They were armed, but our weapons would blow them out of the water, literally. Not that we were going to get a chance to use them. Even if I got the chance to use mine, I still had no idea how and I didn’t think I was going to intimidate this group by pretending that I did.
“Like I said,” Nick said swallowing hard, “we don’t want any trouble. We’re sorry we stepped into your territory. It won’t happen again.”
“Maybe I want trouble,” the man next to me said with a questioning tone. “It’s been pretty boring around here in our grocery store. We haven’t gotten a lot of customers as of late.”
His groupies snickered.
“What should we do with them, darling?” the man close to me asked, pulling me closer to his spidery thin body.
“There is so much I’d love to do with them,” the woman said running her fingertips down Bronx’s chest. The muscles in his neck tensed, and even though he tried not to let his agitation show, both the man and the woman picked up on it. “I think he likes me.”
The man cocked his head to the side. “Of course he does. What’s not to like. Don’t you like her?”
Bronx kept his lips pressed tightly together.
“Go on, tell her. Don’t keep the woman waiting,” the man said tightening his grip on me as if somehow he thought Bronx could feel my pain. “She doesn’t bite… hard.”
The woman threw her head back and released a laugh that was more of a howl.
“Oh, don’t lie to him,” the woman said flapping her hand at the man like a rich woman displaying her expensive rings. She turned back to Bronx and looked him up and down as if admiring fine art. Her voice was deep and sultry, and it made my insides swirl violently. “I bite really hard.”
“Enough!” a man shouted as he walked across one of the conveyor belts at the registers.
Both the man and the woman let go of Bronx and I as the man jumped down into the water.
The man was at least six-foot-four, and he wore all black. He wore a ski mask that covered every inch of his face except for his almost black eyes.
“They’re a little, how can I put this,” the tall man who’d jumped down said as he tapped his chin, “rough around the edges.”
The tall man looked into my eyes. There was a softness in them that the others around us didn’t have. It was as though he was the lion tamer and he’d been given a pack of hyenas to work with.
“But they’re what I have so it’ll have to do,” the tall man said with a shrug. He turned to the man closest to me. “What was their crime?”
“Theft,” he answered quickly.
“And they used our bathroom,” the woman added.
The tall man rolled his eyes. “What did you take?” When no one answered quickly enough, he stomped his boot in the water spraying droplets in every direction. His volume tripled. “What did you take?”
“Just some food,” Nick replied.
The tall man crossed his arms. “How much? I need to figure how much to charge you.”
“We’re really sorry. We didn’t know any of it was spoken for,” Nick said.
The tall man drew in a breath that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room. “How much did you say?”
“A couple boxes of bars, some trail mix, a couple bottles of water,” Nick said, the muscles in his jaw tightening with each word.
I’d never seen him look as nervous as he did at that moment. There was something intimidating about the tall man, and it wasn’t just his height. His voice was deep, his shoulders were broad, and it looked like bullets would bounce right off of his black attire.
“Shit, probably some other things I can’t even remember,” Nick said pressing his hand to his temple, but quickly raising it back up when he realized it had dropped.
“I had a juice box,” Blair confessed in a shaky voice. She was probably having flashbacks with what happened with Danny’s family.
The tall man nodded his head slowly. “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, but the problem is this is my store and my goods. Nothing here was for sale. Seeing what you have with you, I think we can arrange some form of payment.”
“What exactly are you saying?” Nick asked.
“Nothing is free. One way or another you’ll pay for what you took,” the tall man said, and even though I couldn’t see his mouth, I could tell he was smiling.
“Can we just put it back?” Nick asked.
The tall man shook his head. “No. I have no way of knowing if you tampered with it.”
Nick’s shoulders slumped slightly. “So, what do we owe you then?”
“Four guns, and two backpacks,” the tall man said.
Nick cursed under his breath. That would leave us with one gun, and three backpacks which could make things a bit more difficult getting to my grandma’s. Especially if we ran into more people like these jerks.
But what the store owner didn’t know was that we could go back to Danny’s place and gather more. Hopefully, Nick did and wouldn’t put up a fight over the payment.
“That price seems a bit steep for what we took,” Nick said raking his fingers through his hair. He lowered his hands, and I could see his hand twitching near his hip.
“I feel like I’m giving you a good deal!” the tall man said, his eyes widening with surprise. “I could recalculate, but there’s a chance it won’t be in your favor.”
Nick held up his hand. “No, it’s fine. It’s just you’re practically taking the shirt off my back and out there, well, I really need a shirt.”
“I understand that,” the tall man said folding his hands in front of his middle. “Something tells me that next time you walk into a store, you’ll think twice about stealing.”
“At least you’re not paying with your fingers,” the woman said slapping Bronx on the back.
Nick eyed the man for a moment before slipping the gun and the pack off of his shoulder. Jamie mirrored his movements and quickly removed his gun and backpack setting it down next to Nick’s.
“Two more guns, please,” the tall man said. He looked at me over his shoulder. “This is far better than what my employees would have charged.”
He glared at the man behind me. I quickly slipped off my gun and added it to the pile. Seconds later, Bronx did the same.
The tall man turned to him. “She would have been even worse.” The woman raised her brows and licked her lips, grinning as if she’d been given a compliment. “We good then?”
“I guess so,” Nick said holding the tall man’s gaze as he gestured for us to join him.
The man at the door stepped to the side and lowered his weapons. He bowed his head and tipped his invisible hat.
“Have a good day now folks. Thank you for shopping at Joe’s,” he sniffed hard as we walked by and I didn’t miss the redness in his eyes. “Come again real soon.”
Bronx grabbed my hand and pulled me through the doorway so fast I’d barely had enough time to duck under a broken beam that hung low just outside the door. We weren’t more than ten steps away from the building when a chorus of laughs from inside broke out.
“Give me your gun,” Nick said holding out his hand to Blair.
“What? Why?” she said with a small frown.
He turned to her with a harshness in his eyes that looked like it could pierce flesh. “Because I know how to use it.”
“You could show me,” she huffed.
“And I will, but for now.”
Blair looked like she wanted to argue, but instead, she sighed and handed him the gun. Her shoulders crumpled inward.
“I can’t wait to get out of the stupid city,” Blair said. “I never thought in a million years that would be something I’d say. But this place is a shit hole. Disgusting. It’s filthy. It’s awful. I hate it here. I hate it.”
We traveled through the rest of the city looking over our shoulders, listening and waiting for something terrible to jump out at us. The pale red sky was darkening by the time we reached the outskirts of the city.
“How about over there?” Nick asked, gesturing toward an old motel. The old building sat on a hill that wasn’t surrounded by water, but the ground still looked soggy.
It was a long motel, the kind from horror movies with neon vacancy signs. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there had been a murder or two inside at least one of the rooms.
We walked up the hill, heading toward the office. Not because we felt the need to check in, but because that’s where the keys would be. Better to use a key than to break down a door and most likely break the lock with it.
The carpet squished under my shoes as we stepped into the office. My hand shot up to my nose to block out the scent of decay.
“Christ,” Nick said shaking his head.
There was a deceased body lying on the ground just at the side of the desk. It looked like whoever had been there had tried to make a run for it, but they hadn’t made it far.
I tried not to look at the grayed flesh that was sunken in hugging the bones beneath. A pale colored worm the size of my fingertip crawled out of the corpse's ear and walked across its cheek. My stomach clenched and I almost lost our expensive meal from the grocery store.
“Don’t look,” Jamie said stepping in between me and the dead body.
“I was trying not to,” I said.
“Good news,” Nick interrupted.
Blair narrowed her eyes at him. “No such thing.”
“They have vacancy,” Nick said holding up a set of keys. “Room ten. Let’s get out of here.”
Nick started to walk around the counter back out to the front waiting area, but before he could join us, a tall, short-nosed dog popped out from the back room. It barked sharply and growled at Nick seemingly unaware of the rest of us. Its dark, brown, thin fur clung to its overly skinny tensed body.
“Holy shit,” Nick said taking a quick step back, his gun aimed at the dog baring its teeth. He’d moved so fast I hadn’t even seen him pull the gun out. “Can’t get a fucking break.”
“Don’t shoot him!” I said keeping my voice calm.
“If it takes another step closer, I sure as hell am going to shoot it!” Nick said without blinking.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the first thing I could. It was some kind of breakfast bar. The dog’s eyes shifted toward me briefly when I tore open the package.
“It’s okay, boy,” I said not having any idea if the dog was a boy or a girl. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
The dog growled, but the tightness in its jaw loosened ever so slightly. I held out the bar, and the dog looked up at me.
“Want some food?” I asked softly, and it took another step, and then another. For a second, I worried that it was considering eating my whole hand, and I almost dropped the bar onto the soggy carpet, but it snapped its teeth down on the far end of the bar. He was just as apprehensive of me as I was of him. “That’s a good boy.”
The dog calmed before for their eyes. He looked up at me again with big, round, droopy eyes, and I reached out and scratched the top of his head.
“See,” I said flashing Nick a proud grin. “He just wanted—”
“You can’t keep him,” Nick said. “You only get one, and you picked Danny boy.”
“Funny,” I said cocking my head to the side. If the sweet little doggy wanted to tag along, I wasn’t going to stop him. In fact, I would have shared more of my food with him. He was struggling just as much as any of us were.
I reached out again to give him another scratch, but his bark cut through the air like a razor. I reflexively yanked my hand back.
What was left of the muscles in the dog’s legs tightened, and Nick raised his gun again. The dog didn’t wait around. It bolted out of the door, knocking Danny to the side, and it disappeared into the night.
“Poor dog,” I muttered. It probably wasn’t going to make it much longer out there. Maybe giving it food only prolonged its suffering.
“Poor dog?” Nick asked. “It almost bit your hand off.”
“It did not,” I said squinting at him.
Blair snorted. “Yeah, it did.”
I rolled my eyes and hoped that this time she’d seen it. It wasn’t like I needed someone to back up everything Nick said. Especially when he was wrong. He could pat his own back all by himself.
Nick jingled the keys as if he could feel the tension in the air. Let’s go check out our room.”
Chapter 6
We walked along the sidewalk past the scary rooms. I looked at each door counting them as we neared number ten. If each one of those doors could talk, I was sure they’d each have at least one horrifying story to tell, none of which I wanted to hear.
There were plenty of rooms, in fact, we could have each had our own separate room, but we all felt more comfortable sharing. It was safer and smarter to stick together.
When we got to the end of the row, Nick inserted the key into the lock. He jiggled the doorknob and pushed it open. The bottom of the door scraped against the damp carpet, flattening the pile.
Once we were all inside, Nick closed the door leaving us all standing there in the dark. He rifled through his bag and pulled out a small candle, placed it on the dresser, and clicked a lighter. The flame was small, but it lit up most of the sleeping area, leaving the bathroom area in a dark shadow.
“That should do,” he said as he pulled the curtains tight. “Maybe I should go check to make sure the light can’t be seen from outside.”
“I'll go with you,” Blair said. They left the room leaving us sitting there staring at the beds.
The room had seen better days, and it wasn’t because of the storms, the flooding, or the red sky. There were two beds, a small sofa, and a pair of chairs positioned on either side of a small round table at the window. The closet was missing its doors and the hangers with metal clips laid on the floor inside.
“Who would have stayed in a room like this?” Danny asked, sitting down on the sofa as if he was afraid it was going to bite his rear-end.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Bronx said yanking the stained bedspread off one of the beds.
Jamie laughed. “Why bother. I doubt the sheets are any cleaner.”
“You could be right,” Bronx said lying down on the bed and letting his feet hang off the side. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Was that what we were? Beggars? How could we be when there wasn’t anyone left? Although, with the way things had been going it seemed as though we were at the bottom of the food chain. First the men in masks, and then the incident at the grocery store where we’d lost our weapons and backpacks. We definitely weren’t scoring that well in the game of surviving the end of the world.
I jumped when Nick and Blair came back inside the room. If anyone had noticed, they said nothing. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I was sure someone was coming into the room to take everything we had left.
“We’ll take shifts watching at the window. Whoever is at the window gets the gun,” Nick said looking at me. “You don’t have to use it, but make sure at the very least you wake me up. We’ll treat anyone that approaches as a threat.”
“Is everyone that approaches a threat?” Danny asked.
Nick looked at him for a long moment before answering. “Probably.” He hesitated again. “We haven’t met the kindest of people thus far have we, Danny boy?”
Danny shrugged and looked away.
“Who’d like to go first? Oh, and Danny you don’t get a turn,” Nick said.
“What? Why not? I want to help,” Danny said pressing his palm against his knee.
Nick laughed. “We can’t trust you. You’ll take the gun and our food and run away.”
“The heck I will!” Danny said shaking his head. “If I wanted to be out there alone, I would have just stayed where
I was.”
I couldn’t help but grin. Nick on the other hand didn’t see the humor in his comment.
“He has a point there, doesn’t he Nick?” I said, unable to stop myself.
“Point or no point, after what he and his family did to us, he cannot be trusted,” Nick said crossing his harms.
“What can I do to change your mind?” Danny asked.
Nick shook his head. “Maybe nothing.”
Disappointment filled Danny’s rolling eyes.
Nick ignored him. He looked around the room at the others, but before anyone could even volunteer, he held up his palm. “Don’t worry, I’ll go first.”
“I’ll go second,” Blair said quickly.
Bronx opened his mouth, but I spoke before he had the chance. “Then me.”
“I’ll go after Gwen,” Bronx said.
“That leaves me last,” Jamie said.
Nick nodded. “If it’s not morning by then.” He pressed his palms together and rubbed them together. “Now, about the sleeping arrangements.”
Danny got the sofa, and the four that weren’t keeping watch had to share the beds. Bronx was already lying in one bed, and Blair quickly jumped on the empty one leaving Jamie and I standing there looking each other awkwardly.
“Do you want to…,” Jamie’s voice faded as he pointed to Blair’s bed, and then at Bronx’s.
“Whichever,” I said with a shrug, but he didn’t move. “I guess I’ll just, um….”
I took a step toward Bronx’s bed at nearly the same moment Jamie did. He took a step back and gestured for me to go ahead.
It was just sleeping for God’s sakes, it shouldn’t have mattered which bed I picked but for some reason sharking a bed with Blair made the muscles in my shoulders tense.
The bed squeaked as I laid down on my back. I folded my hands on my stomach and looked at the light dancing over the water-stained ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bronx’s arms crossed over his chest which was rising and falling slowly. He couldn’t have cared less who was in the bed with him.
It took me a solid twenty minutes before my nerves let my body relax. It was probably another twenty minutes before I fell into a fitful sleep.
The Red Sky Series Box Set Books 1-4: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series Page 19