by Wood, Rick
But then again, none of them looked like they belonged. Like they were just three idiots who drew the short straw.
So how had they survived?
She could ask such questions later. They were getting too close. Too close to discovering Desert’s refuge. She’d spent too long protecting it; she wasn’t about to let these people run into a concealed entrance by happy mistake.
She drew her gun.
She loved that gun.
Black. Semi-automatic. A handgun that wasn’t small enough to be pathetic, but wasn’t too large to fit snuggly in her hand.
What a difference almost a year had made to her.
She wasn’t the woman she once was. The suit-wearing office-dweller, meeting everyone else’s needs, sucking up to the boss, working desperately for a living, bending over, letting guys use her, lonely, bored, oh please can I help, please can I answer your email, Mr Squire, please can I ignore the fact that you’re fucking everything behind your wife’s back that moves, can I just pretend that you’re fine even though you stare at my tits and make a pass at me every morning you walk in and ask if you have any messages you chauvinistic arsehole piece of shit.
When she’d recovered from the initial shock, she wasn’t even that surprised Eugene had killed his wife.
In fact, being honest, she rued herself for not seeing it coming.
She was unrecognisable now. She was not the pathetic person she once was. She could shoot a gun with the precision of a superior predator on useless prey. Her delicate, long, blond hair was replaced with a lethal mohawk. Her snazzy suit gone in place of combat trousers, a belt of ammo, and a tight, black vest. Her face no longer wore the doormat sign or the eager-to-be-liked grimace of intimidation she’d attached to her visage each day; she wore a defiant snarl, a prowling glare, and a kick-arse attitude no fucker would mess with.
She’d left Lucy Sanders behind in that compound.
Safety off. She took aim. The three misfits came closer. Not of their own accord, but out of their dumb luck, dumb luck that was sure to get them killed.
Not that she needed the gun.
Her traps were impeccable. Whizzo had put them together and she’d laid them, concealing them around the perimeter, hidden by the green décor, the mountainous peaks, the glorious trees.
What a lovely forest it was.
She crouched, making her way further along her viewpoint, keeping them in her sight. Her tiptoes made a swift silence upon the absent rustles of the tedious leaves. She was sure it was spring. A comfortable sunniness hung overhead, and trees converged upon the soft soil in nature’s effervescence.
They were too close.
Desert was sure they didn’t deserve to die. These three hadn’t the ability to harm anyone. She was sure.
Then again, a guy doesn’t lose his leg for nothing. A person doesn’t have a face of stone without experiences. And a girl doesn’t become that animalistic without a cause.
No, she couldn’t take chances. She’d proceed with caution.
They stumbled. The man with one leg putting too much weight on the guy keeping him upright.
The girl tried to help.
And they all stepped into the net, which trapped them, then lifted them into the sky, where they dangled helplessly.
Desert stepped out and aimed her gun.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded.
Chapter Twenty-One
They had been travelling for days. Gus was keen for them to keep moving, to put as much distance between them and the compound as they could, but he was struggling.
There were no vehicles, no houses, no resources, nothing they were coming across. Occasionally they came across green life bearing fruit and they had a few bites, but hunger was kicking in. Not to mention drug withdrawals. The dizziness he felt only highlighted precisely how much medication they must have been using to numb the pain of his absent leg, to ensure he didn’t kick up a fuss about it – but his withdrawals had gone beyond a head rush now. The world was turning to blurs; every few seconds a new migraine, the chirps of the birds a distant haze. The world was becoming more disconnected from him by the hour. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go.
But Donny – he hadn’t moaned once. The amount of weight Gus was putting on him seemed to make no difference. He repeatedly asked whether Donny needed a break, suggesting intermittent rest. Donny didn’t need it. He would reply every time with the same robotic, “I do not need to rest.”
The guy was freaking him out.
But that could have just been his perception of it. He was aware enough to know he wasn’t very aware. The world around him was distorted, hopelessly unclear.
He wondered if he was going to survive.
Sadie rushed ahead, turning back, looking to Gus. What did she want, approval? Confirmation? Affirmation? What?
Whatever it was, Gus couldn’t give it to her.
She’d done amazingly so far, and he was so grateful to her, but he was being honest with himself – they were fucked. The middle of a forest, miles and miles of nothing. It was like the world had gone even further to shit since they’d been captured.
Where were the survivors?
Gus knew they were sparse, but where were they? Surely being surrounded by trees would be the best camouflage. A rural place, away from the cities, away from prying eyes. If Gus was still with his family, that’s where he’d have taken them.
His family. Janet. Laney.
No matter how delirious he got, their faces were always imprinted on the forefront of his mind.
He fell. Out of nowhere. Collapsed.
Donny tried to support him. Tried to catch him.
Gus was on his knees.
He heard a gun click.
Way off. Far away. Somewhere. It clicked.
He looked to Sadie. She didn’t have a gun. She didn’t even know how to work a gun. She was better than a gun.
Donny. Did he know how to work a gun?
He looked up, cast his eyes up and down his friend. Nothing registered. What was he even looking for?
A click.
A gun.
That’s it.
He looked to Donny’s hand. There were four of them, all skewed, dancing around him, taunting him. No gun.
He was sure he heard a click.
“Donny… Sadie…”
Sadie rushed over.
“I heard…”
Someone was there. He was sure of it.
Was he sure of it?
He didn’t really know what was going on.
What had he heard?
There was a…
What was going on?
He tried to stand. Donny tried to support him. Sadie tried to support him. They failed. He stumbled. He took them with them.
His foot stepped on the net.
He was in the air before he knew it.
Was he flying?
No, he was hovering. He reached his arm out, felt for nearby. Donny was there. He could see him. His face. So stern. Sadie was there. She was screaming, she hated it.
“Sadie,” Gus prompted, willing her to shush, which she did.
He tried to kick. He couldn’t. He’d forgotten. He looked up and his stump was thrashing about.
His hands grabbed the net.
How did they end up there?
A prompt flashback. A few hours ago. Or was it days? Donny. He said he knew where they were going. He said he knew where it was. Where what was?
Where had Donny taken them?
Before Gus could entertain the thought anymore, it faded from his mind like steam into air.
He closed his eyes for longer than he expected. Closed them. Opened them.
A gun was pointing at them from below.
“Who the fuck are you?” demanded the person behind it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She wasn’t the kind of woman who was like fire – Desert was fire.
And not just your flickering candle waving easily in the wind, ei
ther.
She was raging flames, she was burning amber, she was fire that spread and engulfed everything within its path. Her anger would lash out at you, licking your feet with the scorching heat of wrathful flames. Her passion would entice you into its growing torch as its smoke paraded into the sky. And her tenacity; oh, her tenacity. It was the lava the flames created. Pure, boastful, crackling, whipping, fiery lava that left ashes in its wake.
“I asked you a question,” she said, exuding dominance, showing nothing but her boss-like attitude you either came to respect or fear.
The girl – (woman?) – hissed at her. Reached its hand through the net, too far into the sky to be able to reach but reaching nonetheless.
Desert sighed.
“I am one itchy trigger finger away from shooting the shit out of you unless you answer my question,” Desert continued, aiming her semi-automatic.
“It’s okay,” the one-legged man said to the girl. “She’s just being cautious, it’s okay.”
“Talk to me, or I’ll shoot her in the face.”
“How about you just cool it, yeah?” the man blurted out. “Just cool it.”
Desert looked to the other man, his stoic expression unfaltering.
“What’s with him?” Desert demanded.
“He – we – we’ve been through a lot, okay. It’s – could you just let us down from this?”
“I’m thinking not.”
Gus’s hand moved.
“Keep your hand in the air!” Desert shouted. “So much as scrape a finger on a pistol and I won’t be taking any chances.”
“Fine, fine – what d’you want to know?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Gus Harvey, this is Sadie, and this is Donny Jevon.”
“Okay, Gus. How d’you lot know each other?”
“It’s… It’s kind of a long story.”
“Yeah, well, you better tell it. ‘Cause this whole picture, the three of you together, it – it just don’t fit. And when something don’t fit…”
“All right, all right.”
Desert waited.
Gus rubbed his head, closed his eyes, kept them closed a prolonged moment, opened them, shut them again.
“Well?”
“Just – just give me a minute. I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Why?”
“You see this?” Gus indicated his leg. “Yeah? You see this? This is a recent thing, lady. This got done to me, and I’ve not had any of the shit they pumped into me, and without the shit they pumped into me, I’m getting kinda woozy, so if you’d just–”
“Who’s they?”
“What?”
“You keep saying they. Who is they? Who did this to you?”
Gus sighed.
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Pretty sure I would.”
“You heard of a dickhead named Eugene Squire?”
Desert’s finger hovering over the trigger lapsed its concentration for a heartbeat. A familiar rage grew inside of her, starting with the acidity of her stomach, lifting through her thrashing heart, and ending in her tightened throat. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe?
That name.
That damn name.
“Yeah. Yeah, I heard of him.”
“He did this to me. Well – not himself directly.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Thought you might not.”
“What else did he do?”
“We’ve been trapped in his compound, he’s – just look at the state of us.”
Desert looked at the other two. Being closer to the girl’s face, finally having a look at it, revealed bruises that only came from torture. Scabs, wounds, tears. And worse; scars the girl probably hadn’t even made sense of yet appeared in her eyes. A look so familiar.
The other man’s face wasn’t so readable. His eyes gave nothing away. His expression was deadened. He just looked back at her with a severe impartiality. A neglectful absence of caring.
Him, she wasn’t so sure about.
“And who are you?” the man called Gus asked.
She wondered whether she should trust them.
Unfortunately, people to trust didn’t come along too often these days.
“My name is Desert,” she declared.
Then she aimed her gun at the girl’s head.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Desert? I assume that’s a code name?”
Just keep her talking.
That’s all Gus could think to do.
Keep her talking.
This was about survival. Short-term living. Staying alive. Somehow finding a way to make it through the next few hours. Then the next few hours would come after that, and the next after that, and the next after that. Eventually, hours could turn into days, maybe even weeks, months, years.
But for now, the one who called herself Desert was aiming her gun at Sadie’s head, and Gus didn’t like it.
“It’s fine,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me your real name. Just – just…”
Just what, Gus?
He had no idea what to say. How could he reason with her? If it were he in her predicament, would he take any chances? Or would he shoot the three weirdos who’d stumbled across his patch?
His eyes closed.
For too long.
He could feel himself slipping away. He had a few fingers keeping a very loose grip on consciousness, and he was slipping, sliding off, with no one to catch him.
He had to keep her talking. Had to do something.
“Please, Eugene Squire almost killed us. Don’t be the same as him.”
Desert’s arm relaxed.
That did it. Boy, that did it. Something on her face changed, something softened, if only momentarily. Her steely neutrality shifted, and Gus saw what trigger lay beneath.
“I am nothing like Eugene Squire,” Desert spat. “And don’t you dare ever say that again.”
“If Eugene Squire is your enemy, then our enemy makes us a friend.”
Desert didn’t respond.
“Please, I…” He almost went again. Drooped. Faded in and out. Brought himself around. “I… I have no idea what I was saying.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“What?”
“Eugene Squire would want me dead. This is exactly the kind of thing–”
“Look at my leg!” Gus cried. “Seriously, look at my fucking leg! Look at what he did to my leg! It’s gone ’cause of him, why would I–”
A pain shot in the base of his stump.
He hadn’t felt pain there before. It was as if all the medication he’d been given at the compound was designed to numb it, and whilst his dizziness was the first price to pay, it was just the start.
Burning raced around the circumference of his knee. Then a stabbing sensation, like someone had sunk a knife in, then another, until his leg was full of their sharp edges, all sticking out of him, like a sadistic acupuncturist who used blades instead of needles. It hurt to holy hell.
Gus screamed out.
“Shut up, you’ll attract a horde.”
He bit his lip. Useless. He opened his mouth, cried out again. Moaned into the rope.
“Listen,” Gus said. “You are either going to have to shoot me or let me down, ’cause this–”
It hit him in another wave, surging all through his body this time; he could feel it pulsating, throbbing through him to the rhythm of his pulse.
His arms flung out to the side, clutching the rope, squeezing it tightly, tightly, tighter, biting it, keeping himself from screaming out.
He closed his eyes. Opened them. Everything was gone. A distant distortion. Impressions of shapes were there in blurs. Someone was speaking but it was as if they were underwater.
He screamed again.
Then he felt himself falling. He didn’t know how. Hell, he didn’t even know if it was real. It was like he was collapsing downwards through the sky.
<
br /> Janet.
Laney.
I see you.
That wasn’t them. He knew it.
There was no afterlife.
But he saw them. Waving to him. Their faces turning to blood.
He was being carried. There were people around him. He felt them as he reached his arms out and grabbed them. He was then restrained.
Where was he again?
Janet. So far. In touching distance, yet however much he reached out for her, he could never brush his fingers down her soft cheek.
Laney was playing. She turned and said hello. Or did she? Gus didn’t hear her.
They disappeared.
They weren’t there. He knew they weren’t there.
He had no idea where he was anymore.
He didn’t even care.
And, on that final thought, his delirium ended and he fell completely unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The light overhead wasn’t buzzing. His legs weren’t fixed to a bed. An uncaring doctor wasn’t spoon-feeding him lumps.
This was the first time Gus had woken up from falling unconscious without laying in torment. It was a sealed room without windows, leading Gus to the logical conclusion that he was underground. If they had encroached on this woman’s home without noticing it, it must be.
He flexed his hands, looking at them. Wiggled his leg, wiggled his stump. How strange it was to wake up free from restrictions. It was like he was waking up in a bed for the first time ever.
“Good morning.”
Gus jumped, turned his head to see the woman sat beside him.
“We have a lot to talk about,” she stated.
“Where’s Sadie?” Gus demanded, gripping the side of the bed. “Where’s Donny?”
He scanned the room for a weapon.
“Relax, relax,” she urged him. “They are being fed. In fact, they’ve been fed three times. You know, tea, breakfast, and lunch.”
“That how long I’ve been out?”
“Yep.”
“I want to see them. I want to see they are okay.”
