I glance at it. Then I study his face to see if he’s joking.
“Oh, that’s right,” he says. “You’re tied to the table.” Retracting his hand, he clears his throat. “We haven’t been formally introduced. The name is Sanders, like the fried chicken guy. Colonel Sanders, get it? Everyone just calls me the Colonel now. Not without well-earned respect.”
Yeah, right. Well-earned respect that comes from calling your friends names like “faggot” when you feel insecure about something.
The Colonel points at Bandanna. “This gentleman over here is Olin; couldn’t think of a nickname for him, though he always wears a bandanna so I call him ‘faggy bandanna-wearing gentleman’”—Olin smiles at this—“while this hirsute and debonair caballero over here”—he swings his finger at the man who had driven the Jeep—“is Russell, but we call him Wheels because he loves to bitch and moan if we don’t let him drive the Wrangler.”
The Colonel points at me. “And you, young squire, what is your name and family crest?”
I ignore his stupid mannerisms and stutter out what I can.
“K-Kip,” I say, unable to control my shivering now. It’s only going to sap my strength. I need to compose myself, but I’m in the grip of a panic attack, which hasn’t happened since I was a kid. Thoughts of Melanie and my father and the antibiotics in my pack swirl maddeningly in my head.
The Colonel chuckles.
“Kip,” he says, lowering his face—and his stinking, pube-like beard—over mine. “What kind of a wussy name is that?”
“Short for—for Kevin,” I say. “Melanie. Where is she? What did you do to her?”
“Nothing yet. But I told you. She’s meat.” Then, with a mocking squint and an equally mocking voice, he says, “What is she, anyway, your girlfriend? How sweet.”
As I lie there shivering, he struts over to the other table, waves Bandanna aside, and picks out an instrument. When he comes back, he holds it over me just right so the blade flashes in the lantern’s glow as he twists it.
I’ve never seen a scalpel up close. Never knew they could be so sharp. It looks like it could cut through diamond. But the blade isn’t what scares me. It’s the small size of it. A hunting knife would have told a different, and more predictable, story. The scalpel, however, is tiny in his bearish hand. This tells me the Colonel is going to take his sweet time with whatever torture he has planned.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Kipper. Mind if I call you that?”
He actually waits for me to answer. My mouth is clamped shut, and I’m breathing so hard I can feel my nostrils stretching. I never look away from the scalpel as I gasp a reply.
“Yes.”
“Yes, you do mind?”
“No.”
“No, what?” he says.
His bushy eyebrows shoot up in amusement. This isn’t about finding my stash and surviving. It’s about having fun, passing the time, showing off to his buddies—both of who, strangely enough, remain completely silent.
I give him what he wants.
“No, sir.”
“Very good. Now, this here is a scalpel. See these nicks and scratches?” He holds it over my face so I can study two nicks in the blade. “They’re from hitting bones during the cutting process. I’m no doctor, you see, and sometimes, my hands shake.”
He holds the scalpel over my face. It’s perfectly steady. A few seconds pass before he suddenly shakes it, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t lose one.
“Oops! Almost got ya, Kipper!”
He chuckles. I glare at him, breathing through clenched teeth.
“Just stop,” I say.
He ignores me. Now he’s just standing there, studying my midsection like he’s wondering which part of it to slice open first.
“The spleen, I gather, is located between the hypothalamus and the trachea,” he says, either completely insane or having the time of his life, “which leads me to believe that a quarter-staff incision beneath the right circadian nerve structure—no, that’s not right. Maybe if I cut from the balls up…”
He approaches me, blade extended, aimed at my crotch.
“Okay, okay,” I say, pausing him. “I can take you to my stash. But my father’s inside. He’s armed. He’ll shoot you, but—but not if you let me get him out of there.”
The Colonel’s arms cross over his chest, one hand twiddling the scalpel.
“So we just let you and your daddy go, is that it?”
I lick my lips. Maybe I’m getting somewhere. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me and Melanie go into the house. We’ll convince my dad to leave unarmed, and then the three of us will disappear. You can have the house and everything in it. It’s yours, and no one has to die.”
The Colonel taps his chin with the scalpel’s blunt end, taking on a pensive look.
“Very idealistic,” he says. “So, let’s say I agree to let you, Papa Smurf, and little Robin Hood-in-a-Skirt go scampering away into the woods together. What’s to say you won’t come back later to mess with my affairs?”
“Because it’s too risky,” I say. “There are three of you, all carrying guns. But I’ll be unarmed with only an old man and a scared girl.”
Something I said causes Wheels to launch himself into a standing position. He is easily taller than six feet.
“She ain’t just a scared girl,” Wheels says. “Someone trained her. I saw how she held that bow and went for that arrow. Besides, I called dibs on her—”
The Colonel cuts him off. “Noted, capitán. You’ve convinced me not to turn my life around and protect the innocent children after all, which I deeply appreciate.”
Shaking his head and swearing under his breath, Wheels lowers himself onto the crate. Bandanna watches him, chuckling.
“Innocent children,” Bandanna says. “That’s rich.”
Wheels lets out a frustrated grunt.
As I make sense of what has just happened, I feel a pang of hope. Their way of interacting with each other—the awkward displays of masculinity; the minor bouts of distrust, like the Colonel saying he used to work in the FBI; Wheels thinking the Colonel would just give away a girl he had already claimed—tells me that these guys are new to capturing survivors. They have no set of rules, no protocol in place. The nicks on the scalpel are most likely a lie meant to scare me.
This is all a game, a chance for them to outdo each other, maybe experiment with different styles and attitudes. That would explain the Colonel’s childish arrogance and his stupid nicknames, and the way Wheels and Bandanna just stand there, waiting to see what happens next.
If I’m right, then that makes me a player—which also means I can win.
Or at least cheat.
“Who was he?” I ask the Colonel as he again makes his way to the metal instruments on the table. “The man you threw to the infected yesterday.”
“You were watching us, eh? Or do you consult with owls, young Kip?”
He lifts a ballpeen hammer. I wince at the thought of the hammer’s blunt tip causing gruesome damage to one of my testicles.
“For your information, he was my half-brother,” the Colonel says, lowering the hammer and picking up a pair of scissors that squeaks as he flexes it. “My mother’s bastard child from the fag lover she took before my old man made an honest woman out of her. Bobby was always trying to tell me what to do, how to run things.”
“You killed your own brother?” I say.
He shrugs as if to say, What else could I do?
“Sure I did. You see, his last name was Lee, so everyone started calling him General, like the great General Robert E. Lee, the old Civil War guy. Since a general ranks higher than a colonel—”
Bandanna snickers at this. The Colonel, still holding the scissors, grins and shrugs again in a gesture of helplessness. It’s obvious he’s enjoying the attention.
Wheels, oblivious, has taken off one of his boots and is scratching the skin between his toes, emitting a foul smell. He’s probably heard this
story a million times.
“So what was I to do to correct this injustice?” the Colonel says, directing his words at Bandanna, the only person in his private audience who seems amused. “The bald-headed asshole thinks he can start bossing me around just because he’s a general and I’m a lowly colonel?”
The Colonel is distracted as he tells the story. I use the opportunity to finger the knots binding my wrists. One of them feels loose, and I begin to pick at it.
Until I find Wheels standing over me.
“Want to lose a finger?” he says.
His voice comes out low and secretive. It sounds more like an offer than a threat, which means he is eager for the opportunity to hurt me. The man is clearly a psychopath.
My hands go loose and drop to the table.
“Hey, what’s going on over there?” the Colonel asks, striding over.
He grabs Wheels by the front of his shirt, backs him up against the stack of shelves, and holds the open scissors against his neck, like he might snip his Adam’s apple in half.
“I was in the middle of a story about my dear brother,” the Colonel says. “Have you no heart? The man is dead!”
Bandanna convulses with laughter. I watch and listen for subtle messages in their confrontation.
“Let go of me,” Wheels says to the Colonel, angry but calm.
“I will, but only if you play nice. This is my prisoner. You get the girl after Olin has his fun, which should only be about thirty seconds after he starts, like last time.”
More raucous laughter from Bandanna. Maybe they have taken prisoners—a girl, it sounds like. My hope sinks.
“…then you can fatten her up all you want, my dear capitán.”
These words make it sink even more.
I consider everything the Colonel has just said. It seems strange that Bandanna would go first when Wheels already “called dibs” on Melanie, unless the Colonel’s use of the phrase “fatten her up” means that Wheels claimed her for something other than sex.
“Well, I, for one, think it’s cutting time,” the Colonel says, releasing Wheels. “Enough chit-chat, unless we’re talking addresses and mailbox numbers.” He turns to me and holds the open scissors above my groin. “Well, Kipper? Have anything to disclose?”
He makes a snip snip sound with the blades. Every muscle in my body clenches.
If I tell him what he wants, it probably won’t change his plans. He’ll kill me anyway. And why not? At that point, I’d be a risk and nothing more.
I see only one option left.
“You won’t get anything from me,” I say, meeting the Colonel’s eyes. He pinches them in curiosity. “If Melanie is just meat and there’s nothing I can do for her, then all I have to lose is my life. And I don’t care about that anymore. So you have two options.”
“Oh?” he says. “Kipper is giving me options. Look at that.”
“Yeah,” I say, “well, you won’t even get those if you touch me. Or I could take you to my stash. That’s the only way you’ll find it. Up to you.”
“Hmm.” The Colonel pets his beard with one hand, snaps the scissors with the other. His next question catches me off guard. “Are you left-handed or right-handed, Mr. Kip?”
“Left,” I say, which is a lie. A natural reaction. I only hope it’s the right one. I mimic a tone of regret. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“Hold his left hand down,” the Colonel tells Wheels.
Wheels grabs my left wrist and pins it to the table.
“What are you gonna do?” I say, breathing hard.
The Colonel holds up the scissors and studies them.
“Nah,” he says and flings them away—a ringing sound of metal against metal as they crash into a shelf. “I know what I need. Good old trusty friend of mine.”
He goes back to the table, picks up the scalpel, and brings it over.
He’s standing to my left now, next to Wheels, who is using both of his hands to pin down my wrist, even though I’m not struggling. The sharp ache in my skull has expanded into a full-on hurricane of pounding agony. Sweat, cold as ice, drips down the sides of my face.
I keep quiet and try to breathe steadily. No matter what happens, I can’t crack.
Pain is just a signal, my father told me once, in the early months of the Outbreak when I tried to get out of a daily workout session by complaining about sore muscles. A message your nerves are sending to your brain. It’s background music you can learn to tune out…
“I’m going to test you,” the Colonel says. “If what you say is true, and torture won’t be enough to get you to spill the beeswax, I’ll know in a matter of minutes.”
“If I scream?” I ask him, holding his gaze.
He wags the scalpel at me. “You scream, and I’ll know you’re weak. I’ll keep right on going until you tell me where your stash is located, and what kinds of booby traps your old man has set up around the house. I find out you’re lying, and when I get back, we’ll have a second date in Hell, you and I.”
“You won’t get anything,” I tell him. “You’re just wasting time and daylight.”
Bandanna emerges from the darkness to my right. He leans over me.
“So get it over with,” he says in his raspy voice. “Save yourself the trouble. Tell us where it is.”
I spit in his face—pale, foamy flecks that make him recoil, blinking and muttering curses. My body tenses in anticipation of his response. He pulls back an arm to slap me, but the Colonel reaches across the table and levels the scalpel at him. Bandanna freezes.
“What the fuck, Colonel?”
“My prisoner, remember?”
Bandanna nods and backs away. Crossing his arms, he leans against a stack and watches while the Colonel focuses on my clenched hand.
“Open sesame,” he says. “Let me see those fingernails. Or maybe you’re too scared. Is that it, Kipper? Should we maybe talk about your house instead?”
I raise my hand, but the fingers remain bent inward against my palm.
All but one of them.
I extend my middle finger, a symbolic fuck you I want badly to say out loud.
“Your move,” I say instead.
The Colonel chuckles, shaking his greasy head. “You know what, Kipper? I like you. If it makes you feel any better, I think you could have been one of us.”
I ignore him and concentrate on the darkness above us. I try to project myself into it so my consciousness is no more than a distant satellite orbiting my body, dead space between the two. A barrier to keep away the pain. My father tried to teach me this technique once.
I never got the hang of it.
The Colonel starts on my middle finger. I feel a tickle as the blade slips between the nail and the skin beneath it. When it severs the connective tissue binding the two, the pain is so great I’m amazed by it.
My spine rises off the table as my back takes on the shape of Melanie’s compound bow.
Pain is just a signal. A message. Background music.
A silent scream claws its way out of my chest. It beats the walls of my throat, desperate to break free. I swallow it down.
“Thattaboy, Kipper,” the Colonel says.
He flicks something away. My fingernail, probably.
Then he starts on my ring finger again, slipping the blade under my nail.
Oh God, holy shit, the pain!
It’s just a signal, a message, background music. You can tune it out. You can tune it out, just a signal, a message, background music, like in those elevators, the people standing around, tuning out the pain, the music, the background elevators…
Blinding, sparkling pain—stars against the blackness. I thrust myself toward them, reaching for the escape that lies beyond.
Another finger—another nail…another journey to those stars.
Laughing. They’re laughing at me.
I flatten my back against the table, holding back tears, gritting my teeth in silence.
Another finger—my thumb, th
is time—gets torn open at the tip, and new stars are birthed against the darkness. My teeth are clenched so tightly together that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to open my mouth. The phrase, Pain is just a signal, becomes more rapid, harder to hold on to, a flailing rope I try to grab like I’m drowning, and the phrase is my lifeline.
If I let go, I’ll sink into the pain. I’ll let its current carry me away, and I’ll scream just to be able to breathe again. I’ll howl and beg and yell for the Colonel to stop and let me go, for the men to go raid my house at 113 Exeter Road, Peltham Park, NH 03812, my father be damned.
Melanie takes my hand.
I don’t see her. She is a phantom resting its warm weight against me.
It doesn’t matter, she whispers into my mind, filling it. But I do. I matter because you love me. The pain is nothing. It doesn’t exist.
But I do.
That’s when it comes out of me.
“More,” I tell Wheels and the Colonel, and suddenly I’m hysterical, free, my body shaking like I’m possessed, cannibalizing the screams and shitting them out as laughter. “More, more, more, more, more, more…!”
Laughter. That’s the secret. Dad had it wrong. I’m laughing, and suddenly the pain isn’t so bad, because that’s the music right there.
I laugh at them, not with amusement, but with the ravenous hunger that fuels the infected—hunger not for food, but for more reasons to laugh at their stupid, worthless plans, and their stupid, worthless fucking lives that are no more than a virus, the weakest kind.
“I’ll be goddamned,” the Colonel says over my maniacal laughter, though he isn’t laughing the slightest bit. Neither is Wheels, who’s glaring at me beneath furrowed brows—or Bandanna, who’s standing nearby with his mouth forming an O of surprise.
Finally my laughter dies away. The pain is still there, but it’s like an alarm I’ve gotten used to hearing. I look at the Colonel, who studies me with a slanted gaze, like he’s suddenly not sure what to do.
“You gave your word,” I say.
The Colonel wipes sweat off my forehead with one hand. “That I did, brave Kipper. That I did.”
He motions for the others to undo my binds. Wheels and Bandanna get to it—grudgingly, I sense from their expressions, but silent as a pair of mimes. The Colonel waits for them to finish, then slips my gloves out of his back pocket and throws them at me, probably so I can use them to stanch the bleeding.
Outbreak: A Survival Thriller Page 7
