Giving birth to Will had permanently ruined her uterus, so an unexpected pregnancy was not a concern of hers. And she’d managed to dodge any infections (at least those with a shorter incubation period), but she wrote that off to dumb luck. Every other girl had picked up something along the way; it was only a matter of time before she did as well. The important thing was that Millicent had held up her end of the bargain. Two meals a day, even more food than they’d had back at Evergreen (what was left of it, she wondered, were they all dead now?). Will had put on at least ten pounds, their arrival here coinciding with and probably triggering a growth spurt. He wasn’t as tall as she was yet, but he would be soon. Not that that was a very high bar to clear.
She’d become tight with the other girls. The attachment she felt to them reminded her of her nearly four months at the Citadel, a prisoner of Miles Chadwick, the man who had unleashed the apocalypse. Miles Chadwick. Leon Gruber, the man Chadwick had worked for. Names that hadn’t crossed her mind in months. What would the others think, knowing she’d been face to face with the man who had ended the world? Would they even believe her?
With each passing year, the myth and legend surrounding the plague grew. About its origin, about its purpose, about their fate. The theological implications of such a catastrophic culling of humanity. The barren years since. It was terrorism, it was aliens, it was an accident, it was North Korea. It was God’s judgment on man. What did it mean? Why did it happen? No, her story was just one of many, the ramblings of someone driven mad by the madness surrounding them.
But she wasn’t mad.
She really had been there.
Whether by chance or by fate, she had ended up as a guinea pig in a desperate experiment to determine whether the Citadel women’s infertility had been a side effect for all survivors of the plague or only the conspirators who had been vaccinated against it. And looking back, it could not have been a coincidence that her baby had been the one to survive infancy. Nearly all the Evergreen women who’d been with her at the Citadel had tried to have babies, only to see them die. And nagging at her ever since was the sense she’d never seen the complete picture. That even though they had found and killed the man who had unleashed the Medusa virus on an unsuspecting world, there was more to the story, just off stage, just out of reach, a piece of the puzzle that had disappeared from the box.
It was enough to twist her mind into a pretzel.
An endgame was always on her mind. She didn’t know what that would look like, but she had to believe there was a future that didn’t involve fucking four men a night for the rest of her life. She would do it, God forgive her, if that’s what it took, but all things being equal she’d rather be tending bar on Maui, thank you very much.
Her stomach rumbled. That such a sensation no longer sent her into panic mode was remarkable. There was a meal waiting for her at the end of this hunger pang, waiting for Will. She got up and made her way to the hotel’s dining room, which had been converted into a makeshift bar and restaurant, where the clients sized up the girls before meandering over to the other building for their festivities.
The dining room was large, eating up a good half of the first-floor reception area. The walls were wood-paneled, giving the place a ski-resort feel. The sconces had been retrofitted with candles, filling the rooms with a warm, inviting light. The room was awash in chatter as the girls cast their lines, trying to lock down a customer for the night. She took a seat at the bar, which Rebekah was manning.
“Hey girl, how’s that eye?”
“Better,” Rachel replied, absentmindedly placing her hand over the bruise, suddenly self-conscious about it.
“Swear to God, I’da cut his nuts off for ya,”
Rachel smiled as Rebekah poured her a tumbler of moonshine. The woman had no filter, enjoyed talking in hyperbole.
“Thank you, sweetie,” Rachel said. She took a sip, winced at the burn, took another sip.
“Glad Lumen took care of him.”
“How’s it looking tonight?” she asked, anxious to change the subject. Getting the shit kicked out of her was not an event she wanted to relive. The man had turned on her like a cobra, first wrapping his fingers around her throat and then slamming his fist into her face. He’d been a big man, outweighing her by at least a hundred pounds.
“Big group came in earlier,” she said. “Up from Kansas City. Headed to the UP.”
The UP was the Upper Peninsula, on the Great Lakes. As the food supply dwindled, more and more people were making their way to the waterways, hopeful that fishing would be their salvation. It was a hard life, dangerous. The lakes had been a rough place to make a living before the plague, and you were as likely to die as you were to catch anything. Most folks didn’t know what they were doing, just running out boats that had been abandoned, throwing in a line, praying. Frequently underestimated were the rough water, the violence, the piracy. Put another way, it wasn’t any easier on a boat than it was on land and that was before you added the risk of drowning in the cold water.
She swept her gaze over the room, taking in the evening’s clientele. It was a big crowd; it would mean a good haul for the house. Canned goods, ammo, cigarettes, whiskey, all fungible items Millicent and Lumen could barter at the weekly swap meet in downtown Lincoln. The men were ripe, the air thick with the scent of musk and body odor. All part of the game, she reminded herself.
A tall man sidled up beside her and took the seat to her right. Rachel gave him a cursory glance. He was broad through the chest, reasonably healthy, suggesting he’d spent at least some of his post-plague years with a full belly every night. He wore a faded blue shirt and blue jeans.
“What’ll it be, sweetie?” Rebekah asked in her sultriest voice.
He held up two fingers on his right hand. His shirtsleeve, dirty and frayed, slid down his arm, revealing his bare wrist. A flash of red caught Rachel’s attention, and her eyes zeroed in on the tattoo on the anterior side of the man’s wrist.
Her breath caught in her throat as she fixated on it.
A bird of prey, its wings spread wide, rising from a bed of flames.
Exactly like the tattoo Rachel had.
22
Her heart raced like a spooked thoroughbred as she tried to eye the man’s ink without drawing too much attention to herself. Casually, she leaned forward in her seat and tilted her head to the side for a better view. Now she had a clear line of sight, and now she saw there was no doubt. It was the same tattoo, inked using the same template, down to the little swirl of the phoenix’s feathers. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to analyze the ramifications of what she was seeing.
Her tattoo, also adorning the underside of her right wrist, had been a gift from her captors at the Citadel. Back then, she had looked at it as a brand more than anything, an exercise of dominion and control over their female captives. She rarely looked at it, thought about it even less.
You belong to us now.
And that was all fine and good because it explained why she had the tattoo. What she didn’t know was why this guy also had one.
“Cool ink,” she said as nonchalantly as she could.
“What?” he said, barely acknowledging her. “Oh, thanks. Whatever.”
“Can I see it?”
He turned to face her, and for a moment, terror gripped her hard, like a python. What if he was one of them? One of the men from the Citadel, one of the murderous monsters who’d held her hostage, who’d slaughtered many of the other women. But his face was unfamiliar to her, and no flash of recognition appeared to register in his face either.
“How about we go somewhere quiet and I’ll show you anything you want.”
Of course.
Her mind was racing now.
A plan took shape.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Let’s go somewhere a little more private.”
She glanced over at Rebekah, who watched the scene quizzically. Rachel nodded toward her, and Rebekah returned the gestu
re. None of the girls worked if they didn’t have to. There was something special about this client, something that went beyond the ordinary course of business. This man had something Rachel wanted.
“Take 276,” Rebekah said.
She took him by the hand and together they wound their way through the dining room, which was getting rowdier by the minute. The pregame activities were reaching a crescendo, the moment the girls had worked these men into such a lather they’d give up anything for a couple of minutes between their soft thighs.
They ducked out into the corridor and into the stairwell, which they ascended to the second floor. The hallway was dimly lit with lanterns, giving it a bit of a medieval look. When he tried to engage her in conversation, she turned suddenly and pressed an index finger to his lips.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
He nodded excitedly.
He remained silent until they reached their destination, Room 276. The room was unlocked, as they all were, as there was no electricity to power the locks. She let herself in, the man following close behind.
“I have something special for you,” she said.
“You do?” the man asked incredulously.
“I guess you caught me on a good night. I’m feeling a bit adventurous.”
“All right.”
She pointed at the bed.
“Strip.”
He did as he was told, and it reminded her of the old movie Heathers, when the Veronica character had unknowingly set up two jocks for their eventual murders by ordering them to strip on the promise of a threesome in the woods. Much like Veronica, Rachel wasn’t planning to kill the man, but she was planning to put a good scare into him. That was why Rebekah had sent her here, to Room 276.
It was a standard hotel room, a single queen bed, a round table, a bureau containing the useless flat-screen television. But they didn’t use it for carnal activities.
They kept it for meetings of an urgent nature.
“There’s something I want to do for you.”
He clapped with glee. She felt a little bit bad for him, this sad little man whose wiener was powering his engines. He hadn’t done anything to deserve this kind of treatment. But hey, life wasn’t fair.
She turned toward the chest of drawers next to the entertainment center and pulled open the drawer. Next to the Gideon Bible sat a loaded Glock pistol. In one graceful move, she pulled the gun and spun around.
A look of confusion clouded his face as he tried to deduce how the gun fit into their imminent sexual escapade. But that didn’t last long, the confusion quickly morphing into fear, the survival instinct kicking in. She had to be careful. The man hadn’t made it this far by being a complete idiot (his current state of undress notwithstanding).
“Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?” he barked.
“The tattoo,” she said, holding up her wrist. “Where did you get it?”
Confusion again, his face twisting up in puzzlement.
“Where did you get yours?” he asked.
“I’ll ask the questions,” she snapped, taking a step toward him.
“OK, OK,” he said, scampering backward on the bed. He looked ridiculous in the nude. His penis, which had been at full attention, had retreated so far into his body she could barely see it.
“I’m going to ask you a very simple question,” she said. “All you need to do is answer it.”
“OK.”
“Were you at the Citadel?”
“What’s the Citadel?”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Her arm stiffened, the gun trained squarely on his face.
“I swear to God,” he said, cowering, his hands up. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Then where did you get the tattoo?”
“In Colorado.”
“What’s in Colorado?” she snapped, her anger radiating from her in saves. “You better start giving me specifics, you son of a bitch, or I will shoot your tiny little dick off. It’s not much of a target, but I won’t miss from here.”
“OK, OK.”
“If you’re not talking at the count of three, you’re dead.
“One.
“Two.
She increased the pressure on the trigger.
“My name is Oliver Clarke,” he said. “Before the plague, I worked for the Penumbra Corporation. Do you know it?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Big multinational. Agriculture, pharmaceuticals, weapons systems, artificial intelligence, you name it they did it.”
“OK. How does the tattoo fit into this?”
“I’m getting there.”
“A few weeks before the outbreak, I went to a Penumbra facility outside Denver. Up in the mountains.”
He scrunched his face up and looked up at the ceiling, perhaps trying to decide which part of the tale to tell next. Her arm began to tire, so she switched the gun to her left hand. As she did, he pounced like a tiger, leaping off the bed and tackling her to the ground. The gun came loose and clattered to the ground. He wasn’t particularly strong, but he’d gotten the drop on her. He reared back and punched her once in the face, the blow rattling her teeth. Then he let her go, scrambling for the gun, which had come to rest under the bed. Blindly she grasped at his crotch, finding his testicles, grabbing and squeezing for all she was worth.
Clarke howled like a bear. As he rolled on the ground, tending to his wounded jewels, she leapfrogged over him and grabbed the gun. On her ass now as he struggled to his feet. She pointed the gun at his midsection, no more than eighteen inches away from him. He slapped desperately at the gun, knocking it free a second time. It somersaulted through the air, end over end, before striking the edge of the entertainment stand. The gun went off, the roar of the blast deafening in their small enclosure.
A loud UNNNNHHHH filled the room, and Rachel didn’t know if she’d been hit. Then everything went silent. She opened her eyes and saw Oliver Clarke pawing at his throat, blood spurting through the gaps in his fingers. He managed to stay upright for a few seconds, but the rapid blood loss quickly took its toll, and his legs buckled underneath him. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came through – only an upsetting glugging sound, like water squirting from a kinked garden hose. Slowly, his body crumpled to the floor, his legs folding awkwardly underneath him.
Just then, the door to the room blew open, and Lumen rushed in, his gun drawn.
She held up a hand and Lumen stood down. Together they watched the man twitch and writhe before the last vapors of his life slipped free into the ether. She knelt down and held up the man’s lifeless arm, studying the tattoo carefully. Her brain struggled to process what she was seeing. Her world, perhaps the world of everyone around her, had changed in a fundamental way.
“You OK?” he asked.
Rachel nodded, not once taking her eye off Oliver Clarke’s body.
She screamed in frustration. All she had was Penumbra.
Who was this man? Was he telling the truth?
Colorado. Penumbra.
She had to go to Colorado.
23
The meeting was not going well.
They were in the dining room, she and Millicent, in a back booth, away from prying eyes and ears. Will sat at the bar near the front door, transfixed by Rebekah, on whom he had developed the sweetest schoolboy crush.
It had been a week since the man with the tattoo had died. The left side of her face ached dully, injury heaped upon injury. Oliver’s fist had connected with her already bruised cheek, turning her face into a giant hematoma. The pain had started to fade, finally, but she wasn’t sure her face was ever going to look right again. Her nose hadn’t finished healing from the previous beating it had taken, so one couldn’t really say it had been broken again. No, it was just brokener, if that was even a word.
On the table between them sat a plate of hard cheese and salted beef, which they ate with flatbread. But by her third bite, when she realized Millicent was not joking, that she w
as not going to let Rachel and Will leave, she didn’t give a good goddamn what Rachel’s reason was, the food had lost much of its appeal.
“I thought I’d made it clear when you joined us,” Millicent said. “This here’s a permanent arrangement.”
Millicent sliced off a wedge of cheese and set the knife down on the table between them. She chewed slowly, clearly enjoying her supper, and this made Rachel hate her, made it rise up in her, made her feel hot, the spark deep inside her catching a splash of accelerant.
“This is such good cheese, don’t you think, sweetie?”
Rachel faked a smile, which only caused her to wince. Even fake smiling hurt.
“So that’s it? We’re on our backs forever?”
“No one put a gun to your head.”
“But this is important. You have no idea how important.”
Even as she said it, she recognized how ridiculous it sounded out loud.
I really AM the special little flower.
“You’re one of my best earners,” she said. “The boys pay extra for you.”
Rachel rubbed her forehead in frustration
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“I’m not terribly concerned with whether it does or not.”
Millicent’s tone gave her a chill. It was a side of her she’d never seen before. The meeting was barely five minutes old and it had all gone south in a hurry. It had been so unexpected, this sudden yoke she felt around her neck leaving her breathless.
“What’s to stop me from walking right out the door?” she asked, placing her hands flat on the table, jutting her chest out a bit farther.
Millicent smiled demurely.
“You won’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because that boy’s not going anywhere.”
The Immune Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 74