Deadlocked 8 (40 page)

Glass rained down on me as the tortured sound
of wrenching steel filled my ears. The bus bounced off the car I’d
hit, and rolled a few more yards until it stopped dead in the
middle of the road.

I meant to only blink, but when I opened my
eyes I knew that a good chunk of time had passed. There was a man
standing at the door to the bus, pointing a gun at me and shouting
something.

I blinked again, and this time I opened my
eyes when I felt a searing pain climb up through my side. Someone
was lifting me. I was being carried out of the bus.

A group of soldiers had gathered at the head
of the smoking bus, and I was tossed unceremoniously to the ground
at their feet. My wound slammed on the pavement, causing me to gasp
in pain. I pressed my hands down hard in an attempt to stand, and
pieces of glass and pebbles dug into my palm. Then someone kicked
me solidly in the ribs, causing me to fall back over and cry out in
pain. When I opened my eyes I was staring at the grey sky as snow
drifted down all around me.

I heard a man’s voice; the same voice that
had tortured my nightmares for months.

“Back up,” said Jerald Scott. His voice was
muffled, but I recognized it. I reached for the gun that had been
at my side, but found that they’d already taken it. A figure
dressed in yellow appeared over me, staring down through a plastic
mask. “Look who we have here.” He took off his mask, revealing his
pale, sickly face. “Boys, we caught their leader.”

“Jerald?” I asked, shocked by how ill the man
appeared.

“The one and only.”

I stared directly into his bloodshot eyes and
laughed.

“What’s so funny?” he asked. “Is it funny
that I’m about to press a pistol to your head and blow your brains
out?”

“You’re sick,” I said with a shit-eating
grin. “I’ve been around long enough to know it when someone’s
infected. You’re dying.”

“Not before you, bitch,” said Jerald, taking
pleasure in his victory. He pointed the pistol down at me and said,
“And not before I track down the rest of your friends and family
and kill them too. I’ve made it my life’s mission.”

“Sounds like a shitty life,” I said and spat
blood out onto the road.

It was finally cold enough for the snow to
begin to settle on the road, but my blood melted it all around
me.

Jerald looked over at his men and said, “Get
the camera. I want to make sure Beatrice and her friends see me
shoot this cunt.” Then he turned his attention back to me and said,
“Maybe I’ll let your friends watch you die too. How’s that
sound?”

“Sounds like you’re a sadistic prick.”

He nodded and said, “I’ve been called
worse.”

I suffered there on the road, bleeding from
the wound on my hip, and clutching my side where one of the men had
kicked me. One of Jerald’s soldiers returned and said, “Okay, I’m
ready.”

“All right,” said Jerald as he looked down
the sight of his pistol at me. “Ready to die?”

I forced myself up to my knees. The wound on
my thigh sent blood flowing down my leg, and I stifled a cry of
pain.

“Look at her,” said Jerald as he glanced
around at his men. “She’s still got some fight in her.”

I leaned forward.

“What are you doing?” he asked, amused.

I pressed my forehead against the barrel of
the gun and said, “Grow a pair and get this over with already, you
piece of shit.”

A gunshot cracked through the waning winter
air.

Ben Watanabe

Annie had left to go to New Vineyard, and not
long afterward another group of Rollers followed. The news about
Jerald’s drones and the attack on the water tower had assured us
that we had to bunker down if we were going to survive. However,
the bigger threat at our door was the sudden emergence of another
virus that affected animals as well as burning faster through
humans than anything I’d encountered before.

Clyde had been checking on me, even though I
told him that he needed to stay away. He was persistent, and I
rolled down the window of the car I was resting in when he tapped
his knuckle on it.

“You need to back up,” I said with the window
just barely opened.

He obliged, and then said, “We’re clearing
out one of the rooms near the front for you.”

“I shouldn’t go in there, Clyde. We don’t
know how contagious this is.”

He nodded and said, “I know, I agree with
you, but we also can’t leave you out here if you were getting
attacked by animals just a mile or so up the road. There’s a side
entrance to the building, and we’re going to have you come in
through there and then straight into a room. You won’t be near
anyone else.”

That seemed like a fair compromise, and I
agreed with the plan.

Clyde explained that they would stock the
room with supplies for me, and that it shouldn’t take more than
half an hour. Unfortunately, the Rollers had planned to abandon
this facility entirely, which meant that many of the fortifications
had been pulled down to be sent to New Vineyard. That left us
exposed now, and they were working hard to get the facility safe
again.

I resolved to get some sleep while I waited,
and I leaned my seat back and turned the car off. The heater had
been running for a while, but the cold didn’t bother me much in the
first place. I enjoyed watching the fat snowflakes as they piled up
on the windshield, a thousand different designs to marvel at. My
breath brought fog to the glass, shading the spots where the snow
was collecting. It felt like I was a corpse already, watching as
the dirt was thrown in my grave to bury me. For some reason, that
thought comforted me, and I closed my eyes.

I heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow.
I sat up, expecting to see Clyde coming to tell me that my room was
ready. There was only a sliver of light coming in through the
windshield now, and I realized that I’d drifted to sleep long
enough to allow the snow to accumulate. I rubbed my arm against the
window beside me to clear away the condensation.

The snow was falling faster now than it had
been when I fell asleep. The flakes were thick and heavy, and
plopped down on the two inches that had already mounted. A trail of
footprints wound around a nearby truck, and I followed their odd
pattern in search of their maker.

A hunk of snow was leaned up against the
wheel of one of the Rollers’ trucks, and I thought I saw it move.
Then I was certain, and the man’s true form was revealed, like a
mirage lifting when a desert walker drew too near.

The stranger was dressed in white, and was
almost hidden except for the tone of his skin as he turned back to
look at the entrance to the rehab facility. It was then that I
recognized him. His face should be familiar to me, it was mine
after all.

I gripped the pistol Annie had left me and
set my hand gently on the door’s handle. There was no way to do
this quietly.

I threw open the door and yelled out,
“Stop.”

The man turned to face me. I should’ve shot
him, but I was eager to find out what he knew about our past.

He darted away, between the trucks, and I
took a shot that ricocheted off of something metal. I threw open
the door and gave chase, trying to ignore the multiple injuries
that screamed out at me as I moved. The man was leaving tracks
behind, which would make this an easy pursuit, or so I thought.

A gunshot rang out the moment I turned the
corner beside the truck to chase him. He’d paused at the end of the
row, certain I would follow, and took an errant shot that whizzed
past my head. I ducked back in cover and chastised myself for my
rashness. I had to assume this man was at least as well trained as
I was.

I looked over at the wheel well of the truck
beside me to see what he’d been doing. There was a bomb there,
although he hadn’t had a chance to set it.

“Ben!” a voice called out to me from the
rehab center.

I held my hand out to stop them and said,
“Get back inside. Someone planted bombs out here. Get everyone to
the back of the building.” Just because this bomb hadn’t been armed
didn’t mean there weren’t others that had been.

There was no time to waste. I was already
hampered with too many injuries to count as it was. I needed to
move fast if I was going to catch my brother. I glanced back out
from my cover, and saw that his tracks led up over a hill and out
into the forest. I chased after him, aware that he could be
planning to take another shot at me as soon as I made it to the top
of the hill.

I wondered if this brother had the same name
as me. I decided it was worth the risk and yelled out, “Ben, stop!”
There was no answer.

The pines beyond the hill were decorated with
snow, their branches leaning down from the weight. I listened as
the flakes struck the snow around me, but that was the only sound
the forest gave up. I eased myself to the crest of the hill, and
peeked over to see where his tracks led. He’d fled into the woods,
far enough that I was at least certain he would have a hard time
getting an accurate shot if he’d planned on sniping me.

I followed his tracks as they wound through
the trees. The branches of most of the pines were too low to pass
under, but the forest was dotted with other deciduous varieties
that had only begun to sprout new leaves, and my brother’s path
clung close to them. I realized why when I found a spot of blood
beside one of his tracks. Apparently my aim had been better than
his, and he was walking wounded ahead of me somewhere.

His trail led up another hill, and the
droplets of blood were becoming more frequent, leaving deeper dents
in the gathering snow. It felt like I was a hunter following a deer
that I’d shot but not felled. I followed the tracks up a hill where
they went under a tree and down the other side. I slowed before
reaching the top of the hill, wary of getting shot at again, when
something plopped down in the snow beside me. I assumed it was just
a heavy bit of snow falling from a branch above, but I glanced down
instinctually when I heard the noise and saw a new red indentation
there.

It was blood.

I realized my mistake just as the sound of
cracking branches assured me that I was being attacked. I braced
myself, but was still knocked to the ground as my twin drove his
full weight into me. I was knocked to the ground, my face pressed
down past the snow to the earth, as my attacker put a gun to the
back of my head.

“Bad form, brother,” he said. “Are there more
coming?”

“I hope so,” I said after trying and failing
to get free.

“Quit fighting me,” he said before slamming
the butt of his pistol against the side of my head, just behind my
ear. “I could’ve killed you from up there.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because we’re brothers. You know that. You
called my name, although no one calls me that anymore.”

“Ben,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s right. Ben Watanabe, assassin
on the prowl, roaming the world in search of my next victim. Did
they give you the files too? And the backpack of supplies?”

“Yes.”

He chuckled and said, “Yep, same for me.
Where’d they dump you off at?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where was the first place that you started
thinking for yourself?”

“I don’t know,” I said as my face stung from
the bitterly cold snow that melted beneath it.

“Think back to the very first time when you
did something that was uncharacteristic for you. We’ve all got it.
All of us had a point where we started to do something that we knew
we shouldn’t, but we did it anyways. For me, I met this girl in
Fort Denver, and fell head over heels for her. She was just a
hooker, and didn’t give two shits about me. But man, I loved her so
much. I cried when she left me in the morning. Cried like a little
fucking baby.”

“I saved a dog,” I said as I recalled first
meeting Stubs.

“A dog? For real? Well isn’t that something?
At least I was getting laid.” He took my gun and then searched for
other weapons. He poked around at my waist and then asked, “No
knife?”

“No, I lost it.”

“Lost your knife?” He asked as if I was
pathetic. “Can you imagine how pissed Dad would be at you if he
knew you lost your knife?”

I had no answer. I was distraught by the
things he’d said, and about the possibility that the day I met
Stubs had been the day I’d been released by the people behind the
apocalypse. Could it be true? Had they left me there and tricked me
into believing that I was the real Ben Watanabe.

“Fucks with your head a little, doesn’t it?”
asked my brother. “I can tell by the look in your eyes. That
forlorn stare.” He gazed off in the same direction as me and made a
sweeping gesture. “All your life, just a long series of lies. None
of us were the same afterwards. You know, you’re the first one that
didn’t end up making it all the way out to Jerald. The rest of us
at least got within a mile of him before we were captured. Not you
though. You never even got close. They must’ve been desperate and
started sending out the trash after the best of us were lost.” He
laughed and slapped at my back as if joking with me.

He got off of me, but kept his gun pointed
down at me as I turned and sat up. He got a good look at me, and
winced as he said, “Wow, Ben. You look like shit. What happened to
you?”

“I’ve had a rough couple of days.”

I could see where I’d shot him. There was a
rip on his left sleeve, and blood had stained his white coat. He
followed my line of vision and said, “You nearly got me, you
asshole. Shooting your own brother. It doesn’t get much lower than
that.”

“Says the man with the gun.”

He appreciated the humor and shrugged.
“Touché.”

“Jerald thought I was the real Ben,” I said,
recalling how desperate the leader of the military had been to
capture me several months earlier, when the Rollers were corralled
into the church.