel of my Glock into his mouth and pulling the trigger.
“Melanie is going to need a babysitter while we’re out shopping,” the Colonel tells me with a pat on the shoulder. “Lucky for us, Wheels has volunteered to keep an eye on her. Isn’t that right, Wheels?”
“Fuckin’ right it’s right,” Wheels says, fixing his soulless eyes on mine. The words fatten her up hit me again with their ominous meaning.
“I thought Olin was supposed to be first,” I say, looking at Bandanna.
“Now that’s a damned good point,” Bandanna says. “Why don’t I stay behind with her?”
The Colonel smacks me hard against the back of my head. Melanie whimpers at the sight of me stumbling to regain my balance.
“That’ll teach you to mess around,” the Colonel says before addressing Bandanna. “She’ll be here when we return, unless Kip fails to follow instructions, in which case, the girl may soon be missing certain parts of her body. Not any parts you’d be interested in, capitán.”
Bandanna accepts this with a grateful nod.
“You hear that, Kipper?” the Colonel says. “Won’t be any need for even a single hair on her stinky head to get plucked if things go according to plan. But, if for some reason I don’t return to my humble abode by sunrise, I’ve given Wheels permission to engage in certain delights of a carnal nature with your little girlfriend. And believe you me, sittin’ in a tree, when Wheels is involved, the term ‘carnal delight’ takes on a whole new meaning.” He snaps his fingers at Wheels. “Show him what I mean.”
Wheels digs a small flashlight out of his pocket, shines it up at his own face, and grins. This is the first time I’ve seen him open his mouth wide enough to reveal what’s inside.
I wish he had kept it shut. His yellow front teeth are the stuff of nightmares, each one sharpened into a fine point that makes his entire mouth resemble that of a great white shark.
He must have already revealed his gruesome mouth to Melanie. When I look at her again, the expression on her face is one of pure dread. She knows as well as I do that Wheels is a cannibal.
“Let us commence, shall we?” the Colonel says, which prompts Wheels to click off his flashlight and turn toward Melanie.
Bandanna also turns his off, leaving Melanie and Wheels in the same pocket of darkness near the wall. Not being able to see them launches me into a panic.
“Get away from her,” I shout. “Keep him away!”
Bandanna approaches me. He lifts his hands, and I see something stretched between them, maybe a length of fabric, though I can’t tell for sure in the near-complete darkness.
The Colonel grips my shoulder again.
“Easy now, Kipper.”
The blindfold erases my sight as Bandanna ties it around my head, his movements brutish and painful, his low laughter entering my ear like crushed glass.
The blindfold comes off only after the Jeep has taken us beyond sight of the warehouse, though I’m still convinced the Colonel and his friends rarely take prisoners. It’s a stupid mistake on their part. If they had been smarter or more experienced, they would have kept the blindfold on much longer. We’re not even out of the industrial complex yet, which gives me a chance to memorize the route.
A layer of gray-white clouds covers the evening sky. There are maybe two hours of daylight left, which means I wasn’t unconscious for very long. It also means that if I plan to escape and come back for Melanie, I’ll have to do it quickly or risk having to travel by night.
The Colonel sits with me in the back seat, slumped against the door so he can face me. My Glock is in his right hand. He keeps it at rest between his legs, not even aiming it.
Once we are out of the industrial complex, I try to mark my whereabouts in relation to other buildings—mostly houses—that I hope to recognize. But we’re not in any part of Peltham Park I’ve ever seen before. I try not to make it obvious that I’m scouting the area. Mostly I keep my head down, faking an expression of utter defeat, while using my peripheral vision to study my surroundings.
Five minutes into the ride, the Colonel launches into a speech that begins with, “You know why I love this town?” As he speaks, I count the different turns we make to get back on Route 1. When he starts talking about the sexy waitress at what used to be his favorite diner, my thoughts turn to Melanie, trapped in the warehouse with Wheels, and the way the darkness engulfed her when the last flashlight was turned off.
I try not to think about it as I keep marking turns and distance traveled.
The trip is a painful one. Bandanna can’t drive worth a damn and hits every pothole he can before getting on a dirt road that takes us through a heavily forested area. This is a part of Peltham Park I never knew existed, where large, lonely old houses pop up behind the trees, looking empty and barren, the yards plagued with weeds and brambles.
“You wouldn’t believe the valuable shit we found i
n these old houses,” Bandanna says, following it up with an admiring whistle. “Barely had to kill anyone to get it, too.”
The Colonel points at one of the houses. “Lovely lesbian couple lived in that one over there.”
He describes what he made them do to each other while he watched. I won’t recount it here, but the story involves torture and sadism on a level I wouldn’t have expected even from him.
Throughout the trip, they never ask for directions, only the name of my road. The Colonel knows Peltham Park as if he’s spent all of his life here. Maybe he has. He tells Bandanna where to go—mostly along dirt roads through the woods—and before I know it, we’re on the main road leading toward my house.
“It’s that one,” I say.
Bandanna points at my house as it emerges from behind a wall of trees. “That one right there?”
“Yeah.”
The Colonel throws a glance over his shoulder. If my hands weren’t tied together, I’d snatch the gun right off his lap and put a slug through his head, no problem. Then I’d blast Bandanna’s skull into bits before he could even slam on the brakes. I settle for pulling against my binds in silent rage.
“Windows are completely sealed and the roof is clear,” Bandanna says. “Nowhere to snipe from. Nothing to worry about.”
He continues listing off details to prove we’re in no danger as we approach. I have to admit, he knows what he’s talking about. It’s clear these men have seized fortified houses before, even if they didn’t take prisoners afterward. That just means they killed everyone inside.
We creep up the length of my driveway and park near the double doors of the garage. The Colonel shoves me out of the back seat, keeping the gun trained on my head.
Like other houses on my street, ours was built against a small hill. The backyard is actually a wooded slope that juts upward. If you face the two garage doors, to the left, you’ll see the hill, and to the right is the front yard, which slopes gently downward. Against the hill, between its base and the garage, is a narrow path about four feet wide that lets you walk around to the back of the house.
Edging that channel of space is a granite wall my father built against the earth. He also made a granite footpath leading around back to the deck opposite the garage.
The Colonel and Bandanna undo my binds and follow me to the beginning of the path. Around the corner is the hatch built into one of the garage windows. Less than twenty-four hours have passed since I first crawled out of it.
They follow me around the corner.
“Nice and hidden,” the Colonel says, admiring the hatch.
Bandanna has brought the M16 and keeps it trained on my back as I stick the key into the padlock and twist.
The Colonel pushes me aside and runs his hand along the surface of the hatch. It’s just a flap of heavy steel that drapes the window, a handle built into it and another built into the wall so you can chain the two together. But he’s opening and closing it and tonguing his teeth like he plans to build one just like it. The black rose on his neck creeps upward as he stretches himself to touch the hinges running along the top.
“In ten minutes, you emerge from this hatch like the snake that you are, Kipper,” the Colonel says, “and if I see you carrying anything other than your old man’s head, it’s rat-tat-tat time for you, comprende?”
We lock eyes, mine carrying rage that must be obvious; his showing a mixture of grandiosity and relief, like he can’t believe how easy this has been.
“Fuck you,” I say.
Bandanna raises the M16. The Colonel waves it back down, nodding and smiling at me.
“Thattaboy,” he says. “Now get in there and bring me that head, Kipper.”
I turn to lift the hatch when he clasps my shoulder and spins me around. With a stern look, he jabs a finger at my face.
“Don’t think I’m stupid,” he says, dark eyes boring into mine. He’s more serious now than I’ve seen him so far. “I won’t give you the chance to snipe me from the windows. I won’t be visible from the rooftop. And if you’re not back here in ten minutes, I will break down these walls and come after you, and Melanie will die a painful, biblical death. You got that, Kip?”
His use of my name, instead of that nickname Kipper, chills me right down to the marrow. I nod once at him and turn toward the hatch.
“You’ve got a steel heart, young squire,” he says and pats my shoulder.
Then he holds up the hatch, and I climb inside.
The familiar, fungal smell of the garage fills my nose, reminding me of my parents.
Using my flashlight, I make my way past the cluttered shelves, the busted minivan, and the tools all over the floor. Everything is exactly how I left it. My hands shake as I fumble for the keys. When I open the door, I’m greeted by a sour stink almost like that of my high school’s locker room after soccer practice.
“Hello?” I call out when I see the couch is empty.
The smell gets worse as I make my way to my parents’ bedroom.
“Dad?” I say as I open the door and peer inside.
My father is curled up on the bed he and my mother had once shared, his skin a sickly pallor and coated with sweat. He’s in drastically worse shape than he was yesterday. His eyes are open just a crack, barely enough for me to see his pupils roll toward me. In his hand is a framed photograph of our family. On the bedside table is a 9mm pistol I imagine is fully loaded.
“Dad,” I say again, gripping his free hand. “Can you hear me?”
His breath is foul and his eyes are as yellow as corn. The skin around them crinkles with emotion. He’s barely breathing, and his voice comes out an abrupt whisper.
“Kip?”
“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I say as I drop to my knees next to the bed, still clasping his ice-cold hand. “I failed. I don’t have the medicine. I’m sorry.”
His voice scrapes out of him. “Doesn’t—matter. Too—late.”
“Just hold on.” I blink away tears. “There are men outside. They want us out of here.”
Hearing this, Dad’s brow tightens in a look of cold rage.
“Why don’t—they enter?”
“They think you’re armed and ready to shoot them. They want proof that you’re not a threat to them. But I won’t do it.”
A sudden surge of vitality comes into him. He grips my hand.
“Yes. Give it to them. Make it—hurt.”
“I can’t kill you, Dad. That’s what they want. I can’t do it.”
“Do it for—for Mom,” he says. “She wants you—to live. I’m dead, Kip. Dead.”
“But I can kill them. I can snipe them from—”
“No!”
He tosses my hand aside and coughs violently. I wipe phlegm from the corner of his mouth. His trembling has stopped. His eyes remain open.
I’m sure he’s dead. Then his eyes roll toward the bedside table and the gun lying on its surface.
“Listen to me now,” he says, “and do exactly as I say…”
I sit against the closed bedroom door, my dad alone in the bedroom. The gun goes off less than ten seconds after I closed the door and slid down its length to the carpet. My father is dead.
They must have heard the shot outside. The Colonel will assume I went through with the plan, buying me a few more minutes.
As soon as it’s done, I push myself up and open the door.
Dad shot himself in the heart just as he had said he would. It was part of his plan. He’s dead by the time I make it back to the bed. I kiss his forehead and tell him I love him, but I don’t dwell on my loss. That will come later.
With hurried movements, I dig out a hunting knife from the bedside table—my father put one in practically every room—and go to work.
When I’m finished, my hands covered in blood I’ll never be able to wash off, I run into the room where I packed my bug-out bag the day before. I throw open the closet doors, drop to my knees, and slide a heavy shoebox toward me.
CHAPTER 11
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“That you, Kipper?”
The Colonel has heard the hatch over the garage window slam back into place. I stand facing the granite wall against the hill, listening to the crunching of leaves and twigs as he and Bandanna make their way out of the woods, followed by the scraping of shoes against pavement. I imagine the Colonel crouched behind the Jeep for cover while Bandanna aims the M16 at me in case I come out shooting.
“It’s me,” I say. “I have what you want.”
I look down at my hands, which carry my father’s severed head. Studying the cold mask of his face, the eyes turned up in their sockets, I have to hold back tears, though not because I’m worried about crying in front of the Colonel. I need clear vision for what I’m about to do next.
There is a frag grenade stuffed inside my father’s mouth. I’ve cut an opening through the corner of his lips and into his cheek so the strike lever can escape once I pull the pin, which I do by lowering my mouth to his, clamping my teeth around the pin, and yanking it. My thumb remains pressed against the lever to keep the explosion at bay.
For now.
“You’re going to walk around the garage very slowly,” the Colonel says from the driveway, “and then you’re going to turn around so I can make sure you’re not strapped. I see even a flash of gunmetal, Kipper, and you’re going down the gravity elevator to concrete land. In other words, I will drop you to the fucking ground, you got that?”
“Just don’t shoot,” I say. “I’m coming out.”
I kiss my father’s forehead and ease my way around the garage. The two men are standing in front of the Jeep. The Colonel holds the Glock at his side like he isn’t worried about a thing. He even wears a confident smile. Bandanna is in a combat stance, holding the weapon and aiming through the sights with one eye closed.
“Spin around slowly,” the Colonel says. “No sudden moves.”
Outbreak: A Survival Thriller Page 8