by JJ Zep
“When did this happen?” Charlie said. “How did this happen?”
“I can’t rightly say, sir.”
“You can’t rightly say?” Charlie felt himself becoming annoyed again. The entire Z population hadn’t just vanished into thin air. Boyd must have seen something.
“Well sir, when I relieved Tom…Private Zarinsky… at ten, he mentioned that the Z’s were a bit thin on the ground tonight. I saw that immediately myself but didn’t think anything of it at the time. Then when I made my 11 o’ clock circuit, I saw there were even less of them.”
“You didn’t report this?”
“No sir,” Boyd swallowed hard. “I figured, well…more Z’s would be a problem… less of them has to be a good thing.”
Idiot, Charlie thought. What part of, “report any unusual activity” didn’t this idiot understand? Out loud he said, “What happened next?”
“I did my twelve o’ clock circuit. That’s when I noticed they were gone.”
“And you didn’t see where they went? Which direction they were headed in?”
“I think I might have seen some individuals headed south on Imperial.”
“You think? Well which is it Boyd, either you saw them or you didn’t.”
“Lieutenant?”
Charlie turned in the direction of the voice and picked out Pasquali’s familiar stoop-shouldered outline standing at the head of the stairs.
“Sir, we’re picking up some unusual transmissions on the radio.”
Charlie’s annoyance was ratcheted up another gear. “Can it wait, Pasquali?” he answered too sharply, “I’m dealing with a situation here.”
“No sir, it can’t wait. I believe you’re going to want to hear this.”
eight
Darkness enveloped her so completely that for a moment Ruby wasn’t sure whether her eyes were open or closed. She was lying on her side, the skin of her arm and cheek resting against some sort of rough fabric. No, not resting against, she realized, she was encased by it, as though some giant spider had sheathed her in a web of rough silk. She tried to move and felt the cocoon sway gently under her weight. At the same time she heard a low, ratcheting creak that sounded like teeth being ground together.
A scent reached her, a sickening blend of sweetness and corruption. There were Z’s close by, their unmistakably rank stench violating her nostrils, their buzz as relentless as the sound of the ocean in a seashell. She shifted her weight again and her prison drifted in a lazy arc that brought a dizzying swoop of nausea.
Where was she? How had she gotten here? How long had she been here? How long had she been unconscious? How could she have been so damned stupid?
She’d allowed herself to be blindsided, allowed the big Native American to get a chokehold on her.
But something about that didn’t make sense. If she’d been throttled she’d have been out for maybe five minutes, ten at most. Surely that wouldn’t have been enough time for them to bring her here, wherever here was?
The answer came to her in the sickly sweet scent she’d noticed earlier. It was coming from her t-shirt. Rudy pinched at the cloth and drew it towards her nose. Chloroform. The sons of bitches had chloroformed her.
Annoyance now displaced by anger, Ruby struggled inside the bag that held her. It was no use, the fabric was tough, double thick canvas, impossible for her to tear even if she could find a rip to get her started. All she was doing was getting the bag to loop and sway. The movement, along with the smell of chloroform elicited a dry wretch. She bit back on it. The last thing she needed was to hurl all over herself.
She settled down, waited for the bag to stop swinging. Okay, so now she knew that she was suspended in a bag over some area where Z’s were being held. The question was, where?
As if in answer, she heard the clank of footsteps on metal, distant at first, becoming thunderous as they approached, sending echoes booming through the chamber. Eventually the footfalls stopped and she knew that they were standing directly above her.
Ruby kept very still, allowed all the tension to escape her body. This was likely to be her best chance of escape but she had no idea of what she was up against, how many of them, how heavily armed. She needed them to believe that she was still out, needed them to drop their guard. The element of surprise was the only weapon she had.
“Haul her up!” The voice resonated with that strange metallic echo, but it was unmistakably that of Cyrus Cain.
Ruby felt a sudden lurch as she was yanked skyward. Milky light penetrated the thick fabric of the bag. She was clattered against something solid, jolted upward and then unceremoniously deposited onto a hard surface. She tasted blood in her mouth and realized she’d bitten her tongue.
“Ruby?” Cain’s voice again. “Ruby, you awake in there?”
Ruby lay very still, readied herself to move. She didn’t know who or what she’d encounter once they cut open the bag and pulled her out. But they knew even less. They probably believed she was still unconscious, still helpless. They were in for a big surprise.
nine
Galvin was at the radio, headset covering his ears, eyes tightly shut in concentration. He started when Charlie placed a hand on his shoulder.
“What we got?” Charlie said.
Galvin held up a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture, leaned in and tweaked the controls. In the next moment, Jojo’s voice blared from the radio.
“Listening Post Zero, this is Center. Over.”
Charlie slid in beside Galvin, took the headphones from him, fitted them over his ears. “This is Zero. Over.”
A pause. “Charlie, is that you?”
“This is Lieutenant Collins. Over?”
“Thank Christ,” Jojo said. Charlie couldn’t help noticing the lack of radio protocol. Jojo was usually pedantic about that sort of thing.
Charlie picked up on the lack of formality. “What’s up, Joe? You working the nightshift?”
Jojo ignored the attempt at levity. “You guys okay down there, Charlie?”
“Any reason why we shouldn’t be?” Other than you haven’t sent us any supplies in weeks, he wanted to add, but didn’t.
“What I mean is, are you picking up any strange activity?”
The question set alarm bells jangling. What was this about? Was this about the mysteriously disappearing Z’s? He wasn’t sure he should mention that to Jojo. Not until he’d figured out what had happened. There might be a perfectly rational explanation.
“Define strange?” he said.
Jojo was quiet for a moment. “You alone Charlie?”
“No, I’ve got Lieutenant Pasquali and Corporal Galvin with me. What’s this about, Joe?”
“Clear the room.”
The sound from the radio dipped and swooped.
“Sorry Jojo? Did you say clear the room?”
“What I’ve got to say is for the base commander’s ears only. Ask your men to stand down. I’m doing likewise this end.”
Charlie turned towards Galvin, gave him a shrug. Galvin nodded, got slowly to him feet, walked away leaning heavily on the cane he’d been using since taking a bullet in the leg. Pasquali followed him out.
“Charlie?”
“I’m here.”
“Alone?”
“Yep.”
Jojo drew a heavy sigh. “We’ve got a shit storm up here, Charlie. Harrow’s lost the plot big time. We’ve got a civil war going on, open warfare with the shack dwellers. I’m afraid we’re losing the base.”
Charlie took a moment to absorb that particular piece of intelligence. He couldn’t say he was surprised exactly. He just hadn’t expected things to happen this fast.
“You okay, Joe.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He didn’t sound fine. He sounded desperate.
“You sure?”
“I’m fine,” Jojo said, his tone suggesting that he didn’t want to pursue the issue.
“What’s this about strange transmissions then?”
“Check out thi
s band,” Jojo said, giving him the frequency. Charlie scrawled it down on a scrap of paper.
“What am I looking for exactly?”
“Just check it out. And let me know if you pick up any unusual activity down there.” Jojo was quiet for a moment. “Take care of yourself, Charlie.”
“Yeah, you too, Joe,” Charlie said, but Jojo was already gone.
Now what the hell was that about? Strange transmissions? The Corporation losing control of Pendleton? What was going on here?
Charlie reached over and tweaked the dials on the radio, tuning into the frequency that Jojo had given him.
In the next moment, gooseflesh danced up his arms as a series of clicks squawked from the radio. The last time he’d heard that sound he’d been crouched down in a darkened supermarket in Mexicali.
ten
The clank of rifles being cocked was very loud. Ruby felt a hand on the bag, working at the knots that secured the opening.
“Just cut through it,” Cain snapped. “We don’t have all day. Good, now step back, step back.”
The bag was open. Ruby held her position, still as a rock, boneless as a jellyfish. She needed one of them to get close, to try and pull her out.
But Cain appeared wise to that possibility. “Shake her out,” he instructed. “No, idiot, grab the other end. Now shake her out onto the walkway.”
The closed end of the bag was grasped and yanked away from her. Ruby was excreted onto a hard platform. The light suddenly intensified by a factor of ten. From the darkness below came the shuffle of feet, low moans, the electrical buzz of the zombies.
“Keep her covered you idiots!”
Ruby slotted her eye open by the merest of cracks. The hard surface she was lying on was a mesh of steel, a slightly canted walkway suspended high above a large open space. Now one of the lights angled down and she could see the Z’s, hundreds of the things, some fifty feet below, looking up, reaching.
She realized where she was now. She was in the cargo hold of a ship.
“Ruby?”
Her plan of catching them by surprise wasn’t going to work. She realized that. She’d have to play this along, see what else opened up.
“Ruby?” Cain said again.
Ruby allowed a moan to escape her. She sat up groggily, shielding her eyes from the light.
“Welcome back,” Cain chuckled. “You had us worried there for a minute.”
“Where am I?” Ruby said. She rubbed her eyes like a toddler waking from a noonday nap, cracked a huge yawn.
“You’re aboard the Calypso Quest. Our base for the duration of our stay in Galveston.”
“Your base maybe,” Ruby tottered to her feet. “Not mine.” She took a couple of shambling steps.
“Uh huh,” Cain said. Ruby heard the clatter of weapons being raised in the darkness. She looked to the end of the walkway and saw a cluster of men back there, looked behind her and saw that the other end was secured too.
“As you can see,” Cain said. “Escape is not an option.”
“Maybe not,” Ruby said. “But I could toss you off this gangplank and into those Z’s before any of your men gets a shot off.”
“You could try,” Cain chuckled, as his massive bodyguard suddenly appeared from the darkness behind him. Had he been there all along? What was this guy, a ghost?
“You remember the chief, right?” Cain said. “Say how, Chief.”
“How,” the giant muttered in monotone.
“As I was saying, Ruby, escape is not an option. So how about we talk some business, you and I.”
“The only business I’m prepared to discuss with you is the business of getting off this boat.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Oh really? You going to keep me under guard 24/7, strung up like bait over your Z pit? Because sooner or later I will find a way to escape, and when I do, I’ll make sure to pay you a visit on my way out.”
“Why make this so difficult Ruby? Why can’t we just work together?”
“Why? Gee, let’s see. First off, I object to being kidnapped and held against my will. Second, I have no interest in being a performing seal in your zombie circus. Third, I don’t like you, Mr. Cain. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.”
Cain seemed to contemplate for a moment. Then his face lit up, as though an idea had just occurred to him.
“What if I was to make you an offer? Something so compelling, you’d find it impossible to refuse.”
“You’ve got nothing I want,” Ruby scoffed.
“Everyone wants something,” Cain said. “If not for themselves, then for someone else.”
He snapped his fingers and Ruby saw movement at the end of the walkway. One of Cain’s men broke away from the group. He was carrying a small child in his arms.
eleven
“What the hell is this?”
“This is Pearl,” Cain said, as though the answer were obvious. “Your daughter.”
“My daughter?” Ruby all but spluttered. She looked at the child; a blond urchin, maybe five years old, wide-eyed, her face, arms and legs caked in ancient grime. She was wearing a filthy rag of a dress that barely covered her skinny frame. She smelled worse than the Z’s.
“I think I’d know if I had a daughter,” Ruby said. “I don’t.”
Cain gave another of those patronizing chuckles. “Well, quite obviously she’s not your biological daughter. Consider this an adoption.”
Now it was Ruby’s turn to laugh. “Gee, thanks Mr. Cain, but I’m just not the motherly type. Appreciate your interest though.”
Cain raised an eyebrow, gave a theatrical sigh. “I was afraid you might take that stance.” He nodded to the man holding the child. “Feed her to the Z’s,” he said.
The man set the child down on the walkway, while another of the goons began unraveling the rope that had held Ruby. He fed it over the rail, ran it out until it dangled among the outstretched hands of the creatures below. Then he secured one end to the balustrade and began hauling it in.
Ruby looked across at the little girl and saw that she had started crying, silent tears spilling from her oversized eyes and running down her cheeks in muddy rivulets. She reminded Ruby of Ferret, the day Ruby had pulled her out of that rusty pipe in L.A. Except Pearl was even younger than Ferret had been. She looked lost, bewildered, terrified. Still, Cain wasn’t going through with this. This was all bluster, some elaborate scheme to get Ruby to play ball. Not even Cyrus Cain could be so heartless as to feed a little girl to the Z’s.
One of the men looped the rope under Pearl’s arms, tying it in a knot behind the child’s back. He gave Ruby a grin that flashed a gold tooth and Ruby had to fight back the urge to charge him, to smash that vanity tooth down his throat and toss him over the handrail. Instead, she looked away, leaned over the rail. The zombies down there were getting agitated, perhaps anticipating a meal.
Pearl was sobbing now, pitiful sobs wracking her little frame. “I want my mommy,” she cried, repeating it in a litany that was barely intelligible.
“Last chance,” Cain said, and for the first time Ruby believed that he might actually go through with it.
“Go ahead,” she said, bluffing still. “The kid means nothing to me.”
“And I thought you cared.” Cain gave a nod to Gold Tooth, who immediately lifted the screaming child and carried her towards the handrail.
“Let her down slow,” Cain said. “Get them good and agitated.”
The little girl’s screams rebounded off the steel walls, creating a cacophony of noise that sounded like a league of demons. Now the zombies added their voices to the discord in low wordless moans. Gold Tooth played out the rope. Pearl was three feet below the platform, now four.
“Stop this,” Ruby said. “Stop this now.”
“Not my call, Ruby.” Cain was looking over the rail, watching the child descent towards the reaching hands and hungry mouths of the nightmares below. “Only you can stop this.”
The little gir
l was halfway down, squirming on the rope like a worm on a hook, her screams a seamless wail. The zombies were reaching, snapping, jostling for position. The rope suddenly dropped towards them. Their outstretched hands were almost close enough to brush Pearl’s curled in legs.
“I said slow!” Cain barked. “Now hold her there! Hold her steady! That little girl drops one more inch without my say so and I’m feeding you to the grunts in her place.”
He turned towards Ruby, dropped his voice, spoke in the mild tone of a sympathetic caregiver. “This really is your last chance, Ruby. Or should I say, Pearl’s last chance. The next words out of your mouth decide her fate. So what do you say? Yea or nay?”
Ruby looked down the rope to where the girl dangled, just inches away from the grasping zombies. Pearl had stopped screaming and clung desperately to the rope, her face upturned, a pale swatch among the squirming mass of darkness below her. If Ruby had harbored any doubt as to Cain’s intentions, she harbored none now. He really would feed this child to the Z’s in order to get his way. And even if Ruby allowed him to do that, he wouldn’t stop there. Cyrus Cain did not seem to her like the kind of man who easily accepted no for an answer. Her father had always told her to pick her battles. Ruby knew that this was one she couldn’t win.
“What do you want from me?”
“Want?” Cain said. “I thought I was clear on that score. I want you to assume guardianship of young Pearl.”
“Cut the crap,” Ruby said, turning towards him. “What do you want me to do in your freak show?”
“Please, Ruby,” Cain said in mock exasperation. “It’s hurtful when you demean my art. Extravaganza, please.”
“What do you want from me?”
Cain gave her a smile, a little victory grin that Ruby stored away for future reference. Someday she was going to ram that grin back down his throat.
“Oh, the usual stuff,” Cain said. “You take on some Z’s in the arena, take part in a few mock battles, that sort of thing. But we do all of this with a touch of pizzazz, Ruby, a touch of theater. None of the crude cage fighting malarkey you see on the –”
