The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One
Page 31
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That afternoon, I call Benny, Vincent’s roommate. I tell him to tell Vincent to meet me at the deli later in the evening. Benny assures me that he’ll pass on the message. But the appointed time comes and goes and Vincent doesn’t show up. It’s a little strange, because since Vincent’s pretty arrogant, I don’t think he can conceive of the idea that we might kill him. He’s got a massive case of inflated self-importance. I figure that I must have misjudged him, though, and he must be too wary to meet me. After talking it over with Tommy, we decide we’ll go to Vincent’s apartment.
We figure we can still convince Vincent to take a drive with us. We aren’t going to whack him in his own apartment, that’s for sure. It would be way too hard to get a body out of the apartment in a populated area. It’s going to be harder if Vincent knows we’re gunning for him, and Tommy convinces me to bring some backup. So we take two of my cousins, guys that Tommy trusts and says are solid.
I’m not looking forward to any of this. I hate that Vincent’s drawing the entire thing out. I just want it over with. We knock on the door of Vincent’s apartment. There’s no answer.
Tommy and I discuss whether or not we think Vincent is out somewhere. He’s been carousing in bars a lot lately. Maybe he’s out drinking or gambling.
I call Benny again. I ask him if he knows where Vincent is. He says he hasn’t seen him since he gave him my message. Benny isn’t home either. He’s staying with his girlfriend in the city.
We make some more calls, asking a few of the guys Vincent runs with if they’ve seen him. No one has.
This is beginning to seem kind of weird. It’s also not cool for so many people to know we were looking for Vincent right before he disappears permanently. It looks suspicious. I want to back off the entire thing, but Tommy decides to pick the lock on the door on the chance that Vincent is inside asleep and can’t hear us.
Inside, Vincent’s apartment is dark. Tommy flicks on a light switch. “Vincent,” he calls.
No answer.
We move through the apartment to Vincent’s bedroom. I knock on the closed door. “Vincent?”
Nothing.
Tommy opens the door and turns on the light.
The first things I see are the streaks of red on the walls. It looks like someone was finger painting, the smears everywhere.
Then I smell the metallic scent of blood. Not finger paint.
Chapter Twelve
Vincent’s body is hardly recognizable. What’s left of him is splayed over the sheets on his bed, just a jumble of glistening organs and bloody, torn skin. It’s like someone tore him completely apart and then played around in the blood and guts. I’d think it were a wild animal if there weren’t handprints on the walls in blood. A person did this. More than one person, actually by the various sizes of handprints and footprints on the floor. The window of Vincent’s bedroom is open and there are bloody prints all around it too. The people must have gone out there.
But...
“Berserkers,” says one of the guys Tommy brought with us.
He’s right. That’s the only thing that could have done something like this. But it’s not midnight yet, and there were a group of them. They must be berserkers who’ve completely been taken over by the virus, who are berserkers around the clock. Why are they together in a pack like this? And why are they running free? The city rounds up or kills any berserkers it sees. It’s not like they could just roam the street freely without being noticed. And they aren’t organized. They don’t travel together. They don’t kill together. This doesn’t make any sense.
“Bunch of berserkers from the look of it,” says the other guy.
“Guess we’re lucky,” says Tommy.
I look at him sharply. “Lucky?”
“Vincent’s taken care of,” Tommy says.
I’m confused. I can’t believe Tommy’s so calm about this. This is terrifying. A pack of killer berserkers is on the streets. They’re climbing in windows and ripping people to shreds. There doesn’t seem to be anything lucky about that at all.