Pulling back onto the road, he looks down at the clock. It is seven in the morning. His time is running out, but he still has just enough.
Blood trails behind the prints that dig into the snow. Boots are dragged, the individual holes are one long path cut beneath inches of precious flakes.
Light blinds off the endless fields of white, brighter than the yellow ball that flares in the clear sky. It is directly overhead, casting no shadow from snow-covered boots.
Single, lonely clouds move hazily through the sky, faster than the prey that struggles through the fields. Ice cold air bites at the skin. Death coming slowly and sleepily. None of it touches the anger that burns beneath betrayal and fury.
Shards of ice pick up and pinch at the skin, washing away gore that drips from clothes caked with blood and bowels. A hell-risen monster, the dark figure pushes forward over the fields.
Merchant eyes the blood trail of the one he follows. He is getting closer. The ditch created by his bag is now deep enough to reach the ground below. Cherry Red bleeds, trying to drag it along, but she can’t let it go. No one ever can.
This is his burden. His curse to carry. Many have tried to take it from him. The draw of the secrets held within too great to leave it behind, but it kills them all. Like flies to the stinking carcasses he leaves in his wake, they have a need to possess it. A voice that calls to anyone who has the strength to try and take it. There are no words, no embodiment of why they must have it, but all succumb to their wants. Secrets held closed for all recorded history and before there was a time to remember. The desire to possess it kills their mortal minds.
He reaches down and picks up a small handful of snow. The cold ice melts against his skin, and he rubs the red droplets between his fingers. Still fresh, and much heavier as her life bleeds away. She is close. He can feel his curse pulling for him. It is out of his reach but cannot be past the short hill that breaks the flat horizon and disappears in the bright, eye-piercing glare of the sun above.
A sharp wind cuts across the plains. Its voice harsh and brittle. The air is razor-tipped and cuts through skin and bone. Tainted with something metal, a taste of rust and ruin. Adjusting the shoulders of his jacket, Merchant follows the trail.
He still can’t see her. The world is an endless floor of white covered in robin egg’s blue for as far as he can see. His eyes water with the torture of cold and light. Pain he can repress, he uses it to fuel the fury from what she has done.
The steps are drawing closer. An indentation and pooling of blood shows where she has fallen. Merchant smiles. He can feel the weight of his curse on his shoulder. She is close. Hiding somewhere out here in the middle of nowhere.
Silly girl.
He follows the trail. The stench of death follows him, and he is alone. Even Snake-Eyes has not appeared since he left the trap she sprung. A killing ground of hungry infected that did nothing but piss him off.
At the top of the next hill, her steps quicken. Mounds of snow are kicked up where she has fallen again, and a sledding path where she rolled down leads the way. Blood smears over white snow, and his bag is dragged toward an oasis lost in a desert of ice. Trees, barren and dead, stand with jagged limbs that cut into the sky above. Broken fence posts with snapped razor wire lean against the dry bark, the barrier cut years ago and rusting against dead wood.
Merchant trudges forward. She will be here. Hiding and waiting for him. The trail of red is now a constant stream. One of her legs drags behind her. The weight of his curse now cuts into the soil and slows her every move.
Tension releases inside of Merchant, and he feels his shoulders relax. He has found her.
Most likely dead, or close enough for it to no longer matter.
His steps are even, and calm. There is no reason to hurry. The trees grow closer. Twin trunks twisted together in life and death. The dual bases are one large stump separated by a gap where the plants tried to force themselves into individual beings, going at the world their own way. But life and Mother Nature’s bad decisions brought them together in a knot of torture and pain.
Soaked red around the strap, his burden leans against the base, the single remaining strap pulled into the open gap between tree trunks. Blood pools at its base, and dry yellow grass sticks out where the snow thins against the dry bark.
Where is she?
Merchant stops and looks down at the old Army bag. The top seal is still buttoned shut.
She hasn’t even tried to open it. A gust of wind crackles the branches above his head. A handful of twigs give up their fight with death and fall into the snow. Laced between branches, a bird’s nest sits empty. He eyes the dead home. Trying to imagine the ingenuity of two animals capable of building something that has lasted longer than buildings made of steel and stone.
In the end, death always wins. It is the only equalizer.
“Ah!” Cherry Red screams as she shoves a hand-length blade through the opening between the trees.
The attack is slow and misguided. Merchant steps aside, and the dull end of the rusted steel falls short by half an arm-length. Fury and blood trail down the young woman’s face. Red rivers run from her nose, ears, and the corners of her eyes.
“Die, you fucking bastard!”
Red spins around the tree. One leg drags, and she keeps her shoulder against the solid bark as the blade arcs out and comes for Merchant’s shoulder.
Blood loss and delirium has taken her. He moves half a step back, and the weapon cuts air before slapping against the dead tree. Chips break away, but the metal is dull and clangs into the lonely afternoon.
Lost in rage and confusion she bellows out the pain that shoots through her arm. She drops the weapon, and it goes silent as it slips into the snow. Merchant draws closer.
Hissing like a cat, she swings a backhand that is meant for his face. He grabs her at the wrist, wraps his thick fingers through the loops of her belt at the back of her pants, and throws her away from the tree.
Limbs go sprawling, and her voice screeches into the air before the thud of bone against ice cracks the sky, and she cries out.
“Kill me now, you monster!” she demands.
Her strength is gone, and she is a mess from head to toe. Dark, wet hair is plastered flat against her skull and caked with blood and sweat. Her jacket clings to shoulders of sharp bones, and her tits poke out like darts behind a shirt stained dark brown with blood and dirt.
Knees wobbly, she tries to stand, but her bad leg gives out. She falls back into the white powder and rolls toward the tree.
“Do it, you fucking demon,” she insists.
All the anger and fury within Merchant fades with the breeze that cuts through his jacket. She is broken and dead on her ass as she looks up at him.
Her eyes are bloodshot, her breaths shallow and rapid.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Merchant says.
She spits at him, and a ball of phlegm hits the ground at his feet. Red and sticky, it melts the snow.
“Do it!” she screams and begins to cry. “Put me out of my fucking misery, just like you did all those fucking monsters back there.”
He watches as the tears are thick with blood and salty water.
“Not much to look at now, is she?” Snake-Eyes asks as he materializes next to the burden that kills them all. “Too bad. Could have been a good fuck. Damn bitches always make the wrong decisions.”
Red takes a deep breath when Merchant doesn’t move.
“Why not?” she asks.
She closes her eyes, her breathing slowing to mix with the sobs that shake her body.
“I held up my part of the bargain. You now have yours to keep.”
A chuckle that sounds more like a cough rolls her onto her side.
“After what I just did. I’m fucking dying here, and all you are worried about is that fucking woman?”
Hacking until she is on her knees and elbows, blood drips from her mouth as she tries to smile.
“I couldn’t help you
if I wanted to. I’m fucking dying, and you have a hard-on for that bitch. Go find their camp on your own.”
Anger flairs behind Merchant’s eyes, and he picks her up off the ground with his hand wrapped around her throat.
“We made a deal. I take care of your brother and you show me where she was taken. I’ve done my half, now you will do yours,” Merchant says the words like rolling thunder through gritted teeth.
Cherry Red tries to spit, but her lips barely move. Her face is turning red, and she kicks out where her feet no longer touch the ground. Eyes roll back, and he drops her to the ground where she crumples like old clothes.
“Plus, you aren’t dying here. Not anymore,” he says.
Turning her head, she looks up at him. Questions and anger burn behind her eyes. She smells of body odor and the iron shackles of death. He can feel her anger, but he doesn’t care.
“Look at me,” she says.
“I’ve already spent too much time doing that,” Merchant answers.
“Not enough in my opinion,” Snake-Eyes adds.
“You aren’t carrying my bag anymore. You’ll heal, at least enough to get me where I need to go. Then you can die if you want to.”
“And if I decide to go back on my half of the deal? Leave you in another fucking cesspool of infected. This time with a thousand to gnaw away at that hard-on you have for the bitch?”
Merchant squats. Her left eye is two-thirds blood, and he guesses it is probably blind and useless.
“The question you should be asking is how I got here in the first place after you locked me in there with your brother and his friends.”
“He wasn’t my brother!” she screams. “None of them were. I was just supposed to supply them with…”
“With what? Food?”
Cherry Red tries to clamp her mouth shut.
Cheek bones drop, and her jaw hangs low, and she shakes her head from side to side but doesn’t say another word. Merchant stands and offers his hand down to her. She’ll recover once she has some rest. His curse is back in his possession. She’ll still want it. Even at times thinking she needs it to survive, but she’ll live.
Pulling her from the ground is as simple as lifting an empty paper bag. That is all she is now. She has had a taste of what is his. A part of her trapped now to the temptation.
She steps away from him and hobbles on her one good leg. Yes, she’ll need some rest, but she’ll live.
For now.
Sixteen
Five Years Ago
Darkness has set in. Complete and stifling, the sky starless and the moon buried behind a thick layer of storm clouds. Rain threatens in the air. Thick and heavy, it sits against the skin and is carried with the wind that blows constantly to the east. Time draws near. Thunder rolls in the distance. A small shaking of the ground. A chill running down the spine.
A few droplets splatter against the hood of the Impala. Big fat drops that splash back into the air, and then end as miniature craters on the warm metal. Leaves rustle in the nearby trees. Twigs and trash swirl and roll across the ground. A low moan calls in the wind. It is almost here. Merchant lets the rumble of the Impala’s engine vibrate beneath him as he sits comfortably on the hood above the car’s engine.
The team’s compound is exactly where Travis said it would be. Thick, prison razor wire surrounds an endless row of storage buildings, all of them black and solid voids against the reflection from the clouds above. Cold structures of concrete and bent sheet metal as soulless as the men who fill them.
Guards stand watch both in front of the entrance gate and behind it. Snipers crouch in dark nooks atop the corner buildings, silent weapons ready and waiting where they sit upon their empty, shadowed structures. Their slight movements are hard to catch if you don’t know where to look. Bright beams of light follow the fence line in regular patterns, cast by angry eyes atop towers along the perimeter gate. Yellow balls trace the ground and skim over the soldiers before following the outline of the boundary the traitors are calling their own.
A military compound if there ever was one. Right in the middle of suburban Washington. Fifteen years ago, this would have been unheard of. Merchant shakes his head. He remembers the plan. No one will see it coming. There is no way to expect it, or worse, to stop it. Unless he does something now. His time is running out. He shrugs. Better not keep the Devil waiting then.
Merchant puts his night binoculars down onto his lap. Regret balls in his stomach. He was once one of them. Fighting right beside them in a war he once understood. Running his fingers over his stomach, the thick material of his uniform jacket bunches where he searches for the scars that should be there.
He doesn’t understand what happened, but there is no longer time to question. He should be dead like his family, rotting beside that tree, but he isn’t. Seated on the hood of Travis’ car, he banishes the questions into the back of his mind.
Whatever the reasons are, whatever the cause, it has given him the chance to settle this once and for all. Not for him, or the pain they inflicted on him, but for his wife and his babies. The picture of their torched bones is vivid and inches from his fingertips every time he closes his eyes. Black with soot and fire, he can still see his wife’s dead eye sockets searching his for any reason he can give her for the death that took them. An answer he doesn’t have. That chance was taken from him, and he is here to repay that debt.
Thick plastic and glass lenses begins to crack under his grip, and he releases before his binoculars break in his hands. He’ll need them for a few more minutes. Then after that, all Hell won’t be able to stop him.
Hopping off the front of the Impala, he makes his way to the trunk. Popping it open, he looks over what he has to combat an entire platoon of traitorous soldiers with. Travis was good with his cars, a mechanic by pure nature, he always kept his in engines and body in top shape.
Merchant smiles.
Good thing he was the same anal asshole when it came to his weapons.
Rifles, knives, enough magazines to spray bullets until the sun rises, and more unaccounted munitions than he could possible carry, lays across the trunk. Merchant can’t take it all, nor will he need it.
He straps an M-14 over his shoulder, two Glock pistols into his belt, and as many magazines as he can fit into his pockets. Knives are strapped into his boots, and for good measure, he clips several grenades beside the pistols. Why Travis needed grenades, he’ll never know. He can’t talk to the dead, and Travis won’t be talking to anyone for a good time now that he sits beneath a pile of rocks pushed up against the slow lapping waters of the river. Buried unceremoniously within the tall reeds of river grass and mossy soil that sits in the shade all hours of the day.
When they were friends, Travis had talked hours about the times he spent fishing. Sitting on the shore, drinking enough beers to fill the Potomac. Maybe somewhere deep inside, he would find peace knowing his remains rest next to a river where someone will come in the morning and fish. They may even sit on that same pile that buries him.
Merchant doubts it. The sight of his family burned beneath their house rekindles in his mind. That bastard can go fuck himself.
Closing the trunk, Merchant makes his way over to the driver’s side and slides himself behind the wheel. The road slopes downward toward the camp, and there is only one way in, and that same path is the one way out. Gravel and stone skip and crack as the heavy metal beast inches forward. He can’t go too fast. Door still open, he lets one foot skip along the road. Rubber catches the rocks and kicks his leg out. A little more and the car begins to pick up momentum.
He leaves the transmission in first gear. The gear box fights the increasing speed, but the Impala continues to roll. Grabbing a fist-sized stone from the blood-caked passenger seat, he throws it down on the gas pedal and rolls out of the car.
The engine revs, and the solid earth sends shivers through his bones as he bounces on impact and springs back to his feet.
There is movement by the
gate. Men scurry as their attention is drawn to the road. Lights swing around. Orders are shouted, and a dark shadow grows as dust kicks into the air. Merchant follows at a safe distance. Black cloth decorates his attire, and he has added dark paint to his skin. They cannot see him. In the dead of night, he moves like a ghost.
Shots ring into the still air. Glass shatters. Muzzles grow hot, but the Impala does not stop. It has no mind. It has no conscience. A full tank of gas keeps the pistons pumping, and two thousand pounds of steel rolls toward the front gates.
Merchant jogs along the side of the road. A wraith between trees, he does not watch the men at the gate firing frantically at the charging vehicle. The snipers above are now involved. Their shots are hollow thuds that explode through aluminum and steel.
A tire explodes, and the car veers violently to the right. Engine roars. It is too late. Spotlights watch uselessly as the front grill smashes into the barbwire fence and bends the steel poles buried in the ground.
Bullets continue to fly. More glass falls to the dirt surface below the tires that spin. The Impala is stuck within the fence. A hole ripped through the cage, creating a second opening, this one not capable of being closed.
Shadows of soldiers approach the ensnared metal beast. Rifles ready, they flank.
Merchant can hear the radio calls. Signals of the disturbance, but there is no panic. Alarms do not sound. The threat is under control.
So they think.
Less than one hundred feet separate him from his target. Four men surround the car. At least eight have their eyes trained on Travis’ prized possession and not the shadow that detaches itself from the tree line.
He must be fast.
No hesitation.
No delay.
Any of them mean death, and that is a mistress he does not want to meet again.
Twenty-five feet now separate him from the front gate. An opening large enough to squeeze through yawns and awaits his approach. The Impala has done its job. Engine still revving, it continues to distract. He smiles. For once there is something still willing to fight alongside him.
Traveling Merchant (Book 1): Merchant Page 15
