I held out a hand to him. “Mikey. This is Carl, Freddy, and Kelli.”
The other man assessed us all and gave a shake of his head. “Aiken said he was sending some of his best people, not a kid, a woman, and a couple of boy scouts,” he grumbled.
“I wouldn’t let Kelli hear you say that again or she just might blow your head off,” Carl said with a smirk.
“I just might anyway, for being so darn cocky,” Kelli intervened, popping a hand on her hip.
The other man raised an eyebrow at her, his features staying hard and abrupt as he spoke. “Darlin’, you can blow me any time.” He looked Kelli up and down and I shook my head.
Kelli, as usual, was wearing a summer dress paired with black boots, her blond hair tied back in a plait down her back. She was, without a doubt, attractive, and that was all he’d zoned in on. It pissed me off more than it should have.
“Listen, she’s not here for a hookup, she’s here to fight. And trust me, she can fight and shoot better than most men. Don’t let her cuteness fool you. She’s a better shot than me with that rifle of hers. And Freddy, well, he grew up in this world and he’s a little badass.” I tempered my anger down, because I wasn’t there to fight those men—I was there to fight the Savages.
“Och, all of ya, just need to calm down. We’re on the same side.” A bigger red-haired guy stalked past the first man, who was still eyeballing me, and he took my hand and shook it. He looked over at Freddy and laughed. “Would ya fuckin’ look at ya, ya little red-haired bastard!”
He reached over and ruffled the top of Freddy’s head roughly, and Freddy blinked in surprise before his face broke into a smile and he started to laugh.
“Takes one to know one,” Freddy laughed back.
The red-haired guy laughed harder before looking over at another biker. “I like ’em. Bet this one’s got balls o’ steel.” He looked back at us. “I’m Highlander, that moody old bastard there is Gauge, this little shite who looks like he stopped growing when he was twelve is Max,” he said, pointing to the guy that had led us into the woods and who wasn’t short in any way. He was easily five eleven. “And the one with the shiny dinosaur egg for a head is Axe.”
The four men stared at us, with only Highlander looking happy about the situation. Gauge looked like one of the scariest dudes I’d ever seen, despite the fact that he was obviously a lot older than all of us. Max looked to be about the same age as Freddy and nodded a brief hello. But it was Axe that I was watching. Axe that I had seen before in Joan’s little sketchpad. And it was Axe that I was the most interested in.
“You’re gonna have to buy me dinner before I let you suck on this,” Axe said, grabbing his crotch crudely.
I hadn’t realized I’d been staring so intently, and I felt my cheeks heat up. “Sorry, I think I’ve seen you before around Haven. I’m just trying to place you.”
“I’ve been there a few times,” he replied, still frowning.
“On your own?” I asked.
“Why? You lookin’ for someone?”
Gauge shoved him from behind, but Axe’s body was firm and didn’t even flinch. Instead he turned to scowl at the other man.
“Shut the fuck up,” Gauge replied. “We need to get this shit show on the road. Time’s motherfuckin’ ticking and we’re not here to make friends and arrange play dates.”
Highlander clapped his hands together, a huge grin on his face. “Right then, let’s get a move on. I need to go see the woman of m’ dreams again!”
“She’s a cannibal, you sick fuck,” Gauge replied with a fierce scowl.
“Aye, that she is. Animal on the highway, animal between the sheets!” Highlander laughed.
“You’re not fucking her, brother,” Gauge growled, looking repulsed by the idea.
Highlander rolled his eyes. “Ack, I know, I’m just tickling ya balls, Gauge.” He turned to me. “Come on then, let’s be havin’ ya.”
He turned and started to stomp through the woods and Max, Gauge, and Axe followed, giving us only a brief jerk of the head. I looked across at my crew, noting how none of them seemed fazed by these men, and I wondered if it was just me that was just getting bad vibes from them.
“Let’s go,” I agreed, and we began to follow.
We held on to the horse’s reins and led them through the woods, passing between trees and over broken logs. Mother nature had turned into a wild beast that had been left untamed and unchecked for too long, and it made it difficult to get through the terrain without tripping a couple of times. The horses seemed unhappy with the situation too, but there wasn’t exactly anything I could do about it.
I spied a couple of deaders, but nothing that gave any of us cause for concern. They were mostly just dried-out bones and pale, paper-thin skin. They still sought food though, and they would have eaten us alive if given half the chance. A deader’s strength was the thing that always freaked me out the most. You’d think that in death you would be weak—all brittle, fragile bones and such—but no. Deaders had an inhuman amount of strength, and it was what got a lot of people killed.
“Two o’clock,” Gauge said, pointing toward them.
Their teeth were smashing together, their arms reaching for us as they moved in our direction. Max jogged over and took both of them out within seconds and was back in formation before I could even offer to help him.
They may have had an inhuman amount of strength, but like in any good horror movie, it accounted for nothing if you killed their brain.
We came to a small ridge where two motorcycles sat covered with tree branches, and Gauge told us to tie up the horses because they wouldn’t be able to go any further. We were heading around the back of the gas station so we wouldn’t be spotted from the road, and we were almost at the meet time. I didn’t like leaving the horses tied up because if any deaders stumbled across them they couldn’t escape, but we also couldn’t just let them go free because it could be a tipoff to the Savages that there were other people nearby, and I wasn’t about to do that.
Kelli and Freddy tied the reins to trees and the horses began to munch on the grass at their feet, oblivious to the very real danger they were in, and I felt a pang of guilt for that.
“I’ll wait up here,” Kelli said, tapping her rifle. “I’ll get a better shot.”
I nodded in agreement and then the rest of us skidded down the side of the ridge. Two motorcycles were already parked in front of the gas station with a large wooden cart piled with boxes and containers filled with various things
Highlander turned to us. “I want two men on the roof, two back here, one inside, and then two of us out front waiting for them.”
“Freddy, Carl, up on the roof,” I said, taking lead, and there seemed no way that any of the Highwaymen, barring Max, could hide up there without being noticed. I was beginning to wonder if they ate spinach for every meal, because all of those men were huge, with Max well on the way too.
Both men nodded and took off to the front of the gas station.
“I’ll stay back here in case any of them recognize me.”
Gauge nodded. “Right,” he grunted, “I heard about that. You got Drag outa their little torture dungeon in one piece.”
I felt the pull of a frown on my features as my stomach began the usual twisting and turning it did whenever I was forced to think about those caves and Drag and that sick woman...
“Not quite in one piece,” I replied, my chest feeling heavy, “but I got us out of there for all the good it did though.”
Axe grunted in agreement, his dark stare on me. “Ain’t that the truth.”
I wanted to defend myself, to say something to him about what Drag and I had gone through. How we’d had each other’s backs and how he had never, not once, backed down from Aife. How I could sleep easy because I knew that I’d done all I could to get us both out of there, and that despite Drag dying anyway, I knew he hadn’t blamed me.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything.
I fe
lt the intensity and the judgment coming from Axe like it was my own conscience, and it took all I had not to shrivel up and let the anxiety and the guilt eat me away.
“Och, I guess we need to split you two pretty boys up.” Highlander smirked, running a hand through his beard.
“Makes no difference to me,” Axe said, his gaze sliding to Highlander.
I shrugged. “I don’t care either way.”
“Grand!” Highlander clapped his hands together again. “I want Max and Gauge with me out front. Max can handle himself but he looks like a tiny wee thing in comparison to us so they’ll see him as easy pickings.” Max scowled at Highlander but he seemed unfazed. “Do ya get it? Easy pickings? Because they’re vultures looking for a meal.” He chuckled and I shook my head.
Highlander, Gauge, and Max headed to the front of the gas station, and when I looked up I saw Carl and Freddy wave once to me before dropping out of sight.
28.
Mikey
We’d been quiet for ten minutes or so, Axe and I both keeping low and out of sight while simultaneously checking in every direction in case the psycho Savages snuck up on us, something that I’d been having nightmares about for the past year. Dirty fingernails reaching for the back of my shirt before grabbing me and slitting my throat. The amount of times I woke up in cold sweats after dreaming that was too many to mention. So far there had been no sign of them.
I rolled my shoulders and took a deep breath before looking up at the ridge where Kelli was hidden with her rifle. I couldn’t see her but I knew she was there somewhere, and I hoped that from her vantage point she’d be able to let us know when they were on their way without giving away her own location.
We were covered on all angles: people high, low, hidden and in plain sight. I should have felt safe and secure, but instead dread was threading through my veins like a slow-moving train.
The heady silence was making me more anxious, and I glanced over at Axe and cleared my throat. His gaze slowly slid to mine. He looked like a mean bastard. Shaved head, hard features, and hands like buckets. He was at least fifty pounds heavier than me, and from the looks of it, it was all muscle. He didn’t scare me in any way though. Not much did anymore. I’d gone up against the darkest thing there could be and I’d come away almost intact.
“What?” he asked, his gaze moving back to Highlander and Max, who were sat out front, asses perched on their motorcycles while they smoked cigarettes and talked nonchalantly like they didn’t have a care in the world. It was all an act, of course, but I still envied their freedom and the way they seemed at peace.
Axe and I were currently well hidden behind some large industrial bins around the left flank of the gas station. There was a rusted shell of a van haphazardly parked, which had at one time been dropping off a delivery before the world ended. Now it was just an empty, rusted shell of the vehicle it once was. Kind of like me. Still, it served well for somewhere to hide behind. Its wheels were large and round and gave adequate coverage of our feet from anyone who looked underneath, and the rusted metal of the doors already had holes in them from previous gunfire, giving us several nice spyholes to look through.
“They found the water maps then?” I asked Axe casually. I’d been wondering about that since setting off that morning.
While my group had headed to the gas station, O’Donnell and Aiken had gone to meet the Highwaymen to see if they had found the maps, and if so, if they had worked out the location of these Savage bitches.
Our group was merely a contingency in case they hadn’t.
We were to bring them back in one piece so we could cut and kill to get the information out of them if need be.
Axe turned to look at me. “Yeah, did Gauge not mention that?” Axe replied, his expression full of sardonic amusement that I had been purposefully kept out of the loop. “You wanting to join them on their little mining exploration?” He smirked.
“Mines, huh?” I swallowed, tremors of fear running down the full length of my spine. I remembered the deaders the Savages were herding together, and the thought of being stuck inside mines—in the cold and the dark—with deaders wandering around was terrifying.
“Yeah, seems like they like it in the cold and the dark,” he chuckled. “The opposite of hell where they belong, if you ask me.”
But I wasn’t really listening anymore. Instead I was thinking about the last time I had been in their cave prison. The heat and the darkness, the stench of decay in the air. The way the screams echoed along the corridors.
“I’d like to get my revenge on as many as possible,” I replied, my tone hard. “For me and for Drag.”
Axe’s smirk grew bigger. “Drag was an asshole but he always had a way of getting people to jump into the fire with him.” He shook his head, his gaze still on mine. “Seems he can still work his magic even when he’s dead.”
I cocked my head, pondering this. “I guess so,” I agreed.
He sighed. “I’m heading there too,” he said. “Plan is to kill these bitches and move on to their base. Burn them alive inside the place if need be. You good with that?”
I nodded, not sure at all. “And if there are survivors?”
“You think there’ll be any?”
I shrugged, thinking of myself inside those caves. I’d been alive but waiting for death. Marley had been the same when we’d rescued him. Had there been others inside? Back at Clare and Tim’s candy store I’d found Butcher carved up but alive. Ricky was better off dead after what they did to him, and Phil… What the fuck had happened to Phil?
“Yeah, there could be,” I said, my throaty whisper sounding harsher and more abrupt than I meant it to come out, and Axe’s expression quirked in amusement.
This mission was to seek and destroy. I searched myself to see if I cared about slaughtering these women in cold blood. It was different from defending yourself—this was murder; but I quickly realized that I didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t kill or be killed anymore. It was kill and be done with it, and I was good with that, but we would have to check those mines for survivors. We owed it to anyone inside that had held on this long. That had prayed and hoped that someone would come and help them.
“I’d like to come along,” I said, knowing that unless I was there, those mines wouldn’t be searched; they’d be torched or blown up and everyone inside would be left to die. That could have been me, or Butcher, or Marley, or God knew who else.
He chuckled. “I just bet you would.”
“Is there a problem with me coming?”
Axe shook his head. “No problem with me. More the merrier.” He grinned and I felt like I was missing out on some joke. Like there was some mystery that I was missing out on. “You got a map?”
I nodded and pulled the tattered, folded-up map from my pocket. It was already on the right place and Axe took a moment to look before pinching some dirt between his fingers and rubbing it in a circle on the map.
“Here,” he grunted, and I nodded and looked at the spot he had marked. I slid the map back away, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders as the paper slid within the confines of my jacket.
O’Donnell and Aiken would be pissed at me, but I’d deal with them later. And really, what did it matter if we’d already completed our mission? As long as we ended the Savages, that was what was important. And I wanted to be there for every death, every kill, every blood-soaked scream, because maybe, just maybe if I was, I might be able to sleep again.
A stick breaking loudly from the low ridge above us had me looking up sharply to Kelli’s spot. I couldn’t see her but I knew she was letting us know that the Savages had arrived. I braced myself for the anxiety to flood my senses. For the fear to clutch my heart and squeeze until I couldn’t breathe. Whenever I thought about the Savages—about coming face to face with any of them again—this was what happened. But as I watched a single horse pulling a small cart with two women at the reins turn the corner and head slowly toward Highlander and Max, I felt none of that.
I felt calm. Completely calm. Like there was nothing left to be afraid of and nothing to worry about. I was ready to face my executioners and I was more than ready to end them.
The cart and horse pulled to a stop and the two women climbed down. One of the women handed over a small bag and Highlander looked inside, bringing out a handful of herbs. Highlander and Max made small talk with the two women for several minutes, and it was obvious to anyone that Highlander was flirting with the older of the two women, and that maybe she was even flirting back with him. He placed a hand on her arm and she turned to him, giving a soft smile that should have been sexy, but all I saw was the evil in her. It was like being able to see someone’s aura, and hers was blood red and swimming in the stench of blackness. My stomach flipped as she glanced down at his hand on her arm and then back up to him before saying something to him.
“What are we waiting for?” I whispered.
“Just wait,” Axe replied.
Max and the younger of the women were talking by the cart, and he reached up to lift the material that covered the boxes and crates of whatever was underneath. They’d said they had herbs and fruit, apparently, but I knew for a fact that they didn’t eat fruit. The only thing they ate was flesh.
My stomach flipped again, like it was warning me, and I swallowed the sickly feeling that was growing inside of me. Their clothes were brown leather, and anyone would be forgiven for thinking that it was animal hide. I knew differently.
The younger woman pulled Max’s hand away and gestured to his motorcycle shyly, her cheeks turning pink. Highlander and the older-looking woman headed toward the gas station, his hand on her ass as they walked.
“He’s actually going to fuck her. Gauge is going to be pissed if he has to sit through that shit show.” Axe actually sounded impressed and maybe a little in awe of Highlander. “He’s got a stronger stomach than me.”
The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7 Page 21