Captives (17 page)

As this had played out, Walt had been hunched behind a browned vine. With the vans departing in opposite directions, he stood, the binoculars drooping from his face. He'd gotten too clever, thinking he'd follow them home and pull the same trick twice. Abyss had other plans. They were moving the slaves.

The southbound van's tail lights shrank until they were red pinpricks, then vanished. So did his hopes. He had zero chance to follow the van. Within a few hours, it would be hundreds of miles from here. Southbound, yeah, but there was a shitload of south ahead of him. Fresno, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Orange County, Palm Springs, San Diego, Tijuana. For all he knew it was headed toward Phoenix or Houston, Chihuahua or Chicago. He'd traveled I-5 before. From here, it didn't pass through anything much bigger than a truck stop until you hit the valley into L.A. Even if there were witnesses along the way, they wouldn't tell him a damn thing. Not when it came to the Abyss. There was no telling where the van might turn off the highway. Whatever direction he headed would be no more than a guess.

He sat in the dirt, but there weren't any answers there, either. He squeezed his eyes shut as if they were hatches keeping the bad old feelings from spilling out of his body. The stuff about how there wasn't any point. That there never had been and that people had just been too busy with gadgets and money to notice. Now, though, the truth had been laid bare. There was nothing but loss. Pain. Death. Anyone with half a brain ought to call it quits on their own terms before something worse came for them. If you persisted, knowing what was out there, then you deserved what you got.

He opened one eye. The night continued to be stubbornly dark. Stars and shit. That was the thing about loss and pain and death: you could inflict them on other people, too. He might not be able to follow the van, but he didn't need to. Not when there was someone who knew exactly where it was going.

He popped to his feet and ran down to the road. Sweat popped up along his back, wicked away by the cold air. They had already checked the abandoned houses set off from the road, but in hindsight, that had been a crucial mistake. They should have been checking the
inhabited
homes.

A few miles up the highway, a homestead rested in the hills to his left. It was dark now, but when he and Carrie had passed it earlier that night, two candles had winked from the upper windows. The owners had planted a line of pines between it and the highway to hide it from travelers. He stopped within the fifteen-foot trees and watched the house for several minutes.

He backed off and approached the garage. It was flanked by a small deck with a door set in its side. The panes were too dusty to see through. Blocked from sight by the garage's high roof, he took aim and melted a slot in the base of the pane. Glass globbed away. He gave it a minute to cool, then inserted a knife into the slot, angled up. Moving quickly, he used the laser to slice a circle from the pane. When it fell, rather than dropping inside and shattering, it slid down the blade of his knife and bounced outside. He broke its fall with his shoe, then danced back from the glowing glass. It landed on the deck with a brittle click. The boards began to smoke. He got out his water and doused the pane and his shoe. The glass squealed; steam rose with a hiss.

He waited a moment to ensure this nonsense had gone unnoticed, then reached through the hole in the door and unlocked the knob. His retinas were still dancing with the inverted glare of the laser. As soon as they adjusted, he swore in delight.

The garage was packed. Tools. Tubs. Bicycles. He made a quick circuit, deploying his lighter whenever he needed a better look. The bottom shelf along one wall was lined with big fat glass bottles of what smelled like pure water. He refilled his bottles, then stole three jars of what appeared to be canned apples, wrapping them in his spare clothes to protect them. Carefully, he lowered a mountain bike from the wall and wheeled it outside. As he was closing the door, he thought better and went inside for a second bike. Walking one with each hand was awkward, and he kept waiting for the crack of a rifle bullet, but then he was beyond the trees, and soon after, he was on the road.

Another mile up the highway, he diverted down a private drive and entered a barn, startling a family of raccoons. He stashed the second bike under a tarp and jogged back to the road.

A welcome anger pulsed in his veins. It was time to do bad things. He mounted his bike and rode north.

* * *

"Don't scream."

Naturally, she screamed, her voice bouncing off the tile walls of the dim bathroom. At least it was more of a peep than a shriek. Given the circumstances, that was as much as he could ask.

Walt smiled, showing his hands. "I'm not here to hurt anybody. Check that—I'm not here to hurt
you
. I can't say the same for your captors."

The young woman's eyes relaxed slightly. "You're the mystery man, aren't you? The one who helped Carrie break out."

"Is she here?"

"I haven't seen her since the night she left." The girl drew back her chin. "Don't tell me they retook her."

"Not for long. Do you know where Liss lives?"

"Down by—hey. Hang on. I'm not telling you
that
unless you get me out of here."

Walt spread his hands. "What do you think I'm trying to do?"

"I
think
you're working on some scheme to find Carrie. And that once you walk out of here, I'll never see you again."

"Since when did everyone get so paranoid? Tell me where Liss is and you've got nothing to worry about. I'll take care of the rest."

The girl folded her arms. "I'll tell you where she is if you tell me how you got in here."

"You see, many years ago, I was bitten by a radioactive mole."

"All right, dick. I don't need you to tell me anything. All I have to do is watch you leave."

Walt's skin prickled with a feeling as cold as the north face of a mountain. He grimaced, shifting his feet on the tile floor. "You shouldn't have said that."

Her voice got very soft. "What are you going to do to me?"

"I don't want to do anything. Give me any reason not to."

"You won't be back. There are too many of them and you have no reason to risk your life for us." She moved to the mirror over the sink, eyes widening as she took in her drawn cheeks, the greasy hair pulled tight from her temples. She lifted her right hand, as if to wave to herself or touch her image, then stopped and lowered it to the sink. "Do I really look this faded?"

"No. You don't sound like it, either."

"If you find a place like this, and you do nothing to stop it, are you as bad as those who built it? Or is there a difference between doing evil and turning a blind eye to it?"

Walt rubbed his eyebrow. "Like is there a difference between shooting a baby and not shooting a baby?"

"I don't think it's as simple as walking away," she said. "I think that when we encounter a place like this, it marks us. Stains us. And we might not be able to wash it off."

The candle flickered, dimming her reflection. A drop of water fell from the faucet with a plink. Walt glanced at the ceiling. "Fortunately, we snakes can shed our skins."

The woman closed her eyes. "There's a house on the northwest side of the lake. It has a dock. A cupola on the roof. When I was a little girl, I always wanted a room with a cupola. I thought the birds would fly up to it and be my friend."

"This is where Liss lives?"

"This used to be a state park. They had to build their new homes. Hers is the only one that isn't just a cabin."

"They've got hounds," Walt said. "That's how they found Carrie. If you get out, you'll have to find a way to deal with them."

"Maybe I'll poison them." In the mirror, her eyes darted to his. She giggled like her brain had just snipped its last tether to sanity, but a self-mocking smile turned the corners of her mouth. "Dogs will eat anything. That's why we'll always be their masters."

She turned and walked into a stall. After she emerged, washed her hands, and left, Walt climbed up through the hole in the ceiling that had been hidden by the darkness and the long shadows of the candle. His slow, furtive crawl outside gave him oodles of time to think about the woman and the others sleeping in the bunk room down the hall.

Outside, he dropped to the ground, crouched beside the building, then slunk into the mangy weeds. The road cut past the northwest side of the lake. He followed beside it, sticking to the brush. Near the black waters of the reservoir, a dozen structures clustered around the road, ranging in size from tool sheds to longhouses. Except for one former ranger station, they had the rough-hewn look of stuff built since the plague. It was the middle of the night and he only saw two lights across the entire grounds. A dog barked, freezing him, but the noise was at least a quarter mile away. There was little to hide in besides sagebrush and weeds and he moved further from the road and closer to the shore.

The house on the water appeared to be a prefabricated home they'd managed to lug across the mountains to form the center of Liss' little manor. The foundation was sloppily edged concrete. The home was augmented by a log cabin extension and the cupola they'd grafted to the roof. A garden grew at its side. The back door was unlocked. He swept the rooms, ensuring she didn't have any bodyguards or guests, then entered her bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Moonlight slashed through the window and glinted from the lake beyond. She slept in the middle of a king size bed. He seated himself at the reading table opposite the bed's foot and rested his laser on his knee.

"You look like a busy woman," he said. "So I'll get to the point: tell me what I want to know and I might not fry you up like a bucket of extra crispy."

She inhaled sharply, sheets spilling from her as she sat up. Her short, choppy blond hair made her look both younger and older than her true age, which he pegged around 35. The shadows of the moon made her nose and cheeks look chipped from stone.

She went still, the confusion of sleep draining from her face. "I
knew
she had help."

"Then you know what this is about."

Liss pressed her hands together and ran their edge down her nose and mouth. "Shoot me."

"I feel like we skipped right past the part where you tell me where Carrie is."

"Won't happen. So shoot me. And get on with your life."

He scowled and held up the gun. "This doesn't fire bullets. It fires heat. That means it will be completely silent as I slice off your legs, hands, and any other part of you I find offensive."

"You got to me too late," she said, voice deep and scratchy from sleep. "Your threats aren't threats."

He sighed, stood, and moved to the side of the bed. She swiveled her head to follow, but made no move to scramble away. Keeping the laser aimed at her, he grabbed the sheets and stripped them back. She was dressed in underwear and a t-shirt. If the exposure bothered her, she didn't let it touch her face.

"We'll start with a toe," he said. "The good news is you'll have nine left. The bad news is you'll have nine left to lose."

"I'm not trying to be a bitch," she said. "I'm giving you the facts. You can't hurt me anything like the people who've got Carrie can."

He leveled the pistol and eyed her big toe. "There's only one way to find out."

He squeezed the buttons on either side of the grip. A blue line lit the room. He drew it across her toe. Flesh sizzled. The smell of burnt skin permeated the air. The toe fell from her foot and rolled down the indented mattress toward her body. She cried out, whipping her foot to the side. Its outer edge struck his wrist. A sheet whoomped, flapping over him; he fired, the beam cutting through it and into the bed, but she'd already rolled from it. She banged into his knees, staggering him. He tossed his arms out for balance. She was climbing him, bringing him down, fingers digging into his forearm. He landed on his backside and elbow. Beneath the sheet with him, she bent his wrist and twisted away the laser.

Before he'd reoriented himself, she kicked away, pulling out from under the sheet. She was blinking hard, face gaunt with pain. But her aim was steady enough.

12

The lip of the pier protruded a few inches past the railing. As Thom fell, he scrabbled for anything he could snag, catching the runner at the base of the rails. It was slick with mist and his grasp pulled loose. But it had slowed him enough to get a hold of the cement edge. He dangled, breathing hard. He was facing inland. The underside of the pier was a web of metal struts and wooden beams. He reached out and grabbed a metal pole. Paint flakes and rust dug into his palm. Footsteps scraped across the pier. He toed for a foothold, then let go of the cement with his other hand. He swayed into space, wheeling his arm. It banged into another pole. He twisted his wrist and grabbed tight, arresting his momentum.

The footsteps stopped. The aquarium door squeaked inquisitively, then closed with a disappointed peep. For some time, the only thing Thom could hear was the surf washing against the pilings. The door squeaked again. Multiple sets of shoes tromped around the side of the building, coming to a stop at the edge of the pier.

"Mission accomplished." The voice was gruff, older. "Well, like they used to say, smoke 'em if you got 'em."

Lighters flicked. Two, three seconds of silence ticked past. A whiff of tobacco smoke swirled beneath the pier.

A younger man said, "Where do you suppose he went?"

"Don't know. Don't care."

"Oh yeah? Then why didn't we just ace him?"

"We didn't 'ace,' him," the first man said, "because we got use for him."

"How's that?" The younger man's voice was impatient, testy. The tone of a guy who pretended to be a girl's best friend, then got mean the moment she turned him down.

"Think about it," a third voice put in. "They want the area cleared out. Most people will run off the minute you flash a gun. Others, it turns the other way. The harder you push, the deeper they dig in their heels."