“Yeah, I thought he was gonna wake up dead.”
They both chuckled.
Pricks.
“Water…please.”
“Oh man, you must be really thirsty. We’re sorry about that. Have to take precautions and whatnot.” He produced a key ring and began thumbing through the keys. “Diamond and Giggles are really sorry about the whack to the head. They did a number on your buddy too, but he wouldn’t tell them where you were coming from or where you were headed. At first.”
He found the correct key and unlocked my cell.
“You see, this is our town. If you live here, you have to pay taxes. If you’re passing through, you have to pay a toll.” He got down on his haunches next to me on the bunk. “You understand that in today’s world things are different from before? I mean you get that right?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
The speaker, a guy of average size and curiously absent of tattoos, stepped into the cell. The gigantic guy with him leaned against the cell door frame looking exceptionally mean.
“Here,” he passed me a bottle of water, “drink up.”
“Thanks.” I took the water and took a giant pull on it. It was cold, and that sent spirals of agony through my freshly smacked melon.
“So my boss wants to know a few things. First, what’s your name?”
“Where’s my friend? Is he OK?”
“Whoa pal, that’s not how it works. Not only is it rude to answer a question with a question, but I’m the one who needs to report to a higher power here. Any further instances of non-compliance will be dealt with in a manner in which you will not be pleased. Have I made myself clear?” The huge dude snorted.
“Yes.”
He pointed at my arm. “I see by your ink that you’ve bumped the proverbial head with the law in the past. Where’d you do your time?”
“Cedar Junction, Walpole Mass.” It wasn’t true, I did my stint in a medium security prison, and Walpole was for the bad boys.
“Ah. May I ask what you were in for?”
“Armed robbery with a side order of beating the shit out of a couple of cops.” Again, a lie, and I’m sure you can see where this was going and why.
“Interesting. And why are you riding around in a military vehicle? Where did you get it?”
“Took it off some National Guard in Idaho. They didn’t need it.”
“I see.”
He continued with the questions for another ten minutes or so, never once asking me about Lincoln, or dead Reapers up there. He never asked me about Tim either, and as he got up to leave, I asked him where Tim was.
“Ah yes. Tim. You see, I was a litigator in a previous life. A defense attorney. The Devil’s Reapers were my largest account. When the dead came, I kind of ran out of clients. And food. And safety. The Reapers took me in and made me one of their own. I realize that the backstory is a little boring here, but it’s important. As a lawyer, I was able to spot lies a mile away, and while you seem to be telling the truth, your friend was as full of shit as a Christmas goose. My brothers were going to persuade Tim to speak by removing his fingernails with a pair of pliers, but I asked them to hold on, and found this in his pocket.”
He held up Tim’s Baldy Mountain ID badge.
Crap.
“Young Tim finally acquiesced and told us about his escape from the facility, grabbing that vehicle, and how you saved him from a throng of those things on the road and have been inseparable ever since.”
Good work Tim!
“Minor here,” he thumbed at the guy with him, “was…upset? Disappointed?”
“Hurt that I was left out,” the huge guy added.
“Ah yes, hurt, that he was unable to attend the questioning. So he decided that Tim should lose at least one fingernail. Who am I to prevent that? After all, I’m still a probie. Your friend is sore, but he’ll live. At least for a bit longer.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” the guy told me and shut the cell door. “What you should worry about is the next line of questioning. While you appear to be telling the truth about things, you were still caught sneaking around in Reaper territory.” He made a show of looking me over. “I don’t see any Reaper ink or colors. Pure and simple, you were trespassing, and there’s only one penalty for that.”
The huge dude snorted again.
“Actually, there’s only one penalty for anything.”
They locked the door and laughed and talked on the way out.
I lay back and put my head back on the cot, the realization of a biker enforced death penalty sinking in quickly.
“They’re going to kill you, you know that right?”
Someone had read my mind, or I was hearing my thoughts louder than usual.
I didn’t even open my eyes. “Everybody dies.”
“Yeah, well, they’re going to make you fight a bunch of the dead in a ring. You like that smartass?”
“No. I like quiet. Shut up and let me think about fighting zombies.” I didn’t mean to sound like a dickhead, but I just wanted to sleep until they killed me.
“Screw you, pal, I’m just trying to help you.”
This time I did sit up on an elbow. “Help me? If you want to help me, break me out of here.” I looked through the bars to the cell directly across the corridor from me. The guy in there looked less beat up than the rest. “I appreciate the heads up, but it doesn’t change my situation.”
The dude squinted at me. “You look like one of them anyway. I heard you telling them you were in jail before. Where did you really get that big truck the guy was talking about?
This guy was not about to let me get any rest, and my head was killing me. In addition, his questions and demeanor screamed informant, which I had seen before, so I played it up. “You should drop your eaves better, chief. I met the guy with the truck on the road. He was taking a piss and almost got overrun and I saved his ass. He asked me if I wanted a ride, and I said yes. He’s a decent guy. That’s it.”
“Why didn’t you just let the dead get him and then take the wheels?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because then I would have had to sort through his infected parts to get the keys all the while fighting off the ones that ate him. As it turns out, the thing doesn’t need keys. I thought about just taking the truck from him, but like I said, he ain’t a bad guy.” I put my head back on the cot and turned toward the wall. Other than some whimpering down the cell block, the place grew silent, and sleep took me soon.
The sounds of a scuffle and a guy shrieking No! over and over woke me that evening. The bikers dragged him away unkindly, smacking and pulling him while he fought to escape them. I sat up on the cot, and my head throbbed. They guy in the cell across from me, the inquisitive one, was gone.
Two of the bunch of Reapers stayed behind and came to my cell. Both were armed with shotguns. They stood in front of the door and looked at me, then at each other.
“Him?”
“Yeah. C’mon, Chief, somebody wants to meet you.”
I stood, and waves of pain undulated through my noggin and the back of my neck. It passed rather quickly, and I shuffled like a zombie to the now open cell door. The darker-haired one, short but powerful-looking, pointed to my right, and they escorted me down the corridor. A guard waited for us at the reception area, and I noticed two DLSD vests hung on a metal coat rack, forgotten and dusty. Deer Lodge Sherriff Department.
We left the police station, moving into the street. It was lit up with fifty-five gallon drums with stuff burning in them. The air was warm, and the fifty-five gallon streetlights made the place look pretty, the flames creating dancing shadows on the quaint brick structures. Armed Reapers were walking the streets talking, but not many average citizens were around. In about a hundred steps, we were in front of what passed for city hall in this tiny town. It looked like an old brick school.
The smaller of the two bikers pushed me from behind. It was just a little push, a move yo
ur ass, type of thing that tagged me on the shoulder and made me take an elongated step forward.
It really pissed me off. My head hurt. It hurt a lot, and I just wanted to go home and see my friends. Screw the government, screw the zombies, and right now screw these damn bikers. I wanted to see my oil rig and feel safe.
Really not expecting any trouble, the smaller one went to push me again, I could just feel it. He leaned forward to push my right shoulder with his left hand, and I twisted, moving forward and to the left. It was his turn to take an elongated step, and I turned around and folded my arms looking at him, “Look dickhead, I’m old enough that I can walk without your hands on me. If you’re cruising for a piece of ass, I don’t swing that way.”
The taller of the two smiled, obviously entertained, but the little one did something I didn’t expect. He scowled and pointed the shotgun at my face. Then he did something I never would have thought he would do, he pulled the trigger.
Nobody will ever get used to being shot, or even shot at. Anybody tells you different, they’re full of shit. Speaking of shit, a teeny bit may have squeaked out of me when that gun went off. Yet again, the shot went wide. This time because the big dude saw the murder that I had failed to see in the little dude’s eyes, grabbed the side of the shotty and pushed it to the right so I could keep my noggin.
So I kept my noggin. Most of it. The barrel of the weapon went off maybe ten inches from my left ear. It was loud. Fucking loud. I cupped my hand to my head (remember, I already had a throbbing melon), and fell to one knee. A colossal ringing noise made me think there was a jetliner touching down on my forehead, and then the pain stabbed through harder. Feeling something sticky and wet, I pulled my hand away from my ear, and you guessed it, it came away bloody.
“You out your friggin mind?” the big one asked (it had sounded like: outcha). “You kill him and Chains’ll cut your nuts off.”
“Fuck that. Prick was trying to excape.”
I thought I had misheard him. What with my screaming head and newly screwed up sense of hearing. I hate assholes who can’t say escape. It’s pure laziness. For Christ’s sake, didn’t his mother slap him when he said excape? Or nuke-ular, or axe, like axe a question? Evil murdering biker assholes are one thing, but being grammatically lax is inexcusable, especially if it’s on purpose.
I tried to stand, and the little one gave me a shove with his boot. I fell on my ass and rolled to the side, immediately nauseated. Damn my head hurt. I retched. It was a very manly retch. I looked up and the little one was on his haunches looking down at me.
“Aww. Little pussy gonna puke?”
The big one nudged his buddy with his boot, using his chin to point to a group of three guys coming toward us. The little guy stood and, as an afterthought, spit on me.
You know, I keep calling him little, but he wasn’t. He was short, but the kind of short that you know is tough. He just had that tank-like build to him even if he was only, like, five-six.
I sat up, my palms on my throbbing temples. The other three Reapers had arrived, and they were wearing actual leather jackets emblazoned with the Devil’s Reapers insignias and colors. The two douchebags that had brought me out of the cell only had leather vests. That said something to me, but damn if I could figure out anything with my melon in its current state.
The bigger of my two escorts said nothing, but Short Stack said, “Chains, this is the guy, right?”
The man he had addressed shuffled forward with a jab/cross that knocked Shorty down. It was like lightning. My dulled senses picked up on the fact that this guy was the leader. In total contradiction of what I wrote moments ago about not being able to think straight, I admit that I instantly reckoned this guy, in addition to being in charge, was also extremely fit, a fighter, and brooked no bullshit. He reminded me of the MARSOC guys.
He reminded me of Remo.
Then my mind exploded with shitloads of thoughts, synapses firing willy-nilly. Where were the MARSOC boys? Why hadn’t they rescued me? Why wasn’t this town a smoking ruin with bits of Reapers scattered liberally about? Was Ship OK? Was Tim OK? Was I correct in hating Lynch like I did? Would I ever eat those little cocktail weenies in bourbon barbecue sauce again?
All I heard was: “Alive.” I looked around for the speaker; it was the boss, Chains. Turning my dome had been a mistake though, and I leaned over and dry heaved.
“I need him alive, Petey.” He shook his head. “Dead is as useless as…you.” He kicked the guy on the ground, formally known as the little one, in the balls so hard, I was fairly certain Petey would be coughing them up soon.
In a fetal position, Petey did cough, but nothing resembling a testicle came out of him. He just kind of moaned, and I thought immediately of zombies. Cut me some slack, this is a zombie story.
“Get him up.”
I was hoping they were talking about Petey, so I could just hang out and collect my myriad of broken thoughts, but alas, it was not to be. The bigger of my two escorts, and one of the new guys each grabbed an armpit and yanked me to my feet.
It was my turn to moan like an infected. I nailed that shit too, even though I tried like hell to come off tough.
I managed to squeeze out a question through my throbbing dome, “What do you want with me?”
I sounded like some movie douche that would be in this exact situation. Not tough.
Chains didn’t even look at me, but he got down on his haunches and looked at a writhing Petey, who was cradling his nuts and looking pretty miserable. “That’s one.”
Petey looked scared, but he nodded.
Chains turned on his heel, walking into the building we were in front of. The two dudes carry-dragged me in after him.
Boom
They sat me in a chair, across a beautiful oak desk from Chains. He was engrossed in a file folder, some of the contents half-spilled across the wood. He put some in a pile, the others he would look at and then put them face down when he was through.
He didn’t look up when he said, “Get him some water.”
One of the dudes came back after a moment and tapped me on the shoulder with a bottle of water, which I graciously accepted. “Thank you.”
The dude shocked me when he told me I was welcome.
I didn’t feel welcome.
The boss came across something in the folder, looked at me, back at the folder, and nodded. He stood and came around to my side of the desk, leaning against it and folding his arms.
He reached behind him, grabbed one of the items that was on the desk, and showed it to me. It was a picture of me with a bandage around my head. I was in a make-shift triage area, one that looked familiar. I swallowed my water, probably a little too hard. I remembered where that picture was from. The photo had been taken in Tennessee, probably more than a year ago now. It had been taken by none other than my favorite spy-prick, Lynch.
Chains raised an eyebrow. “Is this you?”
“Nope.”
He looked at me with simultaneous expressions. One part looked like he was my dad and had caught me lying to him. The other part was undoubtedly the spider looking at the fly in the web. I could see this guy’s hunger. He stood, moving his hand slowly toward me. I thought for sure he was going to slap or punch me, but I didn’t want to appear the pussy, so I let it come. I was surprised when he used two fingers to pull my T-shirt to the side, exposing a healed wound on my collar bone.
He looked me in the eye, a half-smile appearing, I looked right back.
“It’s you.”
“That guy is fuk’n ugly,” I said pointing to the picture. “Clearly, I’m prettier than he is.”
He reached down and lifted my leg, pushing up my jeans and pulling down my sock. “Definitely you. Don’t fucking lie to me again.” He held up his right index finger. “That’s one.”
It’s not like I can claim I couldn’t help it. It didn’t slip out. One second I was processing That’s one from Chains, and the next I was on the floor cradling my melon in eve
n fiercer agony. I couldn’t believe he had hit me in the head. Maybe he didn’t know how damaged my noggin was. Maybe he did, and wanted to exacerbate my pain. A thought ran across my mind. It was a memory, a recent one. Realization hit me like a thunderbolt. I had said something… I had answered his That’s one with a question.
“How many do I get?”
Surrounded by three bikers, who were probably itching to kill me, I had back-talked the meanest of them instead of keeping my mouth shut. What a friggin’ dumbass.
The two guys were lifting me up again, and they dumped me unceremoniously back into the chair. “This asshole is public enemy number one?”
“Don’t’ worry about it.” Chains got up and moved back around the desk. “Lot of people looking for you. Why?” He sat back down and pushed a laminated document, obviously water-proof toward me. I picked it up and tried to read it, but couldn’t focus right away. When I was able to concentrate, I saw that the sheet had a photo of me and some information on who I was, even the scars I had, but not what I was wanted for. There was a blue and white seal with a bird carrying a plant in one talon and a bunch of arrows in the other. Department of Homeland Security.
What the fuck?
Lynch! That spook asshole had reported me! To who? The President? Why was the government, what was left of it, working with crazy-ass murderers?
I looked at him. “Where did you get this?”
“They’re all over the place, flyers pushed out of a plane. Read the bottom.”
I looked down and saw the word REWARD, and everything made sense. I nodded. “So I’m a payoff.”
“Yes.” He steepled his fingers with his elbows on the table. He looked just like my eighth grade biology teacher, Mr. Harris. I fucking hated Mr. Harris. “Why do they want you. What did you do?”
I was deciding how to answer that when Chains stood. Apparently, I was taking too long to come up with a viable answer. I held my hands up in supplication, and he raised an eyebrow.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have appropriated some shit that wasn’t technically mine. It was just laying around, how was I supposed to know it belonged to the government?”
Conspiracy Theory (The Zombie Theories Book 2) Page 15