But with this seductress of a woman, it was different. He felt differently. Bronson knew the tactics well and he knew what she was doing to him; he just didn’t mind it. He had never met anyone like Beatrice before. She was the most dangerous drug and the sweetest candy in the universe—the one confection so pleasurable, yet so sinful, each serving carried with it a death sentence.
Bronson had elected this woman a man-eater from the moment he had set eyes on her, but he liked the way she was with him, loved the way she made him feel. She intrigued him and he desired her more than any woman he had ever met. “So what’s your…not so better half been doing lately while you’ve been spending all your time elsewhere? I assume he’s been asking questions.”
“You assume incorrectly, Doug. He’s been devoting much of his time elsewhere too. I’ve been keeping him rather busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“This and that. Errands, mostly. Assignments outside the fence. He’s been on foot a lot.”
“On foot?”
“Mm-hmm.” Beatrice sat on her feet. “Not long after this Solve for X thingamajig brainchild of yours commenced, we put together a crew of men for him to lead, their first assignment being to fully investigate that crime scene in the forest and look for clues that might lead to the whereabouts of the remaining infiltrator. You know, the one who got away. The bodies of our fallen have all since been retrieved, including that of your ex-brother-in-law. I’m afraid they were far too decomposed and gnawed on by mongrels to fret with a proper burial, so I took the liberty of having them cremated. But we did bring them back home to HQ beforehand, however.” Beatrice sighed contritely. “We didn’t find any signs of those mangy dogs before the bad weather came, though. Shame.”
Bronson lifted a brow, eyeballing her. “Let me get this straight. You’ve had him tasked with duties outside the wire all this time?”
“I most certainly have, ever since you first interviewed him,” Beatrice said. “August is loyal to a fault. He doesn’t ask questions, he just acquiesces. He’s been leading those other men up and into the woods all over the place…following the plans you laid out pretty much to the letter. It’s kept him out of the house overnight countless times now, which has afforded me some much-needed time…to myself.” She puffed on her cigarette. “I can’t have him hanging around here with nothing to do. Boredom is the devil’s playground, Doug.”
“Without a doubt.”
“Well, hopefully, this’ll put your mind at ease a bit. And we can get back to gossiping about the things that matter, like what the two of us are gonna do with our day.” Beatrice scooted closer once more. “Doug, darlin’, please don’t worry yourself about anything. If it’s anyone’s problem, it’s mine, and I will handle it my own way and on my own time.” She ran her fingers through her hair and nestled it over an ear. “I used to go face-to-face with international terrorists, some of the most dodgy fellas ever captured alive. I’ve hunted down hajjis in their diminutive little caves and dragged them out kicking and screaming right beside the operator team tasked with acquiring them. I pledge to you, I am not the least bit petrified of August Carter. And Doug, you dear, should not be either.”
Bronson relented, unwilling to carry on the argument. He smiled at her and rose, heading for the kitchen. He acquired a bottle of brandy and two snifters and held the bottle aloft. “Want to have a drink with me, gorgeous?”
Beatrice butted her cigarette out and stood, then pranced into the kitchen, modestly pulling on the ends of the shirt with her fingers. “I don’t usually, but I don’t suppose one little drink is going to affect my work too awful lot today. So why not?”
Bronson made their drinks and handed her one. The two tapped glasses and Beatrice took several small sips while Bronson pounded his like a shot. “Damn, that’s good shit. I’m going to miss it when it’s gone.”
The half-nude blonde chuckled. “Well, maybe you’ll start drinking bourbon instead, once that point is reached.”
“What?”
Beatrice set her snifter on the counter, gesturing to the bottle of brandy. “You don’t exactly drink it like you’re trying to conserve it. You guzzle it—like a cancer patient swigging Oramorph with two days left to live, Doug. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I mean, we are living through a great tribulation. These are purportedly the last days.” She winked at him and licked her lips as they parted. “We have to make the best of them while we still can.”
Bronson chuckled, hesitated then chuckled again, deciding to pour himself another glass. “You know something, you’re right. Fuck it. There’s no sense in putting anything off or taking anything for granted. We found ourselves in a position of grand importance, Beatrice, not to mention one of extraordinarily good fortune. I mean, look around you. From where we’re standing, it’s almost like nothing life-threatening ever happened. While the incorrigibles, needy peasants and useless eaters outside the fence are scrounging for bugs and eating plants and toadstools, dying of dysentery and God knows whatever else, here we are, enjoying the finer things in life, getting everything we deserve. The lesser gives way to the greater; it’s the way civilization has always been. The way it’s going to stay.”
“It will if we have anything to say about it.” Beatrice giggled like a schoolgirl on nitrous. “Oh, Doug, you say the most outrageous things from time to time, and I gotta say, you are by far one of the most handsome men I have ever fallen for.” She lifted her drink in a toasting gesture, her closed-mouth smile extending from ear to ear. “I see eye to eye with everything you said. Today, we run the region. Next week, the country, and who knows, maybe a year from now, the continent.” She gulped down the remainder of her drink. “The sky is the limit.”
Chapter 2
The expanse seemed to dim and flicker like a lantern running treacherously low on fuel, becoming increasingly dark, impervious and unyielding. It was peaceful, though. Serene. Soundless, but alarmingly so.
By her best estimate, it was nighttime and she was outdoors. The sky overhead was black, virtually impersonating that which surrounded her on all sides. Nothing was discernible or detectable: no stars, no moon, no heavenly bodies, nothing serving to assist her course of travel. The blinds had been pulled in every conceivable bearing of the universe in which she was immersed. She might as well have been sightless.
After a time, the darkness began to mysteriously dissolve, leaving behind in its wake an ominous gray residue that draped lazily over the landscape. It felt warm and humid now, similarly to an evening in midsummer, but no insects were buzzing, no frogs were croaking, and no birds were chirping. She could barely feel the clammy air touch her face, even as she took her first step and then another, and pushed her way through the nothingness, advancing deeper and farther into the void.
The familiarity of an M4 carbine became perceptible before long, the texture of its knurled grip in her left hand and the slotted surface of the Pic rail foregrip in her right. She glanced down a moment to validate and caught a blurred, near indistinguishable snapshot of the weapon, enough to know it was there.
That datum in itself gave her pause, but she was dying to know where she was, where she was going, and why she was even here. All she could feel in the instant was a need to keep walking, to keep moving forward in the direction she had chosen. Or rather, the direction that had chosen her.
Lauren Russell couldn’t see five feet in front of her, but the farther she went, the more the darkness continued to evaporate, in similar fashion whereby night covertly metamorphosed into day. Able to see more clearly now, she crested a hill of low-cut grass, and the ground beneath her converted into a paved road. A moment later, her house came into view. The one in which she and her family had lived before everything had gone so horribly wrong, before their move to the valley, prior to her father going absent without leave. Back before everything had collapsed, taking her world along with it.
The structure seemed to materialize from a vacuum as would an apparition, causing L
auren to halt her advance. She scrutinized the scene a moment while undergoing a temporary sensation of unsteadiness, as if wearing roller skates on uneven terrain, but the vertigo subsided quickly. She knew where she was now.
Lauren was home.
The sight of her old house and neighborhood was startling and practically inconceivable, compelling her not to rush and exercise caution before going any farther. She spent time taking in her surroundings. Everything in view other than her house appeared indistinct and blurry. Even her neighbors’ homes didn’t look exactly as she remembered them.
Dammit. Nothing she was feeling, seeing or was experiencing in that instant was tangible. Lauren was dreaming again. She knew that now, but still felt drawn to this place. Seeing her home appear so suddenly coerced her to explore it further and learn just how deep this rabbit hole would take her.
In no time, she was standing on her front porch. Lauren’s hand slipped away from the rifle’s foregrip and reached for the front door, finding it ajar. All the lights were on inside, from the bright LED daylight-imitating floods in the hall directly above, to those lining the staircase leading upstairs. She carefully trotted into the kitchen, finding nothing out of place upon entry. The room was laid out exactly as she remembered the last time she’d seen it, only it was empty now, devoid of life, familiar smells, smiles and colors, vibrant or otherwise.
Lauren spun and tried uttering a word, learning she wasn’t able. She tried again without success, her intention being to call for her mother; then she tried again for her sister, Grace. She even chanced a call for her dad, but she couldn’t find any way to pry out the words. She tried forcing them into a scream and pushed with all her might to make a noise emit from her lungs. She even felt pressure build within her chest from the exertion, but every effort she put forth was fruitless.
None of this is making any sense.
Frustrated, Lauren departed the kitchen and traveled through the house in haste, going door-to-door in search of clues as her purpose for being here scrolled through her mind. Clothes were folded in piles, towels were dangling from racks, and every bed was made. Nothing was out of place, disturbed or in disarray; the opposite extreme of how they’d forsaken it. It was eerie and unsettling, like watching a slow-motion horror film move forward in first person.
Lauren’s skin was starting to crawl and the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. An urge to leave thumped in her chest as would a heart palpitation. She dashed down the stairs, out the door and into the front yard, and there before her was a terrifying scene. It stretched across the street into neighboring yards as far as she could see and chilled her to the bone. Rows of bodies, practically hundreds of them, lay prone in every direction. All were bloodied, mutilated and unmoving. They were corpses.
Lauren gasped, her heart jumped, and her forward velocity divebombed to zero. She fell to her knees and her jaw went slack as she absorbed the gruesome scene in its entirety. How many were there? Who had done this? How had this happened? When?
Was anyone she knew among the dead?
Her rifle pulled close in the nature of being her only security blanket, Lauren gathered herself, rose and coursed her way through the drove of dead. It seemed to stretch for miles, but she didn’t go far before coming upon a familiar face, one belonging to a newfound friend. He was a person of character, and though their amity carried with it a peculiar opposition imitating that of sibling rivalry, she trusted and believed in him. She had known him for only a few months, but in that time he had fought alongside her and managed to save her life and her sister’s to boot.
Lauren fell to her knees again. “Oh, no. Not you, Christian…not you,” she said in despair, now able to utter the words. “What happened to you?” She found his cheeks cold to the touch and gently lifted his eyelids, finding both pupils fixed and dilated. Entry wounds riddling his chest were all seeping thick crimson blood. He’d been shot to death, but by whom? Who had done this to him?
Lauren brought her rifle even closer, then rose and studied the scene again. There was nothing she could do for Christian, but seeing him like this frightened her to death of who might come next.
Minutes later, several yards and rows of bodies away, her eyes exploded into tears when she saw John’s face. Convulsing, sobbing, she dove to him and, while doing so, noticed even more familiar faces: those belonging to his brother, Lee, and their father, Norman. Someone had murdered them all.
Lauren wept and sobbed uncontrollably, but her anger was building now, and it would soon be beyond her ability to control it. People she knew and loved were dead—but why?
She placed a trembling hand on John’s head, finding him cold, frigid, devoid of life. The only person to whom she had ever given her heart had also been shot to death, much in the same manner Christian had. And now, he lay prone in the grass atop a pool of his own blood. Had he suffered? Had he fought for his last breaths? Had he called for her? Had his last thoughts been for her?
“Stop this,” she told herself. “Stop this now, Lauren. This is just a dream, you know that. It’s only a dream.” But it didn’t feel like one. Not this time.
Lauren rose and inhaled hard, exhaled even harder. She tried drying her tears, but they wouldn’t go away. Trying to convince herself this wasn’t real was becoming a moot point. John’s lifeless body at her feet was as real as anything she’d ever beheld. Her breathing became rapid and shallow and her body tensed while she gripped her rifle with every ounce of strength she owned.
Dream or not, recess was over. “Whoever’s responsible for this, I’m coming. Don’t bother hiding. I won’t stop until I find you. I’ll pursue you into the depths of hell if I have to. And I swear, before God…I will watch you burn.”
Lauren turned away from the fallen. She couldn’t stand to look at them anymore. She took a step forward, then another, and stopped at the point of feeling something hard and unyielding touch the back of her head. It was strangely familiar to her…because it had happened to her before. It could only be one thing, the barrel of a gun. She knew what that felt like.
“Like what I’ve done with the place?” a voice from her six o’clock droned in a gruesome, undulating tenor. “Did some decorating since the last time you were here.”
Lauren gritted her teeth. “You killed them all?”
“Yep,” he replied, exhaling. “Did it just for you. Like a welcome-home gift. Impressed?”
She swallowed hard. “No.”
“No?”
Lauren shook her head, feeling the pistol’s muzzle drift through her hair.
“Oh well, gave it my best shot. Can’t please everyone. But it makes a hell of a statement, doesn’t it?”
“Who are you?” she asked, now feeling the being’s slimy grip on her shoulder.
His fingers caressed her neck. “Who am I? Well, I’m your enemy, of course. I’m the one who…got away. You had your chance to stop me and put an end to all of this before it started, but you didn’t.” He chuckled. “Pretty dumb move on your part. You realize that now, don’t you? And you had to know I’d eventually come for you. Didn’t you?”
Lauren shuddered. “Yes.”
“Life’s all about lessons, little one. And this chance meeting of ours is no different. That’s…why I’m here. To teach you.”
Lauren nodded again, her fury well on display now.
“It’s quite a shame, really. All these lives, including yours, could have been spared had everything gone another way.” The man chuckled under his breath again. “Our decisions…and even our indecisions, do indeed have consequences.”
Lauren felt his grip tighten. She could feel him putting pressure on the trigger. She closed her eyes and resigned herself to her fate, knowing only seconds remained before the firing pin impacted the primer of the chambered round.
A span of time passed, but the gun never went off. Then Lauren felt his hand suddenly pull away from her shoulder.
“L, move out of the way, sweetheart. I got him.”
Her eyes went alight at the sound of one of the most familiar voices she’d ever known. Lauren dropped low, ducked and rotated, tried aligning her rifle on her foe, but what came into view instead nearly took her breath away.
With one hand holding her attacker at bay and the other pressing a Glock’s muzzle to her would-be assailant’s neck, Lauren’s father had somehow appeared in the nick of time. He had saved her.
Lauren trembled. “Dad? Dad, is it really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, L. The one and only.”
“This is crazy…I don’t believe it.” She shook her head in suspicion. “We all thought you were—”
“Dead? That’s not at all surprising.”
Lauren simpered. “You’ve been gone for so long.”
“I know I have. And I’m sorry, L.” He regarded her with loving eyes and smiled. “I know I’ve been gone. A lot of distance has been between us. But you should know…I’ve never left you.” Then he squeezed the trigger.
KAPOW!
Lauren shot up from bed in a cold sweat, her bedsheets nearly awash in perspiration, twisted in knots around her tensing outline. Her heart was pounding with exertion and she felt her chest expand with each successive beat. She slid to the side of the bed, rapidly assessed her surroundings, and found that at first, she didn’t recognize where she was. She took a moment to gather herself and examine the room in consort with its painted antique furniture and ornate decorations. She was in the guestroom provided to her for her stay in Bernie and Ruth’s home on the farm.
KAPOW!
Another gunshot followed by a loud smack on the wood siding inches outside her window. Lauren’s head snapped right where the panes were allowing early morning sunlight to bleed between the brown cotton drapes. That shot was genuine—it hadn’t occurred partially in a dream, as had the one serving to rouse her.
Echoes of shouts and men calling out to each other outside penetrated the old walls as the home’s interior came alive. Lauren detected people of all sizes stirring below, the audible creaking of hardwood on the lower levels of the colonial-era home. She dressed and arranged herself as fast as she could, donned her sidearm, spare magazines, and retrieved her Zastava AK-47, then sprinted from the room, the dampened tresses of her hair flinging from side to side behind her.
Indivisible Page 3
