He took care to avoid being seen wandering around so early in the morning, so far away from his assigned duties with the animals. He gave a wide berth to the areas where he knew the soldiers were posted.
He was glad that the deluge of winter rain had hardened into ice, at least for now. It would be inconvenient when he started driving, but he’d worry about it when the time came. For now, he was just grateful that he wouldn’t leave tracks.
He went into the area where the trucks were parked and began looking around, finding nothing but additional problems and stumbling blocks to his plans, despite the fact that his biggest worry—which was that he was going to run into Jack—was unfounded. They must have taken the truck he was working on and parked it somewhere different.
Sighing as he surveyed the fleet of vehicles, Brad had to admit that this was probably where he would have parked them as well. There was no obvious way to get a vehicle out of here without alerting the whole damn complex. He’d have to drive right past all of the apartments from here, along with the Major’s office.
He pushed his hand through his hair and sighed. Plan A was officially down the drain for the moment. He’d just have to hope his subconscious would come up with something good.
As he wandered aimlessly back around, trying to think without forcing himself to think lest he frighten the ideas away, he saw the hole in the fencing. He stopped in his tracks, staring at it for a moment. He’d completely forgotten to report that breach and he’d certainly forgotten to patch it.
He’d signed for the completed inspection using Jack’s initials, which meant that if the major found out about the hole, it wouldn’t be Brad’s ass on the line. It would be his friend’s. As much as he didn’t want to talk to the soldiers, he probably needed to. Whatever the punishment would be, he didn’t want it falling to Jack.
He started to turn and head to the office, but then he stopped, glancing around. No one was watching, and he really needed to explore the surrounding area a bit more. If things went sour and he ended up with no choice but to leave on foot, he’d need to know where he was going.
He walked up to the hole and measured it with his eyes. It wasn’t big, but he could probably squeeze through. With another look over both shoulders, Brad took the chance, pushing himself through the small hole as quickly as he could without ripping his clothes.
There wasn’t much of interest on the other side, just an expanse of field and some trees that had been planted around the complex in better times. Planting trees next to a forest seemed like overkill to Brad, but who was he to judge. Maybe the director of this place had known something about elderly people that he didn’t. Maybe they really, really, loved trees.
He wandered mostly aimlessly, making sure to stay in the shadows. He was concentrating so hard on not being seen that he nearly fell headfirst into the huge pit that had been dug out just inside the tree line of the actual forest. Standing on the edge, waving his arms for balance, he eventually managed to teeter back onto solid ground.
“What the hell?” he muttered, gazing into the darkness.
It wouldn’t have killed him to fall into the hole, but he certainly could have broken a limb or two. Why was the damn thing even there? Brad knelt at the edge and looked down into the pit even more closely. There were tin cans and all kinds of other debris down there. So, this was their dump site.
He’d wondered what they did with their trash, but it was always the soldiers who were assigned to trash duty. Which was rather odd, now that he thought about it. Why wouldn’t the soldiers make a civilian do the dirty work? Maybe it was the Major’s way of keeping the civilians happy, of proving to them that everyone had to do some dirty jobs.
It didn’t really seem like something that the Major would do, but it was the best explanation Brad could think of. As he started to stand up again, a scrap of red fabric caught his eye and he leaned closer. What kind of a moron threw away fabric? His closer look told him it was a shirt; he could see the cuff at the end of the sleeve. He rolled his eyes, but then he realized something.
Gauging the distance, confirming that he would be able to get back up if he went down, Brad slid down the side of the pit. Who knew what people had thrown away in the early days? If he could gather a fair amount of supplies from the trash pit, he could stockpile them deeper in the woods and no one would ever know.
He walked over to the spot of red and tugged on it, expecting a shirt to come free. Instead, a human arm popped up from the sludge of leftover snow, ice, and dirt. Brad bit back a shout and stumbled backward, slipping and sliding. The arm lay still on the ground. Obviously. The skin was gray. Whoever the arm belonged to had clearly been there for a while.
He caught his breath, leaning over, pressing his hands to his knees. He wanted to keep the body in sight just as much as he didn’t want to look at it. Had someone stumbled into the pit and then not been able to get out, he wondered. Brad shook his head, refuting his own theory. No. The pit was deep, but it wasn’t that deep. Anyone could have dug some hand and footholds into the sidewalls if they couldn’t manage the climb up on their own.
He stepped back and nearly tripped again. Looking down, he saw that he’d stumbled over a foot in a shoe. As he stood there, cold with horror, he noticed more and more pieces of clothing…and the bodies within them. Another shoe lay further to his left. There were more shirts scattered around, as well. One of them was a floral-print blouse.
This wasn’t a garbage dump. This was a mass grave.
He had scaled the wall of the pit before he’d even stopped to think about moving. He stayed on his hands and knees at the top, legs suddenly too weak to carry him, gulping in huge breaths of cold air as he tried his best not to gag.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the gold glint of bullet casings on the ground around him. The dirt underneath him would have long ago absorbed the blood of the victims, but he would have sworn that he could smell it, coppery and strong in the air around him. He fought down another wave of nausea.
He didn’t need any confirmation to know that the bodies were those of the facility’s former residents. That much was crystal clear, and it explained the age range in the facility. Everyone was able-bodied and unlikely to have health issues. A physically perfect group of people.
But he wanted confirmation, anyway. He wanted to make them admit what they’d done. He wanted to make them own up to the atrocities they’d committed in name of convenience. Anger flooded in and burned away the disgust. It had been a goddamned old folks’ home! Who the hell had herded these elderly people out here and slaughtered them this way?
The answer was obvious. Brad stood up and headed back to the complex. This time, he didn’t give a damn whether he was seen or not. Anger had eclipsed everything. None of his plans mattered to him at the moment. It was time for him to see the Major. He walked up to HQ and brushed past the soldier, reaching for the door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the soldier demanded, pulling him back. “Major Walker isn’t—”
“Then why are you guarding the door?” Brad demanded, yanking his arm free of the other man’s grasp with a quick move.
“It doesn’t matter. I said you can’t go in.”
“Then fucking shoot me,” Brad said. “Because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me from saying what I came to say.”
The soldier wavered. Seizing the opportunity, Brad shoved open the door and strode through the front room, into the cozy inner office. Major Walker was exactly where he’d been the first time Brad saw him, sitting at his desk near the window. The only difference was that this time, nearly every soldier in the place was with him. None of them looked thrilled with the fact that Brad had burst through the door. A good number of them raised their guns. Brad stayed right where he was, looking directly at Major Walker.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks,” he said. “I’m pretty sure these guys aren’t passing on my messages.”
Walker smiled and waved
a hand at the soldiers. “Put those down,” he told them, eyeing Brad. “You’re not armed, are you?”
“No,” Brad said. “I’ve played by your rules, Walker. You’re the one who’s been lying.”
The uniform look of shock on the soldiers’ faces would have been funny in different circumstances. Brad could tell that what he’d said was unheard of. A look of fury passed over the Major’s face before he got it under control. Brad didn’t care. His own anger was far from in check.
“Say what you’ve come to say,” Major Walker ordered.
“I found the grave,” Brad said flatly. “You’ve got three seconds to tell me the truth about it.”
Walker smiled and poured himself a small portion of whiskey. As he swirled it around in his glass, he said, “Do you want to have a seat?”
“No, I don’t. I want you to answer my question.”
“It’s fairly simple. The trash pit is for things that aren’t useful,” Walker said calmly, taking a sip of his drink.
“How can you— There are people in there!” Brad hissed.
“Of course there are. Not every person is worthwhile.”
In the face of such a calm response, Brad was compelled to rush at the man. He wanted to hit him until he understood what pain and fear were. But there were too many soldiers there for that.
“How can you do this?” he asked instead. “How could you just kill them and then leave them out there?”
“I told you when you arrived,” Walker said with a slight shrug, as if he was chastising Brad for not having read the terms and conditions. “You have to be useful to stay here. Those particular people weren’t useful at all.”
“Why? Because they were old?” Brad demanded.
Walker inclined his head and took another leisurely sip of his drink.
“Some of them, yes. Certainly everyone who was still living here when my men and I decided to stay. Some of them arrived later.”
Brad stared at him, aghast. “So there are other bodies in that pit? It’s not just the former residents?”
“No, of course not. I’ve told you, Brad. It’s not personal.” He shook his head. “The pit is filled with trash. The elderly…what were they going to do besides take up medical supplies? The sick and injured that crawled in here…” His face twisted with disgust. “I was doing them a favor by putting them out of their misery. And, of course there’s no point in feeding the ones with the no real skills, even less the ones who want to cause trouble.”
“Who defines skills?” Brad asked, his stomach starting to churn. He’d thought that there had been more to being evicted than he’d thought, but he hated to have it confirmed so coldly.
“I do,” Walker said, biting off each word with a snap of great satisfaction as he leaned back. He eyed Brad clinically. “You, for instance, have a great number of useful skills. You have medical knowledge, for one thing. But you’re also actually good at everything you said you were good at. That’s rare. You wouldn’t believe some of the lies people told in the beginning…” he shook his head. “Those skills, Brad, are why I haven’t had you shot for your interference with my people and for your insistence on finding those people you traveled with before.”
He looked at Brad, the firelight dancing over his face, highlighting the fact that there was no emotion in his eyes. There was nothing there other than the blank complacency of a madman who was so sure that he was doing the right thing that nothing Brad could ever say would change his mind. How the hell had he missed it? Why hadn’t he run while he’d had the chance?
“But it stops now,” Walker said. “You’ll fall into line right now, or you’ll pay the price. Killing you isn’t something that I want to do and I want to make sure that you know that.”
Brad met the Major’s eyes. “I know,” he said. That part, at least, he didn’t doubt. The Major wanted to use him, so there was a level of insubordination that he was going to be allowed to reach. However, he could tell that he’d pushed those boundaries hard today. “I believe you.”
“Good. Your first mission is tomorrow night. And it’s mandatory, so don’t even think about skipping out on it. I don’t care if you’re sick as a dog. Be here at nine.”
“Mission?” Brad asked. “What exactly are we going to do?”
Walker poured another dram into his glass. “I think that the time has come to look for your people. It might be nice to see how they fit into our little community.”
Brad worked hard not to let his shoulders slump as he understood the threat. If Anna, Sammy and Martha were found, Walker would hold their survival over Brad’s head, ensuring that Brad did his bidding. And if they didn’t find them, no harm done. He could waste a few days looking and it would make him look positively benevolent to the people in the facility. Major Walker really was a master of crowd psychology.
And Brad had no choice but to go along with it because he’d made the mistake of letting a crazy man know what meant the most to him. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll be here.”
“I’m glad to see you make the right decision,” Walker said before turning back to his soldiers. “I would have hated to have your blood on my carpet. I’ll let you see yourself out.”
By the time he arrived back at his apartment, Brad was feeling utterly defeated. He wondered if everyone at the complex was in on what happened. Or were they as ignorant as he’d allowed himself to be? His friends had known that people were evicted, but did they know what that meant? Did the people here know that they were one sustained illness or broken limb away from being shot and thrown out like garbage?
He pushed the door shut behind him and locked it out of habit. It wouldn’t stop the soldiers if Walker changed his mind, but he liked the sense of privacy that a locked door gave. You just didn’t get that when you slept in a tent. It was only as he turned around to head for the kitchen that he realized he wasn’t alone.
Chapter 18
Brad jumped, but he quickly realized that the intruder was even more frightened than he was. The kid standing in his kitchen couldn’t have been over sixteen. He looked terrified, but he was standing perfectly still, as if hoping that somehow he wouldn’t be seen. Brad recognized the classic deer-in-headlights response. The kid probably couldn’t move if his life depended on it. And in some areas of this complex, it would have.
“Who are you?” Brad asked casually, as if they were meeting on the street.
“I…I’m…my name is J-Jamie,” the boy said, his voice cracking just slightly.
“Where did you come from, Jamie?”
“I…” the kid gulped, twisting his hands together. “I was…”
“It’s okay,” Brad said, moving away from the door. Even from that far away, the boy flinched in fear. “Why don’t you come have a seat. You can tell me what’s going on and I’ll try to help you.” He lowered the blinds and tossed a couple of logs on the fire. He didn’t want to rush the boy. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said when Jamie wavered, half in and half out of the kitchen.
As the kid finally walked into the living room, Brad realized that he wasn’t exactly young enough to be called a kid. He had to be in his late teens. Maybe closer to eighteen than sixteen. But he was shaking so hard that Brad could hear his teeth chattering and he didn’t think it was entirely from the cold.
“You worried about Walker?” Brad asked.
Jamie, who had been about to take a seat on the couch, froze again and then nodded slowly. “Uh, yeah,” he admitted. “You could say that. Are you…are you a soldier?”
Brad snorted. “No,” he said. “I’m definitely not his biggest fan.”
“Oh, good,” Jamie said. “I saw the camo and the boots and I was worried, but I should have known that you weren’t. A soldier would have shot me on sight.”
“Sit down,” Brad said. “I’ve got a few questions, if you don’t mind.” When Jamie nodded, he pressed on. “How did you end up in here?”
He’d never seen the boy before, which meant that either the
Major had hidden him away somewhere or that Jamie had been exiled and had returned. Brad had a million questions, but he figured he’d start at the beginning and try to draw the story out in order.
Jamie sighed and sat down. “The soldiers found me during one of the raids. They brought me back here, and that’s when I met Major Walker.”
Brad nodded, wanting to hurry him along. So far, Jamie’s story mirrored his own. He needed to get to the point at which they diverged.
“He asked me what I was good at and he told me to be honest,” Jamie continued. “So I was honest. I told him that I’m not good at anything, and he laughed and put his hand on my shoulder.” He reached up and touched his shoulder as he spoke, as if he could still feel the man’s hand lying heavy there. “He said that he could work with me. That I was moldable. And so he started training me.”
“Training you? To do what?” Brad asked, feeling apprehensive.
“Mostly shooting,” Jamie said. “It turned out that I’m a good shot. Like, really good. The Major called me his sharpshooter.” He swallowed hard. “He kept up the training, making me do more and more hours with it. He even let me live with him. The rations were a lot better and it was the nicest apartment in the whole facility.”
“But he kept you isolated, away from the community,” Brad said. “Is that why you left?”
Jamie shook his head. “That wasn’t it, no. A few days back, he told me that it was time to put my training into practice. He…he wanted me to ‘deal with’ a soldier for him.”
Jamie looked down at his hands and gave another shrug. Brad saw him swallow a few times and remained quiet. The kid needed some time to get it together again and Brad was willing to let him have it.
Now that the fire was going and he’d lit the oil lamp, Brad took a second to really look at the boy. The kid was at that awkward stage where he seemed to be all arms and legs. He was just as skinny as Brad had been at that age—maybe even skinnier, what with the whole apocalypse. The idea of this kid being asked to do a hit on someone was absolutely ludicrous.
Enter Darkness Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 41
