V-Wars

by Jonathan Maberry

Page 8

 

  Unless the Sonrisans were still too afraid of the vampires to do anything about the monsters already in their midst.

  “They’re fucking everywhere,” Bobby said an hour later, as they bounced along a dry arroyo, having left the highway in their taillights. The trucks’ headlights pierced the blackness, revealing figures scuttling into ravines, dodging behind the occasional boulder, trying to stay out of sight. Illegals, crossing the border. More now than there used to be. Maybe the D. K. s wouldn’t have been so bored as before.

  Bobby pulled out his . 38. “Target practice,” he said. But he didn’t shoot.

  Thompson held his breath and fought to keep his knuckles loose around the steering wheel. He did all the undercover tricks he’d been trained to do to give the impressions that he didn’t give a damn one way or the other. But he could feel his adrenaline rising precipitously.

  “Walker thought the Shaft might be good after this,” Thompson said.

  His . 38 balanced against the base of the open passenger side window, Bobby stared into the darkness. Thompson stayed loose, kept his eyes on the road. “Huh,” Bobby said, without firing, sounding disappointed.

  “The Shaft. Yeah,” Bobby said. They drove for another ten minutes or so. Then Bobby said, “Stop the truck. ”

  Thompson obeyed. The other truck stopped, too. “Stay here. ” Bobby climbed out and walked over to the driver’s side of the Bronco to parlay. The headlights of the Bronco went out. Overhead, the moon poured milky silver on the sand and scrub. Thompson pulled out his cell phone. No bars.

  He unrolled his window. Something metallic groaned. Suddenly he heard shouting, weeping, begging. Saw something dash into the darkness. The figure of a man, followed by another. Moncho.

  Bobby.

  Thompson pocketed his phone and reached for the keys in the ignition. If he started driving, what would he do? Go after Bobby, run him over? Save his female cargo? He knew he had a quarter tank of gas left. Would that take them far enough to get away?

  He heard a gunshot. His blood went cold. His fingers impotently grazed the keys as Bobby reappeared. Moonlight glinted off his . 38.

  Bobby trotted past Thompson to the other vehicle. Some conversation ensued. Silence. Bobby climbed back inside, shut the door, and studied Thompson for a moment.

  Then he said, “Let’s go. ”

  Thompson turned on the ignition and put his foot on the gas. They drove for a couple of minutes and then Bobby said, “I got him. Shot him in the head. ” Thompson nodded, deadening himself so he wouldn’t react. Bobby sighed. “Fucker had to try to be a hero. ” Thompson nodded again.

  Bobby slid a glance at him. “Just so’s you know, Fug had his Uzi trained on you while I was out of the truck. You did okay, Carrot Top. ”

  “Thanks,” Thompson said. His carrot-top hair stood on end.

  They reached a sad little border crossing — a guard gate and a lot of barbed wire fence. There were also guards on the other side, Checkpoint Mexico. Two gringos on the American side, two Mexicans on the vampiro side. They looked surprised to see two trucks pull up, engines idling.

  Moncho was — had been? — an American citizen. He could spill the beans.

  The teenage boy was nearly dead. By their detached expressions, Thompson figured the guards were going to wait him out. The girl was throwing herself at them, telling them the horrible story. Saying there had been one more, her cousin, Norteamericano, who was forced from the truck and made to run, and the one with the beard had shot him.

  Bobby shook hands with all four guards. He was slipping them something — money, drugs. Bribes, at any rate. They took all the illegals off their hands including the girl, who was shrieking, shrieking for help. Thompson kept his hands easy on the wheel, and the two trucks trundled back across the desert.

  — 5 —

  They went to the Shaft that night. Thompson threw them back. The TV was on, and in some kind of sick karmic joke, Yuki Nitobe was interviewing Luther Swann.

  “This is happening to these people against their will,” Swann was saying. “We need to be tolerant while we search for a cure. ”

  “Yeah, tolerate this,” Bobby said, giving the flat-screen the finger. He put his elbows on the bar and picked up his shot. Cocked his head and downed it. “Those assholes don’t know what it’s like out here in the trenches. Swarming across the border. Damn, did you see them? They’re like jackrabbits. ”

  “Rats,” Fug said.

  “What if someone comes looking for Moncho?” Walker asked quietly. His face was drawn, tense. He didn’t like what his brother had done. Thompson wondered if he could be flipped.

  “Who? Who is going to look for him?” Bobby said. He signaled to Bodie to bring another shot. “Two,” he said to Bodie. “One for my little brother, who seriously needs to loosen up. ”

  Bodie set down two shots. A nod from Thompson, and he was off to get him one, too.

  “We still feel that we can avert a crisis. ” It was some Pentagon general pontificating away, in the way that all bureaucrats did.

  “You asshole,” Bobby yelled at the screen. “We’re at war!”

  “Fuckin’ A, Bobby!” a patron called from across the room. He was a toothless, grizzled desert rat. Thompson recognized him from his apartment complex.

  “We’re at war!” Bobby shouted again. Four of the O. M. s cheered. Thompson smiled grimly and Walker stared down at his empty shot glass. Then he glanced past his brother at Thompson, and caught his eye. Held it.

  Thompson excused himself, walked into the corridor that led to the greasy kitchen and the filthy bathroom, and pulled out his cell phone. Dialed.

  His handler did not pick up. He erased the call and went back into the bar.

  — 6 —

  No one in town said a word when, at Bobby’s suggestion, Thompson moved into 12 Vega.

  No one asked where Moncho was. No one came from out of town to investigate his disappearance. The O. M. s started referring to 12 Vega as “Carrot Top’s house,” and by virtue of occupying a house, Bobby said he had moved up to recruit and the other soldiers began to treat Thompson with more respect than a recruit was due. It was unconscious on their part; it made him nervous, because it conferred increased full-patch worthiness on him as well. No one became a full patch without passing a test — committing a felony, usually a murder. Next time they ferried illegals back across the border, he might be the one running through the darkness with a glinting . 38.

  His handler answered three weeks later. Thompson said, “I need to get the hell out of here. ”

  His handler said, “Sit tight,” and hung up.

  Thompson methodically went through all Moncho’s mail. There were coded letters — coyote assignments, he assumed. He didn’t show any of them to Bobby. He burned them over the flame of a vanilla-scented candle he’d found underneath Moncho’s bathroom sink. He’d been living in Moncho’s house for over a month when Moncho got a letter from the IRS, telling him he’d overpaid his taxes. A refund check was enclosed. $219. 21.

  Thompson went into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat lid, and stared downward, as if he could see himself, treading water so as not to drown.

  Then, as he stood and headed for the door, Moncho lunged for him, fangs extended.

  Moncho’s eyes glowed red and his canines were an inch long. Moncho was a vampire, and he hurled himself, hissing, at Thompson. The bathroom was tiny but Thompson’s extensive martial arts training included knees and elbows, and his body supplied the adrenaline to add deadly force to his moves as he beat Moncho back. Moncho had a reflection, and he was bleeding. Beneath Thompson’s fists, his flesh felt warm and he was panting, breathing.

  Thompson pummeled him into the hallway and Moncho slammed backward against the wall. He left blood on the wall as he pushed off, hissing at Thompson. Thompson kept hitting. One of Moncho’s fangs broke off. His face was hamburger. <
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  Thompson hit him so hard that Moncho whirled in a half-circle. Thompson saw the gunshot wound. Bobby had only grazed the side of Moncho’s head.

  Thompson hit him again. Then Moncho collapsed on the floor with a weird, high-pitched keening that Thompson translated as crying. Through shredded lips, Moncho said in English, “This. This is my house. ”

  Then the bright red glow in his eyes went out.

  "JUNK" PT. 2

  Jonathan Maberry

  — 6 —

  Christopher Street, West Village, NY

  September 30, 8:36 a. m.

  Thirteen Days before the V-Event

  When Detective second grade Jerry Schmidt and his partner, detective third grade Mike Yanoff, arrived at the crime scene, they already had a pretty good idea that this was going to be a pisser of a case.

  The chatter on the radio had been exceedingly formal, and that was never a good sign. It usually meant that this was either something internal — and Schmidt didn’t think so because he usually got a cell call with a heads-up — or it was something that had headline potential. Cops who had political aspirations loved the political cases, but cops who wanted to do their jobs didn’t. Nothing could make a case go colder than press coverage. Bad guys read newspapers, too. With the speed of Internet news, a perpetrator in a hot case was often inspired to get on a train or bus, or take a long drive in the country and be somewhere else before forensics finished collecting hair and fibers. That kind of early warning system hurt a lot of good investigations.

  And, Schmidt knew from personal experience, headline cases often dialed up the pain for the families of the vics. Schmidt had seen the crushing effect on people who were already having the worst day of their life.

  Now the press would be everywhere. Those pricks were often talented investigators, which meant that way too often they were interviewing witnesses and suspects long before the detectives could get there. Pissing in the pool, polluting lines of investigation, spoiling leads.

  All of this ran through his head as he and Yanoff got out of their unmarked Crown Victoria on a side street adjacent to the crime scene. Uniformed officers had already blocked off the street and were doing active crowd control. So far, however, there were no news vans and no reporters doing stand-ups.