Tom stopped as innocently as if he were just out for a vigorous walk. The bigger of the two crossbowmen stepped forward and motioned to lower the Mp5 even more.
“Nice-looking weapon you got there,” the man said.
“I’m keeping it with me,” Tom said bluntly. “Given to charity enough this week.”
The masked man snorted, checking the angles to make sure his comrades had his back.
“Not your night,” his muffled voice answered. He clicked his fingers. “Hand it here. Ammo too. Never get enough ammo.”
Tom didn’t move. The bowman looked at Dkembe and held his hand out for the Glock in the young man’s belt. He barely moved before Tom lifted a hand to halt him.
“We’re just passing through,” Tom said to the man. “Nothin’ to do with you.”
“We’re the Dominators, you dumb fuck,” the hooded man said. “Take that name pretty seriously, too.”
He scanned them with just serpentine eyes visible through his black woolen mask. The back-up with the second crossbow levered adjusted angles a little, two long strides away.
It was the sniper at three o-clock who distracted them. The two crossbowmen snapped across to see Attila had a fucking huge knife held to the man’s throat, and Karla’s harsh “Don’t fuckin’ move” came from Tom’s left, across the other side of their parlay. Lucas then scurried in, midget-sized as he ran in a scrambled crouch with the M4 in steady position to fire at either of the remaining men.
“Shit.”
“Shit’s about right,” Tom said. “Nice night for a walk. I meant what I said about passin’ through, OK?”
“Yeah man,” the hooded guy said. “Got it.”
Tom demanded their weapons, but said he’d dump the gear on their way back through. The biker types clearly didn’t like it, but they were smart enough to see the win-win – or at least the lack of lose-lose.
Dkembe started to move, one of the crossbows in his arms, but Tom wasn’t done.
“Dominators?” he asked in a voice meant to be friendly despite the leveled growl. “What’s your name?”
“Mike-O,” the masked man said.
Tom slung back his weapon.
“My father always told me it was rude to speak to people with a hat on,” he said.
“A hat?” the Dominator replied.
Dkembe blanched, overwhelmed by the urgent need to take a terrified piss as he realized Tom’s belligerence or whatever it was he intended here risked plunging them all back into mortal terror – or at least it did for him.
But Dkembe remained inert as the Dominator called Mike-O finally gleaned Tom’s intent. He hesitated, then pulled off the balaclava to reveal a hoary, sandy-haired bearded man with a dent of scar tissue across one brow.
“I’m Tom,” Vanicek said and offered the man his hand.
They shook. Dkembe blinked, turned around again in his head and in his thumping heart to see the ambushed Dominator look relieved as well.
“See you on the way back, maybe,” Tom said and pointed. “I’ll leave your weapons here.”
With no further pause, Tom turned them in the direction they were headed and gave Dkembe a quick check.
“Are we close?”
“Yeah.”
“Then lead on.”
*
A DAZED SENSE of confusion still hung over him right up until the point they reached OK Jay’s door inside the dormant apartment building and Tom barely motioned for the others to keep up as he kicked that door in.
Just before 2am was about the worst time to invade anyone’s sleep, especially so violently, and that’s what made it the best for Tom Vanicek and his willing helpers as they surged into the apartment ahead of Dkembe and spread out without a single word.
It was just dumb luck that Tom – with Lucas, cautious, but right behind him – stormed in on Jay, twisting around in bed, disoriented, and grabbed him by his thick pullover to drag as much as lead him out into the cramped living room where Dkembe remained, a horrified observer more than participant. Attila backed into the room to join them, Karla assigning herself to watch the corridor outside as the svelte black shape of Vegas followed into their assemblage clad only in boxer shorts and shivering with his hands above his head.
“Sit down,” Attila ordered him.
He motioned roughly to the couch as if he might force the issue, and Vegas saw the looks as much as all the weapons and almost meekly did as told, wearing a hurt yet calculating expression as his dark eyes went to Dkembe – who just offered more of the same slack open-mouthed look that characterized the past half-hour of his life.
Tom looked to Vegas as he released Jay and backed off, drawing the Python.
“I’m not here for you,” he told the other man. “You’ve got no skin in this game.”
“Don’t I?”
For all his captivity, Vegas stared back at Tom with his handsome broad nose flaring in an expression of near-fatal hatred.
Tom had more immediate concerns than dirty looks. He shucked the Mp5 behind his hip again as if it annoyed him, checking Karla’s position, Lucas hanging back, Attila with the enormous knife again. Satisfied, he then removed the sub-machinegun and confiscated rifle, then finally stowed the pistol. Dkembe eased out a sigh of blessed relief.
Then Tom drew the longsword.
The silver blade whispered with all due theatrics. Dkembe’s stomach dropped, and Jay on his knees did the same, throwing himself at Tom’s feet and not even trying to look to Dkembe to understand what the hell was going on.
Jay didn’t look like a man who’d engineered their attempted mass murder, and just as his heartrate redoubled, Dkembe grasped the full horrible scale of the misunderstanding he’d maybe wrought. Tom’s face burnt dark with anger.
“Tom, wait,” Dkembe said.
“Stay back, Dkembe,” the older man said, barely giving him a quarter-look. “I’d hate to hit you with this thing.”
He lowered the drawn sword into a two-handed grasp with the tip significant for its proximity to Jay pissing himself on the rug.
“You know Finnegan Locke and the Urchins?” Tom barked.
Jay stammered, muffled with his face burrowed into the carpet.
“Wh-what’s this about?” he asked. “Dkembe, man, help me.”
“Answer the question,” Tom said.
He lashed out with his boot heel, taking Dkembe’s friend in the side of the head. Jay’s face rebounded off the rug with a grunt, and he wasn’t quick enough to scramble backwards to avoid a follow-up as Tom sank his toe into his ribs that made everyone else squirm.
Vegas rose up from his seat. Lucas swiveled the M4 at him so fast Vegas froze to take in the cold reality of the not-quite twelve-year-old boy staring at him blank-faced down the weapon’s sight. Vegas relented all ambition, sinking back into the sofa, hands raised, as Tom circled Jay and hauled him up to face the tip of the leveled sword.
“Did you tell Locke to do it?”
“Tell him what?”
Jay turned his frightened bewilderment towards Dkembe, but Tom gave his captive a violent shake. He let go and then punched Jay with the same fist, sending the man crashing back to the ground as Tom roared and veered around the room. He chopped several of the furnishings into junk wood and by the time he whirled back around, Jay was on his knees with forearms raised anticipating immediate death. Tom instead stood held there, sword double-handed almost over his head. The older man lowered it, expression unchanging as he slowly rolled his right shoulder and eased out a breath.
He turned back and dead-eyed Dkembe.
“What were you talking about when he said he knew Locke?” Tom asked. “And why didn’t you tell me?”
Dkembe felt Vegas’ eyes on him too, and then Jay chancing to look up, testing the air for a reprieve. The room started going dim as Dkembe took several flustered breaths as he realized he was in danger of passing out.
“Dkembe, man,” Jay said. “What’d you tell him?”
Dkembe sucked
in more air, eyes rolling between his betrayed friend and Tom glaring at them. He had a hand clawed into his own stomach as if to quieten his shrieking bladder, sweat pouring off him as pungent as any confession.
“Tom, honest,” he said. “You got nothin’ here. Look at him. They were just sleepin’, man. C’mon. This ain’t right, please. Please.”
He would’ve kept pleading, but Tom swiveled back to Jay.
“Locke,” he said. “I want his location.”
“Man, I can’t tell you that.”
Tom instantly went to punch him again, but Jay was wise to it now. He scuttled on his back, trying to crawl backwards on his elbows to get out of reach. Tom froze rather than press on, hovering with the sword in one hand overhead.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know Locke from shit, man,” Jay said and whimpered. He frantically gestured at Dkembe, like he was pointing out a kid passing notes in class. “It wasn’t my idea, man. ‘kembi said we could roll your white ass. I don’t wanna blow my job with the freaks, man, for real. They’re a super-size scarier than you, and you scarin’ me to shit right now, brother. Please.”
Tom turned towards Dkembe, who almost fainted at the look. Dkembe held his hands up, wordless for a second or two as he drank in Jay’s ashamed-yet-spiteful look and the echoes of his words and the retribution on Tom’s face a prophecy that someone was going to die here.
“Tom, no, I –”
“Where’s Locke?”
“I don’t know, man!” Dkembe shrieked.
Jay yelled the same, and the outburst almost seemed to startle Tom who screamed with rage and turned, fully possessed, chopping down at Jay so hard the younger man’s whole forearm came off as the heavy blade cut through and Jay scrambled to protect himself and lost the bid.
Pained eyes flew open in astonishment as he looked between his sudden amputation and Tom with the sword already raised again for another strike, bellowing “Where’s Locke?” again. A squirt of bright arterial blood burst from the wound. Jay screamed now in terror, collapsing into madness, and Tom growled, yelling blind and wordlessly now as he struck Jay again in the side of the neck.
The blow fatally opened the younger man’s throat, but somehow without stilling his abject screams as a new wave of blood loss surged from the fresh wound – and then Tom struck him again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
***
Cont’d in
After the Apocalypse: Resolution
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After The Apocalypse (Book 5): Retribution Page 23
