Todd's rifle barked as Coy reached the girl. He grasped her around the midsection and scooped her off the top of the old sedan, then ran back to the side of the road opposite the dead. She fought like a banshee, kicking her feet and swinging her head wildly, her little fists pounding on his arm like it was a drum. He set her in the grass alongside the shoulder and she scuttled away and fell, tumbling backward into the ditch.
He turned, figuring that was as safe a place for her as any, just in time to see a flash of gold race by and launch itself at the first creeper it came to. The creature flew through the air like it had been hit by a car and landed on the asphalt with a thud. Sally rolled, regained her feet, and grabbed the creeper by the wrist. She snarled as she dragged it backward, her rear paws scrambling to find purchase. A creature close by, a fat man missing one arm at the elbow, bent over and reached for her. She released her catch and spun away. After that, she stayed back from the action, pacing back and forth and barking.
The cleanup was almost complete. Todd dispatched the dead on the other side of Buick. Coy dropped three more creepers closing in on the couple, walking toward the pair as he fired. Two more men from the picket line burst from the woods, one from each direction. They each took down a pair of stragglers and Coy shot the last one — the one Sally fought to the ground — as it struggled to get to its feet.
He spun in a circle, making sure there were no more. He didn’t see any, so he pulled Todd close. "There is a dead boy on the other side of the car. Move him away from everyone and keep an eye on him. Holler if he turns. Make sure you don't hold him close to you while you move him, and do it fast."
He approached the man with his gun barrel pointed down but his finger inside the trigger guard. He'd learned you never be sure how people would react in these situations. Loss made some people lash out, whether or not they had good cause.
The guy had the appearance of a business executive on a vacation gone wrong. His light brown hair was cut short and parted on the side and he was clean-shaven. A pair of wire-framed glasses and clothes that could have come straight from the L.L. Bean catalog completed the look. His eyes had a dull, vacant quality to them and he made a slow circle while calling for his son. "Josh! Josh, where are you, buddy? You can come out now, it's safe."
Coy cleared his throat. "Excuse me, sir-"
His eyes focused on Coy. "Have you see my son? He's eight."
At the sound of the boy's name, the woman, who sat in the road with her knees pulled up to her chest, rocking back and forth, wailed. It was a loud, drawn-out keening noise. Todd approached wearing a solemn expression. Coy searched his face and he replied with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
The man focused on Todd. "Do you know where Josh is? Is my son over there?" He took a few steps toward the Buick.
Coy stepped in front of him. "You shouldn’t go over there, sir." In the corner of his vision, the little girl peeked over the top of the ditch.
He tried to push past Coy but found him unmoving. "Get out of the way. I have to find my son. I have to find Josh!" He tried to push Coy aside again with the same result, so he reached out to grab him instead.
Coy brought his forearm up hard and fast to knock his hand out of the way and continued until he had his palm on the back of the guy's neck. He pulled his head down and whispered in his ear. "You saw what happened to your son, sir. You don't want to see that. Your wife is fine. Your daughter’s fine. Tend to the members of your family who are still alive, sir."
The man collapsed against Coy, sobbing. His wife moaned and push herself up off the asphalt.
A diesel engine growled in the distance.
The woman embraced her husband from behind, crying out her son's name between sobs. Coy nudged him toward his wife and disengaged himself from his clutches.
A Dodge truck roared down the hill and squealed to a stop a few feet from the Buick. It carried a driver, a fat passenger, and three men in the bed, all well-armed.
Coy sauntered over. Mark was in the driver seat with Chip Mullen next to him. Coy spat and leaned against the passenger door. "Hell, you boys always get here just in the nick of time.â€
28
* * *
Coy stood in a shower stall, ready for a long, hot, muscle-pounding shower that would wash off the blood and gore and rejuvenate his tired body.
He wished.
In reality, he stood in the middle of a killing room in Jim’s Meats, a butcher shop located in The Underground before the outbreak, preparing for one of Cyrus's low-rent showers that were always too short and taken with water that wasn't hot enough.
The system seemed an answered prayer three months ago when his last shower was almost a year behind him. Pumps ran water from the underground lake through pipes and hoses into a big tank on a rack on the quarry floor, where a bonfire heated it to boiling. From there, pipes ran it out of the tank to the kitchen in tunnel seven and the makeshift shower in the butcher shop in tunnel eight.
More pipes carried the water that flowed to the shower room into another tank, this one over a smaller fire they kept well-banked. The fire only warmed it because there was no way to control the temperature from going past hot to boiling. The warm water ran from the vat through a pipe to a bucket inside a sleeve placed five feet off the floor. Twelve small holes were punched in the bottom of the bucket. When you pulled the sleeve back, it dribbled through the holes and you had your shower. You were allowed two buckets- one for washing, and one for rinsing.
Coy let the water from the first bucket flow over him and wet him down. While it refilled, he shampooed his hair and lathered up with soap. Here, he had to be quick. The water cooled as soon as it ran into the bucket- Cyrus hadn’t yet devised a method to keep it warm. So he tried to time it so he finished with the soap and shampoo just as the bucket filled for the second time.
He toweled off and brushed his teeth, spitting into the drain in the floor. Someone had the miserable job of keeping the shower room clean. Coy didn't know who, but he was glad it wasn't him. He rolled on deodorant, stepped into his jeans, pulled them up over his hips-a job made difficult because his legs were still damp. After he packed his belongings in a duffel bag, he walked from the shower room into the one next door to finish getting dressed.
He stopped short when he saw his Dad.
Will perched on the corner of the desk on the other side of the room, wearing a short sleeve work shirt, his tousled black hair hatless. He had a paperback book open on his lap and a flashlight in one hand to help see the words through the gloom. His thick legs, like a pair of twin oak trunks, dangled in the air, making him look like the oldest kid in the classroom.
He kept his nose in the book for a few seconds after Coy entered, then closed it with a snap. He gazed at his son with somber eyes, his bushy mustache turned down in a ferocious frown. "Congratulations on saving those people this morning."
"Thanks, Pop." Coy had a sinking suspicion that his Dad wasn't here to congratulate him.
"Do you think that was a wise use of your abilities? Because I don't."
29
* * *
Coy defended his actions. "They were under attack, Pop, and wouldn't have made it on their own."
"And what if something happened to you? Who needs your help more- strangers in the middle of the consequences of their own bad decision, or your community when your crazy girlfriend comes looking to kill us?"
Irritation flashed in Coy’s eyes. "You know you've got half the people here calling her that now?"
"What? You're crazy girlfriend?"
Coy nodded his head.
“Out of 150 people, you're the one she chose to grab."
Coy made an exasperated sound. "Because I'm the one that goes out in the woods every day!"
Will smiled and spit into a paper cup. "Okay, if that's the story you want to go with." He paused and grew somber. "But I’m serious, son; there are people fit to survive in this world and
those who aren't. You don't like to think that way because you have a good heart. But that's the way of the world now. The biggest waste that can happen nowadays is for a person who is fit to survive to sacrifice himself helping someone who isn't."
"That's bullshit." Coy surprised himself. He had never called bullshit on his Dad before. If it bothered the old man he wasn't showing it, so Coy plunged on. "Look at the people you let throw in with us out on the road. David and Kathy, Sylvia and Tempest, Brianna, Tara at first… hell, you never turned anybody away. Our entire time out there, half our people took care of the other half."
Will pointed at thick index finger at him. "You're right, and look how much it slowed us down. We could have cut our time out there in half if we kept it to seven or eight of us moving fast and not having to worry about anybody but ourselves. And then we get here, and I waste three months and get a good man killed trying to get along with the Judge? I should have shot him in the head on day one."
Coy blew a loud raspberry. "Fuck that. That’s not you. Help people that can't help themselves. That's what you taught me my whole life."
"That was in a different world, son."
Coy walked over and leaned against the desk beside him. "You crazy old goat. If it'd been you, you would have done the same thing. It's not in you to walk away from a person in danger." There was silence, then Coy spoke again. "Those people didn't have a clue though, Pop. The Mom and Dad were side-to-side instead of back-to-back. They let creepers get in between them and the kids. Hell, he had a forty-four with nine bullets in the magazine. He dropped it and it skittered into the middle of a bunch of creepers. He never tried to get it back. After it was over he had a live kid hiding in the ditch and all he could think about was the dead one."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Coy. You risked your own life defending folks who will end up dying next week or next month.â€
“How’d they make it this long? Did you ask?â€
Will leaned to the side, passed gas, and gave a contented sigh. "He says he was with a group in a hangar at the airport."
Coy raised an eyebrow. "How big a group?"
Will threw his hands up and shrugged his shoulders. "It's hard to converse with the guy. And I know he's distraught, but you get the feeling it's always hard to converse with him. But from what I can get- he was a Lord High Muckety-Muck with a big company down this way. When things turn to shit, the big cheeses were supposed to gather at the airport and get flown out of here. To where I don't know, and he couldn't tell me. When they got there the planes had already left, and he fell in with a group making a go of it in a hangar. I guess he didn't contribute much, there was a falling out one day, and they evicted him and his family."
"How in the heck did they end up on Civil War Road?"
"Yeah, I asked them the same thing. He said they know about us at the hangar — how, he could not get across — and they were trying to get here after their eviction when they stopped for a clump of creepers in the road."
Coy wrinkled his brow and squished his eyebrows together. "How many?"
Will's answered in a jovial tone. "Five, maybe six."
Coy gawked at his Dad. "And they stopped their car?â€
"Again, that’s the point of this conversation, son. You didn't help those folks today. They are walking around already dead. They just haven’t fallen over yet."
Coy's mind whirled. That anybody would stop their car around a group of the dead flabbergasted him.
Will clapped him on the back. "Don't take it too hard. I'm proud of you for your heart, and for your ability- Danny said you put down twenty-four of them out there."
"I didn't put them all down. The guy got a few, and Troy popped a handful of ‘em."
"Nonetheless. You done good. I don't want to lose you because you were doing good for the wrong people."
"We'll have to agree to disagree on that, old man. For now. I’ll bring around to my way of thinking, though." He gave Will a light punch in the chest. "You still have a heart in there."
Coy grabbed his bag and they headed to the door to the tunnel. He looked over at his Dad. "Did they burn his boy’s body?"
"Nope. He wants a funeral, wants to bury the kid in the pines up on the bluff."
For the second time in ten minutes, Coy's dad blew his mind. "A funeral. You are shitting me."
"Oh no. And hell, I'm all for it. It would be cathartic- give the womenfolk a chance to have a good cry. Plus, I figured I'd ask The Judge to officiate, let him walk around puffed up for the first time in a while. It's a good deal for everybody."
Coy winced. "It's not a good deal for the family, Pop."
"Well, no. Maybe not everybody. But everybody that matters to me."
Coy shook his head and they continued in silence.
30
* * *
Across town, the man known only as Magnus looked at his reflection in a vanity mirror that ran the length of his bathroom wall. He squirted styling gel onto one palm and rubbed his hands together, then methodically ran his fingers through his hair until he generated the tousled, devil-may-care appearance of a man who doesn't give a shit how his hair looks.
"The things we do," he mused to himself. He pulled his lips back, leaned close to the mirror, and inspected his teeth and gums, and then sniffed and detected a hint of body odor; not enough to be offensive, but enough to say, "hey-I'm a busy man who works his ass off. And I'm not sorry about it."
He took a bottle of cologne from a drawer under the sink and shot a spritz of Paco Rabanne in the air, then stepped underneath the falling particles. Kayla had called upon him to do her dirty work for three months before he realized his man-scent combined with just a bit of high-end cologne drove her wild.
He grinned at his reflection. Kayla. The ice queen, the high and mighty, the cold, calculating woman with no emotion. She thought he was unaware her panties got wet every time he drew near. He wished she played poker because her tells were legion. Flushed cheeks, flared nostrils, quickened respiration, dilated pupils. Hell, sometimes the poor gal even perspired on her upper lip.
But she didn't think Magnus knew how he affected her.
Women.
Earlier iterations of Magnus would've already raped her and disappeared, never to be seen again. But a single idea burst through his consciousness the first time he was alone with her. It appeared in bright red balloon letters- KING MAGNUS.
So he resisted his base impulses and tamped down his own desires. After all, he wasn't a young man anymore. He was in his mid-forties, and a lifetime of hard work and a sinful lifestyle made sure he felt every day it.
Besides, women like Kayla didn't come along often. In fact, with her, they may have broken the mold. That mixture of blatant sexuality, utter amorality, and single-minded determination was something he had never seen in a man or a woman before. She would sleep with, kill, blackmail, pay off or connive with anyone that could provide her what she needed at that particular time. At first, he thought she was a sociopath who believed the only feelings that existed were her own. But as he spent more time with her he came to realize she knew other people had feelings- she just didn't care about them. If your goals matched up with hers, great. If not, she would do anything necessary to bring you around to her side- or eliminate you.
So Magnus planted his flag. If she rose to the top and one day ruled what used to be the Midwestern United States, great. He would be right there, either whispering in her ear as a trusted advisor or (and in his heart of hearts, this is what Magnus was shooting for) sitting by her side and ruling along with her.
The journey began in four days, when they marched across town to an empty quarry or marched across town, killed everyone in the quarry, and took as their own. There, Kayla had room to build an army as big as she could feed and supply. 50,000 people fit into those tunnels with ease. The only questions were how many could you find food and weapons for.
For himself, Magn
us hoped the place was empty- that the kid did his job and convinced everyone it was hopeless to stand and fight. He wasn't an ogre and didn't relish killing the way Kayla did. If it did come to a fight, there was no question who would win. Kayla had ten times the numbers and vastly superior firepower.
So why did he have a nasty feeling that things weren't as they seemed? He was a man who prospered in life because he always listened to his gut. And right now his gut told him the invasion would not go well. It told him to convince Kayla to call it off; and if he couldn’t do that, then run.
He was unable to put a finger on why. He couldn't very well tell that madwoman to alter her plans without a good reason; hell, it better be a fantastic reason. And what did he have? That his gut told him not to do it? The kid had so impressed him that as he lay awake at night considering the situation, he had an epiphany. A kid that cool, collected, and competent didn't fall out of the womb with those characteristics. Somebody instilled those traits, brought him up to be that way. And most likely, the man who brought him up to be that way wasn't the kind of man you ought to trifle with.
He had those thoughts at night, laying alone in the dark. But when he walked the earth in the light of the day, doubt and hesitation fell away, replaced by the same cocksure faith he’d always had in himself.
Still, he had a backup plan. If they got to the quarry and there was a fight and somehow things went south for his side, he'd get out of there. He'd run like a rabbit in front of a forest fire. He'd leave, set up somewhere else, and never look back.
After all, other settlements were out there. Some he’d seen in his travels, others he'd only heard of. A couple of thousand people lived in the domed football stadium in St. Louis. Another settlement thrived on an island on Grand Lake in Oklahoma. Rumor had it that a good number of people were getting by behind the tall fences of the Jefferson City zoo. So, there were other places to go.
Threat Ascendant Page 9
