by Naomi West
Anderson turned and came back over, his demeanor more subdued. He bought it, I figured. He stooped down and began collecting my clothes, handed them to me and turned around. “I-I'm sorry,” he said as he turned his back to me and allowed me to get dressed in a little privacy. Asa, for his part, kept his face turned into the quarter.
I stood up and began to put my clothes on. “It's okay,” I whispered after my panties and bra were back on. “You didn't know. He came to me, and I had to think on the fly, that's all.”
“You're so much like you mother,” my uncle said after a while, “you know that? She was smart as a whip, too. Way smarter than your pops ever gave her credit for.”
Not smart enough to keep her from marrying a psycho, or dating a piece of shit like you, I wanted to say. Instead, I just mumbled a thanks as I slid into my jeans and pulled them up snugly around my hips, fastening them tight. I grabbed my top and pulled it on, suddenly very grateful to be fully clothed.
“Do you think it'll work?” Anderson asked as I stepped up next to him and glared down at Asa with my best haughty bitch impersonation.
“Why're you asking me?” I replied with a grim smile. “You're the real boss around here, aren't you?”
He puffed up a little, standing taller at my compliment. “Yeah,” he said. “You're right, baby cakes. I am.” He nodded. “It'll work.”
My skin crawled at his nickname for me. I felt like I needed another shower, and it had only been a few hours. “Have the keys?” I asked my uncle. “I say we get this show on the road before it's too late.”
Together we unlocked Asa. I undid the cuffs on both sides and Uncle Anderson covered him for me, to make sure he wouldn't make a move on either of us. Now free, Asa dressed himself, his hard body disappearing back beneath his clothing again. I always hated it when that happened, but right now there were important things to be concerned with.
My adopted uncle kept his gun trained on Asa the whole time. Of course, my handsome man wasn't going to make a move. Why would he? Anderson here was our ticket through the front door so we could get to his boss. We ushered Asa out of the storage room and back into the tunnels, turned right to continue down the way I'd originally been walking. He stayed a few feet ahead of us, his hands behind his head.
“Sorry,” Anderson said quietly after a few silent moments of the three of us just walking, his voice breaking the sound of echoing footfalls as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his bulk. “About earlier, I mean. All the stuff I said, baby girl. I didn't really mean it.”
Sure he didn't, I thought. Because that's the kind of shit you say to your niece when you don't mean it. “Don't mention it,” I said, pressing myself into his side with a creeped-out shudder as his big, creepy hands squeezed my shoulder and upper arm. “I wasn't worried,” I lied.
His hands stroked my bare arm as we continued to make our way through the tunnel, sending a wave of nausea through my stomach. He'd been bad before with the way he'd looked at me like a piece of meat, but this was even worse. I wanted to slap him in the face, steal his gun, and pump him full of lead for what he'd threatened to do to me back in that room. This man was human filth.
We walked the rest of the way in silence, twisting and turning through the tunnels beneath the Fortress. “Don't shoot” Anderson called out as we rounded a corner and saw two security guards flanking a secure door. “It's me. Got a prisoner is all.”
One of the men was Bunk, the guard who had grabbed me earlier when I was in the manager's office. “Mr. Saylor says he doesn't want to be disturbed,” he said, stepping forward. He had a big shotgun hanging across his chest by a strap. “That means even you, Mr. Vance.”
“Bunk!” screamed my father through the intercom next to the door. “Who in the fucking blue skies is that, boy?”
Bunk frowned and sighed, visually displeased at our having awoken the beast. I sure hope he was getting paid well for all he the bullshit he had to deal with. Pops had been a handful even before he went crazy. “It's Mr. Vance.”
“What in Christ's name he want, Bunk?”
Uncle Anderson walked closer. “Dalton, I got the guy that beat our boy Snake just a little while ago. And Lauren, too.” He looked to me pointedly.
I made a face as I stepped closed. “Hey,” I said. “I'm here to, um, apologize for the way I misspoke earlier.”
The radio crackled off and on a few times, its pops and static hollow and distant in that passage below the earth. Finally, he spoke. “Well come on in folks!”
There was a loud buzz, and then the sound of locks releasing on the security door. I looked pointedly at Anderson, and he returned my gaze as the door came slightly ajar, letting out a crack of soft yellow light.
“Now,” Anderson muttered as we began to march Asa into his so-called punishment, “you've seen your father up in the office. Here, though, um, you'd best prepare yourself.”
“Is it worse down here, where he's living?”
Anderson just swallowed and nodded. “Much.”
Asa pushed through the door, swinging it wide. It was like a bunker down here, the kind of place you'd imagine they would have built for the government during the 50s to stop atomic bombs. Candles lit the room like some sick, science fiction version of Phantom of the Opera, the warm yellow light throwing dark and twisting shadows onto the walls all around us, shadows made by the piles of raw cash and giant bales of white powder and bags of methamphetamine crystals. There, in the middle of it all, sat two giant, high-backed chairs, virtual thrones.
Asa walked in first at my adopted uncle's prodding, his gun digging into my man's ribs. He walked in and stopped in his tracks just ten feet through the door as Anderson slammed the door shut behind us. “My fucking God,” Asa said in disbelief as the door hummed like before, this time sealing us in with the old man.
My father sat on the right wearing soiled boxers and the same dirty wife-beater undershirt as before, his old trucker hat with a Skoal label printed on the front perched atop his balding head. He grinned at the three of us, his yellowing, stained teeth like a row of tombstones in his mouth. “Howdy y'all. Lauren, honey, welcome home. Your mother's missed you something fierce.”
I stepped to the left, my eyes adjusting to the gloom of my pops' private residence. As I came out from around Asa, I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes wide, my heart immediately pounding.
“Mother!” I screamed as my chest immediately felt like an elephant took a seat on it.
There she was. Seated on the throne next to my father. Her skin desiccated, her hair falling out, the pearls she'd always loved hanging from her corpse neck, her Sunday church dress pulled crudely over her body. My father really was insane. His memory wasn't simply gone, his mind was broken like a dry twig. I dropped to my knees, my breath seizing as I felt my chest close up. I couldn't handle this. Was this my father?
“Now, come on, Lauren, baby,” he said as he leaned over and stroked the back of his hand on my mother's cheek. “Give momma a kiss. She's awfully sore about not getting to see you yet.”
I slumped forward, bracing myself with my hands as I dry-heaved onto the concrete. I just hoped Asa could fix this. Because I sure as hell couldn't.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Asa
This was just too much. This man was fucking nuts. Like Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre all wrapped up in one. How could a man like this actually exist in a day and age like ours? Running drugs? Sure. Sex-trafficking? Alright, I knew it existed, even though I couldn't stand it. Rapists, wife-beaters, murderers, all the others? Yeah, I hated it, and I punished it when I saw it.
But digging up his own wife and dressing her like that? Propping her up as he sat in his own filth, surrounded by his money and drugs? Anderson had known about this, about this descent into insanity, and he'd allowed it to continue, enabled it even. He deserved no sympathy from me, or any other human being alive. This wasn't going out and doing a line of blow at the bar o
n a Saturday night, or getting a hooker for a business meeting while you were at a business convention. This was evil at its worst, the kind of thing that ate away at societies from the insides, leaving just a hollow husk behind as the rest crumbled and fell away.
I heard Lauren drop to the floor behind me, heard her gasp out my name as she panicked. I could practically feel Anderson's gun on me as well. Feel the barrel lining up with my spine, the back of my head. Adrenaline kicked in, my years of living on the edge of the law taking over. I stepped backwards till the gun hit my back.
When you moved like this, no one had reason to pull the trigger. You'd just bumped them, but you hadn't moved your hands, which is what they were tracking with their eyes. Most people didn't have the tactical training to know they needed to step away and keep a safe distance.
Anderson didn't move. Didn't say anything. He was too stunned. “Lauren?” he called out from behind me, the barrel of his gun massaging my spine. “Baby girl, it's okay.”
In front of me Dalton Saylor cackled like a madman, clapping his hands gleefully as his daughter fell to the ground. Now was my chance. I needed to keep the barrel away from me. A bullet has less than inch across where it can enter your body, and it's like a mini cannon. If you're going to get hit, it's because you're standing in front of it. I spun around quickly to my right, whipping my hand out as I went, hitting the gun that Anderson had briefly held against my back.
Anderson, slow on the uptake, pulled the trigger too late. The gun discharged, firing its shell out into the concrete enclosure, zinging as it ricocheted around the creepy-ass bunker before it embedded itself in a bale of cocaine. The muzzle flash burned my shirt, and the skin beneath, but I didn't care. I grabbed the gun with one hand, trying to twist the barrel away from me, even as I grabbed him with my other and tried to take him down to the ground.
He fired again, almost on reflex, as he struggled against me, the muzzle flashing again as another bullet went ricocheting around the room. Still, old man Saylor's cackle echoed in my ringing ears.
“What're you doing?” Anderson asked as I took him to the ground, a surprised tone to his voice.
“Making Lauren safe,” I growled in reply, “from you.” I twisted the gun back to him, pointing it at his chest as we wrestled on the concrete.
He twisted the gun away from me for a moment, got the barrel pointing towards Lauren, where she still rested on her knees in panic-mode. With my other hand, still tied up with his, I grasped forward, letting go of the gun. I stabbed my thumb into his left eye, digging in deep.
He screamed and thrashed, his hand trying to drag mine away, the gun jerking up to the ceiling in his pain. “My fucking eye, you fucking piece of shit!”
I bared my teeth and pressed deeper into his socket as I twisted the gun around in his grip, pointed the barrel back into his chest. And still, all around us, Saylor's cackle swooped over the room like the calls of a murder of crows, taunting us, calling us nothing and less than human. Anderson struggled, but I kept the gun pointed to his chest. He was a good grappler, solid all around, but I was better.
I tried to get his finger out of the guard, tried to disarm him. I didn't want to kill him anymore than I wanted to kill any man, no matter who they were. Finally, as Lauren gasped beside me, and Dalton Saylor cackled all around us, I realized I had no choice. Anderson had to go. I got my thumb in with his through the trigger guard, the barrel pointing right into his chest. I pushed my thumb, pressing the trigger down.
The gun leaped in his hand, thundering loudly again, as it fired into his chest, two bullets entering with a wet thud. His good eye flew open wide, stared aimlessly at me, losing its focus as it looked through me and past me. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet gurgle as blood dribbled from his lips. He blinked, gasped again. His body spasmed and sagged, the life gone from his eyes.
I grabbed the hand from Anderson's lifeless corpse, prying it from his dead grip. I rose and spun on Dalton, leveled the barrel at him. Dalton just grinned at me with those nasty teeth of his, his teeth and gums pulled back from them like they wanted nothing to do with that dental work. He held up a black device, about the side of a small cellphone with a red button on top. “Nah ah ah! You drop that gun, son, or we're gonna make the Fourth of July look like a backyard tire fire,” he said, holding up the device.
I kept my pistol on him as I glanced towards Lauren, who was still on her knees gasping for breath, her face red, the veins on her neck standing out as she continued her panic. I swung my head back to Dalton, licked my lips.
“This whole fucking place is wired to go,” he said with a cackle. “You shoot me, son, and we all go up together. Gotta enough ANFO and C4 rigged around this place, they won't even be able to use our dental records to identify the bodies. Between that and all the diesel and ammo we got stored here, we'll be crispy critters in no time.”
ANFO. I knew the stuff. It was what had been used at Oklahoma City to destroy the Federal Building. The blast had been strong enough to shatter windows fifty-five miles away.
“Now lower the goddamn gun, boy. Do it.”
I licked my lips, lowered my gun, and pointed the barrel at the floor.
“Drop it, son!”
I tossed the gun aside, sending it clattering into a bale of white powder. I turned and knelt down beside Lauren, put my arm around her shoulders.
She flinched and shook as I touched her, but soon relaxed as I whispered in her ear. “Everything's going to be alright,” I said. “It's going to be okay.”
The words sounded empty and hollow even as they left my mouth. I knew it was a lie. We were both going to die here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lauren
Looking back, I should have realized my father had been going downhill for a while. The accusations, the screaming, the sudden fights with mother at all times of day and night. The day he killed her, I came home a little before four in the afternoon, same as always. He'd been down the street in the old Cadillac of his, slumped down in his seat, his trucker cap pulled low like neither mother or I would recognize him as he tried to keep a watch on the house.
“Mom?” I called when I got into the house. “Mom, you here?”
“In the living room, honey.”
I went in and joined her in the front living room, the one that was reserved for when guests like the preacher or his wife came over to visit. She stood there like a vision. Tall, shapely, her long blonde hair flowing down the back of her sundress. She was peering out the blinds at the street.
“Mom, why is dad down the street like that?
She pulled her hand from the blinds, let them snap back into place. I could tell from her face she was troubled, but she put on a brave face anyways. “Lauren, honey, he's just, um, keeping an eye on the house, that's all.”
“He didn't come home again last night, did he?”
Pops had been doing that a lot, lately. Staying out at the new construction site he and Uncle Anderson were working on. And, whenever he actually was home, he and mother fought like cats and dogs. Always, it seemed, he started the argument over the smallest thing. She'd spent too much money, she'd been late coming back from the grocery store. Who was the man she'd been talking to?
“Oh,” mother chirped, “he's just working with your Anderson. You know that. A lot of people are depending on him.”
Since I'd been thirteen or so I'd had an idea of what they did for a living. He and mom said it was an import-export business, but people who ran companies like that didn't carry a gun on them all the time, or have envelopes full of cash in their briefcases. They also didn't know how to hot wire a car or pick locks, or any of the other nifty tricks he'd taught me. But my mother always wanted me to live a safe life, one full of delusion, where the world was a safe and happy place, and my father was just your run of the mill business man.
“Sure, mom,” I said. “But, doesn't that seem a little weird to you?”
She laughed, her voice like the tinkl
ing of a bell. “Oh, honey, why would you think that was weird? He's just a man protecting his castle, that's all.”
“Fine. Well, I have some homework to get done. What time's supper at?”
“Just a couple hours, so six o'clock? How's meatloaf sound?”
“Sounds great,” I replied as I went to leave the room. “Call me when it's ready?”
“Of course, honey.”
I heard my mother moving in the living room behind me as I headed down the hallway. I'd made it all the way to my bedroom door when she called out to me. “Lauren?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, honey. I just wanted you to know that.”
I gave her a lopsided smile and confused look. “Yeah, I know you do. I love you, too.”
