by JJ Zep
“This way,” Pete instructed his men as they pushed Ruby along a corridor. She had the stench in her nostrils now, the sickening Z blend of offal and sewage, plus something else, something that smelled like swamp water.
Another raucous cheer, then the high-pitched cry of a dog, obviously in pain, that set her teeth on edge.
A pair of double doors lay just ahead, three burly men standing sentry. A small locker room opened off to the side where another man guarded an arsenal of weapons – handguns, rifles and shotguns.
Pete brought his entourage to a halt. He leaned in and spoke into Ruby’s ear. His breath smelled of decay and cheap liquor. “My boys have to hand over their weapons here,” he said. “Which might get you thinking that now’s a good time to make your play. It ain’t. Look behind you.”
Ruby turned and caught a brief glimpse of Pearl being led towards a flight of stairs by Mae. She saw too that her katana was slung over Mae’s back. Then the men to either side yanked her back around to face Pete.
“Don’t you worry,” Pete said. “Mae will take good care of her. You have my word on that.”
“And if anything happens to Pearl you die tonight. You have my word on that.”
“Don’t go writing checks you can’t cash, girl,” Pete sneered.
Ruby felt a push in her back. “Evening fellers,” Pete said to the men guarding the doors.
“You boys are going to have to unpack those weapons before you go inside,” one of the men said in monotone from behind a pair of wrap around shades.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pete responded jovially, then to his men. “You heard the man.”
Pete’s crew deposited their weapons in the locker room and were then patted down. Pete was also searched, the guard relieving him of a long-barreled chrome-plated .44, a .38 in an ankle holster, and a switchblade.
“Sure you don’t want my watch too? Pete joked, flashing a gaudy gold Rolex.
“Enjoy the show,” the guard said, ignoring Pete’s weak attempt at humor.
Ruby was pushed face first against the swing doors, then through them into a cavernous, dimly lit space. She took in the scene in a single sweep.
“You have got to be kidding me!” she blurted.
“Cool ain’t it?” Pete said. “Welcome to the big time.”
fifteen
There were things to be done. Much as he wanted to stay with Kelly, to be there if Jojo needed him, Chris knew that time was against them. If they were to implement the plan Joe had suggested, he’d have to check out Lakes Mall, see if it could be defended. Then he’d have to run the escape routes and make sure they were free of obstruction. Lastly, he’d have to bring in a couple of boats from Pleasant Point and anchor them within easy reach.
Even before he got to do those things, he’d have to check on the state of their current defenses. He’d been trying to raise the sentries on route 18 and route 330 for the last hour without any joy. Sheriff Walcott was also not picking up. He took care of that problem now, dispatching Charlie to check on the sentry posts and instructing Wackjob to stay and guard the hospital. Then Chris pulled the hospital’s only operational ambulance around to the side entrance and made sure it was gassed up. They’d need that to move Jojo. And if push came to shove they would have to move Jojo, no matter what the doctor said.
Finally, he loaded Sugar up and set out for the mall, driving one of the possible routes, directly up Big Bear Boulevard. On the way back, he’d use the back roads, so that they’d have an alternative if the need arose.
There was traffic on the road today. Chris passed four vehicles heading out in convoy, plus an SUV and a pickup, heavy-laden with passengers and their possessions. He wondered again if they should just scrap their defense plan, load Jojo into the ambulance and head out.
But what if it all turned out to be a false alarm? What if the move killed Jojo? Could he live with that? He decided that he couldn’t. Running would have to remain a last resort, a plan for when there was no other alternative.
The mall loomed to his left and he slowed the Jeep and turned into the lot. He checked the dashboard clock. The run had taken him three minutes.
He got out of the vehicle, leaving the door open so the wolf could follow him out. Then he stood on the tarmac and did a 360-degree surveillance of the surroundings. The Lakes Mall was still in use by the locals, so it was reasonably well maintained, even if most of the smaller stores were boarded up.
The building that drew his attention, though, was the largest in the strip mall, a two-storey supermarket of faux-Swiss cottage design. The front of the building was currently secured by a roll-down steel shutter, which was perfect for their purposes. There was even a tower that extended beyond the roof, where they could set up the lookout post that Joe had suggested.
He walked across the lot and inspected the padlocks securing the steel doors, two rusty old tumblers that he might need to replace. Then he walked to the back of the building and checked the other access points. Those amounted to a loading bay with another shutter in place, and a staff entrance behind a sturdy security gate. Yes, this place looked good.
But before he committed to Joe’s plan, he’d have to scout the proposed escape route. The last thing he wanted was to be surrounded by Z’s and trapped in the supermarket. Z’s were as patient as they were perpetually hungry. Once they had you cornered you were as good as done for. They’d wait around forever if need be.
He walked back to the SUV and whistled for Sugar, waited until she came sprinting across the tarmac and scrambled aboard. Then he got in and turned the ignition. He wished that Joe could be here to go over the plan with him. Joe had been an awful long time fetching Hooley but Chris had half expected that. Hooley was going to take some persuading. Maybe he should call Joe to see how that was going.
He was reaching for the handset when Charlie’s voice squawked from the radio. “Dad, come in.”
“Yeah, Charlie. What’s up?”
“Guess I got to the bottom of your unanswered radio calls,” Charlie said. “I’m at the sentry post on the three-thirty and there’s no one here. The Z’s could sneak right up on us and we’d never know.”
sixteen
The pool was thirty feet by fifty, six feet deep, empty but for an inch of scummy water, turned brackish with blood. In it, about fifty zombies, some of the most horrendously maimed creatures Ruby had ever seen, were engaged in a running battle with a pack of pitbull dogs. Several dogs were already down, the Z’s ripping at their corpses, greedily devouring chunks of bloody flesh, fistfuls of steaming entrails. The four remaining dogs were giving no ground, charging at the Z’s, ripping at them. Ruby had seen dogs react to Z’s before. Even the bravest of them ran a mile, tails tucked firmly between legs. These dogs had to be rabid. Yet even in their rabid fury they were no match for the Z’s. One by one they were cornered, trapped, ripped apart, each death greeted with a cheer from the crowd and an exchange of bank notes as bets were won and lost.
Ruby scanned the massed punters, searching for Pearl. The gym was arranged over three floors, the upper levels overlooking the pool. Punters stood crammed up against the safety barriers, looking down on the action. Mae had been walking Pearl towards the stairs, so it was safe to deduce that Pearl was up there somewhere.
The sound of a chainsaw alerted her attention. At the opposite end of the room the crowd was scattering, a path clearing. A huge, hulking man with dreadlocked hair emerged from the melee. He was bare-chested, dressed in military-style camouflage pants and combat boots. A pair of aviator goggles covered his eyes. His skin had a strange bluish tinge. Ruby had last seen that effect caused by the consumption of BH-17. In this case she realized that it was due to the intricate tattoo work the covered every inch of the man’s face and body. The man reached the edge of the pool and stopped. He held the power saw aloft, then carried out a set of clumsy maneuvers. The blade passed dangerously close to severing an arm or leg.
“Doom! Doom! Doom!” the crowd
began chanting as the man stepped forward. He stopped a moment at the edge of the pool, dropped onto his butt and then slid in, landing in an awkward crouch. A frenzy of bets was immediately placed. Much of the action, Ruby noticed, was coordinated by a small oriental man, perched on a lifeguard’s chair, positioned near the corner of the pool. He seemed bored, sipping from a cocktail glass, a cigarette between his fingers, directing his bookies with nods and inflections.
“That’s our target,” Pete whispered in her ear. “Patrick Chang. He runs the biggest betting book in town. I want in, but the slit-eyed bitch won’t deal. That means Paddy has to go bye-bye.”
“How does that involve me?”
“We ain’t getting anywhere near Chang while he’s around.” He indicated the man in the pool, now wading into the Z’s with his chainsaw. He was clumsy, Ruby noticed, overconfident in his ability to hack through this bunch of far-gone Z’s.
“You take him, we take Chang.”
“And what makes you think I can do that?”
Pete sniggered. “Mae saw you chopping up Z’s in that carnival that rolled through here a week ago. She says you’re good.”
“Z’s don’t carry chainsaws.”
“Well that’s something you’re just going to have to work out for yourself. Besides, I don’t need you to win. Just keep Doom Boy occupied long enough for us to get to Chang.”
“Where’s Pearl?”
“Somewhere safe. And she’ll stay that way as long as I have your full cooperation. Otherwise…” He gave Ruby a wink. She had to fight back the impulse to smash his crooked teeth back down his throat.
“So I agree to fight Doom, and you let us go, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
From the pool came the electrical drone of the chainsaw, Ruby looked down and saw a mess of mutilated corpses. At least half the Z’s were down, hacked to pieces. Doom was walking away, headed for the ladder at the end of the pool, his shift done.
“Doom!” an announcer’s voice proclaimed. “The ultimate killing machine!”
Ruby turned towards Pete the Rat. “You have me at a disadvantage,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
seventeen
Chris brought his Jeep to a stop behind Nathan Walcott’s black and white police cruiser. He was glad to see the vehicle parked at the curb. The Walcotts had some answering to do. The sentries had been their responsibility. If they’d abandoned their posts, Sheriff Walcott and his son were going to have to get their scrawny asses out there and pick up the shift themselves.
If they’re still here, a voice niggled at him, if they haven’t run off like Mayor Sutherland, like the rest of the town officials.
They’re here, Chris reassured himself. He just wished he felt as certain as he pretended to be. He’d been trying to raise Walcott on the radio all the way from the mall.
He walked towards the building, Sugar trotting beside him. She ran off to investigate the minute Chris let her into the foyer.
He immediately had the sense that something was wrong. The place lay in semi-darkness, the shades at the back of the room drawn, tepid light falling on the array of desks behind the counter. He turned towards the Sheriff’s office and saw that the door was closed. Walcott almost never closed that door.
“Nathan?” Chris called out.
Nothing.
“Nathan? You in here?”
The only response was the sound of his own voice booming back at him.
He crossed the foyer to the Sheriff’s office, opened the door and peered in. Nathan wasn’t in there. Chris was just about to leave when he noticed the discolored rectangle against the paintwork behind the desk. Sheriff Walcott had kept a framed collection of vintage baseball cards hanging there, his pride and joy. He noticed something else too. The gun safe that stood in the far corner of the office was open. The weapons that it had contained were gone.
“Son of a bitch ran out on us after all,” Chris muttered. He’d just got the words out when Sugar started barking.
If there was one thing that Chris had learned about his wolf, it was that she seldom barked. If Sugar was raising an alarm, then it was something serious. He unholstered his 9-mil, flipped the safety and shucked a round into the chamber. Then he crossed the foyer and ducked under the counter flap into the deputies’ station.
Sugar’s barks had subsided into a series of throaty growls. Chris tracked the sound and followed it down to the end of the corridor then made a left. He looked along the passageway. The dog’s hindquarters protruded from the doorway that led to the holding cells. There were bloody drag marks that ran along the tile into that area, a lot of blood. Someone had died here.
Chris ran along the corridor towards the holding cells, confident that no one lay in ambush there. Sugar would have attacked if that were the case. He already had an idea of what he’d find, and a pretty good idea of who was responsible.
“It’s okay girl,” he said as he brushed past the dog into the cellblock.
He spotted Nathan immediately, sitting on one of the bunks, back to the wall, his head thrown back. A blackened bullet hole perforated his forehead. Sheriff Walcott lay on the ground between the two cells. He too had been shot, although in his case the wound was to his arm and not fatal. The killing blow had been delivered by a hunting knife, drawn across the throat to open every major vein and artery on its path.
The Dumfries brothers were loose. Likely, they'd fled in the Sheriff’s SUV after cleaning out the gun safe, stealing Walcott’s baseball card collection for good measure.
But they wouldn’t have fled, he realized, not immediately anyway. They’d stop at the hospital first to collect their brother.
eighteen
“Gentlemen! Your attention please!”
Ruby looked around the room and didn’t see a whole lot of gentlemen present. Nonetheless, the raucous assembly quickly quieted down to the sound of the announcer’s voice.
“Gentlemen!” he continued. “Mr. Patrick Chang is pleased to offer an unannounced item on tonight’s bill. Yes folks, it seems we have a challenger to our very own death machine, Doom.”
A rustle of excited conversation flared up and then quieted as the announcer continued. “Now, this is no ordinary challenger, gents. Some of you may have seen her performing in Mr. Cyrus Cain’s circus that rolled through town last week. Still, this broad must be some kind of stupid if she thinks she can take on the death machine. Here he comes now folks…Doom!”
Ruby heard the sound of the chainsaw starting up. Pete stood behind her and spoke into her ear. “Now, I’m gonna loosen your cuffs,” he said. “But you know what happens if you try anything.”
“He’s coming in with a weapon,” Ruby said as the cuffs sprang free. “I could really use my sword.”
“Well, that bus already left town, so you’re just going to have to make do. Now listen. I’m going to need you to stay alive for at least three minutes. Think you can do that?”
“Gee, I don’t know Pete, I’ll try.”
“I’m serious. That’s the amount of time I’m gonna need to take care of Chang and his bodyguards.”
A cheer erupted from the crowd. Ruby looked across the room and saw Doom drop into the pool.
“Anyone got the time?” Pete grinned. He removed the watch from his wrist and gave the winding mechanism a twist. “Three minutes. Tick tick, boom. Get it?” He shoved Ruby towards the pool. “You’re on!”
Ruby did a quick scan of the crowd, where a frenzy of betting activity was in progress. She saw Chang in his high chair, a couple of giant bodyguards to either side of him. The first floor rail was about ten feet above Chang’s head, within easy reach. Pearl was up there. Where exactly? Ruby had no idea but she’d have to find her fast, then get out under cover of the chaos that was about to erupt. Pete had asked her for three minutes. She was prepared to give him two.
Ruby walked towards the edge of the pool and looked in. Doom was standing ankle deep in the scummy water, going through his repertoi
re of party tricks. The Z’s that were still alive down there, some twenty of the creatures, were shuffling towards him. Ruby entered their hive mind and backed them off, sent them to feed on the dog carcasses. She didn’t need them getting in the way. Then she threw herself from the ledge, performed a somersault and landed with barely a splash in the filthy water.
nineteen
The Dumfries brothers. The goddamn Dumfries brothers. He wished that they’d run those miscreants out of town when they’d had the chance, wished that someone had taken exception to one of their taunts or threats and responded with a bullet, wished he’d done so himself. Too late for that now. All he could hope was that Creed and Colt hadn’t gone to the hospital after all, or that if they had, Wackjob had seen them off.
Chris raced the Jeep through the intersection with Big Bear without looking left or right, accelerated across the blacktop and mounted the curb. “Hold on girl,” he said as he plowed through the hedge and into the hospital’s parking lot. Moments later he was screeching to a halt in front of the entrance, popping the door, jumping from the cab, sprinting across the pavement.
A figure emerged from the shadows to his left and Chris dropped instantly into a crouch, his hand going for his sidearm. Wackjob’s eyes widened as Chris turned the gun on him.
“Mister Collins, what’s up?” Wackjob said.
“Is everything okay?” Chris demanded.
“Yeah, of course,” Wackjob said. “Jojo’s still out, but the doc says –”
“Has anyone been here?”
Wackjob looked confused.
“Two guys driving a police SUV, looking for that feller in the other ward.”
“No,” Wackjob said. “No one’s come around since you left.”
Chris felt the tension drain from him. He holstered his gun, hand quivering as he did so.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I thought –”