Machines of the Dead 2

by Bernstein, David

  Except me, she thought.

  She sat for another minute or so, her mind running over the possible ways to carry out her task. After settling on the best course of action, she nodded to herself. It was always stressful, this part of the job. There was no feasible way to figure out what the ‘best course of action’ could be. Things never happened as they did in the movies, when the hero manages to slip into the enemy lair and find his way to the self-destruct button.

  Her heart pumped harder and faster as her thoughts returned to the task at hand.

  There’s no better time to do this.

  She tugged at the seat beside her, pulling it down and reaching into the storage section beyond. Her fingers slid around the comfortable handle of an MP5 submachine gun. Fumbling further, she retrieved two ammunition clips before propping the seat back to its familiar position. She loaded the weapon, listened for the satisfying click, and jammed the spare clip into the deep pocket of her coat. Amanda switched off her phone and placed it in the opposite pocket. Then she climbed free of the cab and headed for the neon flash of the Thunderbird’s sign.

  She slinked through the shadows, moving forward in between the rows of trees closest to the road. She wondered if two clips of ammo would be enough. It wasn’t too late to cram another one into her blue jeans, but it felt like overkill. A baggy polyester top hung loosely from her shoulders, wrapped inside a zipped olive green bomber jacket that hid the holstered Glock – another insurance policy.

  Normally, Amanda Church wouldn’t be caught wearing such a drab get up. Life was too short to wander among society looking like a fashion victim and she did her best to abide by that credo on a regular basis. Today wasn’t about her fashion sense, however. You had to dress accordingly while in the field. The last thing she wanted was for locals to take note of the fashionably chic young woman seen walking away from a murder scene. Not only did people have a tendency to remember someone dressed so nicely, but she’d be the proverbial sore thumb out in these parts wearing a designer suit. Best to dress as unremarkably as possible.

  The path was dark and trees loomed on either side of it. Branches curved and drooped downward, enveloping her as she approached the motel. Amanda didn’t consider herself claustrophobic, but this feeling of isolation was so extreme that it bothered her. She was all alone out here.

  Fitting, she thought. My job guarantees segregation from the rest of the world.

  The motel appeared before her as she stepped from the trees. Its vacated parking lot and buzzing neon sign only compounded the feelings of isolation. It was the type of thing Matheson would write about.

  She kept to the tree line where the shadows would best camouflage her if someone passed by. There was bound to be an employee on duty somewhere and there was no reason for them to get involved. She tightened a suppressor to the barrel of the submachine gun as she walked. Not that it would be much of a concern out here, but it would help keep the noise to a minimum.

  With the silencer fully attached, Amanda pulled open her coat and stuffed the gun beneath her jacket flap with her finger still on the trigger. Casually, she strolled into the Thunderbird parking lot. It wasn’t hard to find the car. It was the only one there. Her eyes settled on the battered Chevy Corsica parked in the darkest corner of the lot, just out of the neon sign’s reach.

  No question, she thought, her boots crunching gravel as she approached. That’s them.

  Amanda took one last look around to make sure she simply hadn’t missed anyone and the empty parking lot stared back at her.

  The Thunderbird itself wasn’t any busier. It was two stories and looked like it offered a total of twelve rooms, six on bottom and six on top. It was your standard roadside accommodation, a dilapidated hole that you’d find on any dying stretch of road while passing through Anywhere USA. With the exception of a faint emission of yellow light that bordered the drawn shade pulled down over the door marked “office,” most of the lights were out. The manager on duty was probably asleep and she did not intend to wake him.

  On the second floor, a faint beam of light emanated from beneath one door - room twelve. She might not have noticed it had the loud neon sign not buzzed the parking lot into occasional blackness.

  Has to be them, she thought.

  Their car was dirty; didn’t even have to examine it to see that. She’d known the color as dark grey from having seen it on the road so many times over the past few weeks. Another flash of neon revealed dirty windows and a mud-caked body. It might’ve looked like an off-roading vehicle had it been any other make other than a Chevy Corsica. Its ‘owner’ – something to be stressed loosely, considering it had been stolen off a murdered teenager all the way back in Valencia - simply didn’t care about its cosmetic value and had been squatting out of it for as long as she’d been in pursuit.

  The desolation of the Thunderbird worked to ease her nerves. Things were so much easier when you didn’t have to blend in among a crowd to perform your job. Amanda tightened her grip on the MP5, heightening her sense of security. She squinted through the dirty windows into the interior, wondering what the next neon flash would reveal...

  ... nothing of interest. Empty soda bottles, fast food wrappers and porno magazines. The interior of the Corsica had been decorated expertly to match its exterior. The upholstery was littered with clothes strewn across the back seat and the floor consisted of crinkled up papers and magazines caked with mud and dirt. A dire lifestyle choice made more surprising by the fact that one of the travelers was a woman. Why anyone would opt to exist in such squalor was beyond her, but of greater interest was that she allowed it.

  She turned her attention back toward the motel and crossed the gravel lot, opting to avoid the wooden staircase directly beside room twelve. It was most probably a creaky old relic, and there was no sense in altering the tenants to her approach. The element of surprise was one she couldn’t afford to forgo.

  She walked to the opposite edge of the motel and climbed the steps there. Her boots creaked during her slow but steady ascension. At the top, she continued to room twelve while stepping on the balls of her boots.

  Amanda ripped the MP5 from beneath her jacket and adopted the stance of a trained soldier: legs bent at the knees, back crouched and weapon steadied at what would be the chest of any approaching hostile. From behind the red, paint-flaked door labeled with a brass ‘12’, Amanda heard faint moans and cries, a mixture of ecstasy and anguish.

  Here it comes.

  She drew a long breath, wondering and worrying if this was to be her swan song. No telling what was on the other side of the door. Maybe they were waiting for her…

  How long am I going to keep getting lucky?

  That’s all it was, luck. She had no illusions of it being anything more. Dexter liked to say that she was born and bred for this shit, but he was being supportive. Nobody was truly cut out for this sort of life.

  Least of all me, she thought. Her life would’ve been over thirteen years ago had it not been for him, and she’d found it difficult to escape the feeling of borrowed time ever since.

  Adrenaline and anxiety swirled through her being in equal parts. Without giving it another thought, she steadied the muzzle of the weapon just above the doorknob and squeezed off two, three-round bursts. The shots were little more than muffled whelps that found their target with a sound no louder than splintering wood. Wounded, the lock failed as Amanda kicked into it, sending the door swinging open into the smoky interior.

  She was inside before the inhabitants knew what was happening, her nose wracked by a bouquet of miserable odors. Through the haze, she took aim at the mass of bodies, two by her count, strewn naked across the bed.

  Her nostrils flared at the noxious scent, a mixture of bleach, excrement and what she vaguely recognized as spoiled milk. It was almost enough to knock her off kilter.

  Almost.

  The man and woman were entangled and just now pulling themselves out of the throes of sleep. The woman turned first, sta
rtled by Amanda’s intrusion. The man was on his knees before she had time to process the scene, his bare body glistening with sweat in the nearby light of the desk lamp. He was faster than his lover, leaping for the intruder in one swift motion. Then he was on the floor and moving forward. Amanda didn’t let it go any further than that. She squeezed off another three bursts, sending nine bullets into his upper chest. They tore into him with a bloody puff and he flew off the bed, knocking the desk lamp to the floor as he crashed atop it. His blood splattered across the nude body of his lover, now roaring with rage.

  Amanda already had the gun leveled at her. She fired off two more bursts, blowing her brains through the newly formed exit wound at the back of her skull and exploding into a mess of brain and bone. The corpse fell to the natty berber carpet at her feet. Amanda rolled the corpse over with her boot and took aim, firing again. The heart stopped beating beneath three smoking and bloody holes.

  All that was left was to make sure the lovers were dead. A quick check of their vitals revealed that the two of them would be in hell for breakfast. She went about a quick sweep of the room, finding nothing of interest among their possessions. These degenerates weren’t likely to have anything on them, but it bore checking. Protocol, according to Dex.

  Her boots stepped into a moist spot directly in front of the bathroom and water seeped into the rug from beneath the closed door.

  Amanda tensed, readied her weapon and pulled on the sleeve of her shirt until its length overextended the olive bomber coat. She covered her hand and pulled at the door handle. It came free, opening inward. She lowered the weapon and splashed onto the flooded linoleum. Water cascaded over the side of the tub, raining a mixture of clear and crimson onto the floor. Submerged in the bloody bath was a girl that might’ve been thirteen but was probably younger. Her glazed over expression indicated she was only faintly aware of Amanda’s presence and threatened fleeting consciousness. Her neck and shoulder were badly mutilated; bone was broken and jagged, jutting up through the gaping wound while blood erupted like a geyser. It ran down her naked chest, into the bloody bath water. Her mouth was open; a faint moan passed beyond her lips bordering on inaudible.

  She was in hell.

  And it was much too late for her. Amanda aimed the MP5 at the girl’s skull. “I’m sorry,” she said and turned away.

  She tried to speak.

  Amanda’s trigger finger lightened.

  The girl appeared somewhat aware of Amanda now; heavy eyes looked up as she tried to speak. The voice was weak but distinct.

  “I’m going to be okay,” she said with a smile. “This is what I needed.”

  “They killed you. That’s what you wanted?”

  “It was.”

  Amanda felt a swell of sadness for her and wished there was more she could do. No way of telling how long they’d been using this girl, but her wounds were fresh.

  “Just rest,” Amanda said, her finger coiling back around the trigger.

  This is the best thing for her...

  “Will you stay with me? They said this was going to be the scariest part. The nightmares…”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Will you,” her voice trailed off, taking the last traces of life with it. Breathing was almost nonexistent now and her face had fallen as still as a statue. Amanda watched carefully and noticed the tiniest spark of life beneath heavy eyelids. They dulled to the point of extinction before roaring back to life with some sense of forgotten urgency. “Will you call my mommy,” the girl said, her voice suddenly animated. “I-I think she might be worried and I want to tell her she shouldn’t be.”

  The bleeding mess of a girl provoked equal measures of pity and rage inside of Amanda. What little of the life she’d lived was over, cut short by creatures so cruel that to them, torturing a child was just something to do. Her own past hadn’t been terribly different, with the only discernible difference being that someone had managed to reach her in time. The tub girl aroused memories of violent teenage years that she had no desire to relive.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, determined to end this. “I’ll take care of you.”

  “I just need to sleep,” the girl mumbled. “That’s what they told me to do. Said I’d wake up and this would all just seem like a bad dream.”

  They lied to you, she thought.

  Turnings were always ugly and the sight never got any easier to see. The girl was teetering on the brink of consciousness and if she slipped under, there would be no coming back.

  I can’t let that happen…

  She crouched beside the tub, leveling her eyes with the narrow and lifeless slits. “Where did you meet them?” She had to know this was truly the end of things.

  The girl smiled, as if she had nostalgic memories of them. Blood dribbled down her chin as her mouth curled upward. “Asked me if I wanted someone to belong to. Told me I would be joining a cause. That I’d finally have a family I could love. Please, just call my mom and tell her that I’m okay.” Her head slid backward against the acrylic tub as her eyelids collapsed over the foggy eyes.

  “Where were they taking you?” She asked. “Where’s this new family?”

  No answer. The room went silent, save for the dribbling faucet. Amanda remained at the girl’s side hoping she would regain consciousness. After a few minutes, once it was certain that she wouldn’t, she stood and raised the MP5. A three-round burst exploded into her skull in a puff of red. Her head slammed hard against the acrylic and then disappeared beneath the ripples of crimson water.

  Another search of the room, this one was more thorough. Amanda found herself powered by renewed curiosity and the unease being provoked by something the girl had said...

  “I would be joining a cause.”

  Amanda had never known them to recruit.

  She fished through a large blue duffel bag that reeked of perspiration and excretion, pulling out a single, crinkled piece of paper from the bottom. It was a map of Massachusetts that had been marked up with a green marker. A line was drawn along Route 90 from where New York became Massachusetts, running all the way into a town called Greifsfield.

  “Great,” she mumbled. No idea what was there but she was going to have to check.

  Just when I thought I was four nights away from an endless bubble bath and two bottles of wine…

  She folded the map, slipped it into her pocket and finished her sweep. When nothing of interest turned up, she tucked the MP5 beneath her coat and slipped back through the busted entrance.

  Amanda trotted down the stairs, taking the closest set this time. A quick glance over her shoulder said nobody was following. In fact, there was no sign that anyone had heard anything. And there wasn’t any reason why anyone should’ve; aside from kicking in the front door, there hadn’t been any noise. It shouldn’t have sounded any differently than someone slamming a door.

  Back at the truck, she climbed into the cab, flicked the safety catch on the MP5 and stuffed it back into the storage space. Then she switched on her cell phone and brought the engine to life, driving off into the night and leaving the obnoxious neon glow of the Thunderbird Motel behind.

  You can relax for now…

  The Thunderbird’s blinking neon sign slipped out of sight and out of mind, vanishing from the rearview as the road twisted around the endless rows of trees. She brought her speed down to 40 after passing a sign for the posted limit. No need to get pulled over for that.

  Amanda couldn’t take her mind off the young girl she’d just slain. The thought made her want to cry. With so much darkness out there, she wondered why there wasn’t an equal measure of light. There she was, mutilated and suffering, yet still of the belief that she’d get better. Those bastards had preyed upon her naïveté. It was their fault that she’d been forced to kill an innocent girl. Amanda couldn’t help but feel they’d gotten off easy, despite the fact they were dead already. Was there any career out there more thankless than this?

  But it begged a more troubling
question: Who in Greifsfield was expecting her?

  She dug the map from her pocket, switched on the cab’s interior lights and glanced at the marked path. An address was scribbled in pencil in the upper most corner.

  Christ.

  This was ballooning into something. What did they want with her? Her mind calculated the endless possibilities.

  “Oh shit,” she said. “Dexter.”

  She pulled up Dexter’s number on the cell. He’d be pissed. She was supposed to check in with him as soon as she’d crossed the state line – some ninety minutes ago - but the isolation of the barren countryside had freaked her out and made her forget.

  He answered halfway through the first ring.

  “Christ, girl. I was worried about you.” He didn’t bother to mask the annoyance in his voice, not that she could blame him. These ‘checkpoints’ were an important component in her line of work. Missed one and people tended to think you were dead. She immediately felt bad for making him worry.

  “I know, I’m sorry. I’m okay and we’re all clear.”

  “I thought we were all clear yesterday?”

  “We were supposed to be. I ran into some trouble in Albany. Had to follow ‘em to Massachusetts. I’m in the Berkshires now.”

  “Okay. I’ll put in for clean up. Where’d you find them?”

  “A real nice place. The Thunderbird on Route 90. You would’ve loved it.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  “Okay. I’ll call it in now. You won’t even read about it in the papers.”

  “Good. That’s how I like it.”

  “Making your way back here, then?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Trust me, you won’t like Massachusetts in the summer, it’s too sticky.”