Pressing up against the wall, they squeezed past the prisoner’s raking claws and stepped over the dead cop, stopping at the end of the L-shaped hallway. The far cell was devoid of life, drawing Paul’s eyebrows together in a state of confusion. Empty cracker boxes, protein bar wrappers and water bottles littered the floor, further adding to his puzzlement. Surely the cop couldn’t have been trying to get at whatever food was in there because those things weren’t interested in anything that wasn’t still breathing. Then something moved. Kneeling down, Paul peered beneath the small bed in the corner where a shadowy figure lay curled into a ball.
“Hello?”
The figure didn’t move or respond and Paul looked back at the others before trying again.
“Are you hurt?”
“Who are you?” a man’s voice whispered from the shadow.
“Survivors.”
A pregnant pause followed. “Of what?”
“Whatever’s going on out there.”
The other prisoner grunted and snarled, reaching through the side bars and trying to get at the man under the bed.
“And what exactly is that?” the man asked.
Paul cocked his head to one side for a better view that didn’t do much. “A nightmare,” he answered. “How long have you been in here?”
“Since this nightmare began,” the man replied, cautiously pushing out from under the bed and drawing Curtis’ weapon.
Paul watched the skinny black man with a thin mustache get to his feet and scoot along the far side wall, putting as much distance between himself and the other inmate as possible.
Curtis aimed the tactical shotgun at the thin man’s orange jumpsuit. “Holy shit, it’s Montel Williams!”
The man responded with a nervous laugh, scooting along the far wall as the other inmate snatched at him from across the tiny cell.
“What’s your name?” Paul asked.
“Billy.”
“Are you hurt?”
Billy’s eyes went to Stephanie. “No, just hungry,” he replied, reaching the front of the cell and grabbing the iron bars like he’d just swam across the English Channel. “Can you get me out of here?” he panted, nodding at the fallen cop. “The keys are on his belt.”
“Why didn’t you just grab them?” Curtis asked, not lowering his weapon.
Billy looked to the blond haired thing flailing against the bars in the cell next door. “Jonny already tried that; didn’t work out so hot.”
Stephanie grabbed the keys off the cop’s belt and Paul snatched them from her hand, curling them into his fist.
“What’re you in here for?”
Billy looked from Paul to the others and wet his lips. “I got a DUI the night before all hell broke loose. I was supposed to get out the next day but these cops got swamped. Fast.”
Paul studied him for a few seconds. “What’s your last name?”
“Smith.”
“Where’re you from?”
“I’m from here.”
“Bullshit,” Curtis spit back. “Then why don’t you have an Oklahoma accent?”
“Because we moved here from Detroit right before my senior year of high school.”
Paul sharpened his gaze. “Why?”
“My dad took a job with the water plant just outside of town.” His eyes dropped to the keys in Paul’s hand. “Can you please just let me out of here? I ran out of food three days ago and I’m literally starving to death.”
Curtis stared past him to the empty beef jerky wrappers and boxes of crackers on the cell floor. “So what, they just slid some Wheat Thins in there and left ya?”
Billy nodded to the cop. “By day four, Chubby was the last cop left. He slid some food and water in the cell and locked it back up; told me he’d let me out if no one showed up in the morning. That night, he went upstairs and the next time he came back he was like this.” An uneasy laugh passed his lips. “I tried giving him the beef jerky back but he wasn’t interested.”
Paul ran a tongue across his front teeth, studying Billy’s body language. “What’d you do for work before everything went to hell?”
“I used to blow neon signs until LED came along and ruined my life.”
Curtis furrowed his brow. “Neon signs?”
“Yeah, for bars and stuff. But most recently, I was a CSA at Jiffy Lube.”
“Oh great,” Curtis groaned. “If we need an oil change we’ll be all set.”
“What’d you do?” Billy countered, anger tapering his eyes. “Gather carts at Walmart?”
“I raced for NASCAR, skinny-minny. How about that?”
Billy stared blankly at him for a few seconds and then howled with laughter. “That’s a good one, man! Did I say Jiffy Lube? I meant NASA!” His laughter bounced off the walls, stirring Jonny into a frenzy.
Paul bent down and grabbed the cop’s gun from its holster and tucked it in the small of his back. “Wait here,” he said, motioning for the others to follow him back upstairs.
Billy’s smile dropped like a rock. “Wait! You can’t just leave me in here; I’ll die!”
“We’ll be right back,” Paul said over his shoulder, turning the corner and galloping up the stairs.
“At least kill Jonny, I can’t take his moaning anymore!”
Upstairs, Paul crossed through stripes of sunlight and went behind the front desk, stepping on some scattered paperwork and stopping at the metal door.
“What’re you doing?” Wendy whispered, looking around like more dead cops were waiting to spring from the shadows and cabinets.
Paul flipped through the cop’s keys. “Trying to open this door. It’s probably an evidence room and should have his wallet and clothes.”
“He’s bullshitting us about the DUI,” Curtis said, keeping a sharp lookout. “Probably in here for murder or something.”
“That’s what I want to find out.” Paul tried a key that didn’t fit and then another. “But first we need to know if Billy Smith is really his name. If he’s lying about that, then he’s probably lying about the DUI.”
“What if he is lying?” Stephanie asked, unzipping her coat. “Do we just leave him down there?”
Paul slipped another key into the lock and turned, making a soft click. The door popped open and he looked back at her. “Maybe.”
“Paul, come on, we can’t just leave him down there,” she said, gesturing with her gun. “He’s starving to death.”
“We’ll give him a Baby Ruth before we bail, Sis. Jeez, what kind of people do you think we are?”
Paul gave Curtis a slow nod before whipping the door back. Curtis stormed inside, his gun following the faint light slipping through the open door. “Clear.”
Wendy lit the corners of the room up with her flashlight. “What is this place?”
Paul surveyed the wire baskets and cleaning products lining two walls of shelves. “Looks like an evidence room, slash janitorial closet.”
Curtis smiled. “Great idea mixing chemicals with your meth.”
Paul pulled out a wire basket with some clothes and a gold watch inside, locating a ragged Velcro wallet at the bottom. He held the driver’s license up to the light. “John Irving,” he said, studying the picture of a white man with long blond hair. “Well, he wasn’t lying about his cellmate’s name.” Putting it back, he took out another basket with some clothing, a silver watch and a black leather wallet nestled inside. “Billy Smith,” he said, examining the license.
“Well,” Wendy said, illuminating the tiny photo of a black man with peach fuzz length hair, “he wasn’t lying about that either.”
Paul dug further into the wallet. “He’s got a CCW permit.”
“Think this is his?” Curtis held up a plastic baggie with a snub-nose revolver inside.
“Could be. Let’s ask him,” he replied, flipping the wallet shut and tossing it back into the basket.
Curtis reached into the same basket he found the gun and pulled out a cell phone bagged in another Ziploc. Taking the cell
out, he tapped at the dark screen. “Dead.” He looked up. “Probably his too.”
Paul noticed the cell phone was the same model as Sophia’s and immediately pushed the thought from his mind because everything reminded him of her and this wasn’t the time. “Hang on to it,” he said, rummaging through Billy’s clothing. “We may find a power source down the road and it could have something on it. Why else would the cops bag it separately?”
“Something on it like what?” Wendy asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Okay, but what about right now? How do we find out about the DUI?” Stephanie glanced behind her at the desks out front. “The computers are down.”
“Holy shit,” Curtis cried, eyes bulging as he took a large plastic bag the size of a small pillow from the top shelf. “Look at all this weed!”
Wendy laughed. “That oughta keep you happy for a while.”
Paul grabbed the snub-nose revolver in the baggie and pushed past them. “Maybe there’s some paperwork on him out here.”
Wendy holstered her gun and began rifling through the papers scattered about the floor.
“This could take a while,” Stephanie said, kneeling down to help.
Wendy held up a sheet with a footprint on the back. “Look at this one. The handwriting is in perfect cursive at the top and then just goes into crazy scribblings down the rest of the page.”
“Okay, that is super creepy.”
“Right?”
“What are these anyway?”
Wendy shook her head. “Looks like some of the calls they took back when it began,” she said, bringing another sheet to her eyes. “Homeowner’s dachshund found partially eaten.” She flipped a page, making a swooshing sound. “Five month-old baby named Layla missing from her crib.” Another swoosh. “Caller shot his neighbor after he broke into their home and tried to kill them.” Swoosh. “Bodies missing from the morgue.”
“Jesus,” Stephanie murmured, holding up another sheet. “Listen to this one… Woman barricaded in bathroom with her children. Irate husband trying to break down the door to get inside. Code 10-18.”
Paul looked up from a sergeant’s desk, face folding. “Seriously?”
Standing up, she gestured with fistfuls of papers. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything in here. These look like calls they received between the power going out and the phone lines dropping.”
Paul slammed a drawer shut and leaned back in a chair on wheels, kicking his Adidas up on the desk and rubbing a thumb across a shiny badge he found inside. “Then we have a decision to make.”
“We could handcuff him and take him with us,” she suggested, letting the papers teeter-totter back to the floor.
“Fuck that, Steph,” Curtis said, coming out of the evidence room with a three-foot bong the cops, apparently, confiscated at some point along the line. “We’re not here to babysit anyone who’s handcuffed, especially convicts, not after those last two assholes. The last thing we want to do now is get tangled up with a murderer. We’ve got enough problems on our hands already.”
“Yeah but what if he’s telling the truth? We’re going to just leave him here to die because he got a DUI?” Stephanie let her hands slap back to her sides. “Curtis you got a DUI in high school. Come on, you know that’s not fair.”
He shrugged. “Yeah but, we don’t know if he’s telling the truth about that,” he said, looking around. “And we probably never will. Look at this place. How are we supposed to find out for sure? We can’t.”
“Curtis is right,” Paul replied, bringing a proud look to Curtis’ wiry face. “We either leave him here or we trust him with a gun; there is no other option. Everyone pulls their weight on this team. Nobody rides for free.”
Stephanie folded her arms across her chest and tapped a finger against her lips for a few seconds. “Maybe there’s a newspaper lying around,” she finally said, checking behind the front desk. “If he did something more serious, it probably would’ve made one of the last papers to come out.”
Wendy stood up and tightened her ponytail. “Do people still get the paper?”
“Small town cops probably do,” Paul agreed, rummaging through the other desktops.
Curtis came out of the evidence room and exhaled a cloud of skunky smelling smoke, coughing until his face turned beet red. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up. He gestured with the smoking bong, eyes watering. “What? I always wanted to get baked in a police station.”
Paul tried a small police radio off to the side that no one answered and, after some more searching that came up empty, went back downstairs.
“Oh thank God!” Billy exclaimed, the mop handle in his hands now snapped in two. “I thought you were going to leave me in here to rot with Jonny.”
Wendy looked from the splintered end of the bloody mop handle to Jonny’s newly rearranged face, her brow crumpling. “What’d you do?”
“I tried putting him down but his skull is thicker than I thought.”
Paul pulled the cop’s keys from his jeans. “You can’t stab them in the head with anything; I’ve tried that. The only way to bring them down is to shoot them in the head.”
“Or run them over,” Curtis grinned, smoke seeping between his teeth.
Billy’ gaze dropped to the keys in Paul’s hand. “Does this mean you’re letting me out?”
“Do you know how to shoot?”
Billy stared at him for a thrown second or two before bursting into laughter. “Man, I’m from Detroit! Of course I know how to shoot,” he said with a drawn out laugh that made Jonny reach through the bars.
Curtis snorted. “Yeah, you look real gangster, homie.”
“Is this yours?”
Billy stared at the snub-nose revolver Paul held up. “Yeah, it’s mine and I have a permit for it too.”
“Why’s it in this baggie?”
“Because when the cops find a gun on you after getting a DUI they confiscate it, permit or not. I made a mistake that night by driving drunk with a loaded gun but that doesn’t make me a terrorist. They would’ve given it back after all my shit checked out.”
Paul studied the lines creeping through Billy’s forehead, indecision swimming in the air.
“You gonna let me outta here or what? Come on, man.”
Paul looked to the others for any last minute objections but their silence was their consent. He turned back to Billy and spoke gravely. “If you try anything stupid, I’m telling you right now, I will kill you dead.”
Billy vehemently shook his head. “I won’t; I swear to God, man. I just wanna live.”
Releasing a dubious sigh, Paul stuck a key in the cell door and turned it with a loud click that made Jonny scream. “You may rethink that after you step outside.”
“Oh shit, thank you, thank you, thank you.” Billy came out, walking like the floor was made of thin ice and rubbing his wrists like he just got let out of handcuffs. “Thank God you people came down here. I mean, what’re the odds, right? I was out of food and the clock was ticking. Thank you, Lord!”
At the bottom of the steps, Paul stopped and tossed Curtis the cop’s keys. “Unlock Jonny and this time…let me do this, will ya?”
Chapter Fourteen
“Man, I was making bank blowing neon lights for bars and restaurants and beer distributors, had my own shop and everything. Fat cash too!” Billy grimly shook his head in the backseat of the pickup, wedged between Wendy and the door. He hit a smoking joint and held his breath. “Then LED came along and the orders for neon lights started drying up fast.” He exhaled through the open sunroof and passed the joint back to Curtis, voraciously returning to the Baby Ruth bar in his other hand. “Oh sure, I got some repair work for awhile there, which at sixty-five bucks a pop wasn’t too bad, but then even that stuff stopped coming in.” He grunted while chewing. “Then I lost the shop. Then I lost the condo. Then I had to move back in with my parents until I got a new job, which, for the record, I hated with a passion.”
Curtis steered the F-150 northbound and down, blowing smoke out the window and glancing at Billy in the mirror. “Man, do you ever stop talking?”
“Sorry,” Billy said, taking another huge bite. “I get chatty when I’m nervous.”
Paul turned around in the front seat to face the women scrunched in the back with Billy. There were five of them now and they would need a bigger vehicle soon but bigger meant more stops for gas and every siphoned tank could be their last with those things hiding out there. He studied Billy, mind drifting back to Jay and Marvin. He didn’t trust him and why should he? Just because Billy had changed from the orange jumpsuit back into the street clothes he was arrested in didn’t mean he wasn’t a criminal anymore. In Paul’s mind he was, and the DUI story was all a little too convenient. Paul wasn’t stupid. Prisoners and lies went together like peanut butter and jelly.
Stephanie leaned forward to peer around Wendy. “So you were stuck in that cell with those things this whole time?”
“Pretty much,” Billy replied, unwrapping a Milky Way. “And that dead cop was tryin to get me out from under the bed the whole time too. I tried taking the mop from him once and he nearly yanked me through the bars.” He pounded some water and sighed, kicking at the mountain of candy bars and Pop-Tart wrappers growing around his feet. “I figured he’d give up at some point and take off for an easier meal but he stayed there for weeks, just poking at my feet and banging that mop against the floor, even when I was trying to sleep. Jonny too. I almost went insane.”
Stephanie shook her head. “That is horrible.”
“What’s really horrible is those bastards don’t sleep. They just kept trying to get after me every minute of every day.” He looked to Wendy, a solemn look pulling on his face. “And of course the toilet was on Jonny’s side of the cell so every time I…evacuated my bowels I had to lean way forward so he couldn’t grab me.”
Wendy covered her mouth to stop a laugh or signal her shock. Paul wasn’t sure which.
Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine Page 12
