Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King

by Blackmore, Keith C.

  “What?” Cory asked.

  “Just wondering. Because I noticed earlier that there’s about three rolls of two-ply next to the crapper in there. The motel staff sure as shit didn’t put them there, so I was just wondering.”

  Collie’s grim smile dimmed to a smirk.

  “I don’t rightly know,” Cory said. “I mean, it’s only toilet paper.”

  “If it’s wrapped up, it should be fine,” Bruno added.

  “Is there a date on it?” Cory asked.

  “No date,” Gus said. “I checked. Just two-ply stamped on the side.”

  “Is it wet or damp or anything?” Bruno asked.

  “Nope. Totally dry.”

  The pair mulled over the question.

  “Can’t see a problem then,” Bruno said. “It’s only toilet paper.”

  “Only toilet paper,” Gus scoffed, unimpressed. “You remember that when you’re washing your shitty ass rags. Or whatever the hell you decide to clean your chuckwagon with. And I’ll bet you twenty bucks that whatever you do use, it won’t be your porn mags.”

  “Hey now,” Bruno said, suddenly serious. “Those are Gentlemen’s Magazines.”

  “You’ve been calling them nudie books.”

  “Which is my—my nickname for them. That’s all. Truth is, it’s an art collection. Contemporary adult art. But art all the same. And very collectible.”

  “Oh, it’s collectible, all right,” Gus pressed. “You bring any of that adult art along with you?” Bruno shifted in his chair and glanced uncomfortably in Collie’s direction.

  “Don’t look at her,” Gus said. “She doesn’t care.”

  “I don’t,” Collie added without taking her eyes off the parking lot. “Hell, I’m wondering if you found any copies of Playgirl.”

  Bruno’s beard twitched. “I have not.”

  “Figures.”

  “I think they were mostly online before everything went to hell,” Cory said, and got hit with the looks. “What? I’m just saying. My wife was into that.”

  “For the articles, right?” Bruno asked.

  “No, for the cock. My Nancy was all about the cock.”

  Collie chuckled. “Didn’t take long for this conversation to slide into the shitter.”

  “No, it did not,” Gus smiled. “And on that note, I think I’ll take a walk. Maybe look around for some more bum wad.”

  He got up from the table.

  “You’re going out there?” Collie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s nighttime, man,” Cory added.

  “It’s still early,” Gus countered. “I’ll take a flashlight if it makes you feel better.” He checked on his sidearm and nodded at Cory. “Thanks for supper. That was good.”

  “Very good,” Bruno added.

  Gus fumbled through his knapsack and pulled out a flashlight, the self-generating kind that only needed a couple of squeezes around the shaft to produce a beam.

  “Where you thinking about going?” Collie asked.

  “Just down the street. Maybe the grocery store there. Only far enough to get the blood flowing.”

  Collie studied him closely, her gaze lingering just long enough for him to get one of those vibes.

  Over the past six months, Gus had managed to keep his feelings for Collie in check. He liked to think his gestures spoke more than words, letting her know how much she meant to him. She was a leader and a soldier (or an operator, as she sometimes corrected him), but she was also surprisingly sweet and caring, even when she was teaching him how to break arms, as morbid as that sounded. Add in that sense of humor of hers, and Gus was done. Finished.

  And, every now and again, they shared a moment, just like now, and he sensed things were moving in a very good direction. And the vibes he felt were getting stronger with every passing day.

  “Well,” she said. “If you need anything, just start shooting.”

  Gus smiled. “You know it.”

  Cory searched his backpack and pulled out a cribbage board and a pack of cards.

  “Now you’re talking,” Bruno said and cleared the table.

  Gus let himself out, exchanging winks with Collie as he did so. That little exchange got his heart fluttering. He gently closed the door behind him.

  The temperature had dropped from perhaps ten degrees to a bitter five. Gus fluffed up the furry collar of his jacket and looked for the stars. Nothing but a ceiling of gray clouds. So be it. He needed to get back into survivor mode. Needed to remember the little things from before, to knock the rust off the gears. The body under the bed had shaken him. He supposed it was because he’d been recovering on the island for so long, distant from all the horrors on the mainland. Discovering the corpse under the bed reminded him that every town was a graveyard. Every room a potential morgue.

  A deep silence greeted him, and he held his peace just long enough to appreciate that awesome stillness. The wind had even dropped out, and Collie, Bruno, and Cory were doing their best to stay quiet.

  Gus rolled his shoulders, pulled his jacket tighter, and snorted back a lungful of air and all the autumn smells that came with it. He headed towards the grocery store, thinking about Collie. She was touching him more often. A hand on the shoulder every now and again. A quick squeeze of his hand at the supper table. Or when he made a funny. Two weeks ago, she startled the hell out of him by tugging on his beard and suggesting he shave.

  Just the other day, her hand found his underneath the table, and it stayed there.

  And that was part of the reason he needed to get outside. Out on the road, like they were, at a motel of all places, the anticipation about sleeping arrangements was matching the hornets trapped in his left boot.

  “Nice night,” he whispered to himself, glad that it wasn’t raining. “Nice night.”

  He stopped and realized he was standing right in front of the grocery store.

  The sign for Mollymart East was a dead gray in the night. A few tattered flyers announcing specials hung in the windows. The main doors were partially open, clogged with a beaver’s dam of brush and dead leaves, and the windows were surprisingly intact, considering so many supermarkets had been looted.

  His nerves weren’t feeling so jittery, and the motel didn’t seem that far away.

  “Fuck it,” Gus whispered. For old times’ sake. He stuck his head in the main entrance, smelling nothing but dried paper. Some wrappers and packaging cluttered the floor, but the aisles were as dark and ominous as deep-sea trenches. The produce section had been emptied long ago.

  The opening was just wide enough for him to squeeze through sideways. Gus stopped just inside and switched on his flashlight. The aisles flickered within an arctic cone of light. Out of habit, he reached for his Glock.

  Gus cleared his throat. “Hello?”

  And waited.

  As expected, no one answered. Nothing came running at him.

  He scanned the tops of the empty shelves, eyeing the stark beguiling glow of the painted metal. Exposed ductwork snaked throughout the ceiling. Cardboard and shredded wrapping littered the floor. Crimpled plastic wrap glittered like ice. The place had been picked clean, even by Gus’s standards, probably by the locals. In the beginning, at least. With the town so close to the highway, lots of traveling folks no doubt stopped in for a quick looting. They probably sighted the town and took whatever they could find.

  “Hello?” he repeated, just a little louder.

  No response.

  With a conscious effort, he kept his trigger finger just above the Glock’s guard, not wanting to blow his knee off.

  “Okay, so, uh… we’re just passing through, okay?” he said, drawing comfort from the sound. “So, don’t mind us. Don’t mind me. So…yeah. Listen. I’ve got a gun, okay? And I know how to use it. So don’t shoot me. I mean, don’t shoot at me. I’m not alone, and if you do shoot, the others will find you. But, I mean… look. I don’t want you to shoot, okay? And I’m not going to shoot anyone. I just wanna talk. See if we can,
I dunno, help each other out. Y’know?”

  Gus slowly swept his light over the shelves and empty aisles.

  “All right. I’m coming in. Just taking a walk, really. If anyone’s in here, just know that. Okay? Okay. I’m coming in. Taking that first step… now.”

  Gus did exactly that, and to his relief, no one tried to shoot him. No one tried to jump him, either, or grab his balls. Those were positive points.

  He moved into the barren produce section, his boots softly crushing dried paper and cardboard. The ductwork overhead resembled the entwined underbellies of great serpents. Nothing dropped onto him from above. Nothing sprang at him from the tops of the shelves. The cold light of his flashlight swept left and right, revealing the ravaged emptiness of the grocery store.

  “Goddamn,” Gus whispered, impressed by the level of bone-picking thoroughness of the looting. A series of open coffins appeared in the beam of light. The flashlight suddenly dimmed, so Gus gave it a few squeezes, revving the internal motor. He cringed at the sound. All his talk about coming inside and shit and here he was, looking like he was jerking off in the dark.

  The beam strengthened and flared across a series of open chest freezers resembling coffins. He turned around, inspecting more empty units, until he located the swinging doors at the back of the store.

  That brought back memories.

  “In for a dollar,” he whispered.

  He pushed through the doors, forging ahead. More aisles, more squished mush that might’ve been cardboard or paper, all mucked together by a jam of unrecognizable material, creating a rats’ nest. There were stairs to his left, the layout familiar, so he climbed them, his foot nagging at him to stop.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  His foot reminded him of the long walk back to motel.

  “Fuck off,” he whispered, knowing full well it was a long walk, especially when one leg seemed to end in an electrified squeezebox.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” he said upon reaching the top floor. The flashlight’s beam scrolled across an employee’s lounge consisting of a small table, a coffee maker, and a sofa that smelled faintly of pee. There was an open door just ahead, and Gus figured what the hell. He went to the portal and gently eased it open, cringing at the squeal of its hinges.

  A large L-shaped desk dominated the room, facing the door. A smashed laptop lay discarded in a corner, behind a flowerpot kicked over and spilling soil. Two chairs before the desk were pushed aside. But it was the huge window overlooking the floor that drew Gus’s attention.

  “Oh my,” he said weakly, and switched off his flashlight. He waited for his eyes to adjust. In time, the darkness revealed the huge store in all its shadowy splendor. The sight of that shopper-friendly labyrinth tugged a few memories loose, and for a few jarring seconds, Mollymart’s interior was lit with sharp fluorescent lighting, the shelves full of fresh groceries to buy and eat, with people pushing carts through the aisles.

  What shocked Gus the most were the voices in his head, of his old painting crew, as they watched Benny head for the exits, for a late-night meeting with the lovely Ms. Miller.

  “Why’s he walking that way?” Toby asked.

  “Looks like he’s gotta take a dump,” Gord added.

  “That sweet smelling devil,” Toby remarked. “God bless him.”

  “God bless him,” Gus sighed and smiled. He couldn’t rightly remember how they’d died—didn’t want to really, but he remembered how they’d lived, and that tightened his throat.

  “God bless him,” he repeated before reluctantly glancing around the office. A part of him was tempted to look under the desk, just to see if there was a fridge under there. He didn’t, however. He gave his flashlight a few squeezes, took one final look out over the main shopping floor, and headed back to the stairs.

  A soft noise distracted him when he reached the last step—the barest rustling of paper, like Christmas presents being shifted around. Gus stopped and listened, his damaged hand resting on his holstered gun.

  “Hello?” he asked. Nothing replied.

  A part of him strongly advised to return to Collie and the others and report the noise. Another part of him informed him that standing there with his hand on his gun wasn’t helping either, and that he should check on his balls before investigating. There were no more zombies in the world, just a handful of people, the vacant leftovers of civilization.

  Gus switched on the flashlight, nervously giving it a few more squeezes. He unholstered his gun and crossed his wrists like he’d seen in the movies, aiming both Glock and flashlight where he needed. With his gun hand supported by his left, he advanced down the corridor, between a tangle of empty shelves and garbage covering the floor. What looked like a dried-up puddle of used toilet paper covered one section. The sight of that grossed him out enough to reconsider going any further. He wondered just how urgent one had to be to drop drawers and squat in the rear of a grocery store. Gus sized up the tainted floorspace. Not wanting to find another way around, and certainly not pleased about it, he edged around that spent landmine of nastiness. Every careful step reminded him of walking through half-melted fudge, where his boots sank half an inch. The noise that he’d heard earlier didn’t repeat itself, though he felt he was closing in on the source. His foot was really nagging him now, and every step felt like a gnashing of electrical circuits brought on by failing bionics. The discomfort distracted him, kept him from focusing on whatever the hell lay ahead. Something waited for him at the end of this trail. He could sense it, as God was his witness. A presence, hiding far and away from the light, waiting for the right time to strike.

  Gus held his breath as he reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner, whipping the flashlight around. Round eyes blazed back an instant before a fox, flicking his big bushy tail, turned and fled through a gap in the shelving. That great tapered bush grazed the edges before disappearing, and Gus’s heartrate spiked as he stood there, paralyzed from the ankles up.

  When the fox was no longer visible, Gus realized he’d rightly refrained from firing his weapon. That was a good thing. Nice to know he had some degree of control.

  “Just a fox,” he whispered and wiped his forehead. “Just a fuckin’ fox.”

  He flashed the light toward where the animal had escaped and located a depression in the aisle, under the lowest shelf. A little den with tufts of fur and feathers. Gus tracked the animal’s path to a back door, opened just enough for one fleeing animal. An empty parking lot lay beyond the escape route, and Gus chuckled at the sight. When he settled down, he decided he’d had enough exploring for one night.

  Good to know that wild animals were in the area. Animals that ran when people got too close.

  Gus thought that was a good sign.

  5

  “Have fun?” Collie asked when Gus shuffled into the motel unit.

  “Just ducky.”

  She smiled and returned her attention to the parking lot, holding back the curtain just enough to peek.

  Gus closed the door and lumbered over to the bed. Three candles positioned throughout the room provided the only light. A hint of vanilla hung in the air.

  “That… incense?” he asked.

  “Candles are vanilla scented.”

  “Oh. Nice.”

  “A little too girly for me, but whatever. I’m more apple cinnamon. I’m all about the spice.”

  Gus parked himself on the bed, causing the springs to protest under his weight. The sound summoned a frown, a follow-up bounce to further test the mattress, and when that met his approval he shrugged and stripped off his jacket.

  “Saw a fox,” he muttered as he pulled off a boot.

  “Yeah?” Collie asked.

  Gus nodded.

  “Wow.”

  “In the supermarket. Underneath a shelf.”

  “You didn’t shoot it.”

  “No,” he scoffed with a soft glare. “‘Course not. It wasn’t doing anything. I heard a noise and went to investigate. My flashlight lit
up its eyes. Scared the shit outta me. Probably scared the shit outta the fox.”

  “You’re not as fluffy.”

  “Guess not,” Gus sighed. He chucked the jacket onto a chair and considered the bed again. The silence in the room thrummed like an exposed power cable.

  “Going to bed?” Collie asked, not breaking away from the window.

  “Thinking about it.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll take first watch. You relax and sleep for a bit.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. I’ll wake you when it’s time to switch.”

  “What about Bruno and Cory?”

  “They’ll get their shifts in.” Collie tugged on the remaining nub of her nose. “They’re only next door. When you finally crash, wake one of them to take over. The way Cory snores, it might be best to get him up first. Let Bruno get some sleep.”

  “We might hear that.”

  “The snoring? Probably. But hey, if that’s all we hear, then we’re good.”

  Gus thought about that. “Doesn’t seem like there’s too much out there, Collie.”

  She nodded. “I’m only keeping watch out of habit, to tell the truth. But it’s clear to me there’s nothing going on out there. Lots of places like this between Ontario and Quebec. People move on to safer places, or places they think are safer.”

  “Like where?”

  Collie grew silent for a moment. “Anywhere away from the shit. Mostly out of towns. Into the hills. Remember that motel? Where that gang kept those people pinned up? With the one guy over the pit filled with the Moe heads?”

  “Jimbo.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Jimbo.”

  Poor old Jimbo, Gus reflected, remembering the beaten and abused man who’d been saved from being eaten alive, only to suffer through an even grislier ending at the hands of the killer called Sick. Just the thought of it stabbed Gus to the core. There was shitty luck, and then there was Jimbo’s.

  “Wallace and I came across more than a few places like that,” Collie said. “Boarded up and fortified. Some had a few survivors. Some didn’t. Some went back with us to Pine Cove. Others didn’t.”

  “What happened to the ones who stayed?”