Lifeless (Lawless Saga Book 2)

by Tarah Benner

  “Stop here!”

  Soren glanced around, and a brown building along the side of the road caught his eye. The building had an inviting river-rock facade, a tin roof, and a farmhouse-style porch with simple cedar columns. A sign out front read “Scargoza Equine Medicine,” and there was a large tin silhouette of a horse nailed to the low wooden fence.

  He stopped.

  “What are you doing?” said Axel. “What the fuck is this place?”

  Nobody answered. The windows were completely dark, but farther up the gravel drive stood a house. It was built in the same style as the animal hospital, but it looked newer and much more comfortable.

  Soren realized what Lark was thinking at once and threw the truck into reverse. If the veterinarian had lived there once, there was a chance he still did. Dr. Scargoza was a long shot, but they didn’t have any other options.

  As they inched up the gravel drive, Soren tried not to think about what they would do if the veterinarian wasn’t home. He didn’t have another plan, and Simjay was running out of time.

  “Stay here,” he said, putting the truck in park and tucking the Glock into his waistband.

  Lark opened her mouth to say something but stopped. If the doctor was home, it would be better for Soren to go alone.

  There was a concrete footpath leading up to the front porch, which was scattered with brown wicker chairs. The lights were on inside the house, and Soren could see a large kitchen and dining room through the tall front windows.

  Steeling himself for a gun to the face or even a violent confrontation, Soren approached the front door and knocked three times.

  Two dogs barked frantically inside the house. Soren’s unease mounted, but he told himself that the dogs were a good sign. It meant that someone was home.

  He heard a voice, and then an Akita slid into view. He had pointed black ears, a thick tawny body, and a black mask of fur that was rumpled in aggression. He had to be at least a hundred pounds.

  Then another dog appeared: an old arthritic golden retriever limping from the dining room. He moved very slowly, but his bark was just as fierce as the Akita’s.

  There was a dull thud inside the house — like a cane on hardwood — followed by a sharp hiss. The dogs fell silent.

  A pair of milky gray eyes appeared on the other side of the window, and Soren heard the lock click. The door opened very slowly, and Soren took an automatic step back.

  An old man was standing in the doorway, holding an old-fashioned forty-one magnum.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Soren stammered, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  “Phillip?”

  Soren didn’t say anything.

  The man had to be in his late eighties. His russet-colored skin was spattered with age spots, his back was hunched, and he had a thin ring of snow-white hair. He was dressed in a pair of pressed brown slacks, a checkered green shirt, brown loafers, and a burgundy cardigan that hung low around his hips.

  “Phillip?” he repeated, lowering the gun.

  Soren shook his head wordlessly. He wasn’t sure why the old man kept calling him Phillip, but given that he was armed, Soren thought it best to let him call him whatever he liked.

  “Phillip, is that you?” asked the man, more insistently this time.

  Soren’s heart sank. Either the old man was senile, or his vision was so poor that he could not tell one person from the next. If he was Dr. Scargoza, there was no way he’d be able to operate on Simjay.

  “No, sir,” said Soren, speaking up a little in case the man was hard of hearing.

  “Phillip?”

  “I’m not Phillip, sir. My name is Soren Hensley.”

  “Hensley?”

  “Yes, sir. Are you Dr. Scargoza?” Soren asked.

  “Who?”

  “Are you the veterinarian?”

  The old man blinked a few times very fast, and a look of deep concern came over him. Soren got a pang of sadness. It seemed that the old man could hardly hear a word he was saying, and he was worried.

  “Are you Dr. Scargoza?” asked Soren, almost shouting this time. “I saw your practice from the road, and I —”

  “What’s all this?” came a sharp female voice from the foyer. The door opened a bit wider, and a young black woman with very tight curls stepped up beside him. She was wearing a pair of light-blue jeans, a white sleeveless shirt, and a pair of beaded orange slippers.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” said Soren, taking an automatic step back. “But I saw the sign for the veterinary hospital down the hill, and —”

  “Go sit in the den, Grandpa,” said the woman loudly, ignoring Soren and placing a loving hand on the old man’s shoulder.

  “Phillip?” he repeated, still squinting at Soren for some sign of recognition.

  “He’s not Uncle Phillip, Grandpa,” she yelled, leading him away from the door.

  “Oh . . .”

  Soren waited for the woman to reappear, and when she did, she immediately moved to close the door.

  “Wait!” said Soren. “Please!”

  “What do you want?” she asked in a tired voice.

  “I need your help,” said Soren. “I came up here looking for Dr. Scargoza, and —”

  “My name’s Sybil,” she said. “Now, what do you want?”

  “You’re the vet?”

  Sybil nodded. “My father was a vet, too, but I took over his practice a few years ago.”

  “Oh,” said Soren. “Well, I was hoping you could help me.”

  Sybil let out a tired sigh, peering behind Soren to catch a glimpse of the truck idling in her driveway. Soren’s desperation must have shown on his face, because he could see Sybil’s better nature winning out.

  “Go down to the office,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Soren opened his mouth to say that it was an emergency, but the door slammed in his face.

  Feeling simultaneously frantic and hopeful, he jogged around to where he’d parked the truck and threw the door wide open.

  “I got the vet!” he said breathlessly, climbing into the driver’s seat and backing down toward the clinic.

  A frantic stream of questions hit him all at once, but he was too preoccupied to answer. Simjay looked, if possible, even paler, and Lark was frantic. He’d been so single-mindedly focused on getting Sybil to agree to help that he hadn’t stopped to think about how much a vet might be able to do for a human. Simjay was in bad shape, and Sybil might not want to get involved once she saw him.

  He pulled into the circle drive, watching Sybil’s garage door for any sign of movement. Seconds turned into minutes, and still there was no sign of her.

  “I thought you said she was coming!” growled Axel.

  “She is,” said Soren, tapping impatiently on the steering wheel. But suddenly he wasn’t so sure. Maybe she thought it would be easier to tell him what he wanted to hear and then barricade the front door. Maybe she’d known that they were trouble and called the police.

  But just as his dark thoughts began to spin out of control, the far garage door opened, and an old Jeep Cherokee appeared.

  “Let’s go,” said Soren, jumping out of the truck and walking around to the back. Axel hoisted Simjay’s lower half up by the ankles, while Soren lifted him at the shoulders. Simjay let out a pained cry as they shimmied him out of the back seat, so Lark rushed forward to support his middle.

  They’d just gotten him up the porch steps when an angry voice reached Soren’s ears. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Soren looked over his shoulder and let out a moan of desperation.

  “This is an animal hospital,” said Sybil. “When you asked for my help, I thought you meant with a horse or —”

  “What the fuck is she talking about?” groaned Axel, still struggling with Simjay.

  Soren’s heart sank. Of course he knew that she was a veterinarian, but he’d assumed she’d known he was talking about a person. Then he realized with a sinking feel
ing of stupidity that he’d never specified the sort of help he needed.

  “Well, can you fix him?” Axel grumbled, careening toward the door holding Simjay by the feet. Soren could tell by his expression that Axel was not going to take “no” for an answer.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Sybil asked, fumbling with the lock.

  “Stab wound,” Soren grunted, squeezing past the doctor to get Simjay inside.

  “How much blood has he lost?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Too much.”

  Sybil had gone very pale, and she looked as though she were getting ready to march into battle.

  They found themselves in a waiting area with two rows of chairs arranged in an L configuration. The walls were painted a deep, rich burgundy, and pictures of horses hung every few feet.

  Denali darted around the room, sniffing the floor and checking around the receptionist’s desk for any horses that might be hiding there. The wall behind the desk was covered with framed diplomas from UC Davis and Cornell, bunches of blue ribbons, and pictures of a much-younger Sybil with a man who had to be her father.

  Soren glanced at Axel, whose face was set. Soren knew Axel was thinking the same thing he was: This woman wasn’t a human doctor, but she was the closest they were going to get. Simjay needed her help, and they weren’t leaving until they got it.

  “Where do you want him?” asked Soren.

  Sybil shook her head, looking a little lost for words.

  “Please,” said Lark, turning to her with quivering eyes. “We need your help. If you turn us away, he is going to die.”

  The silence was broken only by Simjay’s loud moan. It sounded a little overdramatic — as if he were trying to sell his plight to the doctor — but Soren knew from the look on his face that it had been genuine.

  “Bring him in back,” she said faintly.

  Lark met Soren’s gaze with a look of relief, and they hauled Simjay through a set of swinging saloon doors to a wide, sterile hallway illuminated by emergency lighting. The walls were painted a uniform rust color to offset the industrial look and feel of the place, but the floor was solid concrete, and the hallway was littered with strange pieces of medical equipment that Soren couldn’t identify.

  The doctor disappeared behind a doorway. She must have flipped on an emergency generator, because a second later, the building roared to life, and lights ticked on all down the hallway.

  They passed a supply closet and a room with several horse-sized stalls, finally arriving at what seemed to be an exam room. There were shoeing stocks inside, as well as a large holding pen and a long stainless-steel table.

  “Lay him here,” said Sybil, clearing off the table and draping it in a layer of blue surgical cloth.

  They set Simjay down, and Soren was startled to see how pale he looked under the harsh florescent lights. His face was streaked with blood, he was sweating profusely, and there were tear tracks worn into the layer of dirt and grit on his face.

  “Get back,” Sybil barked, donning a pair of gloves and cutting off his shirt.

  It was a mark of how bad Simjay was feeling that he didn’t make some inappropriate remark about the attractive doctor undressing him. Sybil peeled away the duct tape they had used to secure the bubble wrap and gingerly lifted the credit card.

  Blood gushed out over the surgical cloth the second she removed the plastic. Sybil scrambled to grab a handful of gauze off the table but managed to maintain her cool, professional demeanor. She pressed the gauze to the wound, but it was soaked through within seconds.

  “Smart move with the plastic,” she muttered, pursing her lips as she grabbed a fresh wad of gauze to pile on top of the first. “You may very well have saved his life.”

  “So can you help him?” Lark asked, sweaty and anxious and covered in blood.

  Sybil let out a shaky sigh. “I’m a vet,” she said. “I take care of horses and livestock.”

  “Please,” said Soren, fixing her with an expression he hoped conveyed his desperation. “If you don’t help him —”

  “He may very well die even with my help,” she said angrily.

  “Just do the best you can,” said Soren. “Please. That’s all we’re asking.”

  Sybil let out a concerned sigh, and then a look of resignation came over her face.

  “All right,” she said. “Everybody clear out.”

  They let out a collective breath of relief and turned to go, but Sybil stopped Soren with an outstretched arm.

  “Except for you,” she said. “Suit up.” She nodded at a cabinet labeled “scrubs.” “You want my help? You’re gonna have to give me a hand.”

  twenty

  Bernie

  Bernie and Portia stayed in the bookstore for hours, leafing through old newspapers and trying to comprehend the reality they’d been thrust into. Bernie kept glancing out the enormous picture window facing the street, but she didn’t see the black sedan or any other signs of life.

  There was only one other window in the bathroom facing the alley, so they had no way of knowing where the sedan might have gone. For all they knew, it was idling just a few blocks down, waiting for them to emerge.

  By late afternoon, it became apparent that they would have to leave the store at some point. They had no food, no water, and no working plumbing. They still needed to steal a car, so Bernie decided to venture out to see what she could find.

  The air was warm and still when Bernie slipped out the emergency exit and into the alley. The putrid stench of overflowing dumpsters filled the air, and she could hear the rustle of an animal scavenging in the trash.

  Bernie held her breath and hobbled down to the end of the alley. She couldn’t see any headlights, but an uncomfortable prickle on the back of her neck made her feel as though she were being watched. Every empty building seemed to have eyes, and every rustle of trash was a stranger waiting to throw her into the back seat of an unmarked police car.

  The clunk of her crutches seemed unnaturally loud on the dry concrete. Her breaths were coming in sharp, strained gasps, which, coupled with her nervousness, gave her an uncomfortable stitch in her side.

  She bypassed three earlier-model cars sitting in an abandoned lot and a fourth parked along the side of the road. They were broken down and nondescript — exactly what she needed — but the doors were locked. She contemplated breaking a window or trying to jimmy one of the rusty doors, but even if she got inside, Bernie had no idea how to hot-wire a car.

  She stumbled through the small downtown strip until the street narrowed into a residential neighborhood. Tidy ranch-style homes from the 1950s sprang up on either side of the pavement, so quiet and empty that the street could have been a movie set.

  The residents’ brownish desert lawns were now patchy and overgrown, with weeds squeezing their way between pavers and large cracks in the sidewalk. The homes all had carports rather than garages, so it was easy to see that nearly all of their owners had fled.

  Suddenly Bernie stopped, squinting down the road, and saw what looked like a car resting under a tarp two houses down. She approached the house slowly, searching for any signs of life.

  A flyaway trashcan lid lay in the gutter, and some of the surrounding houses still had newspapers on their driveways. Baskets of desiccated flowers hung on shepherd’s hooks all around the front yard, but weeds crept unchecked into the landscaping, and the front shades were drawn.

  Heart pounding, Bernie swung herself up the narrow concrete path and onto the porch. There was a scuffed green welcome mat at her feet and a faded wreath of artificial flowers hanging under the porch light. She opened the storm door, rapped the little brass knocker, and waited.

  She didn’t hear a thing — no barking dog, no hurried footsteps, no hushed voices inside.

  Feeling braver, Bernie stepped off the porch and slinked around to the side of the house where the carport stood. She looked around to make sure she was alone and lifted the edge of the tarp.

  The car was
old and very brown, with ancient-looking silver hubcaps and matching silver trim. It had wide leather seats and immaculate floorboards, which made her think it had belonged to an old person.

  Bernie moved around to the back of the house and peered through one of the windows. She was staring into a very outdated bathroom. It had black-and-white hexagonal tiles, a pedestal sink, and a hideous teal bathtub. The commode was adorned with a horrible yellow toilet-seat cover and was made out of the same garish green ceramic.

  Bernie kept searching until she found a larger window that looked into a bedroom. She could see framed black-and-white photographs on the walls, rose-and-ivy wallpaper, and a sort of frilly outdated decor that confirmed her suspicions about the home’s senior residents. The bed and chair by the window were draped in sheets, and the layer of dust coating everything else made her think that no one had lived there for quite a while.

  Bernie picked her way carefully through the yard and rattled the back door. It was locked.

  Feeling confident that the house was abandoned, Bernie limped around to the front yard and plucked a basket of dead flowers off the shepherd’s hook. She pulled the iron rod out of the ground and went back around to the bedroom window.

  Steeling herself for what she was about to do, she lifted the shepherd’s hook to shoulder height and plunged it through the window. The glass shattered, but the sound seemed oddly muted on the abandoned street. She knocked a few shards loose from the window frame and tumbled inside.

  The house had the slightly musty odor of a place that had been closed up and forgotten for years. The sheets draped over the furniture fluttered as she passed, and she could see the swirling clouds of dust she’d disturbed in the golden afternoon sun.

  If it hadn’t been for the stainless-steel appliances and modern-looking thermostat, she would have sworn she’d been thrust back in time. The geometric wallpaper, gold window treatments, and yellow-on-yellow kitchen were so perfectly retro that they would have been at home in an old episode of “I Love Lucy.”