“He is,” Garrett said neutrally. “Very useful.”
“I’m curious,” Collie said. “Why would you let such a useful person go out on his own? You have to know what it’s like out there.”
“Because,” Sarah Burton said with some heat. “He’s a cranky, self-centered asshat who can be a goddamn pain in—”
“Sarah,” Eva said, warning the woman to button it.
Bruno looked at Monica and frowned, encouraging her to forget such language.
“Well,” Collie said. “I’ve already covered this with your people. Eva in particular. We’re willing to head back out and find out what happened to your mechanic.”
“Yeah, right,” Sarah started up again. “For a price, I bet.”
“That’s right. Nothing comes free these days.”
“I bet.”
“But it’s a manageable fee,” Collie continued, unfazed by the snark. “We’re running a little low on fuel. Eva says you make your own ethanol?”
Some uncomfortable shuffling then, and a few more looks.
“Jesus, Eva,” someone remarked.
“Relax,” she told the islanders. “Just hear Collie out.”
“Yeah, just hear her out for a minute,” Davis said. “It’s not that bad.”
So they did.
“Like I said,” Collie continued. “We’re looking for people. Good people to exchange food, services, and skills with. Our little community has about a population of about four or five dozen. Mostly people with regular trades, trying to do things the old way, to survive with the pieces left over. We don’t have a mechanic. We do, however… have a doctor.”
That got their attention.
“As a sign of good faith,” Collie said, deciding not to point out that they’d already shown plenty of good faith in freeing Eva and the others, “we’ll go back out there and look for Carson. For whatever fuel you can spare. If we find him, we’ll bring him back. Talk some more. We have a doctor, and, if you’re willing to parlay, at the very least we can see to it that anyone needing medical attention gets it. What do you think?”
“A doctor?” Jane Wong asked.
Collie nodded. “ER doctor, in fact. Honest to God. Worth her weight in gold. She saved my life already.”
That changed the vibes radiating off the group, from one of polite guardedness to keen interest. Gus knew they were in business. Even the scarred gunslinger called Trinidad seemed to be considering the offer in a different light.
“Or,” Collie went on, “you guys can decide who goes out again. From your own crew. You got a few faces here who look like they could chew their way out of a prison cell.”
“Oh, we can protect ourselves,” Sarah Burton said, pushing her glasses back up onto her nose. “Make no mistake, honey.”
Collie didn’t respond to that.
“What Sarah means,” Garrett interjected, “is we certainly do have people who can take care of themselves, but I don’t want to risk losing anyone else if I can help it. If you’re willing to find Carson and bring him back, we can discuss other matters further. See what we come up with. You trust them, Eva?”
“Enough to bring them here. Enough to ask you to listen to what she has to say.”
“Well,” Garrett said after a moment’s thought. “We can certainly do that. We’re not savages.”
He looked over at Sarah, who appeared to be seriously thinking things over. She eventually nodded, but reluctantly.
Garrett cleared his throat. “We’ll need to keep one of yours with us. Until you return.”
“Sure,” Collie said. “Take him.”
That wiped the smile off Bruno’s face, and his pirate’s stocking cap wilted just a little.
Garrett saw the man’s unease, took a moment to process it, and chuckled. “Why don’t we talk about this over something to eat?”
Collie approved. “Sounds good. Lead the way.”
And Gus knew then, as God was his witness, that they could trust these people. He sensed no scheming intent, no evil plans, just a lost group so much like themselves doing what they could to ensure their own safety and survival.
Garrett extended a hand, pointing to a gravel pathway, when the ringing of a bell stopped him in his tracks.
And the sound of approaching engines turned him towards the bridge.
16
The sound of engines grew closer.
And the lookout person ringing the bell was seriously getting into their work.
“Places, everyone!” Garrett yelled, hurrying to the bridge.
Gus glanced at Collie, who hesitated only a second before running for her truck. She pulled open the door and extracted her assault rifle. With a wave to Gus, she jogged to a grassy mound that faced the far shoreline. He raced after her and together they landed on their chests in grass and weeds. Collie readied her weapon.
“Christ almighty,” Gus muttered, watching the road to the island. “What the hell is that?”
Collie pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead and screwed her eye into her weapon’s targeting scope. She grimaced. “That, my friend, is war.”
That worried the unholy squirts out of Gus. He eyed her profile before glancing behind them, spotting Cory and Bruno crouching at his heels. Cory crawled toward them elbows-to-grass to get a better look. Bruno was on his knees, halfway between dropping to his chest and curious as to what was coming. Little Monica was there as well, holding onto Bruno’s shoulder like a cat dunked into a vat of ice water.
About a half-dozen islanders dropped down on either side of them, spaced out along the waist-high shoreline, Eva among them. An assortment of shotguns and handguns gleamed in the tall grass.
“We didn’t bring them, Eva,” Collie said, still peering through her scope.
“I know. But you’re here now.”
“We’ll help if we can.”
“I know that, too.”
Relief flared through Gus, knowing at least one islander wasn’t blaming them for anything yet. Dark outlines moving through the trees on the lake’s far side seized his attention. More shapes followed the first. A sinister parade of ill-kept vehicles was rolling towards them, spewing black coils of smoke.
“Collie,” he said.
“I see it.”
“Mm—mmmm,” Monica moaned in desperation.
“I know, honey,” Bruno told her. “You just stay close to me.”
The approaching vehicles grew louder, punctuated by the peppy streaks of motion that could only be motorcycles. The parade came into better view. A black stream of vehicles as noxious and polluted as an undersea oil spillage filled the road, speeding towards the bridge. A collection of revving engines that buzz-sawed through the sleepy peace of the afternoon, no longer concerned with stealth. Trucks. Cars. Motorcycles.
Then an engine came into sight, one that had no right being on the road in this day and age.
The raw horsepower of a monster-sized transport blasted the air, drowning out the motorcycles. The growls of all those engines coalesced into one harsh, mechanical concert—a heavy metal motor show, charging the island with tsunami might.
“It’s a fucking biker gang,” Gus said, his spine suddenly cold. “Biker, car, and trucker gang.”
“Looks that way,” Collie said, watching the column through her scope.
“There’s a lot of them.”
“I know.”
“Holy shit, there’s a lot of them,” Bruno exclaimed softly, no longer concerned with censoring his words.
“What do we do?” Gus asked.
“We wait,” Collie said, poised and ready for the dirtiest and bloodiest business transactions. “For now.”
He glanced at the operator. Her assault rifle never seemed smaller, however.
Monica continued with her worrying mm—mmm grunts, as if trying to force words through glued lips.
The motorized army turned towards the bridge, trailing a serpentine tail obscured by the treeline. There didn’t seem to be an end to them,
and the churning smoke concealed their numbers just enough. Gus spotted a second transport truck farther down the line, and that knotted up his stomach. Then he remembered those few defenders posted at the entrance. A part of him shouted at them to get out of there, that the island was already gone.
That last thought chilled him.
Since they were on an island with only one way in and out, they had no place to escape. They were trapped unless Eva and Garrett had a couple of boats stashed away somewhere.
An oily surf of wheels, metal, and windshields pulled up before the bridge’s entrance, well back from the spear wall. The island’s one fortification seemed as impregnable as cotton gauze against the force spreading out along the opposite shore. There, the invaders gathered and strained, idled and thickened, growing into a great wall gleaming with chrome. The pump and revving of engines growled louder as more machines pulled up and lurched to a stop. Mephitic plumes of exhaust wafted through their ranks.
One vehicle caught Gus’s attention.
A school bus. A school bus painted black.
“They’re doing something,” Gus said, leaning over to Collie. “They’re doing something over there.”
Collie pointed.
Within the bridge’s fortifications, several islanders scurried—the same islanders that had allowed Gus and company to drive through the gates. About five of them moved about, taking aim at the force amassed at their doorstep.
One thought kept repeating itself over and over again in Gus’s head. So many. So damn many.
“How deep’s that water?” he asked, raising his voice.
“Twenty feet plus,” Eva replied. “Deeper in other places. The sandbar is shallow near the shore, but it drops off about twenty or thirty feet out. Those rigs got no other way across except the bridge.”
That didn’t make Gus feel any better. “Collie?”
“Yeah?”
“I think we should be leaving.”
“You heard her,” Collie said. “That bridge is the only way across. Unless you want to swim.”
Gus’s answering grimace was all fuck me gently.
The army of trucks, cars, and motorcycles trembled as if restrained by a weakening leash. They pumped accelerators and produced smoke. A single figure emerged from between the vehicles. Clad entirely in black and wearing a mask, the figure strode ahead with a swagger that was one part drunk and three parts attitude. He carried a pole. A second character followed the first, similarly dressed but carrying something different, an item that was a dirty shade of white.
The first masked man stopped in front of the island’s makeshift spear fence and craned his neck, studying the defenses. He cocked his head with drawn contempt. Then, perhaps aware of the time, he lifted his pole overhead.
The masked man held the pose for seconds.
Knowing he had the stage, the masked man spiked the length of wood into the road’s soft shoulder. He worked it deep. Once planted, he stepped back and eyed the bridge’s defenders.
Then he turned and strode back to the rumbling line of automobiles.
The second figure walked up to the pole and fixed a white bulb to its tip. When he completed his task, he also withdrew.
“Oh my God,” Collie said, just above the commotion.
“What?” Gus asked.
“You see that thing?”
“No, why?”
Collie handed him the rifle. Gus took the weapon and peered through the scope. Cars, trucks, smoke. Shadowy drivers and hunched shapes gathered around the trunks. He shifted the scope.
And spotted the grim sign left behind.
A dog’s skull, polished to a shine, the disturbing jaws hanging at a sharp angle.
“Oh, that’s fucked up,” Gus muttered.
“Royally fucked up,” Collie added and took back the weapon. “Eva?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Garrett shit’s about to happen.”
She would not get the chance.
Somewhere behind that mass of vehicles, a barrage of oddly colored pillows was being launched at the island. They rose into the sky, shifting, wavering, even sparkling, like oversized teardrops the color of ginger ale. Perhaps a dozen or more missiles, spread wide and growing wider by the second.
“Stay down!” Collie shouted.
The sight of those tumbling bags paralyzed Gus. There was nowhere to run. No time to run. And no escape from what was coming. The blast radius of those bombs would envelop just about the whole of the parking area, and probably decimate everything within.
So Gus cringed, and did nothing except wait for the inevitable.
Until the first of those explosive devices burst not ten feet away from where they all kissed grass—soaking Gus and everyone nearby. Water splashed over him. He recoiled from the contact, shocked that he was still in one piece, inspecting the dark stains that doused him. Screams and gasps tore from the islanders as, all over the camp, those clear bladders fell and burst apart, spraying everything nearby in shocking spatters.
Plastic bags. They were only clear plastic bags, filled with—
“Water,” Gus said, still surprised that they were alive. “It’s only—”
Then the smell hit him.
A rancid, decomposing stench that wrinkled his bearded face and left him rattling his head.
“Oh, god… damn,” he blurted, recoiling in nauseated awe. He pinched his nose, trying to escape that horrible smell. Dark stains soaked through his legs, already touching skin, while a line went up his side and probably marked his back as well.
“Oh, that’s nasty,” he winced, actually tasting the stink. Those around him were suffering as well. Eva looked as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. One islander lowered his head and retched into the grass. People were moaning in agony, some with dripping faces where the balloon broke right in front of them. Others sat up and shook their arms, frantically attempting to dry off. All over the parking area, great wet bullseyes stained the ground, and the smell stole their breaths as effectively as plastic bags being slipped over their heads.
Worst of all, there was something oddly familiar about the stink.
Collie had buried her face in the valley of her right elbow, just for a second, before coming up for air. “Urine,” she gasped. “Christ almighty, that’s urine.”
That both horrified and mystified Gus. “Urine,” he sputtered, pawing at a few drops running down his temple. “Piss? They’re throwing piss at us? In… plastic bags?
Another round of the pungent projectiles launched into the air. Piss bags! Gus’s mind screamed, watching the rise and fall of those wobbling, shifting bladders just before they crashed down with explosive spatters.
“Mmm—mmm” little Monica was saying, tugging, no, pulling on Bruno’s arm as if he were a stubborn sapling refusing to be uprooted.
One woman rubbed at her eyes, as if she’d taken a full splash to the head and was trying to scrub the foulness off. A man appeared and pulled up his shirt to clean her face. Other islanders who took cover behind trees, fences, or even the camp’s billboard (which had taken a direct hit) inspected themselves as if they’d been doused while wearing their Sunday’s finest. One guy was gesticulating a ‘what the fuck?’ with his open arms, when the revving of an engine—a big engine—flared to life on the other side of the water.
The black bus rolled towards the gatehouse, and the brave guards hunkered down in the pillbox atop the bridge. Suddenly, the defenders were falling, crumpling behind their fortifications as if shot dead. But they couldn’t have been shot dead, as there were no gunshots, no killer stutter of automatic weapons, no nothing to be heard over the din and roar of that motorized army. And, yet, Gus saw one guy in a pillbox window flinch and drop out of sight. No one else moved, until one woman staggered through the fortification’s back doorway. She collapsed against the doorframe, first sinking to a knee, then to both hands, as if searching for a fallen needle.
Feathered shafts protruded from her back.
&n
bsp; She fluttered a hand, and that one gesture caused her to fall on the roof.
“We gotta go,” Gus gasped, getting to his knees, struggling to swallow one breath, just one lungful of air that didn’t smell like the rancid nut-juice squeezed from the bag of some ancient invalid. “We gotta—––oh shit, Collie, we gotta get outta here.”
Collie was rising, pulling back, equally affected by that overpowering, eye-watering stink that was as debilitating as tear gas.
“Mmm—mmm,” little Monica urged. Her cheeks flushed, trying to get her message across that they had to leave immediately.
“Go,” Gus barked and sucked in a mouthful of poisoned air. “Eva, we need to go.”
“Yeah,” Eva croaked. She was crouched over, horrified by the wet spots dappling her clothes as if scalded by hot water.
The motorized roar of the bus drowned out the moans of the islanders. The vehicle ran right through the spears, snapping several in splintery pops. The bus charged the bridge’s entrance and then its front end disappeared from view.
Arrows, Gus’s mind screamed, suddenly back online. “They’re shooting arrows, Collie!”
“Crossbows!” she yelled back.
There was a short clatter of metal, followed immediately by frightening pops and the rustling of timbers. Gus couldn’t see anything as a mixture of sweat, tears, and urine blurred his vision and smeared the scene. He wiped away the worst of it. Another crack and crash of metal, followed by a mechanical groan of laboring winches. There was a sad note of wood creaking to a breaking point, followed by a disturbing snap that could’ve been bone.
Then the most unnerving thing of all.
Damn near all the engines of the motorized army stopped running. All at once.
That halted Gus and Collie in their tracks.
“Mmm—MMMM!” little Monica was screaming now, as if she was about to pass a coconut. She dug in her heels and pulled on a shell-shocked Bruno.
A shriek split the air from the other side of the water. A ball-clenching peal of rage that Gus had not heard in a long, long time, but one he recognized, which turned his legs into boneless slabs of dough. But that couldn’t be right, because they were all—
Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King Page 15
