Damn it. What are my options now? Defense? Nick has a gun, and Wade is going to be armed. I look around. The wrenches and screwdrivers could be used as weapons, but they won’t do much against a gun. I open the tailgate of Lindsay’s SUV. Spare tire. Tire iron. Mini jack. Jumper cables. Not much to work with. I look inside the glove box, the center console, and under the seats. Nothing but papers, a brush, lip gloss, and two stale fries.
At least we won’t starve to death.
I gently close the passenger door and walk around to the other side of the SUV toward the tool chest. Inside the first drawer, I find a Leatherman multi-tool, a Swiss-army-knife gadget that has pliers, a saw, a blade, and various other tools. This could be handy. I set it on the workbench and continue my search through the tools. My fingertip finds the business end of a pick, so I slide the pointy tool out and set it next to the multi-tool. I open another drawer and discover a long, sturdy torque wrench used to remove wheel lug nuts. My arsenal is complete.
“Chad?” Lindsay says.
I jolt back, my reflexes set on high tension. I bump into the workbench, and the multi-tool clangs on the ground between the workbench and the tool chest. Fantastic.
I turn to Lindsay. “Hey,” I say, catching my breath.
“What’s going on? Did I pass out?”
“Yeah. Just rest right now. I’m going to get us out of here.”
“Wade is going to kill us, Chad.” Her eyes are steely; she no longer looks lost inside her own head.
“Well, not if we can get out of here. It’s just Nick outside.”
She wrinkles her brows.
Outside, the gravel crunches under a heavy vehicle.
Two doors slam shut.
Lindsay’s eyes and mouth grow wide in unison.
My throat plummets into my chest.
We both look at the roll-up door as if it’s going to speak to us.
Nick says, “Hey, Wade. What’s up, Dwight? They’re in there.”
17
I press my ear against the roll-up door.
“You left the man untied?” It sounds like Wade.
“Yeah,” Nick says. “But he ain’t getting out.”
“I know he isn’t getting out. It’s what he might do when we try to go in, dumbass.”
“Oh. Sorry, Wade.”
“Dwight, take this idiot with you and get them bound. I bet he untied the woman, so they’re probably both free now.”
“Got it.” Dwight speaks like he has a sock stuffed in his mouth. “Get your gun out, Nick.”
The lock outside scrapes against the metal. Three bangs on the roll-up door ring out through the garage.
“You will have three guns aimed at you when this door opens,” Wade says. “Don’t try any funny shit, got it?”
I back away and stand in front of Lindsay. I whisper, “Act like you’re passed out.”
“Okay.” She lies down and closes her eyes.
“Got it?” Wade says, agitated.
“Yeah, got it,” I say.
The door rolls up, and blinding sunlight gushes in. I squeeze my eyelids tight. When I open them, I see Wade in the entryway on the right, aiming a handgun at me. Nick is on the left side, gun raised. Between them stands a lanky man holding a pistol at his waist. The skin on his face is tight like it’s pulled back and tied behind his head. His enormous eyes are yellowed and bulging. He looks like a chihuahua deciding whether to shake or piss itself.
I put my hands in front of me, sweaty palms up.
Wade steps in. “I don’t know what the fuck you two were planning here, but I hope you’ve made your peace with God.” He looks at Dwight and gestures toward me. “Use duct tape this time.”
Dwight stashes his gun in his waistband and lurches past me toward the tool chest. Three of his four front teeth are missing, and the lone tooth looks like it’s hanging on by a thread. Tools clang and clunk as he sifts through the drawers. “Got it.” He looks down at Lindsay, then up at me. “You first.”
Maybe I can touch him quickly and infect him. I might not live through the day, but at least I won’t have to suffer. I put my hands behind my back.
“Makin’ it easy. Smart.” He pulls out a length of tape, and the rubber-stretching sound sends chills through me. He shuffles close and grabs my right wrist. He yanks my arm back, and fiery pain rifles through my shoulder. I scream in agony. Dwight grabs my other wrist and wraps tape around them both. I wiggle my fingers, stretching toward him to make skin-to-skin contact. I grab for his wrist, but he avoids my touch. My hands are bound painfully tight. The adhesive tears my arms hairs out with any movement. I wiggle my fingers, trying to make contact with his skin, but he steps away, and I am stuck with the virus’s raging symptoms.
“Check his pockets,” Wade says.
Dwight stands in front of me and pats me down. “He’s got nothin’.”
Wade looks at the tools I set on the workbench. “Put those tools away and lock the chest.”
Dwight follows the command. He turns to Lindsay. “Now it’s Sleeping Beauty’s turn.” He crouches and tapes her wrists. I’m surprised how delicate he is with her, considering he bashed her head and gave her a nasty concussion earlier today.
Lindsay deserves an award for her acting skills, pretending to be passed out.
I hope she’s still pretending.
Wade steps close to me and jams the barrel of his gun into my ribs. His face is inches from mine, so close I notice the pores on his nose filled with blackheads.
“You work for Gutierrez?” He sneers as he says the name.
I shake my head. I’ve never heard of anyone with that name.
“Right.” He draws the word out. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”
Lindsay grunts and works herself into a seated position. “You killed my cousin.”
“Oh, looky here. This one’s alive.” Wade smirks. “Who the hell is your cousin? Never mind, I don’t care.” He steps away from me. “Take care of them, Dwight.”
“All right. Here?”
“No, stupid. I don’t want blood all over my shop. Take them to the spot.”
“Do we have any tarps?”
Wade looks down his nose at Dwight. “Can you just do it without the tarp?”
“Well, it’s just easier to keep everything clean. Remember that Mexican guy?”
Wade groans. “Fine. Go check the office.”
“K.” Dwight scampers out of the garage toward the small rectangular building.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Lindsay says, seething.
“I know, honey.”
“Wait,” I say. “Just take me. Let her go.”
He laughs, a deep cackle that sounds like a wounded animal. “Nick, keep guard on the garage. I have to get today’s load ready.” Wade walks out of the garage and reaches up to the door. He locks eyes with me. A grin slowly forms on his bearded face. He winks, then lowers the door until it slams to the ground. A metallic clunk rings out as the lock closes.
A prickly chill trickles down my spine.
I will not see tomorrow.
Worse than that, neither will Lindsay.
I don’t know what Dwight plans for us and his tarp, but it isn’t something I look forward to. Lindsay hasn’t said a word since Wade and his boys left us here. I guess I haven’t, either. It’s tough to think of something to say when your death is moments away.
I lean against Lindsay’s SUV and slide down to sit next to her. “How’s your head?”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Hurts. But I’m so pissed off I don’t really notice it.” She breathes through her nose. “I want to rip Wade’s smug face off and force-feed it to him.”
That’s…graphic.
I close my eyes and lean my head back onto the door with a thump. The duct tape is impossible to wriggle out of. I’ve resigned myself to dying. I’ll give Dwight a fight—I won’t make it easy on him—but I know ultimately there’s no way out of this alive. I accept it as fact.
<
br /> “What’s that?” Lindsay asks.
I open my eyes and direct my eyes to her focus under the workbench.
The multi-tool! A surge of electricity streams through my veins. I lie on my side and scooch like a half-paralyzed worm to the workbench. I spin on my butt and try to fit my leg underneath so I can kick the multi-tool forward, but my leg gets stuck just above the knee. I spin again and face Lindsay.
“Can you stick your leg under there and kick it out?”
“I’ll try.”
She moves in the same awkward fashion. Watching her awkward jerks and jolts makes me smile, despite the situation. Lindsay gets to the bench and makes quick work of the task. She kicks the tool out from underneath, and it scrapes across the floor, coming to a rest near the rear tire of the Subaru.
“That’s perfect.” I wiggle my way back to the car and scoop up the multi-tool. It takes some maneuvering to open it and expose the saw blade, but after a few patient minutes and two bloody fingers, I cut the duct tape away from my wrists. The process is slow, but I’m finding success.
“Is it working?” Lindsay asks.
“Yeah. I’ll get yours cut off in just a minute.”
Hopefully, before Dwight returns with his tarp.
I free my hands and start immediately on Lindsay’s. I cut through her tape in less than a minute.
She stands and wobbles a bit. “Now what?”
I rub the raw skin of my wrists that were involuntarily Brazilian-waxed. “Now we come up with a plan. I don’t know how, but—”
“I’m not going down without a fight.” She tightens her lips, and a fire rages in her eyes.
“Right on. Help me look around for anything we can use, like a weapon or a distraction.”
Lindsay looks at the roll-up door’s tracks, then to the walk-in door in the back. “We should jam the garage door, so they have to come in the back.”
I smile. “That’s brilliant.” I move too quickly, and my balance sways. If I die, it won’t be before I infect Dwight. I steady myself and search the garage.
Lindsay is in the corner by the walk-in door. “What about this?” She holds up a crowbar.
“Nice. Let’s try it.”
She brings it over and wedges it behind a wheel on the track. The metal clangs.
I shush her.
“Sorry.” She grimaces. After a few tries at different angles, she says, “I don’t think it’s going to work.”
I inspect the track. “There’s a hole just above the wheel. If we can get something skinnier, it might work.”
“Hang on.” Lindsay goes back into the corner and returns with two spools of galvanized aircraft cable—thin wires twisted into a sturdy metal rope.
“That’s perfect.”
“Here,” she says. “You take this one and tie up this side, and I’ll do the other.”
We each loop the aircraft cable through the holes in the tracks and around the wheels. Three minutes later, the garage door is inoperable.
“Okay, so now they’ll come in through the back,” I say. “What are we going to do when that happens?”
Lindsay cocks an eyebrow. “Bum rush whoever comes in?”
“Maybe. But they’ll have at least one gun. Let’s keep searching the place. There has to be more stuff we can get creative with.”
Lindsay disappears into her corner in search of more valuable treasure. I scan the shelves lined with grease-stained boxes. I find a bundle of yellow twine, a Phillips-head screwdriver with electrical tape around its handle, and a funnel.
“Any luck?” I say.
“Sort of.” Lindsay walks over to me carrying a roll of fishing line, an awl, and a rubber mallet.
I show off my trove. “All right, what can we do with this stuff?”
“Maybe a tripwire with the fishing line?” Lindsay says. “Then smash him in the head with the mallet.” She touches the wound on her head and scrapes some dry blood off with a fingernail.
I pick up one of the shop cloths she was lying on earlier and hand it to her. Our hands brush, and the giddy tingles of a thirteen-year-old shoot up my spine.
“Thanks,” she says. “Hey …”
“Yeah?”
“How did you know I was here, anyway?”
A lump catches in my throat. I don’t know why I feel guilty, but I do. “I, uh…I didn’t.” My voice embarrassingly raises two octaves.
“Oh.” Lindsay drops her focus to the floor. “Why did you come here then?”
“The same as you—to find something incriminating to take to the police. Fucking Nick…he tricked me. Said Wade screwed him over, so he’d take me here and help me find something.” Boiling anger floods, heating my neck and face more than the fever has. “But he’s using me to get back on Wade’s good side.”
Lindsay grabs my hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Her skin is cool against my clammy palm.
“Look, I know why you want me to go to the doctor.”
She looks up at me, concern etched in lines on her forehead.
“You’re right,” I say. “If we make it out of this, I will go to your doctor. I promise.”
She smiles. Then hits me playfully. “Maybe if you would have decided that sooner, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
We hug. I’ve missed this comfort. No more taking it for granted, I promise myself.
Over her shoulder, I notice a shelf with various fluid containers. “I want to continue this hug, but…”
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here, first.”
I go to the shelf and pull down a bottle of transmission fluid. “Can you—”
A heavy vehicle crunches over rocks as it nears the garage.
A door slams.
Footsteps.
A metallic clank, then the roll-up door rattles. “What the hell?” Dwight says. “Ah, damn it. It’s jammed again.”
Shit.
“Lindsay,” I walk her to the rear passenger side of her SUV, “lie down here and play dead.”
Her eyes grow wide, and her mouth drops open, but she says, “Okay,” and lies down.
I pour the red transmission fluid on the floor around her head. The puddle covers a five-foot diameter. I slide the bottle under her car and jog around to the random collection of supplies I gathered. I grab the taped-handle screwdriver and the crowbar.
The metal rod clangs outside the rear of the garage.
I run on the tips of my toes and sidle up next to the door.
The rod scrapes against the door.
I reach across and flick the light switch off.
The door handle turns.
18
The door scrapes the dusty concrete as it swings open.
I look at Lindsay. In the dark, the transmission fluid looks even more gruesome than I’d hoped.
I don’t know if I’m ready. I’ve never attacked someone like this.
The door opens fully, sunlight spilling in.
“What the …”
Now’s the time. My hands shake.
Dwight lurches in, gun drawn. I slam the crowbar onto his wrist, he yelps, and the gun clatters on the floor.
I jab the screwdriver into his neck.
Jab. Jab. Again and again, his hot blood spurting on my arms.
He looks at me, eyes shot wide, his mouth locked in a silent scream. He falls to the ground like a pile of dirty laundry.
I grasp him by the wrists—his skin slimy from the gore—and drag him to the dark corner of the garage. He stares up at me, his face still long with shock. I have to look away.
I don’t feel better yet, the virus’s grip is still tight, so I wipe my hand on my shirt and pull up his pant leg, then grip his ankle. Dwight groans. My fever evaporates. The itch disappears. The Grim Fever symptoms fade, but my stomach turns, and acid boils in the back of my throat.
I’ve never killed anyone like this before. Dwight’s face, frozen in a scream, will haunt me along with all the victims I’ve infected with the virus.
&nb
sp; I shake it away for now and pick up his gun.
“Chad?” Lindsay whispers.
“Hey.” My voice is shaky and unrecognizable. I sound like an imposter.
“Should I stay here?”
“No, get up. I don’t know if Nick or Wade heard him—”
Footsteps running on the gravel outside.
Shit.
“Stay there,” I shout-whisper. I tuck myself behind the door.
“Dwight, what’s going on?” It’s Nick. His footfalls hit the concrete just outside the door.
“Hey man, what—oh, shit. Dwight?” Nick walks in but stops on the other side of the door. I sense his presence but cannot see him.
“Dwight? What happened, man?”
Lindsay moans.
Nick’s shoes scuff the dusty floor.
“Shit. Chad? Where’s Dwight?”
I have to act while I still have surprise on my side. I lean everything I have into the door. It slams into Nick, bounces off of him, and swings open again.
He grunts and spills backward. He catches himself on Lindsay’s SUV, but he’s prone, the gun to his side.
I raise my gun, flip on the light, and step toward him.
His face twists with confusion.
“Drop it,” I say in the most savage voice I can muster.
He doesn’t move.
“I will shoot you in the face.”
“Chad …”
I step closer. “Drop the fucking gun.”
It thunks on the ground.
“Kick it this way.”
He does.
Lindsay stirs and stands up.
Nick’s eyes flick to her. Then to Dwight’s body behind me. “Oh, fuck. Chad…what did you do to Dwight?”
“That same thing I’m going to do to you if you don’t shut your goddamn mouth. Lindsay? I need your help.”
She comes to my side.
“There’s some twine on the workbench.”
“Got it.”
Lindsay snatches the bundle of yellow twine and stands behind Nick. “On your knees,” she tells him in the most commanding voice I’ve ever heard.
Nick follows the order.
Lindsay binds his wrists and wraps the thin rope around his body at least a dozen times, pinning his arms to his body. Has she done this before? She must’ve seen it in a movie. I hope. She rejoins me with a smirk painted on her face.
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