The Dark Trilogy (91 page)

Michael opened his eyes and glared at Cindy. “I must be if I’m with your psycho ass.” She gave him the finger, and he ignored it. He propped himself up on a pillow and put his hands behind his head. “It shouldn’t be too difficult, actually. The only one who’ll be a problem is Jeff. He is too damn smart for his own good.”

“What about George? Doesn’t he miss his widdle famawy? He looks like he could tear your head off if he was motivated enough. If you make him stay here against his will, sooner or later he is going to try.”

Michael smiled at his girlfriend. “Quite the contrary. He is going to be a good little boy and do just as I tell him.”

“How do you propose getting that to happen?”

“Nothing too technical. I’ll just hold Megan and Jason hostage. Once Jeff messes up and I have to ‘deal’ with him, George will realize that he is the only one who can protect them. A few well-placed words here and there along with a few delicate hints and he will decide for himself that staying is the best possible idea. Momma and the kiddies are dead already, and sooner or later, he will realize that. And then he will come to love it here with us. He’ll be just another big, dumb, malleable grunt like Ben.”

“If Ben heard you say that, he would twist you into a pretzel.”

“Indeed. He might just do that. If he knew I said it. But that’s how things work around here. The pawns don’t realize what they are. I am the king, and I control the board. They are expendable pieces, but valuable. I move them into harm’s way as I see fit. If there is a rogue piece, I simply get rid of it, sacrifice it to my opponent, and keep on moving.”

Cindy looked over at her man and saw a look on his face that was reminiscent of the cat after eating the canary. He was just too damn self-satisfied. But she decided to let it go. He had his little plans, and she had hers. She knew a little bit about chess as well, and while the king ruled the board, the queen took care of business.

That Jason brat should be enough leverage to keep George in line. He doesn’t need Megan as well.

With their conversation finished, Michael drifted off to sleep. Cindy stayed awake a while longer, shaping and reshaping her own plans so that they merged and fit with her lover’s. She smiled down at him as she did so. He was a beautiful man, nearly perfect on the outside. But it was his insides, his guts, that were turning black and ugly. She had initiated the process, but it had taken hold and was flourishing without the need for constant nurturing anymore.

She laid her finger on his jugular vein and felt it pulse. She moved her mouth close and gently flicked her tongue out at it, like a snake. It would be so easy. She grazed her teeth against it and Michael stirred, but sleep already had him in its grasp. It was tantalizing: the idea of wrecking everything with one simple effort. She could tear out his throat and even slip out the window with very little fuss and muss. All they would discover was his bloodied carcass and the signs that she was responsible for his death all over the bed. But they would never find her.

As tempting as it was, she knew that Michael was far more exciting alive than dead—powerful and yet powerless at the same time. She had weakened him. Before they met, he was probably a good man with a penchant for anger now and again. He could hide it then, and he still could now, but that façade was chipping away. The violence was bubbling to the surface more often and more readily. It was wondrous to behold.

She shivered in the bed next to him. Whether in excitement or fear, it was hard to tell. She lay back and planned the death of Megan LeValley. It would be a simple thing, but it couldn’t be blatant. The others could never know what really happened. She imagined the agony Megan would experience when she did it. But what would be the kicker was when Cindy got to tell Michael what she had done and the supreme pleasure she would get out of watching him react.

A few minutes later, Cindy wrapped her arms and legs around her man like a spider and fell asleep, content in her vision of the way things were going to play out over the next few days.

Michael and Cindy, Part 2

Author’s note: This piece takes place immediately after the argument between Michael, Jeff, and George in the courtyard about whether or not Jason should go with them on their supply run into town.

“What a bunch of pathetic wussies. They make me sick.”

“Tsk, tsk, dear. Such harsh language.”

Cindy shifted her gaze from the curtain and focused on Michael as he sat at the table, reassembling the M16 he’d decided to clean yet again before going on the hunt.

“Ya know, you keep rubbing that gun like that and you’ll go blind.” She slunk over to him, her body lithe and sinewy. She was a predator, a jungle cat on the prowl. And men, including Michael, were her prey. They were either food or sex, nothing more. That was why when most men caught Cindy’s attention, they usually did their best to divert their eyes and look away. They seemed to know that to her they were just meat, pure and simple.

“And if you keep wishing such ill will on others, you won’t get into heaven.”

Cindy almost laughed, but instead continued creeping up on her boyfriend. Michael was definitely sex to her, but also food. She craved him like meat, like a meal that could never completely sate her hunger, so she had to continue to hunt and devour him, over and over again. She slithered to the floor and moved her hand over his combat boot and up underneath his camouflaged pants. Blocked at the bend in the knee, her hand hovered just below it, scratching at his calf with her ragged fingernails.

Michael ignored Cindy as he finished reassembling the weapon. After a second, he admired his work and nodded in satisfaction. He was getting more proficient at taking care of the rifle. He’d searched around and managed to find a manual covering the hows and whys of field stripping and maintenance in a bookstore the group had come across during their travels.

As much as he had every intention of keeping it operational, the fact that he’d acquired only two thirty-round clips with it, one of which was only partially full, meant that he had very little desire to use the M16. It was more a symbol of his authority than anything.

He’d squeezed off a few rounds in automatic mode a while back, just to convince himself that it did indeed work and that, when the time came, he could put it to use. Other than that, all he did was keep it clean and ready to go. There would be time to acquire more rounds. After all, there had to be tons of munitions floating around these days; it was just a matter of venturing into an area where soldiers had been stationed that wasn’t currently overrun by the undead. Until then, the rifle would continue to serve its purpose as his staff of office.

He grinned as he thought back to how he had acquired it. It was a shame, a real shame, that the soldier had been unwilling to surrender the weapon. The boy had been brave, but he was injured and in a bit of a jam. He had required a bit of extreme persuasion, as Michael liked to think of it, to finally relinquish his rifle and sidearm. Desperate times called for desperate measures …

Michael’s daydream was shattered by the sensation of sharp fingernails digging into his lower leg and a warm trickle of blood running down his calf.

Cindy looked up at him, her head leaning against his leg. Michael glanced at her, but despite the pain she was inflicting, he continued smiling at the M16. Yes, it had taken quite a bit to get the damn thing, but it had been worth it.

“If you don’t ravage me soon, I am going to take that thing away from you and use it to get off.”

“Well that would be something to see. It’d be even better if you let me pull the trigger while you did it.”

Michael caught Cindy’s fist before it could connect with his crotch. He had no doubt that she would have hit him so hard he wouldn’t be able to stand up straight for a week. He twisted her wrist until she gasped in pain. As usual, it sounded more like a moan of pleasure coming from her lips.

He gritted his teeth as she dug the nails even deeper into the meat of his lower leg. Michael knew that no matter how much he twisted Cindy’s wrist, she would keep digging, even if he went so far as to snap the slender bones in her arm. It was a tempting proposition, but with no doctors around, he couldn’t take things that that far. Still, the idea of putting the certifiably insane girl out of commission for a while was tempting.

Standing up abruptly, Michael flung her arm away with a sharp kick of his leg. Before she could react, he brought his knee up and slammed it against Cindy’s chest, forcing her to the ground.

She gasped for air, her eyes widening in surprise. When she was able to breathe again, a knowing smiled appeared on Cindy’s lips.

“Maybe now I’ll finally get some attention.”

Michael glared down at her, angry again. After what had happened outside with George and Jeff, he needed an outlet for the rage building inside him. How convenient for him that Cindy was always available, willing to scratch any itch he might have.

***

Perhaps what had happened outside should be considered a moral victory. At least it appeared that way on the surface. Everyone had been watching as Jeff grew flustered when he couldn’t persuade Michael to let Jason stay in the camp. He’d been forced to demand that the boy be left behind when they went into town, which would have ended very badly for Jeff if he had remained obstinate. That is, if George hadn’t butted in.

The final result, though unexpected, was a pleasant surprise. George had committed to staying with them, which wasn’t what Michael had expected to get out of him. Not in a million years, and certainly not voluntarily. The deal George offered was one Michael was more than willing to make.

The plan had been to dress down Jeff, make him sweat a bit, and make it abundantly clear who was in charge so there wouldn’t be any more opportunities for them to butt heads. Jeff would know his place and would be content from then on to follow orders. Backing him into a corner should have been easy, with just a little bit of help from his friends. Megan was never going to allow Jason to leave the camp, and it was Jeff’s duty to enforce her wishes. In the end, Jeff was backed into a corner, but George’s little outburst had pulled his bacon out of the fire.

Looking back on the spat was amusing. Michael couldn’t care less about whether or not Jason went with them. When the conversation first started, even Frank seemed to question the value of having a twelve year old going out with them. Still, that fat hick, in all his denseness, was able to pick up on what Michael was trying to do after a few minutes and kept his big yap shut, except to tease George and Megan.

Jason was just another pawn to Michael. It appeared that Jeff was really the only other person who picked up on that little detail. Perhaps George and Megan had suspected, but they let their emotions get in the way, which was exactly what Michael had hoped for. The kid liked Michael, and that made him pretty damn easy to manipulate. Since none of the adult newcomers seemed to have much fondness for the camp’s leader, resorting to using the kid was the natural choice for sorting things out and clearing the air as to who was in charge.

Jason would be useful again later on. He was probably mad at everyone at the moment, including Michael, but he would get over it. Kids were resilient like that. All it would take would be a few more gentle reminders that he had to stand on his own two feet and act like a man. He couldn’t allow the adults in the group to coddle him like a little baby anymore. With a few well-chosen words, Jason would ditch the others entirely and be as loyal to Michael as Frank and Marcus were.

Jason’s destiny was to drive a wedge between Megan and the two other men. The subject of the boy would be a hot topic amongst them from now on and, sooner or later, they would not see eye to eye on how to deal with the rebellious preteen. As they argued, it would be easy to erode their loyalty to one another. In time, one of them would decide he or she was better off ceding loyalty to Michael, who was the one providing them with shelter and food, rather than the other two troublemakers, who were just stirring up shit. It was just a matter of letting them fall apart on their own—with a few wel-timed nudges, of course.

It would all work out, but there was still something that bothered Michael. Something about what had happened outside that tasted foul on his tongue—like fruit that had started to ferment a little too quickly. Something was not right.

George had shown some backbone, which was far more than Michael thought the dumb bastard was capable of. George was supposed to be some miserable wimp pining away for his family, so it came as quite a surprise when he agreed to stay at the camp to avoid putting Jason in any sort of danger. Even more surprising were the threats he’d uttered. Michael had to admit that it had unnerved him, though not because George was so big and scary. Michael had taken down bigger foes in the past. Instead, it was what he had seen in the big man’s eyes: there was no bluffing there. George had every intention of killing Michael if he continued pushing him.

There was a simple answer to the George dilemma. He would have to be watched and watched carefully. The old man would fly the coop if he was certain the boy was safe and secure here and the opportunity to escape presented itself. But more important than making sure he stayed put was getting him to behave. That might require poking and prodding him into a fight. It would give Michael a chance to break the old man down and sap his will to rebel just a little bit. And if that did not work, more drastic measures might be in order …

But in truth, George was not the one bothering him. Jeff was.

Michael had seen his type before: the reluctant leader. Jeff did not crave power, at least not in the form of authority over others. He was the type who preferred staying behind the scenes, doing his own thing, and would only step up when he was forced to. He wasn’t fearless, but like so many other people, he had lost everything and figured he didn’t have any real reason left to be afraid anymore.