But they were empty.
The doors to all three cages stood open, chains and padlocks hanging loosely from them. The only things remaining inside them where the agonizingly violent memories Sarah had of her brief imprisonment.
She looked at the tent next to the left-most cage and remembered David crouched down behind it, watching what these men did to her. Their eyes still crawled all over her now, and she ought to have felt more disgusted knowing that many of them knew what it was like to be inside her, but all she could think about suddenly was her son. The painfully sad memory of him washed over her in a wave that she couldn't reach the surface of. It was like she was drowning, thrashing up toward the sunlight but being gently and eternally tugged by her feet deeper below. Tears rolled out of her eyes, but she wiped them away with her fingers quickly and breathed a sharp intake of air through her nose, trying to stifle them.
The bandit stopped in front of the tent that used to belong to Jericho. And for a moment, Sarah expected to see the flaps move and the man himself come strolling out. But the bandit went inside and a moment later came out with someone considerably shorter and scrawnier.
"Bill, you son of a bitch. I've heard about you. What are you doing here? And what's she doing here?" He said everything without taking his eyes off of Sarah.
"Never mind that," he said. "Whatever business you have with her, I don't care. We need to talk to the boss. Is that you?"
"Yeah, I run this bridge! What of it?" the scrawny bandit said, puffing out his chest.
"The bridge?" Bill said. "I'm talking about Durham. Who took over after Jericho?"
The bandit grumbled to himself under his breath, shifting his eyes back and forth. He didn't like being talked down to, and he especially didn't like anyone insinuating he wasn't King Shit on his own turf. But he bitterly said, "That's Tapper."
"Tapper?" Bill asked. "Never heard of him. Where is he?" Bill looked around.
"He ain't here," the bandit replied.
"What happened to the women in the cages?" Sarah asked suddenly.
"They ain't here either. Things've changed a bit since Jericho kicked it. We spread out a little more in the city, 'specially after what happened here last fall."
"What happened?" Bill asked.
The bandit laughed. "I guess you don't get our postcards much anymore. Noah, Zed and that other one had a big what for. Damn near wiped all themselves out. So we decided to help ourselves to the rest."
"Where's Tapper?" Sarah asked, her heart feeling like it just plummeted down an elevator shaft.
"He's at Noah's Ark now. Same with all them whores you been wonderin' about."
"Oh God," she said.
Bandits prowled around on the catwalks above, leering down at her, some with their itchy fingers brushing against the guns stuffed in their pants, and others making obscene gestures at her with their hands and their genitals.
Sarah ignored them and took in the rest of the sights around her. And the only emotion that came to her was horror.
The place was an absolute pigsty, with garbage strewn everywhere and infrastructure wrecked. The shed that Sarah and Barry had used to sneak out of the camp had been torn down, half of it left in a heap where it lay, and the other half, mostly sheet metal, used to patch up holes in the wall surrounding the place. One of the doors to the cafeteria was ripped off and the other hung on only the bottom hinge, pulling away from the top of the doorframe by a few inches. The fiberglass that composed the greenhouse was cracked or broken in places, and Sarah could see through one of the holes that all of the plots of dirt were littered with the husks of long-dead plant life.
The bastion of hope that she once saw when she first arrived here was no more. Noah's Ark was gone.
"And what do I get if I help you?" Tapper asked.
"Didn't I give you reason enough?" Sarah replied bitterly.
Tapper, a rather unassuming man for the leader of the bandits in Durham, kicked the dirt by his feet with the toe of his boot. "No, don't think so. You're telling me about some kind of new faster, scarier zombie... I've never seen one. Don't concern me none. I got everything I could need right here."
"You don't have food," Sarah retorted. "It's almost summer and you don't have a damn thing growing in that greenhouse. None of you geniuses even know how!"
"You watch your tongue," he said, venom dripping from his mouth.
"I know this city doesn't have much life left in it," Sarah continued. "You've just about picked everything clean." Tapper said nothing in response, but the knowing look in his eyes told her he would be a bad poker player. "Raleigh has far more supplies."
"We'll manage," he said stubbornly. "And why the hell would I want to move closer to those freaks you're talking about? Things dry up here, maybe we'll go east."
"There's not going to be an east or an anywhere!" Sarah shouted. "Haven't you heard anything I've said?"
"What I haven't heard is what you're gonna give me. Not some maybe promise in another city. You."
"I'll give you weapons," she said. "I have a huge cache I've been collecting for a while. If you help me and we get this done, it's yours."
"Nah, found plenty here in a nice little bunker," he said, shrugging her off and smiling. He was having fun playing with her and watching her twist in the wind, trying to convince him of something he wanted no part of.
"There's plenty more than that," she said. "Military equipment, stuff you could only dream of."
And suddenly his interest was piqued. "What are you talking about?"
Bill stood beside her on the dead front lawn of Noah's Ark and remained stoic as he watched the conversation unfold. The other bandits hanging around them stared at her slack-jawed, and the ones on the catwalks above looked like they were slinking back and forth, ready for the right moment to pounce on her. Sarah knew that look in their eyes. It was a look of deep, unfulfilled longing, maybe even born out of boredom, but it was there nonetheless. It was hunger. They wanted something more than the meager existence they were stuck with.
"If you help us," she said, "the base is yours after we take them out. I'm talking all the military-grade weaponry you could want, Humvees, transport trucks, gas and electricity. They must have huge stores saved up and plenty of generators."
"Sounds like walking into a slaughterhouse," Tapper said. He had the slightest trace of excitement, but he kept it firmly behind a wall of suspicion. "How many men do they have?"
"Two hundred, tops," Sarah lied.
"That's it?" Tapper asked.
Bill gave her a queer look, but he didn't respond. He knew she would say anything to Tapper to get him to agree, and honestly, that was fine by him.
"Is that right, Bill?" he asked.
"She's got it right," Bill said.
"Hell, I can about match those numbers. Add whatever you guys can manage, and I think we definitely have the crowd. But what about firepower? If they have all that equipment, it'll be like going up against a brick wall with a water pistol."
"That's where the plan comes in..." Sarah said.
She pulled out a map and went over it with Tapper while the nearby bandits watched, almost drooling as they envisioned the base on the empty spot on the paper where Sarah pointed. When she finished, a smile spread across Tapper's face. He agreed to her terms and said that he would gather everyone and meet them the following night. But just as they started to pull the gates open for Sarah and Bill to make the long trek back to Raleigh, she stopped.
"Wait," she said.
"You forget something?"
But she ignored him and broke through the crowd of bandits. Bill started after her at first, but then stopped with the rest of them and watched her climb up the stairs to the second floor.
Sarah pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway. The interior looked no better than the outside, with defacement and ruin everywhere. The door to Noah's office was ripped off its hinges and the room was filled with garbage, but that didn't interest her. She rounded th
e corner and passed a few bewildered bandits skulking around the hallway, drifting in and out of rooms like restless apparitions. Most of them were going to start in on her when they saw her, but the rifle over her shoulder and the hard edge in her eyes gave them pause.
She turned into the ladies' dormitory where she had once slept and paused in the entrance. The room was still filled with beds, most of the curtains drawn around them. A sickly smell hung in the air like stale sex, and mumbling, almost ghoulish noises created an uncomfortable din. Sarah strode along the aisle, counting the beds as she went. Her eyes set upon the bed she had occupied, and it was empty. The bedside table still sat next to it, now stained and scratched, and Sarah almost lunged for it. She pulled open the drawer to find empty cans and dried food stains, but nothing else.
"Where is it?" she muttered as she rooted her hand around inside.
She yanked open the curtain surrounding one of the beds next to her and found a bandit lying on top of an almost comatose woman. He turned his head and immediately started shouting angrily, then a flash of rage came over Sarah and she aimed her assault rifle at him, causing him to fly off the woman and land on the hard floor in the opposite direction.
Sarah pulled open the drawer in the table next to that bed, but it wasn't there either. She interrupted a few drugged rapes, searching for it as tears welled up in her eyes. At the end, she fell to her knees and sobbed. Seeing this place in ruins and knowing this was her last chance to retrieve it drove something wild in her. But she was too late.
Her necklace—the necklace David had given her and she had left in her drawer when she departed from Noah's Ark, not yet ready to carry that painful reminder of him—was gone.
14
Hammered
"Sarah, you're back," Carly said. She stared at her at first, and then she crossed the room to the doorway and hugged her.
Sarah was exhausted. The trip had been several hours each way, and she felt like she was starting to go delirious from being out in the sun for so long. She fell against Carly's shoulder and wrapped her arm around her, practically letting her hold up her weight.
"How did it go?"
"It went fine. They're set for tomorrow."
"I was getting worried about you," Carly said. "I was starting to think maybe..." She pulled Sarah into her tightly and enjoyed the warmth of her body pressing against her.
Then Sarah broke away from her and stepped into the mouth of the hallway. "How's Tommy?"
"He's okay, I think. He was awake for a little while, but he's been pretty much just sleeping. I gave him a little bit of water while you were gone, but then he was out of it again."
Sarah strode down to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. There was still a little sunlight left in the day coming through the window and it fell across his arm and gently touched his cheek. He looked peaceful. She watched as his chest gently rose and fell, the muscles in his neck periodically twitching ever so slightly.
"Why don't you get some rest, too?" Carly asked from behind her.
Sarah came out from the doorway and went back to the living room. "No, I have to run into town while there's still some light out and get a couple things."
"What for?"
Sarah had a look in her eyes that told her how serious she was, despite her fatigue. "We're supposed to assault the base tomorrow night. We need the code to that building before then. Better to get it out of them tonight in the dark when the fear in their guts is hot."
"So what are you getting?" Carly asked.
Sarah thought about this for a second. "I'll decide when I get there," she said in a curious tone.
She had a quick bite to eat and drank some water before she headed out, once again leaving Carly to watch over Tommy. She tried to come with her, but Sarah told her she could come when she went out to continue interrogating the two soldiers they kidnapped.
It was closing in on nine-thirty by the time Sarah got to some kind of sign of what used to be civilization. She found a hardware store sitting along a country road, all blasted in dust. The sign said "Tom's Hardware & Party Rentals" and half the letters on it had been chipped away by the grit that flew up in the narrow gap between it and the Plexiglas. It must have been dumb luck for her (something she sorely needed lately) that she happened upon this place rather than a flower shop or something; she wasn't creative enough to find a use for any party supplies, but she figured the hardware would do quite nicely in convincing one of the two men to give up the code.
The door opened with a grinding creak, almost like the hinges were fighting against themselves. A layer of dust wafted up into the air and sparkled in the sunlight coming through the windows as soon as she stepped foot inside. She glanced out the nearest window and saw the sun falling into oranges and crimsons on the horizon. She had a flashlight on her in case it got dark before she was done, but she planned to be well and good on her way back before that happened.
As she browsed the aisles, her footsteps echoed throughout the small country store, and in her tiredness it sounded like someone was clapping their hands right behind her head. She would stop every few paces and give a look around, not able to shake the feeling that she wasn't alone. But she knew she was. Of course she was.
There were a lot of spaces on the shelves and racks that were picked through and empty, but there was still plenty of inventory to look through. Sarah passed some garden hoses and metal buckets and copper tubing and spigot parts. She snaked her way around the aisles, slowly making her way toward the back of the store. Then she finally got to the good section: hammers, pliers, screwdrivers and wrenches sat on the wall in front of her.
She ran her fingers along the handles of each one hanging on its respective hook, causing them to gently swing back and forth. Her hand closed around green rubber. They adorned the handles of the pliers she pulled off the shelf, and she held them up in front of her, inspecting them. Pulling them open and closed, feeling the heft of them, she decided they would do. Her eyes drifted back up to the rack and considered the wrenches, trying to conceive of some kind of creative torture she could inflict with them. The knuckles on her own fingers hurt as she imagined a vice slowly being ratcheted shut on them. She even found herself wincing. Oh yes, that was good. She pulled a wrench off the shelf and stuffed it into her jeans pocket with the pliers before inspecting the screwdrivers. Those she couldn't find a satisfactory use for, but the hammers were next and they were nothing if not dependable.
There was a noise in the store.
Sarah froze. She didn't move a muscle, but instead listened. The silence was deafening, but it held total dominion over the entire store. She tried to figure out where it came from, but then she wondered if she'd heard it in the first place or just imagined it. She wasn't sure at all. And she decided that maybe it was just a feeling and not a noise, like an intuition. She craned her neck toward the end of the aisle and saw that the sun had already set halfway over the horizon through the window. It was almost dark now, and she had forgotten herself.
In her haste to grab a hammer and be on her way, another sound or intuition slid into her spine like an ice pick slipping between her vertebrae, and it gave her a jerk. Her legs locked up at the same moment that she spun around, thinking something was behind her. And for the first second there was a flash in front of her that was so real to her brain that she was convinced there was, even though there was nothing but bins of nails and screws.
The horror of it made one of her legs stiffen like a board and it jolted her backward. She slammed into the rack with the tools she had just been browsing. They rattled and swung on their hooks, and unbeknownst to Sarah, the hammer she had tried to reach for slipped off the end and started to fall.
The heavy head of it spun around in the air like a pendulum and landed squarely on the top of her skull.
Like someone pressing the Off button on a TV remote, her picture instantly zapped to black. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed onto the floor. She was out cold.
She rolled her head around on the floor and it felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. She pinched her eyes shut in pain and saw little golden stars in the corners of them. Her head ached on the top and on the back that was now uncomfortably resting against the floor. She started to remember something striking her from above, and she realized the pain on the back of her head must have been where her head smacked the tiled floor.
Then she remembered what startled her in the first place and caused her to knock into the shelf.
And then the sound or the feeling or whatever it was that scared her came back, and this time she wasn't imagining things.
Soft footsteps came from somewhere behind her.
Her heart jumped and she rolled her head upward on the floor, painful as it was, and tried to get a look at whatever was moving. She was lying parallel to the aisle and she caught a brief glimpse of something as it passed by at the end of it, highlighted faintly and only for a moment in the moonlight now coming through the window.
Sarah held her breath. She thought that whatever it was had seen her, and she desperately started patting around on her hip for her pistol. She pulled it out of its holster and cringed as the metal audibly skittered along the tile. With great effort, she rolled over onto her stomach and inadvertently let out a grunt.
Silence came over the hardware store and the footsteps stopped. Where they had last been, she couldn't tell.
She stretched her arm out, pointing the pistol toward the end of the aisle with the window. She mentally struggled with herself, wishing very strongly that she had two arms. She laid the gun on the floor in front of her and reached behind her, feeling around for the mini flashlight in her back pocket and never once taking her eyes off the end of the aisle.
Zombie Apocalypse Box Set 2 Page 33