by Michael Todd
Holly pressed the Send button. “Don’t share these with anyone. Not my stories to tell.”
Rod chuckled. “Can you at least give me a hint about why you want me to read them?”
Holly shook her head. “Just read. I’ll talk to you soon. I have things to get done today.”
Rod sighed. “Okay. Be safe.”
Holly scoffed. “I’ll do my best, but if I get eaten by an animal, you better come up with some crackerjack story to go with it.”
Rod laughed. “I’m on it. I got your back. Hero status all the way.”
Holly nodded hard. “Good. That’s where the whole friend thing comes in. Oh, speaking of friend, have you checked on my place recently?”
Rod answered quickly, “Oh, yeah. Took a few hookers there, smeared gasoline on your carpets. Oh, and I hope you like orange. I repainted your bathroom.”
Holly smiled. “Very funny. Did you have any issues with the doorman?”
Rod coughed and cleared his throat. “Yeah, but I had him disposed of. Ignore the head in your freezer. I’ll get that out of there eventually.”
Holly couldn’t help but laugh. “Just leave it there. I like company on cold New York nights. Perfect boyfriend, never talks.”
Rod grunted. “Man, you are a tough one. No wonder Chad was out the door.”
Holly wrinkled her nose. “First of all, Chad took me to a restaurant where I had to fight my food before I ate it. Secondly, he cried over a flower growing in the sidewalk.”
Rod winced. “Sorry about that. I met him at one of Elaine’s yoga things and he asked about setting him up. What was I supposed to say?”
Holly furrowed her brow. “Uh, how about, ‘Sure, Cindy is available.’”
Rod hissed. “Look, woman, you were single. It flew out of my mouth before I could think. Do you think I would do that to him on purpose?”
Holly shrugged. “I guess not... Wait, to him?”
Rod chuckled. “You were listening. You’re usually stuck in your own head. Okay, it’s late. I’m going to check out your horror stories. Just try to stop being so full of conspiracy theories. Maybe it just is what it is.”
Holly frowned. “I doubt that, but I will get to the bottom of it eventually—hopefully before this weird alien Zoo takes over the planet. I hear the humidity is worse than that trip we took to the Carolinas.”
Rod gagged. “Gross. No, thank you. I’ll take our smog, heat, and snow.”
Holly looked at the clock. “All right, go do whatever it is you do at ten at night. I’ll talk to you soon.”
They hung up and Holly tossed her phone on the bed, a bit worried by the lack of cooperation from her contact. In all contracts he was her handler, except he could never keep a handle on her for even five seconds. She liked it that way. He thought he was controlling her, the company thought she was in the dark, and she was standing there looking at the full picture. Well, usually. The whole Zoo thing was a bit more complicated than it had initially looked.
Holly grabbed her mug and finished the last few drops of sugar-saturated coffee in the bottom. She set the mug on the counter to rinse and stretched her arms over her head, then bent right and left, doing her quick travel workout. She skipped the jumping jacks, though, thinking she might fall through the floor if she did too many. The local buildings seemed to have been put together fast and very haphazardly. Then again, the Zoo had also come out of nowhere, so it wasn’t a surprise.
When she was done with her stretching and pushups, she jumped in for a quick shower to rinse off the sand from the night before. There was a ring of sand in the bottom of the shower from the particles that had collected in her hair and the creases of her skin. It was like being at the beach without the calming effects of the ocean. Just sand, sand, and more sand until you reached the oasis of the Zoo, which wasn’t really an oasis.
She walked out into the room wrapped in a towel and took out clothes from the dresser, choosing a black cap-sleeve t-shirt, a pair of army-green shorts, and her combat boots. Every day it seemed like she was selecting one less layer of clothing, but the heat was insane. She slipped on her shorts and pulled the shirt over her head. As she straightened it down, she looked at her computer desk. Her laptop was open, a few papers were strewn across the top, and a piece of clothing hung over the back of the chair. Around the room she had meticulously placed her personal items, not realizing until that moment that the place was starting to feel like home.
It was about as big as her first apartment in New York, and it no longer smelled like a stale hotel room. She walked over to the table and looked down at a FUBAR coaster she didn’t remember bringing back. She picked it up and wrinkled her nose. It looked and smelled like it had had a drink on it. Somehow in her buzz, she must have stuffed it in her pocket. She put it down and shook her head. Whenever she had too much to drink, she would find the weirdest shit in her pockets. One time she woke up after a college party wearing a tutu and a wedding veil, and she had a piece of pizza in her pocket. She kept that story to herself, but she had double-checked to make sure she hadn’t married anyone in a pizza place in New York.
Holly put her hands on her hips. She had a lot more work to do here, and staying in the hotel wasn’t fiscally responsible. She wanted an apartment, and she knew there were places available. She went to her laptop and sat down in front of it, biting her cheek and thinking about her situation. She knew if she got a place she would be there for a while, and she needed to know she was okay with committing to that. After a few seconds, she shrugged and pulled up the town’s website.
It wasn’t anything like looking for places in New York, but there were several to choose from. She wondered how many of them had been rented by mercs who never came back, but shook the thought from her mind and scanned the listings. There were tiny places smaller than her room, houses for rent on the rich side of the town, and a ton of shared space. She didn’t want a roommate. She barely tolerated sharing her condo with her plants, let alone another human being.
Eventually, she found one only a few blocks away. It was located on top of the Armorer. Holly retrieved her phone and sent a text to the number, asking if the place was still available. A couple of minutes later, she got a response telling her it was and to come on over.
Holly pursed her lips for a moment and stared down at the phone. Then she nodded to herself and tugged on her combat boots. “It’s time I do what is in my gut.”
She paused and wrinkled her forehead. Apparently, JB and the whole place were rubbing off on her. There was something about the stories that really drew her in. Her first priority was to get the answer to what the company was really doing, but there was some other draw that she couldn’t quite figure out. She wasn’t sure if it was to the Zoo itself, which honestly seemed like the kind of place that created nightmares, but the people she had met so far had made her want to learn more. She thought people like the ones she heard about from JB only existed in movies, but there she was, looking for an apartment in a town full of them.
Holly grabbed her bag and headed out of the hotel room, deciding not to overthink it—something else that was new to her.
Chapter Two
As Holly passed FUBAR, she glanced in, loud voices emerging as the door swung shut. She continued down the street another two and a half blocks, looking at each building as she passed. Finally, she came upon it, a two-story place with a wide garage door slightly cracked open. From behind it, Holly could hear banging and loud Spanish music. She lifted her eyebrows, surprised at herself for being even slightly thrown off. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, given the town.
The front of the building was plain, and cleaner than most places she had seen in the last few blocks. Above the door was a sign that simply read The Armorer, and hanging on the door was an Open sign. A few guys came walking down the street talking loudly and laughing, so Holly stepped back to let them pass. She looked down at the ad on her phone. The place was $650 dollars a month, and Holly wondered if she would
be listening to the beat of hammers and power tools if she were to live there.
Holly stuck the phone in her back pocket and winced. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t make choices on a whim. She wasn’t sure why she was having such heavy thoughts. It wasn’t like she was living in the lap of luxury at the hotel. The lease was month to month, payment due the first day of each month, or as the advertisement read, BEFORE YOU LEAVE FOR THE ZOO. Holly could only imagine that was to protect the owner’s interest if the tenant were to go out and not come back. Holly had no intention of that being an issue, or at least not yet. Still, she wasn’t sure this would be a good choice.
Maybe I should sleep on it. As she formed the thought, the garage door slid up and a dark-haired woman of medium height stared at Holly as she wiped her hands on a dirty rag. She wore a tight green tank top, green carpenter pants, and calf-high combat boots and she had a smear of something across her cheek.
Holly cleared her throat and walked forward, putting out her hand. “Hi, I’m Holly. I just called you about the apartment.”
The woman put up her hand, showing the grease. “Amanda. Were you going to come in or just stand on the street staring at the building?”
Holly chuckled. “I don’t know. I guess this is all kind of new to me.”
Amanda wrinkled her nose. “A new mercenary? I was hoping to rent to someone I knew for sure would have a higher likelihood of sticking around—no offense.”
Holly shook her head. “Oh, none taken, and I’m not a mercenary. I’m here for research purposes, and I have no planned trips into the Zoo.”
Amanda nodded her head. “Oh. Okay, well, that’s new, but I like that better. Come on in and I’ll show you around.”
Holly followed Amanda into the workshop and stood there nervously with her arms crossed. “I saw your ad online, and I’m looking to get out of the hotel and into something longer term. I like that you are month to month, though. I don’t know if I’ll be here a whole year.”
Amanda chuckled. “That’s better than most. I usually get ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it out of my next trip into the thick.’ At least I don’t have to worry about you getting eaten by anything—animal-wise, I mean.”
Holly chuckled nervously, not sure if that was a sexual joke. “So, you are an armorer? What exactly does that mean?”
Amanda smiled. “Man, you really are fresh off the boat. I make armor that will fit on suits. I make armor for vehicles. I repair damaged armor. If it has to do with metal mods, I am your woman. I’ve been here for about seven years. Went into the Zoo for the first three, then decided I wanted to be town-based, and there wasn’t a place in the town that made or fixed armor without sending it out. And even then it had to be armor made by the manufacturer, at least for the suits. So, since I had some experience, I took my earnings and opened this place.”
Holly pointed up. “Do you live here too?”
Amanda shook her head. “No, but I live next door. I wanted a little bit bigger place. I used to live up there, though.”
Holly shook her head, looking around. It reminded her of an auto garage, especially since there was a lift. She assumed that was for armor fittings for the vehicles. To the right were mannequins. Some were wearing suits, and others weren’t. The entire wall was lined with tools, everything from recognizable ones to things that looked like they came from a torture chamber. Along the back were boxes with labels on the front. Holly looked through an open doorway with a desk behind it and a staircase next to it. She assumed that was how you got upstairs.
Amanda put away some of her tools while Holly was scanning everything. The armorer glanced up and chuckled, shaking her head. “I’m not used to having someone quite so quiet around here.”
Holly smirked. “Trust me, you get a drink in me and I’ll talk your ear off. You’ll want me to shut the hell up.”
Amanda laughed. “I’m really not that much of a talker, and I stay out of my tenants’ way as much as I can. I don’t want to be that person looming over you. But I do have a business down here with a lot of expensive stuff, so I try not to rent to people planning to throw parties upstairs. Usually the door to the shop is closed, but no one is up there, so I kept it open in case a customer came in.”
Another song came on, this one louder. Amanda put up her finger and walked over to the stereo, clicking it off. “Sorry about that. I won’t play it so loud if you take the place.”
Holly chuckled. “It’s all right. I like Luis Fonsi, though Despacito isn’t one of my favorites. It’s a bit old, and the go-to for non-Spanish-speaking Americans.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “You are obviously not white, but you definitely aren’t Spanish. I pegged you as Indian.”
Holly nodded. “Born in India and moved to America, but spent a lot of time there in my youth. I was pretty much raised between the two places, but I’ve lived all over. I spent three years in Spain on assignments.”
Amanda was impressed. “I like that. Believe it or not, I’m full-blood Spanish. I know, I look like a white girl. You would think I’d get the full-on twenty-four-hour tan, but no. I get tan lines in the sun. Damned embarrassing every time I’m at a family get-together.”
Holly giggled. “So both of your parents are Spanish?”
Amanda nodded. “Yep, the whole tan skin and everything. I had a genetic test to make sure my Mamacita wasn’t doing the white milkman...not that we had milk delivered. But, nope, I’m all a hundred percent Latina with white skin and a white girl’s ass. Just my fucking luck. Even my name sounds white. Mama had to prove to me that it was one of the top fifty female names for Hispanics when I was born.”
In all reality, Holly had already assumed she was of Latin descent just from the music. It didn’t matter to her; she had been around people from all over the world, and never gave it much thought. Growing up as an Indian girl, she knew other people noticed, though.
Holly shuffled her feet. “You’re actually the first Latina I’ve met out here. When I came, I figured almost everyone would be French, but I’ve only met like two French people. The rest have been from all over.”
Amanda sighed. “Yeah, it’s a melting pot over here, for sure. How long have you been here?”
Holly thought about it for a moment. “Well, I spent a while on the American side because that was where the company said to go, but I realized really fast that people over there didn’t open up, so I caught a van over here about four days ago. I am renting a room at the hotel, but I realized I will probably be here for a while, and even longer if I take the contract.”
Amanda shook her head. “Pita-picking is for a specific type of person. Wasn’t my game. The adrenaline from the Zoo was crazy, but...yeah. Anyway. So, you are here to check out the apartment? Well, it’s right above us, and when the place was built, they did a good job at trying to keep the noise pollution down. There is 3D-printed concrete between the rooms, and I put an extra layer of insulation in the ceiling/ floor of the apartment too. On top of that, I won’t use power tools down here after 6:00 pm without your permission. There might be a few times I ask if there is a rush order, but usually I try to be done and out of here by then.”
Holly nodded. “I’m not very sensitive or distracted by noise. I have a condo right next to Times Square in New York City, and I used to live in the Bronx.”
Amanda nodded. “Wow, well at least you won’t hear police sirens here. So, you would get two keys. One is for the front door of the shop. You lock it behind you when it’s not business hours. Otherwise, I will lock it when I leave. The second is to the door at the top of the stairs. It’s got a lock, a deadbolt, and a chain for added security. I’ve never had an issue, but I used to have a couple of reporters with government clearance sharing the space and they had a lot of expensive equipment, so I installed the extra locks.”
Holly shook her head. “Got it. I have like nine locks in my condo.”
Amanda laughed. “Safety first, right? The place is prett
y plain: white walls, tiled floors. You are more than welcome to hang pictures and put down a rug. Whatever. All I ask is if you paint, paint it white again before you leave. Usually I don’t allow that, but since you aren’t going into the Zoo anytime soon... If you decide to, though, try not to change it too much…you know, just in case. That’s a lot of hassle for me. If something breaks, you’ll have my number, and I do almost all the maintenance. There’s nothing too complicated about it. I just installed a water heater for the apartment. Sometimes I have to run a lot of hot water down here and it can affect yours, so I solved that.”
Holly glanced at the far wall, noticing boxes labeled Mark holding a bunch of pictures and clothes and a couple of pieces of furniture. “Does someone live there now?”
Amanda followed her gaze. “Oh, uh, no. The guy who lived up there never came back from the Zoo, so I cleaned it out and replaced the mattress and stuff. It’s got a queen-size bed and a desk, as well as dishes and cookware. If you don’t need that stuff, I can take it out, but most people don’t bring their own.”
Holly smiled. “No, that’s great. I don’t have very much here. I came with clothes, some personal effects, and work stuff. Is there internet?”
Amanda chuckled. “Oh, yeah. It’s the one thing we love out here. Every place has service, and it’s pretty solid here. I’ll give you the password and everything if you take the place. Come on, let’s go check it out so you can make a decision.”
Holly followed Amanda up the stairs, noticing tags for jobs hanging behind the desk by the stairs. There were fourteen or so. Five of them were repair orders for the Death Dogs. Three were for the Israelites, two for the French government, and the rest had miscellaneous names written on them. Seemed Amanda’s business was doing well. Then again, she was the only armorer in the whole town.
When she reached the top of the steps, Amanda opened the door and stepped to the side. Holly walked into the room and looked around, pleasantly surprised. It was a lot like the hotel, but a little larger. It was essentially four walls with a kitchenette to her right, a bathroom on the opposite wall, and a closet with a folding door opposite the bathroom. Against one wall was a carved wooden four-poster bed. Straight in front of her was a large ornate wooden desk facing the window, and Holly immediately walked over to the desk and ran her hand across the smooth surface. A smile moved across her lips.
