by Pike, JJ
Not knowing why.
Not needing to know.
But stepping up and getting the job done.
Stuart ripped the gun off her leg and jammed it in the back of his trousers then pushed her through Jo’s kitchen.
The doctor had already disappeared, taking his blood samples with him. Hedwig had only been to Jo’s place once, but she knew the basic layout. The kitchen led to a small front room which backed onto the stairs. Two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. No basement. That she remembered. That meant Hanzlik had gone upstairs.
The floor was tacky underfoot, the trash can and sink overflowing. Flies idled over the dirty dishes like drunks wobbling home after a bender. One particularly idiotic bluebottle buzzed the window, repeatedly slamming his head into the glass. Four cans of chili stood open on the table, spoons upright in the thick, tomatoey sauce and a box of powdered potatoes lay on its side by the two-burner stovetop. They wouldn’t be dumb enough to use milk and no one had seen butter for over half a year. Those were going to be some mealy mashed potatoes.
The doorway to the living room was dark. Not blacked out so much as grayed. Stuart nudged her with the barrel of his gun forcing her forward.
The windows were covered with old sacks, like the barn windows. Light leaked in around the edges and through the slit in the middle, barely illuminating the room. Hedwig blinked and squinted, willing her eyes to adjust to the gloom. They’d taken the door to the living room off its hinges and balanced it across a couple of wooden boxes. The tabletop was strewn with MRE wrappers and a hodge-podge of copper twine, Elmer’s glue, fuse wire, canning jars, and a box with a childish skull and crossbones scrawled on the side. The gray powder, casually spilled on the table like it was no big whoop, rounded out the picture. No prizes for guessing what that was all about. They were going to blow their own fingers off or lose an eye or inflict some stupid, random, pointless injury because they couldn’t be bothered to clean up their damned gunpowder.
There were two couches, both of which had been pushed against the far wall. An ancient television—as deep as it was wide—had been turned to face the wall. Other than that, the room was bare.
“Sit.” Stuart grabbed her by the bicep, swung her around to face him, then pushed her backwards. She sat with a thump.
When the time came, she was going to break those piggy hands off at the wrists and make him eat them. Pigs’ feet sushi, just right for human Pigs.
“Hands forward.” He grabbed the copper wire from the table and used it to bind her hands. “Feet together.”
He thought he was so cool and tough. Some kind of big guy. He was a loser with a gun. Nothing more. She wanted to kick him in the teeth and make a dash for the back door, but the doctor could be standing in the hall waiting for her. When she made her move it was going to be decisive. And successful.
Stuart tied her feet to the foot of the couch. Not a professional job. She could wriggle out of that.
Thumps overhead meant the doctor wasn’t in the corridor. Damn. Could have made a run for it. Okay. Don’t let the next chance pass you by.
More thumping from upstairs. Not feet. Boxes? He had to have a refrigerator or a way to store the blood.
Duh. Not if he’s not a doctor, dumbo. There wasn’t time to berate herself—she needed all her brainpower trained on her escape plan—but she did a couple of rounds of lashes and self-recrimination all the same.
She arched her foot slowly so as not to draw attention to herself, pushing the wire as hard as she could. It didn’t give. She was a rabbit in a snare, the Pig-men coming to snuffle at the trough and gobble her up. She upped her speed, shifting forward on the couch so she had better leverage.
Stuart’s eyes were on the hall, not on her. He was dutifully waiting for his master like the sniveling little wuss that he was. He had less self-respect than the neediest dog she’d ever met. Less poise and dignity than Rosie the pocket poodle who’d forced Sean to love her up when they’d arrived at Barb’s place and then about lost her mind when Sean had been injured. At least Rosie had an excuse. She’d been abandoned by her humans.
Stuart retrieved his gun from the table and balanced the barrel over his left wrist. He looked like a total amateur. So why was her mouth so dry and her brain so leaden and her heart so mad to be any place but her chest?
No need to ask why. The “why” was always there, just below the paper-thin seal of equanimity and sanity.
She’d been locked down like this, unable to move, at the mercy of merciless men before. In the camp. That place she longed to forget but forced herself to remember. She had no recollection of Paul pulling the man off her. Or the fire. Or the latrines by the fence where she’d blacked out. Or of Paul dragging her under the fence and into the woods and forcing his hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t give their location away to the camp guards. They were all just stories Paul had told her when she pressed him for details. But the sensation in the back of her throat, the prickling of her skin, the way her vision had narrowed to a small strip with everything to her left and right fading to black; that was familiar.
The thumps moved toward the staircase. More than one set of feet. She tried to count them off, get the rhythm, work out how many Pigs were headed her way. Two? Three? For God’s sake, not more.
They came down the stairs more slowly than she’d expected.
“Move. Quit dragging your feet. Now. Move,” Hanzlik shouted from the top of the stairs. He was irritated, sharp, bossy; not the charming man who’d said he was here to study the effects of MELT on the human body. Or the asshole who’d left the task of putting the soldiers out of their misery to her. That made more sense now. He wasn’t a doctor. Not even the fake kind with a doctorate in whatever. There weren’t any scientists. No one was coming. She was on her own.
She blinked.
The man in the doorway looked familiar.
But it couldn’t be.
She shook her head, determined to loosen the hallucination and set it free.
No, still the same guy.
Right behind him, confirmation. A face so similar it was almost identical. They wore their hair differently and the slightly-older-and-always-going-to-let-you-know-that brother smiled more than the younger one, but there could be no doubt. It was the twins. Caleb and Rowdy. In the flesh. Bruised and bound and captive, just like her.
She stuttered then ground to a halt. What did you say when one nightmare had been replaced with another?
“How are you doing?” Caleb held his hands up and wiggled his fingers. It would have been a cute attempt at a wave if they hadn’t been prisoners. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
Hedwig shook her head, still mute.
The twins sat on the second couch which was at a ninety degree angle to the one she was floating on. It was unreal. They couldn’t be here. What did that mean for the drugs? Her mouth caught up with her brain then overtook it. “How long have you been here? Have they tortured you? How did they catch you? Where are your men? Your army? Your defenses? What are you doing here? I don’t get it.” Once the floodgates opened she couldn’t stop the words. Or the tears.
“We’re good. It’s fine. It’s just a turf war. It’ll be cool.” Caleb’s voice was low. Reassuring. He believed what he was saying even if she didn’t.
“Turf war?” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“We have what they want.” Rowdy stared at Stuart, his eyes hard, his lip curled in a sneer. “And they don’t know where it is.”
Hanzlik had joined Stuart hovering in the middle of the room, watching his captives. “Unbind her,” he said. He looked away, casual and in control while Stuart did his bidding. He popped something in his mouth. Pills? Was Hanzlik a pill-popper? Good to know. Might be useful later.
Stuart put his gun down, panted, tongue out, tail wagging, and dashed at Hedwig. He knelt at her feet and undid what he’d just done. He was so intent on earning that gold star from his boss for his miserable chart that he never saw her foot coming up
toward his chin. She got three good, hard kicks in before he threw himself on her and pinned her to the couch.
Caleb and Rowdy laughed their damn asses off.
“Bro!” Caleb was jubilant. “She got you good.”
The brothers smacked their hands together in a mangled high five even though one of Rowdy’s hands was wrapped in heavy bandages. Tied up, injured, and held captive they were having a good time.
“Score,” said Rowdy. “Much respect.” He kept his hair longer than Caleb, which was one way to tell them apart, but they didn’t present as twins. Not entirely. Rowdy was stockier than his brother. And more likely to fly off the handle; whereas Caleb was more likely to keep an even head. Hedwig didn’t know why she thought that, but in the short time she’d been around them she’d divided them into “the one who ran cool; the sensitive brother you’d talk to” (Caleb) and “the other who ran hot; the boy who might blow things up just to see that it could be done” (Rowdy).
Stuart peeled himself off her, his hand over his bloody nose and split lip, and dug under the table with his free hand, swearing up a storm. He eventually found a bit of gauze and held it to his face, but the blood was flowing freely and Hedwig had a whole minute of triumph before he turned back to face her.
“You’re going to pay for that, bitch.”
She tsked at him through her teeth. Even if she couldn’t get away, there was no way the twins would let anything bad happen to her. She snuck a look over at the other couch. How were they so composed? They were lolling. Actually relaxed. Like, leaning back and grinning. She needed to take a leaf out of their books and feign chill even if it was the last thing she felt.
Just as her spine hit the back of the couch, Stuart was back, grabbing at her wrists and pulling her to her feet.
Hanzlik took two steps and was beside them. “Are you left handed or right?”
“Don’t, Mac. Don’t do it.” Caleb leapt up, no longer chill.
Stuart stepped to, elbowing Caleb out of the way. He grabbed her wrists and ripped the wire off, cutting the skin over the bone at the top of her wrist. She bled over both of them, but he didn’t let go.
“Take another step and I’ll cut the other hand.” He was talking to the twins, not her. His grip threatened to cut the circulation off in her hands.
Caleb stood his ground, the muscle in his jaw working overtime.
“Left or right?” said Hanzlik. He hadn’t raised his voice.
Stuart, on the other hand, was practically salivating. His hands trembled as he waited for his instructions.
Caleb took a step forward.
Hanzlik clicked the safety on his gun. Slowly. Deliberately. Then he looked back at Caleb, his eyes barely open, and waited.
Caleb’s shoulders slumped forward and his hands, still bound at the wrist, dropped down to his waist. “She hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t know where our stash is. Really. She’s a customer. She doesn’t have anything of use to you. We only sell her people a month’s worth of stuff because…” He shrugged in Hedwig’s general direction, his feet shuffling backwards toward Rowdy and their couch. “Sorry. It’s just business, you know?” He looked back at Hanzlik. “Because it’s more lucrative for us that way.”
Hanzlik took two long strides to Hedwig’s side. He reeked of cheap aftershave; some drug-store brand that kids bought for their dads on Father’s Day. It didn’t cover the sour smell of booze oozing out of his pores. The main perpetrator—Eddie “Call me the Enforcer” Pig-man-supreme—he’d smelled the same. She fought back the vomit. It was in her power in that moment to spit fire, she was pretty sure of it.
Hanzlik’s humorless grin doused her flame. His eyes were ice cold, his smile an insta-freeze mechanism. She was an iceberg, ready to calve. Half of her would shear off at any minute and plunge him into nothingness. If only she could bring herself back into herself.
Nothing.
It didn’t happen.
She was at his mercy. Hot and cold and cold and hot and not knowing who she was or why this was happening again.
He took one of Hedwig’s hands in his own. “Did you know…?” He rubbed his thumb and index finger over the fleshy muscle of her right thumb. “Your dominant hand has more developed muscles?” He smiled and took her other hand.
Hedwig snatched it back.
“South paw. Got it. You lot are supposed to be smart.” He turned his back on his audience, rubbing his gun against his thigh as if to polish it to a shine. “Let’s find out just how smart you are.”
‘One of the puppies will save your life, just as you saved his.’ Barb had been clear that she was going to survive this. She had no idea how, but it wasn’t going to end here in a dim room with a couple of punks and the twins. She’d already decided she made it out alive. She repeated what she’d thought back at Barb’s: The pups are wriggling, hairless, blind, milk-suckers, completely unable to fend for themselves, let alone come to my rescue. That is for later. Which means I get out of this alive.
Hanzlik flexed his hand. The wheeze of air was accompanied by a schoolroom scent. Glue. More precisely, Elmer’s.
Stuart, true to form, mimicked the noise his lord and master had made, wheezing in Hedwig’s ear like an over-tired set of bellows. He grabbed the bottle. Ugh, plastic; it made Hedwig recoil; it had been so long since she’d seen anything made of poly-anything the appearance of the enemy made her shake. Stuart squeezed it two or three times before upending it and slathering her left palm in the stinky-sweet glue. When he was done, he held the bottle away from her in a fake-dramatic gesture: he was the surgeon, Hanzlik his surgical nurse, but kept his face trained on hers.
Hanzlik was already prepared. He took the glue from Stuart and replaced it with a metal scoop.
Stuart sprinkled the charcoal powder over her palm as if it was gold dust; slowly, deliberately, making sure to cover each finger with an even layer of explosive.
Hedwig didn’t dare flex her hand. She couldn’t remember whether gunpowder could spontaneously combust. She was fire, after all. Without making a conscious decision she closed her hand around Stuart’s and shook it as hard as she could, transferring gritty goo from her palm to his. He yanked it away, but she held firm. He swore and stamped his foot and jiggled about like a puppet on a string while Caleb and Rowdy hooted and hollered her name in the corner.
Hanzlik’s gun, tapping on the table, put a stop to all that. Once he had their attention he pulled a box of matches out of his pocket and lit a match.
The color drained out of Stuart’s face.
Hedwig smiled. “I’ll take your boy with me.”
“As you wish,” said Hanzlik and dropped the match. It flared and died on the floor by his feet.
“Don’t do this,” said Caleb. He was wheedling now, which Hedwig hadn’t expected. He’d admitted they were in it for the money. What did he care if she lost the use of her hand? “She’s innocent. We should let her go.”
“Totally your call, dude.” Hanzlik lit another match and held it a foot closer. He dropped that one, too. “You tell me what I need to know and the girl keeps her hand.”
Stuart had hold of Hedwig by her shirt. He wanted out of there. She shrugged him off. Let him run. Show his colors. He backed into the kitchen, rubbing his gunpowder hand against his pant leg.
Hanzlik lit a third match.
Hedwig held up her charcoal-smeared palm and took a step toward him.
“Okay!” Caleb was at her side, both hands up in surrender even though they were tied. “You win. We’ll take you. You win.”
Hanzlik shook the match and let it fall. “That wasn’t too difficult, now was it?”
Caleb leaned against her and whispered. “Follow my lead. We can still shake these assholes. Just do as I say and we’ll be fine. Trust me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JANUARY 2022
The plane pitched and rolled, dropping fifty feet before it righted itself. Michael gripped the arms of his seat but, unlike Alice and Christine Baxt
er, managed not to cry out. The folder that had been balanced on his tray took a dive, fanning papers across the floor.
Alice was pressed into her seat, eyes closed, muttering. Michael watched her lips. He’d have put money on what she was saying. “I survive. I survive. I survive.”
“Turbulence is normal,” he said, right as the plane took another tumble.
Alice opened her eyes wide. “You think there are control towers, Michael? You think there’s anyone down there looking out for us? We’re flying blind. Right into the eye of the storm. Us against nature.” She leaned back again. “You know who wins that battle.”
The windows had been painted black, so he couldn’t look out and assess how far (or near) they were to the ground.
Baxter was in her own world. Silent. Scowling. She tightened the belt in her lap. Not that it would do any good if they were hurtling to their destruction. Seat belts on planes were mostly installed so the airline could identify your charred remains in the event of a crash. She folded her hands, crossed her ankles, and glared at Michael. “You have a plan to get us out of this, fly boy?”
He didn’t have a fully-formed plan, but one was coming together in his mind. He’d skimmed the paperwork Pennrith had given them. Much of the material repeated what they already knew: MELT had been tampered with; it was no longer a simple enzyme that chewed its way through plastic; it was a living organism capable of replicating.
While he and Alice and Christine had been marching toward nuclear Armageddon the Establishment had gone into overdrive trying to convince people to toss their trash in a whole new way and “BIN IT TO WIN IT.”
The artist’s cartoonish rendering of the new compound, with its arms and legs and spikes and coils, was designed to frighten rather than educate.
Eight months of educating the public about the hazards of MELT boiled down to a caption competition and a gangly character who “ate” entire cities, not unlike Godzilla.
The data was more enlightening. They hadn’t finished creating their “large donut” around the infection zone, but they were working on it. He’d floated the idea out of desperation, but there it was in black and white (and reds and oranges and blues, highlighting the reactors that were compromised, the biological spills, the failed hydroelectric stations, and so on). The hard line they were trying to create stretched from Cleveland, Ohio to Jacksonville, Florida with everything east of that line cross-hatched in gray. He tried to remember what Alice had recorded in her notebook, but the details were indistinct. The doctors (or soldiers or scientists or whoever) had taken it from him when he was in the hospital. He’d never thought to ask for it back. Once they landed he’d get Alice talking; see what she thought about the data Pennrith had supplied. He knew enough about dirty tricks and disinformation to distrust everything that was being thrown at them.
