The Dark Trilogy (92 page)

So the trick, as Michael saw it, was to give Jeff a few reasons to be afraid once again.

Jason had told Michael a bit about the group. About how he and George had spent most of their time stuck in some church, and then all the excitement that had occurred over the past couple of days, ever since Jeff and Megan had shown up in their minivan. Michael had gotten a few juicy tidbits from the stories the boy had told, enough to use against Jeff and George when they’d argued earlier, but he needed more information on the newcomers. Lydia was the one who’d spent the most time with Megan and Jeff since they’d gotten here. Michael would need to have a long discussion with her about what they’d shared with her after they returned from the supply run. If anyone in the camp was nonthreatening enough to open up to, it was Lydia. She was good at keeping secrets, but with a little sweet talk, there was no doubt she would reveal things to Michael about her new friends.

Getting to know Jeff better would allow Michael to suss out what made him tick. There was no doubt he’d lost his family over the past few weeks. The thousand-yard stare confirmed that much. And when he’d stood up for himself outside and given the ultimatum about Jason staying inside the camp … well, that had been a bit of surprise.

He would never have thought the other man had it in him. Jeff was soft, not a brawler of any sort. Unless Jeff were hiding some sort of ex-military commando existence behind his bland exterior, Michael knew he could easily take the man down in a fight. More importantly, Jeff knew that as well. He was just an average dude who had been a family man once upon a time. Jeff had to know that Michael was younger, faster, and stronger than he, plus Michael had all the weapons. So why risk getting his nuts squashed? The whole idea went against the grain. Jeff had probably lived his whole existence going with the flow, not rocking the boat. He lived a dull, unexceptional life, kept his nose clean, and obeyed all the laws … just like ninety-nine percent of the other slobs out there.

As Michael continued to mull Jeff over, another possibility occurred to him. Maybe Jeff was willing to get a few teeth knocked in just to show everyone that he wasn’t a coward and that Michael needed brute force to maintain control over the camp. Jeff would be beaten, but Michael would lose the respect of some of the camp members.

Oh you son of a bitch. You sly, sly son of a bitch. You almost had me, you cocksucker.

There was a small sense of satisfaction at having rooted out the trickster’s plan, but it was surrounded by doubt. Was that really Jeff’s intention? Would he allow himself to be bloodied to prove a point? George had stepped in and changed things with his declaration, which left Jeff’s real intention a mystery. All Michael knew was that there was no way that mother fucker was going to undermine his authority. No way in hell. Others had tried before, and he had dealt with them—it was one of those ugly responsibilities that came with the burden of leadership. His father had taught him that. “Make a good enough example out of a troublemaker and the others will think twice before they cross you.”

Jeff was just another liability that would be dealt with soon enough. Michael just needed to get a better fix on him, so he could discover the best way to make him behave.

***

Perhaps if Michael had bothered looking out the window of the Winnebago at that moment, he would have seen Jeff and Megan consoling one another, which might have given him some idea of how to keep Jeff in line. Instead, his thoughts shifted back to Cindy as he stared down at her, his knee still on her chest. In that moment, he felt the closest thing to love for her that he possibly could. She had allowed him to see things in ways he had never seen them before. Everything was … easier now.

Without her, he was a good leader, but with her, he was a leader who understood that he must constantly keep consolidating his power and eliminating elements that would seek to undermine him. He knew the sensation he felt was not really love; it was more like gratitude. An appreciation for the woman who had unearthed in him the feelings and passion that drove him. He grew more excited as gazed at her.

The resentment and regret that always seemed to creep up on him when he thought too much about her had dissipated, as it always did. It seemed foolish not to embrace the power he felt because of what Cindy had done for him, what she had shown him.

He slapped her across her jaw as a grin surfaced on his face. He watched as the side of his girlfriend’s face slammed into the carpeted floor of the RV.

Cindy felt dazed, but knew once again that Michael was just getting warmed up. It made her shiver with excitement. He was getting closer to losing control with the others like he did with her. He’d nearly gotten into a fight with both George and Jeff instead of trying to be diplomatic, which was how he used to handle situations like that. Not anymore. He’d used that brat Jason to get his way, and it had stirred up shit with that bitch Megan, as well Jeff and George. What had happened outside was a tantalizing tease, and there was a good chance that Michael would come to blows with one or both of the new men in the next couple of days.

The idea of it nearly sent Cindy over the edge with excitement. She loved seeing the hate boil up behind her man’s eyes. It wouldn’t be long before he stopped trying to restrain himself and let go. It would be a beautiful sight to see when he did.

She licked at the trickle of blood that came from her split lip and returned Michael’s smile.

Ray and Teddy, Part 1

The two boys took a little time making a connection after they met. Certainly, there were some significant differences between them, but after a while, they took comfort in having each other to lean on. Ray was a year older than Teddy, but given the fact that the other children in the group were significantly younger and the rest of the survivors were mainly adults, a minor gap in age and a distinct difference in personality didn’t matter all that much.

They were excited when Jason showed up, though the younger boy seemed to take more of a liking to Michael than to them. It only served to reinforce their determination that they were a team and they weren’t going to let anyone get in their way.

Ray was a self-proclaimed computer nerd and was very proud of that fact. His claims were, of course, untested, since computers, like so many other things these days, were historical artifacts. He jokingly introduced himself to Teddy as a “nerd without a cause.” Ray had been into video games and blogging, which was something that he had to explain to more than one person in their group. He shook his head in amazement at the lack of awareness some people had of the delights of the Internet world.

He had felt strange and totally out of place within the group of survivors until Teddy showed up. Even then, it took them a while to understand one another. Ray wanted to talk about all the video games he missed and the website he and some online friends had been creating dedicated to Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show that had been off the air for years but lived on thanks to YouTube and Netflix. Teddy, sadly, had never even heard of the show and—sadder still, according to Ray—didn’t really care. When Ray tried to explain the wonder of it all, Teddy interrupted him almost immediately with “It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”

From that moment forward, Ray decided he would never again speak of the show or any of his other useless hobbies. He never told Teddy how much the deadpan comment hurt, partially because he had to admit that what the other boy had said was true: none of that stuff did matter anymore. He tried to get angry about that fact, but failed. Everyone Ray had known who loved MST3K was dead, and so were all the other geeks with whom he linked up on Xbox Live to play Halo. His world of computer screens and game controllers was officially dead and buried.

Even with Teddy’s brushoff, the two boys worked hard to find common ground, particularly after they witnessed the deaths of several members of the group and even more so when they had to flee the factory. Teddy was somewhat reserved and aloof with Ray at first, but with not much else to do when the survivors weren’t running or hiding, he began sharing more and more about himself with Ray.

Teddy Schmidts was a small kid, a few inches above five feet tall and weighing in at 100 pounds. He was a freshman in high school and remarkably, at least to Ray, he had been quite popular with his classmates, despite his diminutive stature. Teddy didn’t speak of his popularity as if he were bragging. Like everything he said, the words sounded genuine and honest. There was no embellishment in anything Teddy said or did. He played soccer and wrestled and was good at both. Despite not having the size to play football or basketball, he was strong and fast, which landed him on the varsity wrestling squad. His coach thought he had a good chance to make varsity in soccer as well by his sophomore year if he stayed focused and kept improving his footwork.

Teddy had energy to burn, but athletics calmed him down. He told Ray that when he was little, doctors advised his parents to get him into sports year round to help with his focus and concentration. He had been diagnosed hyperactive, but did well with a lot of exercise. As he got older, the hyperactivity dissipated and his grades improved. Ray had wondered why Teddy felt the need to run around all the time and do pushups and situps like his life depended on it. It still seemed strange, even after Teddy’s explanation, since Ray loathed physical activity, but he shrugged it off. If it made his newfound friend happy, it was cool with him.

When Ray had asked about the Springfield rifle that Teddy had with him when they first met, Teddy stated that his father had been a hunter, though he refused to say much else about either of his parents beyond that. He did let it slip that this particular weapon had been his father’s favorite, and Ray suspected that was a pretty important detail about Teddy’s life, and a good reason why he wasn’t so chatty about his family. No one had any pleasant stories to tell about what had happened to their loved ones, so if someone didn’t want to talk about them, everyone understood.

Ray, on the other hand, didn’t mind speaking about such things, and Teddy was good enough to listen.

He was the youngest of three, and as his mother described it, he had been a “happy accident” when he came along in her early forties. Ray’s older sisters were well into their twenties, and he didn’t see them all that often anymore. He had no idea what had happened to them when the world fell apart. They both lived in other parts of the country.

His father was an electrical engineer and his mother a librarian. “Thus, I got my card as a charter member of the nerd society while still in the womb.” They raised him to be proficient on the computer and a voracious reader, but had not graced him with many social skills. Outside of an almost obsessive focus on his grades, Herman and Bess Jordan had little interest in their son’s social development.

When the first reports came on the air about the dead beginning to walk, Ray’s parents, like so many other people, dismissed it as mass hysteria. It was only when local reports about riots and attacks in the streets of Cincinnati wound up on TV that they showed even the most remote interest. It still took a couple days before they came to the conclusion that they should do more than quibble with each other and take some action. They piled into their car with the idea of driving out to a campground at which they had spent a single weekend several years earlier. The idea of heading to one of the National Guard shelters or remaining at their house seemed foolish. From the campground, they would figure out where they could best sit tight to wait out this whole ridiculous mess.

They did not even get five miles from their house.

Caught in one of the many interminable traffic jams on the interstate, they sat waiting, like everyone else. About an hour after getting stuck and watching other motorists leave their cars, Ray’s parents bickered and debated yet again about what they should do. Since Ray’s mother had severe rheumatoid arthritis and his father was not in tip-top shape either, it didn’t seem like such a good idea for them to grab what they could and hoof it. The mini-debate was settled twenty minutes later when they saw people running and screaming in both directions along the median and breakdown lanes of the highway.

Ray, who was a nervous wreck at that point, watched as his father got out of the car while his mother pleaded for him not to. He told them to wait for him, assuring them that he would be right back. Herman moved off from them, and for the next five minutes, the two people he had deserted in the Volvo station wagon sat and wept. Ray tried to comfort his mother by putting his hand on her shoulder, but she swatted it away, crying and screaming unintelligibly at him. After that, he balled up in the back seat and whimpered, imagining what was happening to his father and wondering what he should be doing. His mother was hysterical, which was something entirely new to Ray. It felt like his world had collapsed.

Things got worse from there. His father finally came back to the car and opened his door. Bess Jordan pled with him to get in and lock the doors. After nearly thirty seconds of screaming, her voice elevating higher and higher with panic, Herman pushed her frantic hands away, hard. He leaned into the car, and the look on his face was one Ray would never forget.

It must have had the same impact on his mother, because she went silent. The last words Ray recalled his father saying were so quiet he was not quite sure he heard them correctly.

“We have to leave. If we stay here, we’ll die.”

His father grabbed his mother by the arm and pulled her out of the car. She resisted at first, most likely thinking Herman mad. The look on his face was like nothing Ray had ever seen before. His father had always been steady, composed, and dispassionate. Ray found it nearly impossible to describe what had become of his dad to Teddy, except to say it looked like someone had scraped all the color out of his skin and replaced it with the texture and color of milk. It was as if his father’s bloodflow had stopped. His eyes were wide and bulging, and he looked like some sort of sideshow freak as he gaped at Ray and his mother.