“Yeah, Logrono…the guy’s supposed to be a real badass. Into all kinds of trafficking across the border, north and south of Mexico. So, what’s the whole story?”
“We got a call on Luiz’s cell phone from a guy claiming to be Logrono. He says he’s holed up in this place in La Paz and he’s surrounded by bad guys. We’re not sure who he meant though. This green shit is leaving a real trail of fucking destruction down this way so we got to assume that’s the cause of the problem.”
“That’s why we need to can it as soon as we can, Marco. You anywhere near La Paz yet?”
Mancini sighed. “Nah, we’re only about halfway down Baja, Eddie. We ran into a real shit storm a few miles back. The kid’s T-Bird got totaled and now we’re in some freaky town called Sandblast, trying to get the damn car fixed up but there don’t seem to be anybody around this place. It’s like a damn ghost town out here.”
“All right, just hang on in there, Marco and keep me updated, okay? Listen, I got to go. Call me when you have some good news.”
“But Eddie, we might need to find another vehicle from someplace if we can’t fix up this damn T-Bird and…” Mancini stopped when he realized he was talking to a dead line. Reinbeck had basically washed his hands of them. “Thanks Eddie, you fucking prick,” he spat.
Mancini replaced his cell phone in his pocket and took a long hard suck on his cigarette. Without any kind of transport, they were marooned in the shitty little, sand swept town.
Chapter Thirty
Mancini swung around with an increasing sense of anxiety when he heard a gunshot echo across the terrain. He couldn’t see the garage from his position, as he’d walked a little way down the side street. Crouching low to the ground, Mancini drew his handgun and tried to pinpoint where the gunfire had come from. The town was deserted as far as he knew but were the local residents suddenly looming from their hiding places?
He swiveled and surveyed the side street behind him but still nobody occupied the surrounding area. The dwellings tapered into the distance and only bland desert lay beyond the buildings. Another wave of sand blew into his face and he spat out the tiny grains stuck on his lips and around his front teeth.
Mancini scurried to the corner of the side street and peered around the edge of the building, onto the town’s main thoroughfare. He couldn’t see anybody moving around the square but a prone body lay on the sidewalk, a few yards from the garage. The Thunderbird was still in the position they’d left it, with a steady, shimmering heat haze emanating from the engine. Mancini couldn’t see the body clearly from his position as the felled individual lay feet first towards him. He could make out the soles of the shoes and the victim’s blue denim jeans but that was as much as he saw.
“Shit,” he hissed. “Where the hell have all the others gone?”
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Trey’s number. The call went straight to voice mail. Weighing up the risks, Mancini decided to bolt from his position. He ran towards the garage and the immobile Thunderbird, taking up cover crouching beside the vehicle. The heat from the water starved engine radiated against the side of Mancini’s face and his shoulder. He shimmied around the car to take a look at the body on the sandy ground. The fatally injured person was a big, stout guy with long hair tied up in a pony tail, splayed on the ground amongst a pool of blood behind his head. A single bullet hole had pierced the center of his forehead. The guy’s eyes were closed so Mancini couldn’t decipher if the body had been infected by the green ice virus. The garage interior remained darkened and the closed sign was still in place inside the front door.
“What the hell is going on?” Mancini muttered and took out his cell phone from his pocket again. He attempted to call Trey once more but received the same answer service.
He glanced around the buildings along the main street, studying the dark interiors behind the windows. No signs of life were visible from behind the panes and he couldn’t be sure which direction the shot had come from that had felled the big guy. The sound of running footfalls to his right caused Mancini to swivel around, leaning against the side of the vehicle with his handgun held at the ready. He peered around the Thunderbird’s trunk as the onrushing steps grew louder and drew nearer.
Mancini saw Jorge slow down to a shuffling jog, before coming to a halt when he drew level with the car. His face was coated with sweat and his expression was of a worried man, deep in trouble. His eyes bulged wide and his mouth hung open, huffing heavily and nervously whimpering with every inward suck of breath. Mancini noticed Jorge fumbling with his belt and the fastenings around the top of his pants. Jorge gasped when he saw the dead body lying in the sand and stared down at the deceased man.
“Hey, Jorge,” Mancini hissed.
“Huh?” Jorge anxiously twisted, shuffling to look in each direction along the street.
“Down here,” Mancini whispered.
Jorge finally caught sight of Mancini crouching behind the rear wheel, between the Thunderbird and the garage exterior.
“What the hell is going on?”
Jorge hurried to join Mancini and hunkered down beside him, still breathing heavily.
“U-oh, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, Jorge. What the hell is the matter with you? Shit your pants, or what?”
“Worse than that,” Jorge stammered. “I went into that bar back down the street to take a shit and saw the bathroom, right inside the entrance door. I did my business and thought I’d grab a nice cold beer while I was there so I went further inside, right into the bar but then I saw bodies, lots of them. They were all just laying around the floor.”
“So, were they dead or what?” Mancini huffed.
“I thought so at first, so I started to back out of the bar but then one of them sat up and looked at me with those horrible black eyes,” Jorge explained. “He kind of groaned at me and his noise seemed to wake up the others around the bar. It was like they were kind of asleep or something. Then they all started to get up so I ran away and came back here.”
“Are they headed this way?” Mancini craned his neck around the side of the back fender, taking a long glance down the main street.
“I don’t know,” Jorge sighed. “They started to follow me but I don’t see them.” He nodded towards the dead body on the ground by the car. “Who is that guy and why did you shoot him?”
“Hell, I didn’t shoot him,” Mancini snapped. “I heard the shot from way over there.” He jutted his chin towards the side street. “I came right back here and now there’s no sign of Trey and that girl…what’s her name?”
“Leticia,” Jorge confirmed. “Where did they go?”
“They were right here when I walked up the street. I was only gone a few minutes, for Christ’s sake. Trey was trying to raise somebody in that damn garage.” He jabbed his thumb at the building behind him.
“What the heck are we going to do now?”
Mancini sighed. It was a good question, a query he didn’t have any immediate answer for.
Chapter Thirty-One
The overhead sun reflected off the red paintwork across the Thunderbird’s trunk. Mancini tried to blink away the dazzle as he studied the main street. He flipped his sunshades down from his forehead to cover his eyes.
“We sure as shit can’t stay put here forever,” he muttered. “It looks like whoever shot that guy was facing down the street, that way.” He indicated a left to right movement from their position behind the car.
“You think Trey shot the guy?” Jorge asked.
Mancini shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a possibility but we can’t take it for granted. There may be some mystery shooter inside one of the buildings down this street. Every damn thing seems like a total mystery since you and your co-workers unleashed that green shit on the world, Jorge.”
“I’m sorry…but I had no idea the merchandise would cause all this…this chaos,” Jorge stammered. He felt a sinking sensation in his guts, as the increasing enormity of the effects of his produce continued to w
eigh heavily on his conscience.
Mancini weighed up the situation. “It seems it only takes one infected person, one guy who has taken some of that shit, to infect a whole bunch of other people. My guess is, that’s what’s happened right here in this town.”
As long as they remained mobile they could continue to escape the horrors but now they remained stranded until the Thunderbird was fixed or they found alternative transport. The lack of numbers of parked vehicles along the main street worried Mancini. “I think the uninfected people got out of here while they still could,” he murmured. “An outbreak of an infection would have a devastating affect on a rural place like this.”
“Surely, the cops or the military must get wind of what’s going on soon?” Jorge said.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Mancini groaned. “We’ll all be held in some god damn quarantine center, if that happens. We’ve got to keep moving. Keep on the road. We can’t waste time like this.”
He impatiently pulled out his cell phone and tried Trey’s number again. The call went straight to voice mail. This time Mancini left a message. “Where the hell are you, Trey? We’ve got a whole bunch of hostiles heading our way and we need to get the fuck out of this shit hole town. Call me back or get your ass back to the Thunderbird, right now.” He clicked to end the call and stuffed the cell back into his pocket. “There’s no point hanging out here any longer. We ‘aint going to get this crate fixed up with any ease.” He flicked his free hand against the side of the Thunderbird, producing a metallic clang. “We need to find another working vehicle and get the hell out of Dodge.” He decided they couldn’t wait for Trey any longer. Trey and Leticia’s survival weren’t a necessity in the grand scheme of things.
“Where are we headed?” Jorge gasped.
“Any place but here,” Mancini sighed. He slid alongside the Thunderbird, glancing up the street the way the vehicle faced. “I can’t see any movement up ahead; the direction the shot came from.”
“Why are we going that way?” Jorge asked, shimmying behind Mancini.
Mancini turned his head. “You said that crowd from the bar is headed after you. They’ll be following from the other direction, Jorge. Do you want to head straight back into their open arms, you dumbass?”
Jorge pulled a pained expression and shrugged.
“There has to be some working vehicles parked up around here someplace,” Mancini said.
“What about the other two? Aren’t we going to wait for them to come back here?”
“No time,” Mancini huffed. “They had their chance.” He moved quickly from the cover of the Thunderbird, stealthily zigzagging in a hunched motion, keeping an eye on the building’s windows along the street ahead.
Jorge groaned and followed Mancini’s path. Mancini looped around in an arc, ducking into the cover of the shadows of the first side street on their left. He stopped when he reached the building at the corner of the main thoroughfare. Holding his handgun pointed to the ground, he peered around the corner, still wary of a hidden shooter laying in wait in one of the buildings in front of them. Jorge tagged along behind, not sure how to move but still keeping an eye out for any armed assailants up ahead. He took a glance back behind them and performed an unintended double-take.
“Mancini,” he hissed. “Take a look behind us.”
Mancini turned his head and glanced back down the main street. Around two dozen shambling figures roamed the width of the road, heading towards them.
“Looks like your bar crowd have our scent,” he whispered. “They haven’t spotted us yet or they’d be heading our way at speed. Keep to the shadows and follow me.”
Mancini turned so his back was flat against the building behind him. The cool stone pressing through his shirt was a welcome relief in the blazing heat. Jorge slowly backtracked so he was against the wall alongside Mancini, facing the oncoming infected horde. Mancini slowly side-stepped, moving further down into the side street. Jorge followed suit.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Mancini warned. “Once we’re out of sight of the main street, we need to move, real quick.”
“Got it,” Jorge whispered, keeping his eye on the slow moving figures, roughly thirty yards from their position.
Mancini briefly glanced at the small store fronts and private dwelling windows in the buildings behind him as he shuffled along the street. He remained cautious of a secondary attack from the infected, lurking inside one of the structures to his rear. His main focus lingered on the blood encrusted figures ambling along the main street, drawing closer to his and Jorge’s position.
Mancini stopped moving when the leading infected male’s gaze drifted across the corner of the side street. The contaminated man stood still and Mancini noticed horrific injuries to his throat and the right side of his face. He wore the remains of some kind of brown colored uniform, which Mancini didn’t recognize nor was concerned with. The main worry was if the guy had spotted them amongst the shadows. The infected guy’s ebony eyes seemed to drift over Mancini and Jorge as his head turned from right to left, scanning the area. Mancini briefly wondered how effective the contaminated people’s eyesight remained. Did they rely on scent alone?
The infected man in the brown uniform turned his head away from the side street and carried on shuffling forward. Mancini tapped Jorge on his thigh and motioned with his head to continue moving alongside the building walls. Another fierce gust flicked a coating of sand through the center of the main street, allowing Mancini and Jorge a brief moment of cover.
“Okay, let’s move,” Mancini hissed and bolted along the sidewalk, further down the side street. Jorge followed, moving awkwardly and lagging behind.
Mancini slowed to a brisk walking pace when he decided he was far enough away from the main street. He glanced at the buildings on each side of the road, watching out for any stray infected or a gun totting human being. Jorge caught him up, breathing heavily and gasping in huge gulps of air.
“You’re out of shape, Jorge,” Mancini muttered without turning around. “Too much partying and living it up isn’t good for the body.”
Jorge mumbled something incompressible as he wiped sweat from his face and continued to heavily suck in the warm air. He wished he was relaxing on a lounger beside a swimming pool in Cancun or Acapulco, drinking cocktails and mingling with stunning bikini clad girls, the scenario he’d planned before the ongoing crisis. He wished he was anywhere but marooned in the hell hole of Chorro de Arena.
Jorge struggled to keep pace with Mancini, watching the back of the ex-Ranger’s long, blond hair sway in the breeze. He knew Mancini’s reputation in LA as a ruthless bastard and realized he’d have to precariously plot his actions if he was going to stay alive. Jorge turned back to take a glance back towards the main street and a sudden thought occurred to him.
“Don’t forget about the cash in the trunk of that Thunderbird. We can’t just leave it where it is. Eventually, somebody will come through here and start rooting through the car, looking to loot it.”
Mancini stopped walking and spun around to face Jorge. “There’s more at stake here than you’re stolen booty, Jorge. I’m just trying to keep us alive right now. If we can, we’ll go back there and get everything we can out of the T-Bird, before we get out of here. But at this moment in time, I mean right here and now, we need to find a roadworthy vehicle or we’re going to become like those goons back down the street. Comprende?”
Jorge’s eyes bulged as he furiously nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, yeah, I hear you,” he stammered.
Mancini turned and continued walking down the side street at a rapid pace. He turned and glanced back towards the main boulevard every few yards, checking to see if the infected were on their tail. Jorge followed, half running to keep up. The muscles in his thighs and calves ached and he longed to stop for a breather. The days when he was physically fit and active were long in the past. He nearly bumped into his accomplice’s back when Mancini abruptly halted in front of him.
“That could be our way out of here,” Mancini said, pointing across the street with his handgun.
Jorge followed Mancini’s gaze and outwardly groaned when he saw what he was indicating to.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“They gone yet?”
Trey turned his head and took a peek through the garage window behind him. He turned back to the gunman and reluctantly nodded his head. Mancini and Jorge had disappeared from view, scuttling away down a side street to the left of the garage.
The gunman, a rough looking thick set guy with a square, unshaven jaw and long black hair, clasped one hand over Leticia’s mouth and held a Beretta M9 handgun to her temple with the other. He had the physical appearance of a Mexican but Trey recognized his accent as a drawl from one of the southern U.S. States. The three of them huddled near the back wall of the garage workshop, behind a pickup truck with its hood raised open.
“Look, man, I don’t know what your whole angle is, but we’ve got no beef with you, so why don’t you just let us go, dude?” Trey glanced at Leticia. Her eyes were wide in fear as she was entangled in the muscular and heavily tattooed arms of the gunman standing behind her. Trey’s eyes flicked to his own firearm and cell phone sitting on top of the oil stained workbench beside the gunman and Leticia.
The gunman shook his head. “Nobody is going anyplace,” he muttered. “Nobody moves without my say so.” He followed Trey’s gaze to the workbench. “Oh, you want to go for that gun, don’t you, Sweetheart?” He licked his lips, relishing the challenge. “Well, go for it, if you think you’re quick enough.”
Trey would have loved nothing more than to seize his Heckler and Koch from the work bench and pop a round right between the rough guy’s eyes, but he knew he wouldn’t cover the few yards separating them quickly enough to perform that particular task. He switched his gaze back to the gunman and noticed what he first thought was a smudge of oil below his right eye, was in fact a teardrop tattoo. Trey knew the symbol was a common ink impression for an inmate who has committed a serious crime. He felt his heart bang against his chest and his panic levels raised another couple of notches.
Green Ice: A Deadly High Page 16