It came at just after midnight, a rattling at the garage door that caused all three to pause in their work. Luca flipped up his welding mask and glared as the entry door opened. Steve, who’d been busy gluing bits of trash and debris to the topside of the crane, went pale, trapped where he sat, straddling the beam. Brad, who’d been having a hard time with the wiring inside the cab, slithered out and down to the ground, crouching behind a big wheel.
The garage door lifted a couple of feet and a figure rolled inside. It wore a cloak-like blanket that was covered in garbage and streaks of black paint, and it stank heavily of ammonia and antifreeze. Once inside, an arm reached out from under it and pulled the garage door back down into place.
“Jesus,” Steve said, exhaling a big gust of breath. “Whoever you are, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Zombies don’t use doors,” Luca said, guessing at the newcomer’s identity. He set his welding torch on the ground and grabbed a filthy rag to wipe his hands. “Am I ever glad to see you, buddy. With you helping us, there’s no way we don’t finish this by morning.”
Marshal threw off the camouflage blanket in a flourish.
“Haven’t had to use one of these since my first trip to Rothman’s,” he said, gazing speculatively at Shitbox. “Back then, I had the rain and the darkness to help stay hidden. Frankly, I don’t know how Angie pulls it off.”
“You got here, didn’t you?” Luca said. “Not a moment too soon. Brad’s doing his best, but he’s no electrical engineer, and neither of us knows the Tesla engine like you do. By the way, the crane’s fuckin’ useless. The engine ain’t powerful enough to move a two ton truck and operate the crane at the same time. Not that we need a crane for what we’re doing.”
Marshal looked annoyed. “We’ll have to task the remaining engine to work the crane,” he said. “Damn it. That means no Team B down the road. The rest of Shitbox is fine though, isn’t it?”
“Good enough,” Luca said with a shrug. “The truck’s a lot lighter with the regular engine, transmission, and all that shit taken out. We stripped it down as much as we could without damaging the overall performance. The big work – other than all the wiring – is making the enclosure for the flatbed while still leaving the crane free to load shit. I’ve been building a metal frame on either side, like a cradle, with matching garbage-camouflaged, flip-top canopies. When its not being used, the crane rests down the center and blends in with the rest of the roof. That’s what Steve is gluing on right now. A canvas cover, lovingly decorated with all kinds of trash and shit, covers the rest of the truck. When it’s finished, it’ll be a twelve foot tall, twenty foot long, and ten foot wide mobile blob of trash, with enough storage space inside to hold our whole fucking population.”
“Can it be ready by morning?” Marshal asked.
“With you here to do the wiring, it can,” Luca said confidently. “Nine a.m., we’ll be rolling in on that fucking slaughterhouse. By ten, we’ll have Angie back. You said that you and the soldier talked. You two work out a plan yet?”
Marshal hesitated.
“I was ready to go, Luca,” he said. “I was halfway out the door, ready to use the blanket to sneak down there and shoot every last one of them like vermin. After everything I’ve been through with Duster and Ted, after all my talk, I... suddenly none of that mattered. What I felt was cold and rational and… and that was it. I am so angry right now, but other than that, when I think of killing them, I feel nothing at all.”
“You’d have gotten yourself killed,” Luca grunted, examining him closely. “You’re lucky you managed to sneak this far without getting caught. The slaughterhouse? Three times the distance, in the middle of the day, you’d be zombie-vitamins before you ever got close.”
“That’s what Eric and Krissy said,” Marshal admitted, “and as much as I didn’t want to, there was a part of me that saw reason and agreed. The thing that finally sold me was when they pointed out how I could get our people killed. So we’re waiting. We’re waiting until Shitbox is ready, and we’re able to go there in force.”
“What’s the plan?”
Marshal gazed at Shitbox with a faintly bitter expression.
“We’re bringing everyone except Gladys and the kids,” he said. “A bunch of us, the ones least suited to fight, will stay with Shitbox, providing communications and drone support. Dr. Burke will be there to see to any injured. Sophie, God, Mike, and Valerie will pilot drones, and Kumar will be along to quarterback all the computer links.
“Stage one is to lure all the undead away from the area, far enough that they can’t hear any gunfire. After that, keeping them away is the job of the people staying behind. Eric can get the rest of us weapons, body armor, and radio-headsets from the Armory. Whatever these animals are using to control their people, it won’t be guns. They’ve survived this long, they must have learned that guns are a surefire way of drawing zombies, but it won’t be a problem for us, since we’ll have cleared the area first.”
“So we’re bringing guns and body armor to a knife fight,” Luca said with approval. “Nice tactical advantage.”
“We think that the best they have will be nail guns,” Marshal continued. “Some slaughterhouses still use them to kill the livestock. They’re air guns, so they don’t require electricity or gunpowder in order to operate. And they’re quiet, but they have limited range and can’t hold a candle to true firearms. So, yes, we should have a huge advantage. Kumar’s managed to find us some rudimentary, pre-outbreak blueprints on the place. Coupled with the footage from Crapmobile’s last few transmissions, it gives us six potential entry points. Anyway, once the streets are clear, two teams will enter the slaughterhouse through two of the back entrances and try to make their way to the animal pens.”
“Good,” Luca grunted. “I want to run the second one.”
Marshal frowned. “Why the second?”
“Why not? You’re leading the first, right?”
Marshal shook his head.
“Actually, there will be three teams,” he said. “Even with a limp, Eric is the obvious choice to lead the first team, consisting of Tom, Brad, and Brian. Krissy had some tactical training before and after the academy and is the next most qualified to take on the second team with Paul, Cesar, and Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth?” Luca asked.
“Believe it or not,” Marshal said, “she’s got loads of experience firing a gun.”
“Damn right she does,” Steve broke in, a wry smile on his face. “She spent every weekend down at the gun club firing range. She has a permit to carry and everything.”
“Scary woman to be hauling a gun around,” Luca said.
“You got that right,” Steve agreed, shaking his head with a laugh. “Sometimes, I’m amazed that she didn’t blow my head clean off a long time ago. Then again, I know her better than anyone. She’s fearless, relentless, and she’ll do just about anything to right a wrong. But again, don’t tell her I said so.”
“Sounds like you still hold a candle,” Luca said.
“A torch, Luca. A torch.” Steve said, smiling. “I still love her. I just can’t stand living with her anymore. She hates too easily, and I’m low-hanging fruit. But I can just bet what her reaction was when she heard about the abduction of that little girl. Pissed off, was she?”
“I could have struck a match off of her eyeball,” Marshal said, without humor. “I wasn’t the only one Eric and Krissy had to calm down. Anyway, she’s on board.”
Marshal took a deep breath.
“The third team,” he said, “is going to be just the two of us, Luca, you and me. We’re going in first, using the front door, guns holstered but out in plain sight.”
“What?” Luca flared with anger. “You’re kidding, right? We’re going in as negotiators?”
Marshal didn’t blink.
“We start by negotiating. We offer them the chance to surrender peacefully and answer for their crimes. We wait patiently while they surround us, train all thei
r weapons on us and work themselves into a state where they feel strong. When they think they’re negotiating from a position of strength, we listen to their threats and counter-offers. Hopefully, they posture for a while, they beat their chests, they vacillate. Meanwhile, with all their attention on us, Eric and Krissy move in with their teams and secure the animal pens. They choke off any ability to use our people or their own as hostages and put armed response at their backs.”
“Nice. It puts us with a gun to their head,” Luca said, nodding. “Improves our negotiating position.”
“It’s our best chance of finishing this with as little loss of life as possible,” Marshal said in a neutral voice.
“What if they won’t cooperate?” Luca asked.
“I’m glad you asked.” Marshal moved over to the open hood of the boom truck and peered in at the Tesla engine. He began rolling up his sleeves. “With Eric still at half-strength, you and I represent our team’s most dangerous players. That’s why we take point. They’re going to aim every nasty weapon, broken bottle, and sharp stick in our direction. They think that will make them safe from us.”
He reached down and started checking the connections.
“They’re wrong,” Marshal said in a voice that could freeze lava. “Eric and Krissy moving in on their backfield is the only thing keeping them alive. If they don’t want to play it that way, then you and I have all their most dangerous people right where we need them to be.”
“And if they use Angie as a shield?”
Marshal hesitated only a second as he reached for the soldering iron.
“I might have to stall for a while,” he said, squinting as he worked, “and wait for the right shot opportunity to arise. But it will, and when it does, I will put a bullet in the brain of the man or woman holding Angie. Then we slaughter the rest where they stand.”
The ice in his voice caused Luca’s eyebrows to shoot up.
“Marshal,” he said.
“What?”
Luca hesitated, unsure of what he had to say next, or even how to say it. This was the sort of conversation that, historically, had always happened the other way around. Adopted or not, Marshal was the brother he’d always counted on, the one who had always kept him even. Like any good Catholic, Luca regularly visited a priest for confession, but he didn’t trust the priest to lead him back to the straight and narrow. He trusted Marshal. In fact, whenever he talked it over with the priest, they both agreed that Marshal was True North in Luca’s moral compass.
“I get that you’re mad, buddy, but…”
He looked over at Brad and Steve. The two of them read his expression, and sensed the desire for privacy. Without words, they moved away and went back to work.
Luca sighed like a regretful breeze.
“The problem, buddy,” he said, shaking his head, “is that you’re too much like your dad. You know that? He had a fucking terrible temper too.”
Marshal’s head snapped up in surprise.
“M-my Dad?” He blinked, confused by the sudden and unexpected reference. “What’s that got to do with anything? And for that matter, what do you know about my Dad?”
“I know that every guy in the outfit was scared shitless of him,” Luca said. “I know that he’s one of the main reasons the Sabbatini Family got to be such big wheels in the criminal underworld. Most of what I heard came from the older guys, since I was pretty young when he died, but they still talked about him. You were never supposed to ever know about that side of him, but now… well, it’s a different fucking world now, ain’t it? And you need a reality check.”
Marshal gaped at him.
“Thing is,” Luca said, “bad as his temper was, your Dad…. He had your mother – and you – keeping him from sliding off into some fucking kind of oblivion, you know? You two were, like, his salvation. His center of gravity. From what I hear-”
“What are you talking about?” Marshal said. “Jesus Christ, Luca! Are you out of your mind? You think I don’t remember my own father? My dad was part owner of a construction company, where he worked as a foreman. And I never saw him lose his temper once! The man was a walking cup of Prozac, even at the worst of times.”
“No Marshal,” Luca said with a sigh. “He wasn’t. His temper made me look like a fucking priest handing out redemptions, only where I tend to explode like a volcano, your dad was the exact opposite. He’d go cold and quiet like a goddamn glacier. When that happened, you did not fuck with him.”
Marshal opened his mouth and shut it again, the words sticking in his throat.
“You see, Marshal,” Luca continued, “most of the time, your dad was basically a decent guy. It was like Jekyll and Hyde, you know what I mean? When he was busy or happy, or when he was around you or your mother, he was the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Good guy, hard worker, nice to animals and shit. He was a lot like you, except taller and all skinny muscle, like Torstein. He was always trying to find ways to make things fair for everybody, always trying to do the right thing. Everybody liked him, and my dad loved him like a brother. That’s the part you know and remember.”
Luca held up a warning finger.
“But,” he said, “there was this other side of him. It mostly came out when he was mad, though he could also sort of ‘phase’ into it when he was on a job. And when that part of him came out, he turned into a cold-blooded, psychopathic, computer-brained motherfucker. No morals, no feelings, no fucking humanity, and a scary kind of focus that never missed a target and never made a mistake. That part of your dad was a Sabbatini hit man – the Sabbatini hit man, actually, a fucking living legend. And Marshal – so help me – I’m watching you become more and more like him every day.”
Marshal, his eyes wide with disbelief, blinked at him in confusion.
Luca held up his hands like he was framing a painting.
“Picture it, Marshal. Fucking Dr. Jekyll comes home every morning with blood on his hands. He knows that this Hyde guy isn’t another person, that it’s him going out murdering every night… well… not every night. More like every week or so, depending on all sorts of, y’know, economic factors, or whether or not some other gang is out whacking our guys. Or maybe there’s a zombie apocalypse or something going on, and… and he can, y’know, see the reasons for what he does when he’s Hyde. But that don’t make it any easier when Jeckyll’s back in charge. It’s Jekyll that’s gotta look himself in the mirror, hug his kid, kiss his wife, and try to find his way back to normal. And it’s Jekyll that’s gotta try to cheer up a little girl when she’s got insulin sickness, or figure out how to keep a bunch of people at the end of the world from just giving up. You know? Hyde just pays the bills.”
Marshal’s expression was frozen, his gaze, lost and distant.
“I once saw him,” Luca chuckled, “pull this guy’s eye right out of its socket. I was ten at the time, spying on my dad in our back yard when he was havin’ a meeting. Bunch of guys… I think they were Russian. They acted like Russians. Anyway, there were six or seven big, fucking guys, all muscle, shaved heads, and bone, confident of their shit, arguing with my dad about something and shoutin’ at him. It was just Pop and your dad and some guy called Rocco, who wasn’t nearly as tough as his name sounded.
“Anyway, there was this one Russian, bigger than the others, getting right up in Pop’s grill. He was my size, you know? And you could tell what he thought about us weak North American gangsters, forgettin’ that it was at the immigration office that our dad’s met in the first place. Right? And for that matter, I know plenty of guys raised right here in Toronto who know how to crack skulls. But try telling that to Russians. No fucking manners.
“Anyway, it was around this time that your dad puts his hand on the guy’s shoulder, gets his attention. The big guy turns, smirking, and says something to your dad, who gives him one final warning, and then - whoosh! – just like that, your dad’s holding the guy’s left eyeball in his hand.”
“Jesus!”
“I kno
w, right? Well, for the first, like, ten seconds, nobody seemed to realize what’s happened. Everybody stopped talking, and even Pop looked surprised. And so, with everybody staring at him, your dad holds up this guy’s eyeball, says a few words, and then tucks it into the guy’s shirt pocket. Then, they just stand there and watch as your dad walks over, gets a gun from the cupboard, comes back, and waits while Pop gives the Russians his answer. They left after that without saying another fucking word, and Mr. One-Eyeball, shakin’ and bleeding down his cheek.”
Marshal shook his head. “Jesus, Luca. That’s…
“Disgusting? Fucking nuts? Yeah, well you don’t get to be a legend in the mob by baking cookies. And that was what your Pop was like when he was Mr. Hyde. They gave him the nickname ‘Winter’, or sometimes ‘Dr.Winter’, on account of his skill at putting painful problems on ice. He was one of the most efficient and expensive assassins in this hemisphere, and he was ours. The cops never found out who he was – or at least, they could never prove it – and neither could any of the other gangs, but they were all afraid of him. A big part of our expansion happened because, when other criminal gangs started fucking with us, Winter would deal with it. Shit. There were gangs from as far away as South America willing to pay for his services. A couple hundred thousand was the starting rate, and it went up based on the difficulty, the target, and whether or not your old man wanted to do it.”
“Why the hell didn’t anyone ever tell me?” Marshal demanded, feeling a lump in his chest. He held Luca’s gaze. “Fuck that, Luca. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Luca looked back at him helplessly.
“I wasn’t never supposed to, Marshal,” he said. “Your dad… He didn’t want you to know about… about Mr. Hyde. He got Pop to promise to look after you if anything ever happened to him and to keep you out of the life. He never wanted any of that for you, and Pop was obsessed about honoring his last wish. I’m sorry, Marshal, but you weren’t there! Remember when I used to take you to that firing range? When Pop found out, he lost his shit! Screamed and yelled at me so loud that I thought he’d have another heart attack. I think he was honestly scared that you’d fall in love with guns and he’d be responsible for betraying his best friend’s dying wish.”
From Oblivion's Ashes Page 39
