“I’m afraid that’s for David’s eyes only.”
“Are you him?” TJ asked bluntly. “The guy who chopped off that chick’s hand?”
Tom pinched the brim of his hat, dipped his chin.
“Holy shit. Alright, dude.” He held his palms to Tom. Sweat glistened on his forehead, seemingly all at once. “Well, we enjoyed hanging with you and shit, but we gotta hit the road, ya know?” He tossed his head toward the exit, cuing the other two to start inching their way toward the door.
“Oh, I wish I could reciprocate the sentiment, and it is indeed time to hit the road.” He patted the box. “We have a delivery to make, you see.” He smiled, then smoothed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger.
“Alright, man. Good luck with that.”
The trio started hurriedly toward the door.
The ripping of metal against leather. Then a deafening gunshot.
They stopped abruptly, sneakers squeaking and scuffing against the floor. The trio dropped immediately to a crouch, hands up or on top of their heads. Pieces of ceiling tile rained to the floor.
Raising his voice, Doc said, “Perhaps I did not make myself clear. We are going to make a delivery. Now.”
“Listen… Doc… dude. Whatever you got going on with those assholes at the Alamo place… hey, we feel ya, man. Hate those fuckers just as much as you. But they ain’t gonna wanna see us again.”
With a heavy tremble in her voice, Laura added, “Plus, getting in’ll be a bitch, man. All those deadies around the fence?”
“You three are going to deliver David’s package.”
Mallory, still crouching and holding his hands up as if under arrest, gave it the old college try despite never having attended a day in his life. “Look, dude. Mad props to you and shit. Seriously. You’re obviously Mr. Bad Ass and all that, dude. Total respect. We get it. But we just ain’t mailman material, ya know? Those UPS guys? They’re studs, man. But that ain’t us. And we sure as shit ain’t no good at deadie killing.”
“Oh, I beg to differ, young man. Seems your friend there just told me a hoot of a story about gunning down Doc Holliday from two-hundred-plus yards out with one shot.”
“It… it was two.”
Doc just stared at him, more lazy blinks.
Almost whispering, Mallory said, “Two shots. Downed him with two shots. Dude. Doc. Mr. Holliday. Sir.”
“See?” Doc said sharply, causing all in the room to flinch. “One of you has a talent, after all.” He started pacing, tapping his chin, eyes studying the trio. “You three are going to deliver David’s package. You’re going to walk right up to that fence, and you’re going to wait for him. All three of you. Even if it means you stand there all day and night.”
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Laura said, “Dude, did you not hear us? Those deadies, they’re surrounding the place. There’s no fucking way we can just waltz up to the goddamned fence and stand there.”
“Oh, there is a way,” Doc said. “There is always a way.”
Chapter 14
David was standing in the middle of the small room, hands hooked on his hips, head rocked back. His uncovered eye roved the tiled ceiling. “You know the layout of this place, right, Gabe?”
“I do.”
Pointing up near one corner, David said, “Could go through there, crawl a little ways, then drop into one of the vacant rooms. Come back for you…” He looked at the Janitor for approval.
The old man shook his head, sidled up to David. “Pardon my pessimism, Dave, but can’t see either of us climbing up there, what with your bum wing, and my brittle old bones.”
David raised his wrapped right wrist, twisting it, then sighed.
“Besides,” the Janitor continued, “I’ve got a much easier way.”
Eyeing the corner tile again, David said dismissively, “And what way would that be?”
The Janitor reached into his jumpsuit pocket, retrieving a key. “I’ll just unlock the door.”
David pulled his gaze from the ceiling, stared at the key pinched between Gabriel’s fingers. A twinge of distrust touched his core, followed by a dusting of hope. “You have a key?”
Smiling, squinting his eye at David, Gabriel nodded.
“It fits the lock? You sure?”
A nod. “Master key. To most of the locks, anyway. Fits this one. I helped install the ones in this hall, so ain’t no doubt it works.”
“Then why…?” Shaking his head and waving off the thought, David started toward the door. “Never mind. Let’s get the hell outta here so we can—”
The Janitor held a palm to David, bowing his head. “Now hold your horses, Dave.”
Fighting an almost instant surge of anxiety and anger, David said, “Hold my horses? For what? Luz has lost it, Gabe. I don’t even think she’s a real doctor, to tell ya the truth. She had a hell of a time stitching up my face, and Randy had to tell her what to do and what to look for when she was treating me. We need to get outta here before she comes back. No telling what she’s liable to do.”
“I agree, Dave. She’s unstable, and confused about things. Ain’t arguing that point. But before we go strolling down the hall with bull’s-eyes on our backs, you and me need to be on the same page about some things. Where we’re headed, what we’re doing. And what we believe.”
David narrowed his eye at Gabriel. “What we… believe?”
The Janitor’s lips thinned, and he gave a deliberate nod.
“I’ll tell ya what I believe, Gabe,” David started. “I believe that Luz is—”
“No, Dave. I ain’t talking about Luz. Or Roy, for that matter. I’m talking about you.”
Huffing, David said, “Gabe, can’t this wait? Sort this out when we get outta here? Get somewhere safe, first? What if Luz comes back and finds us still in here?”
“What if she comes back and finds us gone?”
Crossing his arms, David averted his eyes from the Janitor’s piercing gaze. He sighed heavily again, then said, “Okay, so what do you want to know?”
“Sit down, Dave.”
“I’ll stand.”
Gabriel motioned to the cot. “Please…”
David eyed him curiously, suspiciously, then crossed to the cot. Before sitting, he said, “Gabe, please. I’m begging you here. Can’t we talk about this after?”
“This is important, Dave. If me and you are gonna make a go of this, I have to be sure.”
“Sure of what?”
The Janitor dipped his chin at the cot, urging David to sit. Finally, David acquiesced.
“Thanks.”
David just stared up at him, feeling like a child about to be punished for an egregious misdeed.
“Dave, you and I jawed a bit the first day you got here. I told you a lot about me, but I don’t know much about you. Just what I’ve been told, and what I’ve discerned for myself. Now, I’m good. I can read people like a billboard with bodacious print. But I want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Hear what? What do you want to know, Gabe?” He started to press to his feet, but the Janitor flashed his palm like a stop sign. “I really feel like we’re wasting—”
“Dave. Please.”
“Okay, Gabe. Fine. Let’s talk. What do you want to talk about, huh?” His impatience brimmed, gushing from deep within like a rotted water main. And right along with it spewed a rising resentment, mixing and mingling into a muddy mess. Gabe was supposed to be an ally, a friend. Self-preservation, that fight-or-flight feeling, was smashing David’s sternum hard. He liked Gabe, trusted him. But he would not let the old man demolish their opportunity—his opportunity—at escape. At his chance to make things right.
And he would not allow anyone—Janitor included—jeopardize Bryan’s life or Jessica’s.
“I’ll try to make this quick, Dave.”
You’d better, old man. “Shoot,” David said. He hinged forward, elbows on his knees, ready to get the interrogation over and done with.
; “Tell me about your wife, Dave.”
“My wife?”
Gabriel nodded. “Yep. Your wife. Natalee.”
David didn’t recall ever telling Gabriel Natalee’s name, but assumed that Jess or Randy must have mentioned it to him at one time or another. He shrugged, then lied. “Not much to tell.”
“I think there is.”
“Gabe, really, what does my wife have to do with this?”
“Same thing Scotty has to do with this.”
David simply stared at the Janitor for a few precious seconds, trying to jump ahead, figure out what the old man was driving at so he could play the game and they could get the hell out of the bear cave before mother bear came back. Get somewhere safe, or at least safer. How he wished Gabriel would just postpone their little interview. Or skip it altogether.
He forced the gears to spin. He knew Scotty. Well, knew of him. Never met the guy in real life—only in real death. And only for a very small amount of time, as he ended Scotty’s existence in this world with a well-aimed bullet to the brain.
“Scotty?”
“Scotty, Roy’s son. You met him. Well, met the reanimated body that was him…”
David’s eye darted around the room, his agitation blowing up like a balloon about to reach the popping point. The conversation was becoming cryptic. And he was losing focus. Fast. “Get to it, Gabe. What does he have to do with me or Natalee?”
Gabriel sighed like a father disappointed that his child wasn’t figuring out the solution to a simple math problem. “The world ain’t just sick, Dave. It’s dying a slow and painful death. We talked about it before, you and me. There are folks who get it, and folks who don’t.” He wagged a finger at David. “You claimed you got it, or led me to believe as much. But me and Lenny, we seen the demons, Dave. You yourself even admitted to ‘em earlier today.”
“Fine. I’ve got demons. So what’s your point?”
“The point is, Dave, that deep down, I believe you’re an Infirmary.”
“What? How can you say that? Especially after I shot—”
“I think you can be swayed to their way of thinking. Of believing a dangerous lie.”
David just stared at Gabriel, his brow dropping low. He thought the conversation would revolve around answering a few questions about Natalee, then maybe a couple of others, then figuring out what the hell they were going to do once they slipped out. Done and done. Up next, an Alcatraz moment, a mysterious midnight escape from the Alamo.
Shaking his head, feigning a smile, David said, “Gabe, I’m not one of them. Luz—an Infirmary—pointed a fucking gun at me, for Chrissakes. Locked me in the same room as you. Remember that part? I hardly think they’d welcome me into the fold.”
“When did Natalee die?”
David straightened, the corners of his mouth diving. His breathing shallowed. “What exactly are you accusing me of, Gabriel?”
“I ain’t accusing you of anything. I asked a simple question.” His cadence slowed. “When did your wife… die?”
The Janitor started to blur, along with the rest of the room, and David swiped at his eye, which only made it worse. He wanted to desperately hold back the flood, to be strong, to be a man. But it was pointless. Those damned tears were back for an encore performance, and they brought the whole band on stage with them. He let his head drop, ran his hand under his broken nose while the tears reopened his broken heart.
“When, Dave? It’s a simple question.”
The thought of her, of his wife… Natalee… dying… just destroyed him. The whole idea, the whole concept of ‘dying,’ then becoming an undead monster… He didn’t want to associate his wife with that line of thinking. With that word. Preferred to just let the thought of it—and her—die. She didn’t deserve this. Not in life, not in death, and not in the shit that fell in between it all.
David choked out, “Semantics, Gabe. Sounds like we’re just playing a goddamned game of semantics.”
“It’s a serious question, Dave. One you ain’t answered yet.”
David pressed to his feet in a rush, practically ripped the bandage from his head as he tried to rake shaky fingers through his hair. He almost fell back to the cot. “I don’t know, alright? I don’t know.”
“How can you not know, Dave?”
“Because… Gabe. I… I didn’t get to her in time. Okay? I didn’t make it. He had a gun to her head—”
“Who? Who had a gun to her head?”
David sighed deeply, slapped his thigh. “Doc. He had a gun to her head. She was tied to a chair. Sammy and Guillermo… they left her and Doc…” He swiped at his cheek, wincing when his fingernail snagged one of the damp stitches. “Doc must have—” He fought back a sob, then he turned, faced the door. “So I guess… a few days ago. Okay? Can we go now?”
The Janitor’s lip twisted under his mustache. “No, Dave. We can’t.”
Chapter 15
The pond was perhaps a hundred yards into the woods from the edge of the field, a short jaunt relatively speaking, and at the end of a fairly straight path. There were only about three turns, if they could be called turns. They more resembled slight twists. Thankfully, the way was mostly clear of rocks and sticks or other detritus. Recent and fairly constant traffic on the trail had helped keep the grass and weeds mostly at bay, allowing for unobstructed passage. Occasionally, the underbrush grabbed at Jessica’s ankles and shins, though she was never in any real danger of diving chin-first into the dirt. The mosquitos that buzzed her face like little high-pitched Kamikaze warplanes proved more annoying and distracting than the groping foliage.
As the sobbing became more prevalent, so did the awful smell. She considered slowing down, actually dragged her toe, kicking up a cloud of dust. But she couldn’t halt herself, Nike-clad feet on autopilot, seemingly just as curious—and concerned—as she was.
She started around the pond.
A child?
That’s what the whimpering resembled. A young child. Or perhaps a young woman. Was hard to tell. Whoever it was, they were being hushed by another.
Two people?
Now Jessica stopped. She’d made it halfway around the water. A two-foot wide trail circled the stock pond, bumped up right against it. Thick bushes encroached on the path, reaching into the trail and toward the water. Beyond the near-impenetrable bushes, dense woods. Viewed from the air, Jess imagined the pond would look like a single eyeball in the forest’s green face.
She slapped her own face, sending another buzzing, biting warplane to its bloody death. After a quick glimpse at the carnage on her palm, she wiped it on her jeans. She craned her neck, eyes prying in the direction of the sound.
More shushing. Weak whimpering. The smell of death.
She dreaded what she’d find, especially given the current state of unrest and dissension overtaking the Alamo, wondered if perhaps someone had taken to killing the dead in a location the Infirmaries couldn’t find them as easily. Or quickly.
Her mind then raced to thoughts of a stalking madman.
Doc.
She could still hear his heavy drawl in her ears, proclaiming David and Mitch dead. He’d lied about one, spoke the truth about the other. She hoped it’d stay that way.
Still looking across the peaceful pond, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Whatever that was. Dragonflies hovered and skittered above the water, cutting minuscule ripples, tempting the fish with a colorful and tasty snack. The usual sounds of the woods were in full swing, and she even heard an owl despite darkness still being a few hours away.
She willed her feet to move again, her eyes darting, ears ultra-sensitive. As she neared the tip of the water, she noticed two narrow strips of trampled grass.
Like a car drove down here. Recently.
She realized then that she was actually looking at a road, one that never got to see much use thanks to the end of the world. The grass was well on its way to obscuring what was left of it. Soon, probably within a few weeks, it’d be hard to tell a r
oad was ever there, the weeds having erased it completely. If the rain ever came again, of course. Then, only a trained eye, or overly observant one, would be able to see the shallow ruts. She guessed the eroding, vanishing road had been used by vehicles to stock the waterhole. No other reason she could think of for its existence. Had the world not ended when it did, the Alamo would have been one hell of a retirement spot.
But fresh tire tracks in the grass concerned her. Was this where Doc had parked and—
Shifting the pistol from hand to hand, she wiped her palms on her jeans, pressing the blood from smashed mosquitos deeper into the denim. Then she said a small prayer. She really didn’t want to use the Sig, didn’t want to kill anyone dead, or alive.
She was just starting toward the source of the sound when the sad souls revealed themselves in non-dramatic fashion. No bogeyman, no shuffler… no Doc. They pressed slowly to their feet, eyes glassy, and locked on Jessica.
Thank the fucking lord above.
“Bryan? Taneesha? What… why are you two out here?”
“Jessica,” said Taneesha. “Thank God it’s you, girl.”
Jessica’s head swiveled. She expected something more, someone else. An ambush, an attack. Something. The run-in with Sammy and Gills—not to mention Doc’s antics—left her overly paranoid. And she couldn’t help it.
“Is anyone else out here with you two?”
Taneesha shook her head vehemently, and she laid a hand on Bryan’s shoulder. Bryan had Charlie, his puppy, cradled tight against his chest.
Jess, lowering her voice, asked, “What happened?”
Taneesha looked around, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to explain. “We was inside. I was doing my assigned duty—watching the children. Bryan, Samantha, Kenny, and Julie. They was all there.” She paused, a hand going to her mouth, as though recalling a horrific event.
Jess moved toward them, replacing the gun to her waistband.
“Lenny came in the room we was staying in, said things was getting bad between the Infirmaries and Muertos. Said—”
Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row Page 13
