It seemed after that something inside Hugh had changed. Randy wasn’t any kind of relationship expert—heck, he hadn’t been in a monogamous relationship his entire life—but he’d seen enough TV to know that Hugh’s wife had been the man’s moral compass, perhaps the only thing keeping his darker ambitions at bay. Now that she was gone, Hugh had been faced with a decision: get up and keep living or swallow both barrels of a shotgun. He’d chosen the former and that was when he’d called Randy.
Randy and Stan pulled open a side door and stepped onto the cavernous factory floor. Weak strands of light bled in from windows high above them. Stan tripped on a discarded pallet and swore.
In response, Randy switched on his flashlight and speared the path ahead. This wasn’t the first time they’d come here, probably wouldn’t be the last, but whenever they did, Randy couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that crept through his bones. The skeletal frames of half-finished flatscreen TV sets lined one of the assembly lines. It looked as though a giant hand had come and yanked out an equally giant plug, grinding everything to a halt. The only thing missing was the distant sound of dripping water. Arizona was too damn dry for that, especially now.
Outside, they listened to the parched wind push against a tall metal door. The rhythmic clanging echoed through the factory floor, matching pace with each tentative step they took.
Eventually, they arrived at a set of stairs and began to ascend. Mayor Reid’s office was at the top. He’d been a rather fat man when the pandemic hit, somewhere close to three hundred pounds—the blowback, Randy assumed, from years of dinners in fancy restaurants around the country, eating rich-guy foods with unpronounceable names.
A room soon came into view up ahead, light outlining the closed double doors.
Randy and Stan stopped before them and knocked.
A voice from inside told them to come in.
The office was spacious, with a desk at one end and two leather couches at the other. Framing the room was a large corner window that overlooked the town. Mayor Reid was standing before it, surveying the comings and goings of the few visible shapes down below.
When he turned, Randy felt a silent jolt surge through his body. He spoke with the man every day, saw him face to face just as often, and yet he still couldn’t help marveling at the transformation. The mayor had dropped close to a hundred pounds since the death of his wife and kids. The once rounded jowls that had given his face a bowed, jovial look had since been replaced with a pair of pronounced eyes and high, protruding cheekbones. The visual was a strange one to behold, even disturbing. It looked as though a wet cloth had been draped over a man’s skull.
“I expect you boys have come with good news,” the mayor said, his voice surprisingly deep.
Randy cleared his throat. “Well, that depends on what you mean by good.”
“I was speaking about Clay.”
“Oh.” Randy’s demeanor changed as his body shuddered, reliving the event. “No word yet. He’s in critical condition. But the doctor’s hopeful.”
Hugh walked over and settled on the corner of his desk. He was wearing a suit that fit his new shape surprisingly well. “That is good news. Now,” he said, tapping the edge of the desk with his wedding ring finger. “Above everything else, we need to get this town back under control,” he said. “I could have sworn I made that perfectly clear to you the day I handed you this job.”
Sheriffs were normally elected positions and Randy didn’t miss the subtle jab. Reid was reminding him who he owed his allegiance to. But that knife cut both ways, didn’t it? Reid himself hadn’t exactly been elected either. The chaos of the past few weeks had made that impossible.
“Between keeping the remaining townsfolk from looting our own stockpiles,” Randy said, “and gathering the resources we need to keep things running smoothly, we’re stretched thin enough to snap. Our biggest challenge has been finding accessible drinking water.”
The mayor ignored Randy’s subtle plea for additional men. “Remind me why we can’t use a generator to draw up water from the city’s reservoir.”
“We don’t have one and the well’s too deep for hand pumps,” Randy explained. “Getting it out is one thing, treating it so it doesn’t make you sick or kill you is another. The few idiots who have tried didn’t last long. Now we’ve managed to get our hands on a handful of local wells, using archaic laws to expropriate people’s land like you said we should, but even that hasn’t been enough.” On the mayor’s desk were a series of rolled-up maps. Randy moved past him and spread one out, holding the ends flat with the palms of his hands. It was a geological survey which revealed the known sources of water in the area. One particular property on the outskirts of town showed an enormous aquifer.
“There’s enough clean water here to keep the town going for at least two years.”
Mayor Reid pushed his finger down on that same spot. “So this is the one who’s been giving you all this trouble?”
“His name’s Dale Hardy,” Randy said. “We have a history and it goes back long before his nephew shot Clay in cold blood.”
“Didn’t Clay shoot first?” Deputy Lewis said, almost to himself.
Randy turned on him. “Weren’t you there? Don’t you remember how out of control Colton was? His father’s a criminal, doing time in Colorado. Clay was only doing what he could to protect us.”
Stan nodded and shut his mouth.
“Gentlemen, let’s not argue,” Reid said. “We’re all on the same team here.” He pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills tied with an elastic and let it fall to his desk with a thud. He then went to a shelf along the wall and grabbed a souvenir bottle with the letters ‘Cancún’ etched on the front in bold red letters and unscrewed the cap. The bottle was filled to the neck with beach sand. He tilted it over and dumped it beside the wad of bills. Randy and Stan stood staring, their mouths unhinged with confusion.
“What do those two things have in common?” the mayor asked.
“Land and money,” Randy said. “And you got plenty of both.”
Reid exploded with laughter, one that possessed none of the barreling quality it had had when it had been fueled by his once giant belly. “You’re close.” He turned to Stan who, wisely, shook his head, deciding it was best not to say anything more today.
“I do have plenty of both,” Reid said. “And right now, each of them is worth diddly squat. You see, for most the myth of the invincible American dollar is still strong, almost intoxicating. As for our associates south of the border, the paper we’re giving them is worthless, they just don’t know it yet. It might as well be toilet paper, although one might argue in today’s world at least that has some value.”
He snatched up the money roll. “Try using some of these in an outhouse and you’ll see what I mean. But here’s what they don’t understand yet: The new currency, gentlemen, isn’t something you put in your wallet. It’s something you pour down your throat.”
Reid was watching the two men eye the bundle of money greedily and grinned. “One of the men who works for me has a shortwave radio,” the mayor said. “Uses it to keep track of how other communities are getting on. You won’t be surprised to hear that it isn’t good. The National Guard’s been deployed to Phoenix and Tucson, where the mayors of each city have declared martial law. And I’d be willing to guess it probably isn’t much different from the rest of the country. But here’s the problem. Who knows how long it’ll be before those military folks regain control of those areas and decide to start paying attention to the smaller towns?” Reid’s voice was starting to grow louder, more predatory, the veins in his neck protruding like engorged bloodworms. “We need to make sure before they arrive that we’ve got Encendido firmly in our grasp. That means we need the damn water on Dale Hardy’s land and I’m done asking for it.”
Chapter 17
Sandy
At thirty-three years of age, Sandy Hartman wasn’t sure where things had gone so far astray in her life. The sun had nearly di
pped beneath the distant mountain range and she was still at the sheriff’s office. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a home to go to, it was more the emptiness that awaited her there. Gail, her mother as well as her best friend, had been one of the first to fall victim to the flu. She had been pale and having trouble breathing when Sandy had rushed her to the hospital, where she had immediately been quarantined. Although similar cases were being widely reported, in those early days no one had had a clear idea of what was going on.
Two days later, her mother had been dead and just as the crushing weight of her grief had started to sink in, Sandy too had fallen sick. She’d stayed at home for four days, unable to leave her bed, growing more and more certain her colleagues from the station would eventually break in only to discover her rotting corpse. What she hadn’t realized at the time was that Encendido was now being hit just as hard as everywhere else in the country.
Slowly, her strength had begun to return. By the fifth day, as she was finally getting back on her feet, Encendido was being brought to its knees.
A lot had happened since then, most of it bad, some of it unspeakable, but she had carried on, not entirely sure where she was finding the will to carry on. Her mother was watching over her, she was sure of that.
The deaths of Joe Wilcox and Deputy Tim Diaz had been another difficult blow. Joe had been on the force for decades and was like the father she’d never known. There was something strange about suffering that much emotional trauma in such a short period of time. The body struggled to withdraw and numb itself, the way it survived against freezing water, by withdrawing heat from the extremities.
Hugh Reid taking over from the recently deceased mayor was also strange, but understandable. Someone needed to be at the helm. When a battalion charged into a hail of bullets, a number of ranks changed hands. But it was Randy Gaines’ and his brother Clay’s appointments which she found the most curious. The Gaines family owned a body shop and scrap yard and were renowned for pushing the bounds of ethical behavior. Most folks didn’t know a crankshaft from a connecting rod and the Gaineses were quick to play off of that ignorance. It was the main reason Dale and Randy had butted heads. Dale knew it wasn’t right and didn’t mind telling it to their faces. Growing up without ever being challenged, the wealthy, but uncouth Gaineses didn’t appreciate it one bit. If she had the power to travel back in time and tell her earlier self that one day Randy would be her boss, she would never have believed it.
“You all right?” a male voice asked, sweeping Sandy from her thoughts.
Deputy Keith Harris was standing before her desk, his left arm in a sling.
“I’m just tired,” she told him. “Found a guy trying to break into Hal’s Hardware Store earlier, claiming the rock in his hand was only for exercise.”
Keith grinned. “The crazy stuff we’ve seen. If we ever make it out of this, I’m gonna write a book.”
“Yeah, but who’ll be around to buy it?”
His eyes made a slow roll. “That’s true.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Fine. Hurt it when Clay was shot. Musta bashed it against the door trying to help get him in the car. Feels silly even talking about it given the state he’s in.”
She looked around to make sure no one could hear them. “I heard people saying Clay was the one who started the trouble.”
“He probably was,” Keith whispered back. “But what’s done is done.”
“Think he’ll make it?” she asked, worried what his answer might be. She’d heard about the trouble Dale was having, some of it from his own mouth. The mayor had given orders to gain access to all of the wells in the county and predictably, Dale had decided he wanted none of it. During the brief but intense relationship they’d shared, Dale had made his thoughts on the government’s tendency toward bullying the little guy more than clear.
“Spoke to Randy before he went up to see Mayor Reid and he sounded hopeful. Either way, a deputy was shot and we don’t have much choice but to take action.”
She nodded, reluctantly. “Any word on what that might be or when?”
“Just like the jobs at the TV plant, the mayor’s decided to outsource that particular task.”
The expression on Sandy’s face must have betrayed her sudden concern, because Keith shut down right away.
“What do you mean?” she asked, rising out of her seat.
He started to walk away and then stopped. “Look, everyone knows you dated the guy a while back, so we were told to keep it to ourselves.”
“That’s ancient history, Keith. This isn’t exactly the big city, most everyone here knows one another.”
Keith sighed, fiddling with the frayed edges of his sling. “I think Randy wasn’t sure if we could trust you on this.”
She stepped forward, perhaps a little more forcefully than she’d intended to. “Now you’re listening to Randy on whether I’m trustworthy?” She was flabbergasted. “We’ve worked together for nearly ten years.”
His hands went up, fingers splayed like he was trying to ward off an incoming punch. “Things are really messed up right now. The town’s on its last legs. Three quarters of the people are dead. Which means that three quarters of our deputies are either dead or gone home.” Keith rubbed his forehead with the one arm still working. He took a step closer and tilted his head. “Okay, so here’s the thing, we’re a bit short on manpower and the situation we’re facing is beyond extreme.”
Sandy could tell he wanted to tell her, he simply needed a bit of encouragement.
“Come on, Keith. Spit it out.”
“Fine. The mayor isn’t bribing roving cross-border gangs to stay away. He’s been paying them to do his dirty work.”
The news made the muscles in Sandy’s belly tense involuntarily. “What? What kind of dirty work are we talking about?”
“Roughing people up. Pressuring them to give into the land expropriations.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Do you want people to die, Sandy? A few days without water and that’s what happens. But before it does, folks will riot and maybe even burn Encendido to the ground. I don’t agree with it either, but it’s the only thing keeping the wheels from coming clean off.”
She wasn’t buying his argument. “Weren’t we sworn to uphold the law?” she replied, suddenly aware of how naïve she must sound to him.
“Maybe, but first and foremost, we were sworn to uphold the peace.”
“You do realize that at some point all of this will end and there’ll be a reckoning for what all of us have done here.”
Keith shook his head. “If you’re talking about the federal government swooping in to save the day and begin tribunals, then you’re dreaming.”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Sandy said, the soft features of her face settling. “One day each of us will need to answer for our actions, but it sure won’t be to the feds.”
For the first time during their conversation, Keith looked visibly worried. He started to walk away when she stopped him one final time. Something connected to their conversation had clicked.
“Those three thieves Dale shot on his property the other day, were they some of Mayor Reid’s hired henchmen?”
Keith stared at her without saying a word, but his admission was perfectly clear. When he spoke next, Sandy felt the strength go out of her knees.
“That wasn’t more than an appetizer,” he told her, almost proud. “Last I heard, a much bigger group is headed there now to finish this once and for all.”
Chapter 18
Duke began to bark long before Dale heard the livestock outside kick up a racket.
“Easy, boy,” he said, rubbing the dog’s thick fur and rolling out of bed. The Mossberg was leaning up against the wall between his bed and the nightstand. He reached for it, making his way to the window which overlooked both the pumphouse and part of the driveway. That was where he’d killed those three men not long ago. If someone was outside sneaking around, this was where
he expected to find them. The window was already open and Dale peered out, a cool evening breeze washing over his face. The motion-sensor light was on, but no one was there.
Behind him, Duke continued to emit an ominous growl from the back of his throat. For Dale, that was better than any alarm system money could buy.
He was about to head downstairs for a better look when he caught the crack of a rifle. The round impacted the window only inches from his face, spraying him with glass. Dale spun and dropped. In came another shot, sprinkling shards around him like snowflakes. Duke was barking loudly as Dale lifted himself into a crouched position and moved into the hallway.
Shane was already out of bed, breathing hard, a pistol in hand. “The hell’s going on?”
“Someone’s outside shooting,” Dale said. “I heard something, went to investigate and nearly got my head blown off.” He was about to run and wake the others, but out they poured from each of the bedrooms, each wearing a terrified look.
“We need to get out there and flank him,” Shane said before running back into his room to grab additional magazines.
“That would be foolish,” Walter told them. “There may be more than one of them.”
The guy outside with the rifle put a few more rounds through Dale’s window when they caught the sound of glass breaking downstairs. Duke tore down the stairs at once and Dale called after him. At once, the dog spun and headed back up the stairs. There was no way he wanted any of them charging in half-cocked and getting mowed down.
“Oh, God, we’re sitting ducks,” Nicole stammered, starting to hyperventilate. “They’re gonna kill us all.” Her mother grabbed her into a hug and began rubbing her back.
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