Well Fed - 05 (45 page)

“Well, welcome to Pine Cove,” Ray declared with a flourish of hands. “That’s it. We’ll have another talk in the morning—see what you and the others can offer the town. This place is only as good as its people, and it’s always good to bring in more. Every person is sorta like a little treasure chest. You don’t know what’s inside. Any doctors among you, by any chance?”

“Sorry, Ray.”

“That’s okay. We’ll find one sooner or later.”

Gus hoped they would.

After the meeting with Ray Minglewood, Marie led Gus by flashlight through the deepening night. The community hall could’ve been mistaken for a church missing its cross, and Gus wondered if Pine Cove still held Monday-night bingo sessions there. Maybe they did. Thick wooded, white painted, and with its windows boarded up, the place looked like a piecemeal bunker in the flashlight’s beam. A few of the nearby houses had lights on upstairs, leaving Gus feeling as if all was right with the world for once.

The doors to the hall opened, and the harmonious smells of chicken soup and baked bread smacked him in the face. Phil and Jim and their people sat at three rows of long tables, enjoying their first hot meal in a long while. Three large portable water dispensers, the emergency kind, were set up nearby with stacks of plastic cups. Curtains partitioned an arrangement of cots near the back of the interior. Candles burned in holders and lamps all along the tables, lending an angelic ambience to the scene.

“Whoa,” Gus said, a little breathless at the sight of the meal. “You guys got this on quick, didn’t you?”

“Not really,” Marie said. “They’re eating leftovers from this evening. And that bread’s fresh baked. We have a few old-fashioned ovens in town that are kept busy.”

“Jesus Christ.” Gus couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten fresh bread. His stomach tugged on his tongue, looking for attention.

“Eat, relax, and get to bed. Tomorrow, we’ll talk again and see who wants to live where.”

“Huh?”

“We have plenty of extra houses around, all with wood-burning stoves. There’s electrically heated ones as well, but no one lives in any of those, obviously. But there are a couple with solar panels installed that generate good heat in the winter.”

“Wow,” Gus repeated, caught in another memory.

“So go ahead. See you in the morning.”

Marie gestured toward the table before leaving Gus. He sized up the hall once more, smelled the food, eyed the tall pots and ladles, and listened to the sounds of eating and low conversation. It reminded him of an old-fashioned family dinner.

His stomach nagged him once again, and Gus walked over to the seated people, taking a spoon and a bowl from a lady who greeted him with a genuine smile.

After dinner, people settled down for the night.

Not bothering to undress, Gus lay back on a cot near an emergency exit, and if he arched his head back enough on his pillow, he could see the unlit sign designating the door. The bingo hall was warm and redolent with the aftersmells of a late dinner. Some folks whispered beyond the curtains. Someone suppressed a cough. A cot squealed almost musically from a person’s weight. Another farted, a long, sonorous note of sleepy contentment, and a chorus of giggles and chuckles answered in agreement.

Gus smiled at being among people again.

Not that Collie and Wallace weren’t people, but being part of a community calmed his nerves. He’d lived life as a loner, and he’d lived with a small group of people. He preferred the company of people by far.

Shadows flickered on the dim ceiling, lit by tired candlelight. The cot wasn’t as comfortable as the bed in the RV, but the hall’s ambience beat the motor home hands down—as long as there weren’t any more soup farts.

His smile widened.

The hall’s ceiling darkened. Sleep claimed the weariest of the travelers, and Gus closed his eyes.

Fathoms deep the night sank, drowning the town in sleep. Fog crept from the smoothed glass of the bay, promising good dreams. The vapor slunk up deserted streets and coiled around mushroom-shaped lamps that lined the road, creating smoky bubbles of light.

Spencer blinked at the scene, perhaps a little longer than he should have.
Dark.
November nights stretched time, making one second feel like thirty. Staying awake during those hours could be a challenge when the only sound heard might be another’s whisper or the dirge of the wind. Even though Spencer slept during the day in preparation for the night watches, that wasn’t enough. He disliked the graveyard shift. It screwed up his sleep and reminded him too much of a time when a scream carried for miles.

The night shift was damned
lonely
.

Spencer sniffed and dug at an ear, rooting a finger around vigorously before working on the other. As he cleaned, he leaned against the gate’s upper barrier and looked out into the rock cut. Pixie lights, little solar-powered units like the ones haunting the town, lit up the road and transformed it into a runway reaching toward infinity. Spencer sniffed again and detected movement on his right. Dalton was doing those ridiculous partial squats on the walkway, forcing blood into his thighs and ass. Below and inside the gate stood Martin and Roy, each with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. They’d exhausted the ammunition for the assault weapons almost a year before. Regular hunting rifles did the job just as efficiently, but Spencer liked holding an AR-20 in his hands. He appreciated the military rifle’s weight. It relaxed him.

Spencer took his finger out of his ear, wiped it on his jeans, and went to work on a nostril. He mined at an annoying tickle when Dalton’s bulked-up form wandered over from the right.

“You know somethin’?” Spencer whispered when Dalton got close enough.

“Wha’?”

“With that winter coat and all on, you look like a goddamn sasquatch.”

“Thanks, fuckchops.”

“No, really,” Spencer insisted, wiping his finger on his jeans again. “That beard of yours, them big fucking saucer eyes, like you’ve been sniffin’ somethin’ illegal. And that smell. What is that? Eau d’shit? Bet it’s hard to keep that one on the shelves.”

Dalton shook his head and studied the empty road of the rock cut. “Keep it up.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re a fucking snort and a half. Especially at my expense.”

“Well, y’shouldn’t come over here, then.”

“What? And miss all this charming conversation?”

“You are the source of my best material.”

“Yeah? Well, glad to make somebody’s night. Which reminds me, if you’re finished insulting me, that is.”

“Yeah,” Spencer sighed. “Even that gets old eventually. We good?”

“Fuck no, dickhead.” Dalton quietly scoffed, noticing the man still trying to clean his fingers on his clothes but deeming it not worth mentioning. “Y’know, I hope there’s no freaks or psychos in those two boatloads that came in today.”

“Collie and Wallace have been pretty much on the money so far. With that one exception, and that one took care of himself.”

“There’s a clinical name for that.”

“For blowin’ out your headcheese with a .30-30?”

Dalton regarded Spencer in the near darkness. “Spence, put the finger down and listen to what I’m sayin’ here, okay?”

With some reluctance, Spencer complied and adjusted the strap of his rifle hanging off his shoulder.

“What I was
sayin’
is, for some people, being isolated and on their own for so long and then coming
back
to… well, civilization—or at least integrating with people again—it’s sorta like culture shock.”

“Yeah, well, just hope there’s a few hot-lookin’ bitches in that bunch,” Spencer said.

Dalton again shook his head in stoic disbelief of his companion’s caveman priorities. “We’ll see tomorrow. Did see a few women get out of those RVs. Well, I’ll get back to patrolling here. Thank you as always for the conversation. Assfudge.”

“Dicksquid.”

Dicksquid.
Dalton mouthed the word in dismay before turning and walking away.

“That’s right, bitch—I win,” Spencer said to the other’s retreating back. “You just walk away. You feel ready come on back, and we’ll play again. Prison rules next time. Prison rules, son.”

Spencer snapped on an imaginary latex glove and scooped the air with a finger.

A crack of underbrush from the left caught his attention, and he turned and confronted the night. The sound didn’t repeat, however, and Spencer stood there, straining to hear. His peripheral vision picked up movement on his left, just below the barricade of cars, and he saw the outline of Roy standing down there. No one else in Pine Cove wore a real bear-fur hat.

“Roy,” Spencer whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Think it was?”

“Dunno.”

Neither did Spencer. He unslung his rifle. Roy did the same.

“Too dark,” Roy whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Need to put some of them solar lights on the slope, dude.”

“Job for tomorrow,” Spencer agreed.

No other sound came forth, but the hairs on Spencer’s neck buzzed, and unease filled his guts. He knew the feeling, remembering being pulled over while driving high on a Saturday evening. Spencer leaned forward, straining to hear, and looked at Roy again, who shrugged.

Urgent hisses split the night, ending in grunts from the right side of the wall, distracting both men just as a huge figure of a man wearing a snowsuit and a gleaming hockey mask strode out of the night, materializing from seemingly nowhere and taking huge steps before winding up and swinging an axe. Paralyzed, Roy didn’t even have the wind to scream as the blade chopped into his left shoulder, driving him to his knees.

“Jesus!” Spencer shouted in fright and lifted his rifle.

A hand wrapped around his forehead and tipped his head back, an instant before a startling pinch of pain.

The world went white.

Sick withdrew his slick knife from the base of the guard’s skull and eased the ragdoll corpse to the floor. He watched the big ex-Norseman called Nolan wrench his axe out of the chest cavity of his victim, wind up, and hack into the head with a clap that resembled fine china shattering on a floor. Nolan’s powerful grunts puffed though the punched-hole smile of the funky silver helmet he wore. Although Nolan didn’t eat people anymore, unlike his former associates, killing folks and ensuring their deadness remained a much-valued priority. Over Sick’s shoulder, four other men emerged from sections of underbrush where they had released their crossbow bolts. Those four confirmed their kills and dragged the bodies off the road.

Sick attempted to hear over the dragging of boots in the dirt, couldn’t, and frowned beneath his mask.

Nolan stood up, chest heaving, his work overalls stained darker than dark. He waved, and Sick waved back. Nolan gripped his axe behind its head in one hand while dragging the chopped mess into the dark by the ankle.

Sick regarded the town just a hundred meters away, lost in sleep, and sighed mightily. The first part was easy—boring, even, for one with his skill set.

But the next part thrilled the hell out of him.

Sick hopped from the gate to the wall and waved toward the four henchmen below. They ran to the gate, tossed off the lumber keeping the wheeled barrier in place, and pushed it out of the way. Pebbles crackled under rubber wheels.

Sick waved at the ghostly mouth of the rock cut.

The night exploded in a rock-band stage of lights.

Gus dreamed of his mountain lodge. He dreamed of Roxanne by his side, sitting in a deck chair right next to his, overlooking the city. She wasn’t the Roxanne who had kicked the living shit out of him, however. She was a more docile Roxanne, prompting Gus to wonder––diverting his attention for a moment––if she was stoned. Not that he minded. On that summer day, Roxanne had elected to go with a thin covering of sunscreen, which Gus heartily approved of. They gazed at the cityscape of Annapolis while lines of clouds scrolled southward at speed, which made him wonder if
he
wasn’t stoned. His skin burned in the summertime glare, and he could smell it. Gus scratched at his crotch, covered in beige walking shorts. He shook his mai tai, and the ice in his drink jingled.

“Left the keys in the truck,” he said without reason.

Roxanne sat up, her pretty boobs jiggling, not a tan line in sight.

“I’ll get them, babe,” she said brightly. She stood, placed her own drink on a small glass table, and immediately walked to the edge of the cliff, which no longer had a guardrail.

Gus lurched forward with a warning on his lips just as Roxanne hopped over the edge, her hair fluttering as gravity slurped her down.

“I didn’t park
there
,” he moaned and climbed to his feet in annoyance. He meandered to the cliff edge, muttering all the way, mai tai in hand, and looked down.

A raging mosh pit of zombies besieged the base of the cliff.

That didn’t perturb Gus in the least.

Roxanne had landed right on top of them, her limbs thrown wide as if making an angel in a drift of snow. She smiled up at him even as they tore her apart in a spectacle of blood.

Frowning, Gus downed the last of his drink.

He heard shouts from the pool, sounding urgent.

He stepped into the open air.

Gus woke and sat up straight.

The candles around the hall had expired. People moved about, silhouettes on a dark canvas, shouting warnings. A shadow appeared at the foot of his bed. Gus drew his legs back as a solid block nailed him in the face, flipping him off the warm cot and onto the floor. He landed hard on his belly, stayed put because of the shock, and made the mistake of looking up.

A boot crunched into the side of his head. The darkness exploded into purple and light.

Sleep returned.

Gus struggled in a tar of unconsciousness as the world scratched at his back. He realized then he was
on
his back while voices screamed in anger over him. A gun fired several times, and Gus cracked open an eye.