It’s a hell of a lot for one man to eat alone.
And then: Probably sells it to the fresh food markets in Manhattan.
Ramon swept his gaze around the cold storage room one last time, taking in the custom insulation and wiring and the near-immaculate state of cleanliness, before stepping out and shutting the door behind himself. He’d seen enough abattoirs in his day working on the mindless bovine projects that paid their bills to know a skilled butcher when he saw it. He’d seen enough hanging carcasses in coolers that he didn’t find them shockingly repulsive anymore.
But this . . . .
This made his stomach turn and knot up in a way he never thought possible. Legit or not — and he thought not — there was something sickening about doing this kind of work in the basement of one’s own home.
The room he was standing in now, the prep room, was, in stark contrast to the freezer, a grisly horror chamber. Blood and gore were splattered everywhere. It covered the walls, coated the floor. Droplets of it had even sprayed onto the ceiling.
A coiled hose dangled from one corner, the end capped with a spray nozzle. The room was meant to be washed down, but it clearly hadn’t.
It appeared that Sam had been interrupted partway through his latest butchery. The victim was still splayed out on a stainless steel table in the middle of the room. The fur was peeled away and tossed onto the floor. The empty pelt had already grown stiff. The carcass was starting to blacken from its exposure to air.
He stepped closer, sensing more than hearing the soles of his shoes sticking to the floor. He peered down at the grinning skull of the animal as he circled the table. Based on its size, he guessed that it had been a goat, though the telltale hooves had already been sawed away. The exposed surface of the body was covered with a carpet of tiny off-white pellets.
Curious, he bent over to inspect them before realizing they were fly eggs, and he felt himself gag. The room was remarkably free of the winged adults — he saw only a few buzzing around the drain — but he knew a single fly could lay thousands of eggs.
This time, the bile rising inside his gorge threatened to breach the levee of his throat.
Ramon turned to flee from the nightmare room and instead crashed into the instrument table, sending it and Locke’s tools of slaughter crashing to the floor. He reached around to catch himself, but his hand closed on the stump of the madman’s latest kill. As he fell, the tacky carcass peeled away from the table, making a loud sticky, ripping sound, like the pull of a long strip of Velcro. He hit the floor hard on his knees and cried out. The skinned carcass tumbled onto the backs of his legs.
Nearly incoherent with revulsion, Ramon pushed himself off the gore-soaked floor. A bolt of pain shot from his left palm up past his elbow and into his shoulder. It ran a jagged coursed down his back, doubling him over. And yet he lurched forward again, upward, forcing himself to run despite the agony and his nearly horizontal position. He pedalled madly, like one of those fitness freaks on one of those stationary bikes at one of those street-facing gyms in downtown New York.
His feet abruptly gained purchase, jolting him off-balance and nearly throwing him again onto the instruments — the heavy knives and clamps, the short handsaw and its pneumatic cousin, all of them enameled black with dried blood and tissue — and slammed his shoulder into the door. All he could think of was escaping this house of horrors.
Up the wooden steps and out of the cellar. He left bloody handprints tattooed on everything he touched. The stairs. The wall of the front hallway. Another smeared still-life on the inside of the entry door, like a fourth-grader’s Thanksgiving Day turkey painting.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
“Are we going to die?”
“What?” Lyssa said, startled as much by Cassie’s voice as the question itself. “No, honey. Shh . . . .” She lowered herself to the bed and pulled the girl close to her side. She could feel Cassie’s ribs beneath her fingers, the sharpness of her shoulder and elbow against her side, and she wondered if it had always been that way and she’d never really noticed it before. “Why would you think that?”
“Because we’re all sick.”
“No, we’re not, honey.” She hesitated and thought, Just Daddy. “None of us is sick.”
“But Daddy says you need our help to get better.”
“He said that?”
Cassie nodded.
Lyssa clenched her jaw to keep from swearing. For Ramon to characterize her in such a way in front of their daughter, well, she never would’ve thought he’d do such a thing. Was he trying to drive a wedge between them?
“Listen, Cassie, when your brother died—”
“Remy.”
“Yes. When he died, for Mommy and Daddy it was like that time you hit your head really hard at the playground. You remember that? You remember how you had a hard time thinking and you couldn’t see straight? Well, it’s sort of like that.”
“You’re dizzy?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Sometimes it takes a long time to recover from something like that, to regain one’s balance and focus. Sometimes, a person never does.”
“Like you?”
“No, like Daddy, honey.”
She stood up and circled the room, picking up random items, looking at them (but not seeing them), setting them back down again. Her thoughts were a jumble. She felt like she was being pushed and pulled in too many different directions and that if she didn’t hold on, she’d fly apart. She’d break into a thousand pieces and those pieces would be scattered away. She needed to hold it together, for Cassie’s sake. And for Ramon’s. Because he couldn’t take care of himself.
There was another quiet rumble from outside. The window was streaked with rain, showing nothing but shades of silver and gray. A step to the side and she could see down into Mister Locke’s back yard, the image distorted by the wriggling worms of water running down the glass. There was the chicken coop, the hens inside a tan blur.
She pulled the window open an inch to let in a little of the fresh air, and the sound of the rain grew louder. There was another rumble, then a series of sharp claps which caused her to pause and listen. They didn’t sound like thunder.
And they didn’t repeat.
“Why doesn’t Daddy like the man on the radio?”
He turned. “Excuse me?”
“The man you like to listen to.”
She almost didn’t answer. “Because Daddy doesn’t believe him, Cass. He thinks he’s a liar.”
“Why?”
“Why does he think that? There are some people who get paid to tell lies. That’s their job.”
“How can you tell if he’s one of them?”
Lyssa shrugged. “There are things you’re too young to understand.”
The warble of a siren nearby drew Lyssa’s attention back to the window. She glanced out at the view, a vibrant abstract painting, a melting Picasso. While she stood there, a shimmering colorful object flashed below her.
Lyssa’s frown deepened. What the hell was Ramon doing next door?
Below her, the garage door slammed open. “Lyssa!” he screamed. His footsteps were loud on the stairs. Then he was at the bedroom door, pounding. “Open up! Damn it, I’m bleeding everywhere.”
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Ramon hissed as the cold water from the faucet dug mercilessly into the wound on his palm. He reduced the flow, then gently pried at the edges to peer at the damage. Blood continued to flow, pulsing from a severed vein, splashing into the sink and turning the porcelain pink.
“What the hell were you doing over there, Rame?”
“I was worried about him.”
“You were worried about yourself.”
He took a deep breath, but didn’t take her bait. “I wanted to make sure he was all right.”
“And is he?”
Ramon shook his head and winced as a needle of pain shot up his wrist. “He wasn’t there. Not inside, anyway.”
Lyssa retrieved the first aid kit fr
om upstairs and began to bandage the wound. “You should get stitches.”
“I don’t need stitches,” he growled, yanking his hand away. She grabbed it back and held it so she could finish. For a moment, the bandage remained clean, but a spot of blood soon appeared and began to spread.
“Put pressure on it.”
“He butchers— Ow! Shit!” He pressed his other thumb into his palm and gritted his teeth. “He butchers his own meat in his basement. He’s got a slaughter room and a walk-in freezer. It’s stocked with all sorts of meat. Mostly chickens, but also small animals, goats, I think. Maybe pigs.”
“He’s crazy.”
“Because he slaughters his own animals? Butchering your own meat doesn’t qualify you for the nuthouse.”
“Doing it in your own house does. Normal people don’t do that. Normal people don’t murder a little girl’s rabbit without a second thought. Only sick bastards do that.”
Ramon sighed and shrugged. “I don’t think those really have anything to do with each other.”
“Why are you defending him?”
“Look, hon. What happened the other day with Cas—”
“Then what about this morning? What about when he came over here and tried to break in? He was crazy.”
“He was angry. He overreacted. And I overreacted. It happens.”
Yeah, you and everyone else with those new phones.
Well, she was tired of fighting him. He could have his damn phone and keep disbelieving if he wanted. She was leaving. She threw the device onto the table.
Ramon glanced at it but didn’t take it. He folded up some paper towels and pressed it against the bandage, which was soaking through again. “He left his front door open, so he can’t have gone far. Or maybe he didn’t mean to go anywhere but then something happened. He was in the middle of slaughtering an animal when he left, but the carcass on that table was at least a day old.”
“You said he was standing out in the front yard. You thought he was waiting for someone. Maybe they came and picked him up.”
“I thought he was waiting for the police, but now I don’t think so. That little operation in his basement? He wouldn’t want the cops to find out about it, I’m sure of that. Something like that can’t be legal.”
Lyssa pried the bandage away and dropped it into the sink. “It’s slowing down.” She added a new pad and told him to keep pressure on it.
“I’m leaving,” she told him. “Once it stops raining. I’m taking Cassie and we’re leaving the island. I don’t know for how long. I don’t know where we’ll go. You can come with us if you want. But you’re not stopping us.”
This time he didn’t argue.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
Cassie’s scream jerked Lyssa from her sleep.
“No!” she heard Ramon shout. “Stay away from her! Get away from my daughter!”
Lyssa leapt from the bed and raced down the stairs and skidded to a stop when she saw the man standing in their sliding door.
“Hello, Missus S.”
“What are you doing here?”
Ronnie’s housemate stepped inside, shoving Cassie ahead of him. He had a hold of her collar, and she was struggling, kicking and batting at the man. He leaned over and encircled her waist, binding her with his arms and preventing her from hitting him.
“Cassie?” Lyssa exclaimed. The girl was covered in mud. “What’s going on? Where’s Daddy?” She started to turn.
“Don’t move,” came a second voice from the front hallway, low and sufficiently menacing to cut through the fog of her confusion. “Stay right where you are.”
She turned anyway. The second man was slightly older than Ramon, large, though his muscles were beginning to soften with age and inactivity. He had a pistol leveled at Ramon’s head. “Everyone,” he said, carefully enunciating each syllable, “into the kitchen.”
“Who are you?”
“NOW!”
Lyssa flinched and scurried up the hallway. “Please don’t hurt my daughter.”
“Sit down.”
She sat and watched as Cassie was dragged in, still kicking and grunting. The older man forced her into another chair and held her down with a meaty hand while Ronnie’s housemate stepped over to the front door. The gun never wavered from Ramon’s temple.
“What do you want with us?”
Neither man answered.
“It’s Bryn, right?” she asked, turning toward the young man. He was doing something to the knob.
He looked back at her and smirked. “Fuck, lady, I’ve told you about a thousand times it’s Brad. Why the hell can’t you get that through your thick skull?”
“I’m sorry. I just— Please, don’t hurt my daughter. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Okay, please. She’s—”
Cassie broke free from beneath the other man and ran over to Lyssa. He grabbed at her, snagging a handful of hair and yanking her onto her back.
“Let go of her!” Lyssa screamed.
Cassie scrambled over and clutched Lyssa’s legs.
Neither man bothered with her. The man holding the gun shifted closer to Ramon and forced him down into Cassie’s chair. “Sit,” he said.
The front door opened, then shut, and a third man appeared in the hallway. He was much older than the other two, though he looked much more potent. He didn’t say anything, just nodded slightly at the man with the gun, who stepped back. The gun remained pointed at Ramon’s head.
Lyssa focused her glare on Brad. She didn’t recognize the other two, but she knew him. And she intended to let him and the others know that the moment they let her go, she was going to go straight to the police. “Where’s Ronnie?” she spat. “Is she in on this, too? What about the other girl, Jennifer?”
Brad sneered at her. “Oh, sure, you remember their names. No, they’re not involved.”
“Where are they? Did you hurt them?”
“Young Miss Jennifer Whatley left the island days ago, back when things first started to hit the fan. I’ll miss her. Smart girl. Good in the sack.”
The man at the door didn’t move. There was nothing on his face, no emotion, nothing.
“Poor Miss Mueller, however.” Brad shook his head. He was clearly enjoying himself tormenting them. “Well, she’s gone, too. Gone, and yet . . . not gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Unfortunate, really. If she’d just partook of my bedroom charms—”
“Pig!”
“Oh, don’t deny it, Missus S. You wanted some of this, too. I’ve seen how you look—”
“That’s enough,” the man at the door finally said. His voice was quiet, yet commanding. It was impossible not to heed it. “We don’t have time for your adolescent perversions, Mister Manning. Don’t make me rue my decision to bring you.”
“You need me!”
“Hackers are a dime a dozen.” He turned to Lyssa, ignoring the blush that rose in Brad’s face or the flash of anger in his eyes. “I’m afraid Miss Mueller will not be returning to your employ.”
“Where is she?”
“Let’s just say she’s unavailable.”
“Is she dead?”
“Ha!” Brad barked. “You could say that. Jenny warned her to leave, to get the fuck out of Dodge when the shit started to hit the fan. But she didn’t. Stubborn bitch was more worried about Cassie than her own safety. Kept saying something about a bat.”
“A what?”
“She was in the way so I . . . .” He smirked. “I introduced her to some friends of mine. Believe me, they enjoyed her quite well. You could say she was a tasty dish.”
Lyssa felt the room spin. “You fucking pig.”
Ramon lunged from his chair at the boy, but the man with the gun grabbed him. “Don’t do that again,” he warned. “Next time I’ll make you pay.”
The old man stepped forward. “Everyone settle down. And that’s enough out of you, Mister Manning. Last warning.”
“If it’s money you want—” Lyssa began.
“We’re not interested in money,” the old man said. “All we want is information”
“What kind of information?” Ramon asked. He shook the hand off his shoulder and gave the man a defiant glare.
“To begin, the whereabouts of your colleague,” the old man said, drawing Ramon’s eyes and holding it with his own steel gaze, “The man you know as Andrew Royce.”
“Drew?” Lyssa turned to Ramon, frowning at him in confusion. “I don’t understand. Ramon, what’s going on here?”
“I don’t know, Lyssa.”
Brad stepped forward and held out his phone. It was one of the new devices. Lyssa’s eyes flicked from it back to Brad’s face. Another victim of the Stream. Maybe they’re all crazy.
The image on the screen belonged to Drew, though it was clearly several years old. His cheeks were fuller, as was the hair on his head. His skin didn’t look so pale. This was a much younger, much more paunchy, Drew than the man she had known the past year and a half. “Just so we’re clear,” Brad said, “this is the man we’re looking for.”
Lyssa nodded.
“Where is he?”
“We haven’t seen him in over a week.”
“That’s not what I asked, Missus S.”
“How would we know where he is?” she snapped. She hugged Cassie tighter to her. “Why are you asking about him?”
The man at the doorway stepped forward. He held a folder in his hand, a single word stamped across the front: INFECTED. “This man was conducting experiments in your laboratory,” he said. “Specifically, he was working with a highly dangerous virus—”
“We didn’t know anything about that! We told the police already! We had nothing to do with any of that!”
“I’m actually not interested in the virus. I already know all about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I created it.”
“He was working for you? Drew was working for you?”
S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) Page 61