Well Fed - 05 (33 page)

“What?” Gus asked, placing his back to the wall, struggling to contain his fear.

“Wait.”

“I’m waiting, so what now?”

Silence. “Wait.”

Then a smoker’s giggle hung on the air, a deep, soul-frightening rattle that one might hear from a person on a deathbed. That god-awful, sickening sound, chock-full of unseen madness, made Gus weak in the knees. His pulse pounding in his ears, Gus’s eyes flickered about the upstairs as a coldness settled in, pricking his scalp and traveling all the way to the root of his ballsack. He reached out and gripped the knob of the closed door next to him.

“Wait.” The voice giggled once more, struggling to maintain control. “I want… I want you to… to
see
something.”

Then a ponderous step fell on bare hardwood, accompanied by a rusty cackle that sounded positively dipped in evil. A
scree
of steel on wood followed—then another ominous dragging of a foot.

“Wait there. I want… I want
you
…”

A shadow thickened through the banisters, the reality of it stabbing through whatever resolve Gus might’ve had. His breath quickened, and the urge to not want to see what was coming filled him. Whoever was speaking had been touched by the apocalypse, and Gus was certain of the evil taint approaching. The gun in his hand trembled, faltered.

The silhouette dragged itself forward.

A mask of pearly white loomed in a flash of pulse-pounding terror. A mop of bleached hair hung in tatters around the face.

Then Gus saw the machete.

He raised his gun.

But the knob he’d grabbed to steady himself twisted in his palm, making him stumble off balance just as the door burst open and the barrel of a large-caliber sidearm pressed into his left cheek. Gus’s breath caught in his chest, as if releasing it would kill him instantly.

Click
.

“Don’t you move,” warned a voice that could’ve belonged to a human rattlesnake. “Don’t you
fuckin’
move.”

Gus’s arm faltered and dropped. He eyed a face every bit as pale and as crazy looking as the one overhead.

“
Waaaaaaaait
,” the thing at the top of the stairs whispered in sandpapery fashion, ending the word in a wicked giggle. The voice sounded as if it stood at the other end of a very long tunnel.

The Face with the gun on Gus reached around and grabbed his pistol, tossing it onto the stairs.

“Fresh meat, Dwight,” the Face grinned, baring a smashed fence of a smile.

“Freeesssssh
meat
,” Dwight repeated, leering. He leaned out over the railing, long hair drooping, machete held against the valley of an elbow. “Cut him up.”

Gus’s sphincter clenched at the words.

“Can’t, y’ fuckin’ moron,” the Face said. “I got the gun on him. You come down here and cut him.”

“Wait,” Dwight said and leaned over the railing and slashed at Gus’s eyes, the wind from the weapon flickering his eyes. Once, twice, and a third time, he waved that blade as quick as the shocked gasp leaving Gus’s lungs. He turned his head into the gun, avoiding the last swing of the machete by only a finger width, gouging his cheek on the hard barrel.

Dwight leaned back and cackled. “Bring the little shit closer!”

Oh, Jesus
.

Gus’s knees must’ve stiffened, because the Face stood back with his back against the open door, assuming a duelist’s pose, and set his jaw.

“Don’t you fuckin’ move, I told ya. Else I pull the trigger and spray your chin across the stairs. Ruin the carpet.”

“Bring him
closer
, I said,” Dwight commanded in that smoker’s bray.

Gus’s eyes darted to the Face.

“You heard him. Go on up.”

Gus closed his eyes. “I can’t.”

“Fuck you mean, you can’t?”

“I’ll shit myself.”

The Face broke into a chuckle, jamming the pistol into Gus’s cheek all the harder. “You hear that, Dwight?”

“I heard.”

“Boy’s gonna squirt out some pipe right here if he comes any closer.”

Dwight leaned back like a perturbed Viking and simmered with the information. “Goddamn gross is what that is. It’ll fuck up the house.”

“Fuck up the house,” Gus panted, petrified. “Fuck… fuck up the
carpet
.”

“Don’t fuckin’ live here anyway,” the Face growled and licked his half-stocked set of teeth.

“That’s right,” Dwight agreed and swaggered to the stairs, dragging the machete’s edge along the railing. “Houses all along this road. I could shit all over this one, and it don’t mean a goddamn thing. Just go get a new one. But who else is out there in them Winnebagos?”

That mortified Gus. “Huh?”

“Answer him.” The gun gouged deeper, screwing up Gus’s lips.

“My friends. My friends, Jesus.
Myfriendsareoutthere
.”

“How many?” the Face demanded as Dwight placed his full weight on the first step, forcing a curt squeal to perforate the air.

“Huh?”

The Face tried to insert the barrel of the gun into Gus’s cheek. “Fuckin’ say
huh
once more, and I’ll pull this trigger.”

“Two,” Gus immediately revealed, his own face as white as the living room sheers, and his will crumbling into nothing. There wasn’t any bravado. There weren’t any quips. There was only a gun pressing into his face and a machete descending the stairs. Both wielded by two clearly unstable individuals.

“What’s that?” the Face asked.

“
Two
.”

Dwight stopped three steps away and placed the machete’s edge to Gus’s bald scalp. “Nothing to chop here.”

The blade dropped to Gus’s beard. “Could use a shave, though. How about it? How about letting me shave you? That sound like a good idea?”

“No.”

The Face dragged the gun barrel up across Gus’s cheek and parked it tightly against the corner of his eye.

“No!” Dwight giggled. “We caught a funny one, Ricky!”

“Yeah,” Ricky chuckled.

“Or how about…” Dwight angled the blade to Gus’s chin and leaned in close, all mirth disappearing from his features, replaced by a twisted yearning to perform some medieval science. “How about I just chew that nose of yours off? Just
bite
it off? Bet that would make you dance. Huh? Make you jiggle. Course, you’d be dead anyway ’cause Ricky would put a bullet into your skull. Unless… he shoots out both knees. Keep you alive and stationary—to a point, anyway. How’s that sound?”

Dwight’s frightening mug stopped not two inches from a trembling Gus.

“I asked…” Dwight repeated in a hateful whisper, eyeing up his captive’s profile from chin to brow, “how’s that sound?”

Gus set his jaw, clamping down on the scream boiling toward his throat but failing to stop the pitiful squeal emerging. He looked ahead, through the archway and the distant kitchen…

And saw Collie.

She was handling a gun two-fisted and aiming.

Gus screamed.

Ricky’s head exploded. The gun at Gus’s temple fired over his head. Dwight’s threatening leer softened in puzzlement in the split instant of his companion’s death, just before his own head spattered against the wall. The machete fell to the floor as both Dwight and Ricky crumpled.

Gus remained standing, bug-eyed and barely breathing.

Then his vision narrowed as darkness rushed in from the edges.

His legs gave out, and he lost consciousness.

Gus came to his senses on the front step of the house and jerked away from the zombie leering down at him.

Wallace.

“You sick bastard,” Gus whispered in the shade of the overhang.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“For not shitting or pissing yourself,” Wallace pointed out. “Happens sometimes. Especially with folks under moments of extreme duress.”

Gus absorbed that and looked away. “Christ. I don’t need this right now.”

“Take your time, civvie.”

That made Gus exhale in exasperation. “Startin’ to really dislike that term. Why don’t you think about changing it to my name? Just to mix things up.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Where’s Collie?”

“She just finished clearing the house,” Wallace informed him, looking toward the open door. “Now she’s checking the perimeter out back.”

“How’d I get here?”

“She hauled you out.”

“She
hauled
me outside?”

“Carried, really,” Wallace said with that horrid, permanent smile on his face. “She’s strong.”

Gus pulled himself into a sitting position against the door frame. Wallace stood back and let him.

“Why aren’t you helping her?” Gus asked.

Wallace shook his head. “I’m slowing down in my old age. Just hold her back. She’s better without me.”

“You’re fuckin’ slowin’ down, all right,” Gus muttered.

And for some reason, that one callous comment stuck. Wallace became very quiet for several seconds, his dark visor watching Gus, as if no longer feeling particularly sociable.

“Seriously”—Gus slowly shook his head—“all on the table now. What’s happening to you, man?”

“What makes you think anything is happening?” Wallace asked, the visor unmoving.

“That’s a joke, right? You just joked just then.”

But Wallace didn’t answer him.

“Collie said you’d tell me.”

“She said that?”

“Yeah.”

“She say anything else?”

“She… she said you’d tell me when you were ready.”

Wallace nodded. “That’s my baby girl.”

The conversation paused then, but Wallace didn’t stop staring as Gus recovered.

“Hey,” Wallace whispered at last. “Civvie. You wanna see something?”

“Nah, man. I’m getting my wind back here.”

“Let me… show you something,” Wallace continued, “something that’s been making me reevaluate my priorities in life.”

With a dignified grace, Wallace reached down and pulled a combat knife from a shin scabbard. It was a straight blade, serrated on one side but deadly sharp on the other, with the barest curve to a tip that might have tapered off into infinity.

Gus didn’t like the knife and certainly didn’t like Wallace’s creepy Zen-master tone.

“You watching?” the soldier asked.

Gus nodded with building unease.

“Keep watching,” Wallace stated as he rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, exposing a length of fish-belly flesh. Black veins snaked below the polluted epidermis.

“Jesus,” Gus hissed.

“Wait… wait,” the soldier whispered, bringing back those chills Gus had just experienced inside the house.

“Only found this out this morning, in fact,” Wallace went on, holding the knife at guard, “but I think you’ll find it just as interesting as I do.”

With that, he angled the tip to his forearm, the blade gleaming. Wallace’s visor barely moved, if at all, and he held the weapon to his skin for a long, solemn moment before pushing the steel through.

Gus jumped. “Holy
shit
!”

Wallace’s skeletal profile remained unchanged as the tip pushed through the other side of his forearm, causing a black fluid as syrupy as snot to drip to the ground, and very little at that. For added effect, the soldier wiggled the blade a little before pulling the smeared steel out and taking his time wiping it off on a camo pant leg.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Gus panted in horror. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

A heavy clatter rattled from behind the house, followed by two successive thumps and a splintering of wood. In that instant, Gus was completely discombobulated.

“See that?” an unaffected Wallace asked, his voice every bit as smooth as fine chocolate.

“Holy shit, are you…?” But he couldn’t finish.
Okay
?
In pain
? What could a person ask someone like Wallace? Gus studied the soldier and brought his revulsion under control. He’d freaked out twice in one day, and his nerves twanged like out-of-tune piano keys.

“You better tell her,” he got out instead.

“Tell her what? About this?” Wallace asked, finishing cleaning off his knife. “No. I think I’ll keep this to myself. Ruminate on it. See where it goes.”

Gus gawked at the man.

“Don’t worry. I’m not turned. For whatever reason. Not gone over yet.”

But Gus wasn’t so convinced.

“Fuck you,” Wallace muttered, as if sensing trepidation.

“Fuck
you
, y’
freak
.”

Wallace’s grin transformed into a frightening sickle, but then he hesitated.

Gus heard her coming through the house, through a back doorway. She emerged in the hallway and approached her companions.

“All clear,” she reported, wiping her forehead with a hand. “Only the two of them.”

Wallace straightened, but Gus balked, not sure he wanted to be anywhere near anyone as infected as Wallace. Then a sense of righteousness overtook him, and he got to his feet.

“You okay?” Gus asked.

“I’m okay,” Collie said.

“Course she’s fucking okay,” Wallace said an octave louder than his usual mantra-chanting level of speech. “What did I say, you moron? She’ll be around long after you and I are both gone.”

Collie regarded the men with a decidedly pensive, unasked question.

“Collie, listen, that guy is…” Gus broke into a nervous babble. “Look, I know you’ve been with him for a while, but there’s something wrong with him. More than you know.”

At this, Collie’s wondering expression deepened, and she regarded Wallace. “What did you do?”

Wallace was no longer smiling.

“What did he do?” she put to Gus.

“He fuckin’ stabbed himself through his arm!”

“He
what
?” She glared at Wallace. “You stabbed yourself? The hell you do that for?”

“Yeah, why?” Gus demanded, then ominously. “Black shit squirted out, Collie, like he was leakin’ oil or something.”

A clearly unimpressed Collie switched from one to the other.

The soldier didn’t answer.

“Let me see.”

“I would’ve told you eventually,” Wallace finally responded in a low voice, his Zen wavering around the edges. “Only happened last night.”

“That right?” Collie asked. “Anything else happen last night?”

“No.”

“Show me the arm.”

Wallace complied, surprising Gus. He thought the man would’ve protested more. Wallace straightened out his arm and displayed the wound, which had ceased bleeding. A clearly pissed-off Collie grabbed the offered limb, studying the cut in grim silence.