James reached past Pike and laid a hand on Mike’s chest, gently easing him out of the way. “Come on now, Mike. Take it easy. We still have law and order in this town. Let me handle this the right way.”
Mike moved out of the way. He didn’t have much choice. Even if he’d wanted to hold his ground, he had little strength in his legs. It wouldn’t have taken much for James to tip him right over like a top-heavy toy.
“You say there’s still law and order.” Mike followed the sheriff down the hall. “What if civilization continues to degrade? Things aren’t getting better, Sheriff. They’re getting worse, and what if no one from state patrol comes to pick up your prisoner? What are you going to do with him then? Feed him indefinitely, bathe him weekly like a zebra at the zoo? It’s a waste of time and money.”
James opened the front door, smashing Pike against the doorframe in order to reach the knob. Pike grunted in discomfort but otherwise didn’t protest. “Our jails are equipped to handle a short stay. If no one comes to get him after a few days, I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry, I’m not letting him go, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Mike glanced over his shoulder. No one else was in the hall. It seemed the survivors of the attack had split up into groups to tend to the wounded.
“Okay, well, I want to come with you,” Mike said, following the sheriff onto the porch. “I want to find out what this punk has to say. I won’t get in your way or anything, but I want answers. I know it’s bending the rules a little bit, but do me a little favor, would you?”
“That’s fine,” James said. “Go tell the others where we’re going.”
Mike hobbled back down the hall as fast as he dared and found Kaylee and Beth sitting with Jodi in the master bedroom. Dr. Yates had given Jodi a strong painkiller of some kind, and she was sleeping like a baby. Kaylee was in the corner, apparently trying to teach the little Schnauzer to sit and roll over—with little success. She seemed more subdued than usual, and Mike was sure the constant trauma was beginning to have an effect on the poor kid. Beth looked up at Mike as he appeared in the door, her face sagging with fatigue and worry.
“I’m going down to the jail with the sheriff,” he said. “We’re going to get some answers out of our little friend Pike. Maybe rough him up a bit for the heck of it.”
“Good,” Beth replied. “Make sure James locks him up and throws away the key when you’re done interrogating him. Let him sit in his cell and rot.”
“If I don’t decide to curb stomp him first,” Mike muttered, shutting the bedroom door.
He hurried outside, afraid the sheriff might leave without him, but he found James patiently waiting in his patrol car. Pike was handcuffed in the back seat. Mike gave him a hateful scowl in passing, but the punk didn’t notice. As Mike climbed into the passenger seat, he felt uncomfortable having the creep behind him, so he turned and sat at an angle that gave him an easy view of the back. Pike didn’t seem to have any fight left in him. He was bent over in his seat, the top of his head pressed to the back of the mesh wall in front of him.
He’s an ugly little guy, isn’t he? Mike thought, and did he almost—almost—feel sorry for him? What a pitiful loser, the frailest of his crew for sure. It was pure irony that he was the only one who had survived.
On the way to the sheriff’s office, Mike noticed that quite a few people had begun the process of fortifying their homes: building tall fences, putting bars over the windows, even placing spikes or other visual deterrents along the edge of their property.
That’s what we’ve come to, I guess, he thought. Every family in their own little fortress fending off the world.
The sheriff’s office was located in a little yellow building across the street from a closed mechanic’s shop. It was utterly dark, but the sheriff grabbed a flashlight out of the center console of his cruiser and turned it on, handing it to Mike. He parked just in front of the glass door then spent a moment wrestling Pike out of the back seat. Instead of openly resisting, Pike went limp and forced the sheriff to manhandle him roughly. Mike watched and considered helping, but he was afraid he would get hurt. It took enough of his strength just to get the passenger door open.
“Don’t make me drag you,” James said. “You’re only going to make it worse for yourself.”
Mike shone the flashlight in front of them. It was a blindingly bright LED light that flooded a large area around the men. When they went inside the building, they found that the reception area had been trashed. The little window above the receptionist’s desk was broken, and a phone on the shelf behind it looked like someone had hammered it for ten minutes. Some poster or piece of paper had been ripped up and tossed onto the floor.
“You know what the mess is all about?” Mike asked. “Did someone try to storm the sheriff’s office?”
“I imagine someone got upset that no one was here,” the sheriff said. “It doesn’t matter. We just need the holding cells in back.”
Pushing Pike ahead of him, he went down a narrow hallway and through a heavy door into a cold, concrete room where a series of small holding cells awaited. He opened the first cell and unlocked Pike’s handcuffs. Then he pushed him into the cell. Pike stumbled forward, caught himself against a stainless-steel toilet, and sat down on the concrete bed.
“Now, we’re going to have us a little talk,” James said, “and if I don’t get the right answers from you, I might just change my mind about my friend’s idea here. You know what I mean?”
Pike rubbed his face with his hands. “Talk or you’ll shoot me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I did not say that,” the sheriff replied, “but I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. If…and it’s a big if…we ever go to court over this, you can take it up with the judge.”
Pike glanced up at the sheriff, and a glimmer of fear flashed across his face. Yes, he understood the precariousness of his situation. The sheriff stood in the open cell door. Mike, wanting to be close enough to overhear the entire conversation, moved up beside him, peering through the bars.
“What do you want to know, sheriff?” Pike said. “I got nothing to hide.”
“You were the guys who kidnapped Jodi McDonald on the road north of Allentown?”
Pike nodded. “Yeah, but it wasn’t my idea. Talon did it on a whim. We were just after fuel, to be honest, but he took a shine to the lady and grabbed her.”
“She killed one of your men and escaped?”
“That’s right,” Pike said. “In the middle of the night. I guess while he was trying to have a little fun with her. She pulled his own knife and put it in his neck. We didn’t hear him die. It wasn’t until she stole one of the bikes that we realized what was going on.”
“How did you follow her back to the house?”
“It wasn’t as hard you might think,” Pike said, grinning despite his situation. Mike was sorely tempted to push his way into the cell and give him a good smack across the face. “After she killed the boss and fled, we marched a couple or three miles to the nearest house and helped ourselves to their old Ford Fairmont. Then we just followed her trail. Turns out a lot of people saw her on the road. A lady riding a brand-new Indian Scout all by herself with no helmet? Yeah, people remember that. Just asking questions got us to the highway, though it took a while.”
“And why were strangers so willing to give you information about her?” the sheriff asked. “I’ve never seen a more suspicious-looking group of weirdos than the three of you.”
That soured Pike’s expression, and the smile faded. “We just told people she was my old lady, and we’d lost her on the road after an accident. Played on their sympathies, you know what I mean? It worked.”
“It must’ve been dark when you were asking questions,” Mike said. He couldn’t help himself. “One good look at your face would’ve scared off most people.”
Pike scowled at him, his skin like a sea of Martian craters in the flashlight beam. “You’re one to talk, man. You look like a c
ancer patient who got lost on the way to the morgue.”
Despite himself, the comment hit a little close to home, and Mike sucked in his breath to keep from lashing out.
“Let me handle this,” James said, laying a hand on Mike’s arm. “Pike, you said you followed her to the highway, but how did you find your way to the house?”
“A stroke of damn good luck,” Pike replied, and the smile returned in force. “Once we got on the interstate, we figure we’d just punch it and try to catch up to her, but we knew our chances weren’t great. Then we come over the hill and saw her in the distance. Gunner had the best vision, so he saw what it was before I did. ‘That’s her,’ he shouted. ‘They’re putting her in that van up there.’”
“Did they see you?” the sheriff asked.
“No idea,” Pike replied, “but they hightailed it pretty quick, so I guess they must’ve.”
“Nah, if Shane had seen these guys, he would’ve blown their heads off right there beside the highway,” Mike said.
“Well, maybe he would have and maybe he wouldn’t,” Pike said.
James laid a hand on Mike’s arm again, and Mike clamped his mouth shut.
“So you spotted the van and followed them?” the sheriff said.
“Yeah, genius, that’s what we did,” Pike said sourly, staring at the floor. “When we got close, we turned the headlights off, so they never saw us following them. Hell, we followed them all the way to the clinic and watched as they unloaded her from the van. We had to be sure it was the right lady before we made our move.” He looked up and must’ve seen the hostility on the faces of James and Mike, as he quickly said, “Hey, I suggested we forget about her and just move on to the next town, but Wolf and Gunner wanted revenge. Plus, they figured the family had a lot of stuff we might want.”
“Garbage humans,” Mike muttered.
“That’s enough,” the sheriff said to Mike. “Okay, Pike, why didn’t you attack at the clinic?”
“We were thinking about it,” he said with a shrug. “Eventually, a whole bunch of people showed up, so we stayed in the shadows down the street. We followed them back to the house, but there were just so many damn people there. It didn’t seem safe.”
“Then the town meeting happened,” the sheriff said.
“That’s right. Another stroke of luck. Most of the people left the house, and we made our move. We can be patient when we need to be. Talon always said, ‘Bide your time. Bide your time.’”
The sheriff shook his head and sighed. “So much work and waiting around just for two of you to get killed and the survivor to rot in jail.”
Pike slowly raised his head, his eyes moving from the floor to the sheriff’s face. Suddenly, he smiled again, a big and confident smile. “You think this is over, but it isn’t. What you don’t know is we’re part of a much bigger gang, and my brothers will come for me. They’ll break me out, and you guys will beg for mercy by the end.”
Chuckling, the sheriff stepped back and swung the cell door shut. It locked with a loud clang that echoed in the concrete room.
“He just threatened us,” Mike said. “Aren’t you going to do something about that?”
“You know how many punks threaten me when I lock them up?” James said. “They plead, they beg, they bribe, they threaten, sometimes all in the same breath.” He took the flashlight from Mike and shone it in Pike’s eyes. “I’ll come back in the morning to check on you. Enjoy your nice, quiet, very dark night, you pathetic punk.”
And with that, the sheriff turned and walked away. To avoid being swallowed by the darkness, Mike hurried after him.
“You’re just going to leave me in here like this?” Pike said. “No food, no blanket, no lights.”
“Yep, that’s what I’m going to do.”
James waved Mike through the door, then shut the cell block behind him. In a nearby room, he retrieved a key, which Mike assumed was an extra key for the holding cells. He tossed the key in the air, caught it, and shoved it in his pocket.
“He’ll have a nice, quiet night to think about what he’s done,” he said.
On the way out of the building, the sheriff locked up the building. Then they drove back to the house. Mike felt a cruel satisfaction thinking about Pike sitting alone in a dark cell block all night. Still, he wondered if it was enough. Maybe they should’ve gone with his original idea. It was the only way to be sure they were safe, after all.
26
Shane had lost track of the days. He had to count them off in his mind before he arrived at the current date: May 5th. Had it really been that long since the incident? His past life, the world of streetlights and air conditioning and innocence, kept slipping farther and farther away. Soon, he doubted he would remember it much at all. Just a dream the whole world had shared once upon a time.
He’d spent the last few hours rotating from one injured person’s bed to the next, trading places with his mother-in-law as he went. At the moment, he was sitting at Violet’s bedside, petting Ruby, who had dutifully taken up a position near her owner. Kaylee and Bauer had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed, the little Schnauzer gripping a red rope chew toy between her paws.
“I can’t believe I got shot,” Violet said. Shane kept waiting for her to fall asleep, but every time she seemed to be on the cusp, she would make some unprovoked comment. “I never thought I would get shot. It’s weird.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Shane said, patting her hand. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“It didn’t feel like I thought it would,” she continued, speaking softly, her face all soft angles in the candlelight. “I didn’t even realize I was shot until I felt the hole with my fingers. At first, it felt like someone punched me in the shoulder, and then it got hot inside, like my muscle was on fire.”
“Try not to think about it,” Shane said. “You’ll be up all night.”
“I can’t help it, Dad. It was so scary. I tried to block them from going down the hallway. I didn’t want them to hurt Kaylee.”
“I know.”
She sighed. “They didn’t think I would shoot first…but I did. I’m glad I did.”
“Me, too. You did good. Kaylee is safe thanks to you.”
“Is Ruby there?” Violet reached down beside the bed until she found her guide dog’s fuzzy flank. “There she is. She’s being so quiet tonight.”
“I think she’s guarding the bed,” Shane said.
“She’s always a good girl.”
Ruby turned and licked Violet’s hand before returning to her post.
“They won’t come back, will they?” Violet asked.
“The only one who survived is on his way to jail right now,” Shane said. “Even if he wasn’t, I doubt he’d come back. This is not a safe house for criminals. His friends learned that the hard way. We protect ourselves, and we fight for one another.”
Shane heard movement in the hallway. Jodi was speaking to someone. His wife kept insisting on getting out of bed. He was about to go encourage her to lie down again when the bedroom door opened, and he saw James and Mike standing there. Jodi was behind them, and she looked like hell. Her hair was sticking out at all angles, and she still had dust on her shirt from the shed. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and her skin looked clammy.
“Well, our burglar is locked up tight in a holding cell,” James said. “He’s not going anywhere.”
“Good,” Shane replied. “Throw away the key.”
“That’s exactly what I suggested,” Mike said. “Great minds think alike.”
“It turns out the criminals followed Jodi from their camp,” James said. “By a bad stroke of luck, they saw you loading her into the van after her accident, and that’s how they found their way to the house.”
Shane recalled a moment just before he’d driven away from the accident site. Headlights had flashed in his sideview mirror. And hadn’t he felt a moment of anxiety then, almost a premonition? “I should have waited for them right there and ambushed them when the
y pulled up.”
“How’s our dear Violet doing?” the sheriff asked.
“I’m fine,” Violet replied. “Just my shoulder hurts a lot.”
“She’s doing as well as Dr. Yates predicted,” Shane said. He met Jodi’s gaze. “We were incredibly fortunate this time.”
“And armed,” Mike added.
“Right.”
Jodi gently but insistently pushed her way in between James and Mike and came into the room, shambling like a zombie. She took a seat on the edge of the bed. With both of her arms injured and wrapped, along with the dust that was all over her, she looked a bit like a mummy that had just escaped its tomb.
“Jodi, honey, you should be resting,” he said. “You’re not going to get better if you don’t lie down.”
“The doc told you to take it easy, Sis,” Mike reminded her.
“No,” she replied, her voice cracking. “I’m not going to lie in my bedroom and worry about everyone else. I’ll never fall asleep.”
Shane rubbed her knee. “You don’t have to be by yourself. Why don’t you stay in here with Violet?”
“Yeah, Mom, you can keep me company,” Violet said. “There’s nothing to do but lay here and try not to think about what happened.”
Jodi nodded, her glassy-eyed gaze climbing the wall. “That sounds good to me.” She waved her hands at the men standing in the bedroom door. “You guys should probably scuttle off and find something to do. No offense, of course.”
“None taken,” James replied. “I wish you a good night’s sleep.”
He tipped his broad-brimmed hat, which he’d retrieved from his cruiser, and stepped out of the room. Mike followed. Shane rose and went after them, catching them beside the bathroom. He grabbed the sheriff by the shoulder.
“What else did you learn from your prisoner?” he asked. “Anything I need to know that you didn’t want to share in front of my daughter?”
James glanced back toward the bedroom then waved Shane farther down the hall. When they reached the foyer, the sheriff turned to face him.
Surviving The End (Book 2): Fallen World Page 23
