by D. Gideon
Marco looked into the carrier. “Rabbits?”
“A trio of rabbits can produce more meat than a cow in a year,” I said. “Take up way less room, too.”
He blinked at me. “You’re going to eat them? You?”
“No,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning my head back. “I’m going to breed them.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” he said, picking up the bag of pellets. “I couldn’t imagine you-”
“It’s their children I’m going to eat,” I interrupted.
Alice chuckled, and I opened my eyes to find Marco staring at me in shock.
“What? Rabbits are a great source of meat,” I said. “Easy to keep, quiet-”
“Tasty, too,” Alice said. “Boyd brings me some rabbit jerky every week. He’s like a crack dealer. Where is he, anyway?”
“He said he had to get something,” I said. “He wants to talk to you, though, after we leave.”
Marco pulled the backpacks out of the trailer and rearranged the small bit of things we’d taken from Faye’s home to be against the back. We’d already split the canned stuff between our packs, in case we got split up again. Not that it mattered, since having both packs in the trailer meant all of our eggs were in one basket. He laid the pellets down in the center and settled the cat carrier on top, then put a backpack on either side.
Boyd’s door opened and he came out, carrying a brown canvas saddlebag for dogs. He dropped it next to me and it made a heavy crunching sound as it hit the sidewalk.
“For him,” Boyd said, pointing at King. “Probably best if you put it on him, though. And this-” he leaned back inside the open door and scooted a small white box, about a foot square, out the door with his foot. “Is to help you transition the buns over to forage.” He stepped out and let the door swing shut.
“I don’t have the money for that, Boyd,” I said, pointing to the box. A label on the side proclaimed it to be Timothy grass. It was probably air-packed, which meant there was enough compacted in it to last the rabbits at least two weeks. I unzipped one of the saddlebag’s side pockets. It was filled with dog food. “Or this.”
“You’re saving me thousands of dollars in animal deaths,” he said. “The least I can do is give your buddy there some food to take with him.”
“How’s she doing that?” Alice asked, straightening from where she’d been leaning against the window.
“You and I gotta talk,” Boyd said. “We can’t see out of your windows, so lock up and bring some of that nasty instant coffee over.”
Alice gave him a funny look, but holstered her pistol and went inside of her store. I looked over to find Marco giving me the same funny look.
“I told him about the CME,” I said. Marco’s brows raised in surprise. He pulled my small Jack Skellington pack out of the trailer, slid the box of hay all the way into the back of the little tent, and put the pack back.
“Just free feed the hay, as much as they’ll eat. Wean down off of the pellets, and at the same time wean in anything else you’re planning on feeding them. Grass cuttings, oats, sprouts, BOSS…do you know what BOSS is?”
“Black oil sunflower seeds,” I said, nodding.
“Right. The trick is not to shock their gut. If it looks like they’re feeling any discomfort, pull everything but the hay and give them a few days on just that. Then start over, slower.”
He snapped his fingers and patted his pockets. “Almost forgot this,” he said, pulling a small folded bag from his back pocket. He tossed it to Marco.
“Pumpkin seeds?” Marco said, unfolding the bag.
Boyd nodded. “Give each of ‘em three or four of those once a week. It’s a natural de-wormer and helps flush any sludge from their system. Don’t worry if their pee turns white afterwards; that’s normal.”
“Thank you so much, Boyd,” I said, snapping my fingers to call King over. “Especially with the money not being worth anything.” I lifted the saddle bag, grunting a bit, and settled it over his shoulders to see what he’d do. He wagged his nub at me and sat down, making the bag slide off.
Boyd shrugged. “People will still use money for a while. After that, they’ll be wanting meat, and thanks to you I’ll have plenty of it at the house, fresh and ready. You want snake? Guinea pig? Rabbit? Rat, maybe? Carp? I’ll be the go-to guy.”
“That could be dangerous,” Marco said. “When people think you have more than you need, and you won’t simply give it to them, they’ll try to take it.”
Boyd smiled, but it was grim. “Kelly and I have raised a lot of foster kids over the years. They’re all grown now and we’ve got our own to raise. I’m thinking it’s time I go get a few of my kids and bring them home. Safety in numbers.”
Alice pushed her door open and came out, a small can of instant coffee and a rainbow-colored cup that said It’s all fun and games until someone breaks a nail. She locked her door with a large set of jangling keys and raised her eyebrows at Boyd.
“You going to tell me what this is all about?” she asked.
Boyd plucked our IDs from the wall and handed them to Marco. I had gotten King to stand back up, and was buckling the saddlebag tight.
“You two be careful, and take care of my rabbits. Keep that hay dry, too,” Boyd said. He opened the door and held it for Alice.
“Hope you feel better soon, sugar. And Marco-” she grinned and shook her head. “You just keep being you. Damn pretty boys.” They went inside the store and I heard the door lock.
I tried wiggling the saddlebag to make sure it was tight on King’s back, and then used him to pull myself up. My vision swam for a second, and I had to steady myself on the wall.
“What was that all about?” I said.
Marco shrugged and handed me my Beretta. “Alice is an interesting woman. I’ll tell you about it while we walk.” He looked me over while I pushed the gun into my waistband, shoulders still planted firmly against the wall for balance.
“Are you going to be able to walk, Ripley? Should we find somewhere to stay for a while?”
I shook my head. “We have to keep moving. We have to catch up to Mel and Corey.”
“But if you’re too sick-”
“I’ll be fine. I need to take these every eight hours, and by the time I’ve taken four, I should be right as rain.”
As if on cue, a low rumble of thunder rolled through the air. I pushed myself off of the wall and pointed at the trailer.
“I hope you’ve got the tarp where we can get to it quick. Sounds like we’ll need it.”
“Something wicked this way comes,” Marco said, and picked up the trailer’s tongue.
We set off across the parking lot, back towards Route 50 and our friends. The thunder rolled again.
Ominous portends, I thought. Hopefully not for us.
Chapter 35
Thursday, September 6th
Salisbury, Maryland
Marco tried to move quietly through the big fifth-wheel camper he and Ripley were resting in, sticking a finger in the chicken soup to see if it had cooled down enough yet. Not quite. He checked the propane feed to the gas range to make sure it was off, and leaned against the wall where a flat-screen television had once been.
They were just off of the highway in an outdoor self-storage facility. When he’d seen the sign, he’d initially thought that he could possibly break into one of the units just to have someplace dry to stay. Once he’d steered Ripley inside the facility though, he’d seen a small row of tow-behind campers and boats parked along the fence. They’d all already been broken into, with the exception of a small pop-up camper that no one had bothered to crank open. He’d chosen the fifth-wheel because when he stuck his head inside, it was the darkest. The owner had paid to outfit the entire unit with lined curtains, and that would be important if they were still there after sundown. Between Ripley’s fever and the rain, that seemed likely. At least the rain had tapered off again and he could hear himself think. When it was pouring like a monsoon, the sound on the roof was so loud he cou
ldn’t hear if anyone was trying to sneak up outside.
Marco sighed and picked up Faye’s percolator, swirling the soup around inside of it in an attempt to cool it faster. Ripley was likely to be livid about the delay, but he had no choice. She was just in no physical condition to keep walking, rain or not.
The rain had started as a light drizzle about an hour after they’d left the pet store, but had turned into a driving force that had quickly soaked them to the bone. Covering the bike trailer with the tarp had kept all of that dry, but left them to walk unprotected. He’d wanted to find cover then, but Rip had insisted they continue on, saying they needed to catch up to Mel and Corey. The further they went, the more her pace slowed. She’d resembled more of a zombie than a human the final hour they’d been walking, shuffling along and even sometimes muttering as if she were talking to someone. He’d had to nearly carry her up the steps into the camper, and her skin had felt like fire. He was pretty certain she wasn’t even aware that they’d stopped. She’d been asleep for hours now, on a leather couch in the camper’s front room. He’d had to strip her wet clothes off of her and cover her with random clothing that had been strewn about the camper’s master bedroom; all of the blankets and sheets had been stolen already. Probably from people that had been stranded at the Greyhound bus station at the corner of the intersection.
It looked like a number of different people had been in here, and they’d taken nearly everything that wasn’t bolted down, simply tossing what they didn’t want in piles on the floor. What they’d left behind were dress shirts, slacks, and suit jackets; whoever owned this expensive camper must have used it for business travel. There were three different spots that he’d found where a television had been hanging; now there were nothing but wires and cables jutting from the walls. After bringing in the rabbits and letting them loose in the big shower stall with some hay he’d stayed inside; there was no use going back out into the rain to see if the generator’s compartment had been broken into. He would have loved being able to run whatever clean water was still in the system but didn’t want the sound attracting people. He’d found some glow sticks for lighting and had repurposed the tarp to catch rainwater again. At least the propane tanks were still hooked up; he’d been thankful for that.
King huffed from his seat in the couch opposite Ripley’s. He’d claimed that one as his when he found he could push aside the curtain behind it and see outside. Marco was sure King didn’t like not being able to hear, either. He moved quickly up the few steps into the front media room, bare feet not making a sound in the plush carpeting.
“Friend or foe, King?” he said softly, pulling up the owner’s suit pants and leaning a knee on the couch. There was no good reason to sweat in his own clothes and get them dirty when there were others available that fit him just fine. King’s ears were perked forward, his tail stub wagging. Marco leaned in next to the big dog and pushed the curtain aside. It took a moment, but finally movement drew his eye. Then his breath caught.
It was a little boy. He looked to be no more than nine or ten. He was scrambling from unit to unit, yanking on the locks. His movements were rushed and frantic. He ran around the end of the row of units and disappeared.
Marco sighed and looked over his shoulder at Ripley’s still form. She’d started having nightmares a few times, crying out in her sleep. He’d had to shake her and talk to her until she’d settled down. She’d never woken up, making him worry just how bad her fever was, but at least she’d gone quiet. They couldn’t do anything to attract attention when she was this vulnerable.
Beside him, King whimpered a bit and cocked his head, looking for the boy.
“No, King,” Marco said. “The rain has spooked him, that’s all. I can’t-”
A woman was walking…no, more like stalking up the row of units. The legs of her bright red jumpsuit were torn and streaked with mud, her hair hung in wet hanks just past her chin. She turned the corner, and Marco caught the flash of a knife.
“Damn,” he said.
Chapter 36
Thursday, September 6th
Salisbury, Maryland
Tabitha Reed crept around the corner of the building and caught a flash of the little boy slipping around the far end of the units.
“Little brat,” she muttered, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes. The kid was doing a zig-zag through the rows of storage units, and he was moving faster than her. Four years in the slammer had made her soft. She could still give a bitch a beat-down, but she was in no shape to run like this. By the time she got to where she’d just seen him, he’d be back at this end again. Her temper had about reached its limits. She hadn’t been able to fit through the hole in the fence that he’d shimmied through; she’d torn the shit out of her prison suit climbing over. Every minute that she was out here trying to catch him was a minute she and her cellmate, Ellie, weren’t in his parents’ car on their way to New York City. She had to catch him; they couldn’t afford for him to squeal and bring trouble down on their heads before they were ready to go.
“I’m not gonna hurt ya, kid,” she yelled, walking forward. Maybe he was sitting at the end, faking her out. “I just want to help you get back to your parents. Aren’t you scared for your mommy? I can take you to her,” she said. She listened hard, trying to hear if he was running back down the next row or staying still, but she couldn’t hear a damn thing over the patter of the rain. Go to where she’d seen him, or go back around this end and try to cut him off?
“Six one way, half a dozen the other,” she said, and jogged to the end of the units. He wasn’t there, and she muttered a curse. Stopping and putting her hands on her knees, she drew in a few deep breaths. Why the hell hadn’t she told Ellie to go look for him her damn self? Why had she just jumped up and run out to find him when Ellie had told her to? She wasn’t nobody’s bitch.
Too late for that now. She was out here, soaking wet and filthy. May as well finish it. She walked past the end units and turned the corner to head back down the next row, and stopped.
There was a man squatting in the center of the lane, talking to the little boy. He was a looker, too. He must have been one of the people they’d scared out of the bus station when the Somerset County Corrections Officer dropped them off; he had on a nice dress shirt tucked into fancy slacks. As he stood, pushing the boy behind him, she noticed he was barefoot, and grinned. One of the other inmates must have made him hand over his shoes. That meant he was a pushover.
“Well hey there, handsome,” she called, tucking the knife behind her back. “I see you found my kid. We were playing Hide-n-Seek. Looks like you won.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong child,” the man said, and his voice was just as cultured as his clothes. He even had some cool kind of accent. “This one says he doesn’t know you.”
Well wasn’t that just her fucking luck? The little brat had found somebody to squeal to, after all. It didn’t matter. If he was enough of a pussy to hand over his shoes, she’d get him to hand over the kid. She pasted on a smile that had gotten her past every dive-bar bouncer since she was thirteen, and started towards him, slowly, so she wouldn’t spook him. She put a little extra effort into giving her hips a bit of a swing.
“You caught me,” she said. “I can’t lie. He’s not my kid. But he’s got something I need. You wanna trade for him? I’ll make it worth your while.”
The man lifted his eyebrows and cocked his head. “You think you’d have something I’d want?”
“Oh there’s something, all right,” Tabitha purred, running a hand over her breasts. “I’ve got something that all men want.”
He crossed his arms and gave her a long look down, and back up.
That’s it, she thought. Get a man focused on your tits, and that’s all they’ll pay attention to, every time.
“I’m not seeing much,” he said, shaking his head and shrugging.
Wait, what? Was this fucker actually getting cocky with her?
“Maybe if you take off your s
hirt and let me see the goods,” he suggested, a hint of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth.
Oh. He must’ve thought he was being flirty. Rich fuckers. They could never flirt without tossing in an insult, like they thought they were billionaire bad boys out of one of Ellie’s romance novels. Tabitha had conned dozens of his kind out of thousands of dollars and they never changed. Normally at this point she’d have pumped up the sultry act a little more, unbuttoning the shirt slowly and watching his eyes turn into saucers. The prison shirt didn’t have buttons though, and if she moved her other arm he’d see the knife. She stopped about ten feet away from him and lifted the bottom of her shirt, showing off her belly.
“Nice tattoo,” he said. “What’s it say?”
“How about you come see for yourself?” she said, wiggling her hips suggestively. The man stepped forward, but the little boy grabbed at his pants leg. The man turned and said something to the boy, but it was too low for her to hear. The brat let go and moved over next to the wall of storage units, wrapping his arms around a short, thick pole meant to keep trucks from backing in to the walls.
The man closed half the distance between them, and pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. Damn, but he was hot. She decided she wouldn’t stick him right off. She hadn’t had a real, sexy man on her terms in years. There had been plenty of male guards at the prison who had taken advantage of their positions of power. She couldn’t use the word “men” when thinking about them, and none of those encounters had been on her terms. But this guy…he was definitely interested. Maybe with a little more teasing, she could convince him to come back to the brat’s house.
“You ever had a threesome, handsome?” Tabitha said. “I’ve got a friend that would love to have some fun with something as good-looking as you. I don’t mind sharing.”
“Is that so?” he asked, rubbing his hands together slowly. “I don’t know. I’m a business man. I always take a product for a test drive before I commit to buying. Quality assurance is crucial in my line of work.”