Shadows (27 page)

By the time he got to the chickens, he was working by flashlight. The straw in the coop hadn’t been changed in months, and the ammonia reek almost knocked him over. For such a slovenly farmer, Wade was very particular about separating out his manure, and chicken crap went into the woods to compost.

Which figures.
Pushing the wheelbarrow through deep snow was impossible, so he’d had to go out on snowshoes first, follow the trail he and the animals had already broken, and stomp until the base layer was firm enough for the barrow not to sink. On the way out, he’d spotted Nikki slogging toward the vegetable garden with a bowl for the dog and returned her wave. Now, huffing toward the woods with the loaded barrow, he swung the yellow beam toward the garden and saw that the dog had tucked itself into the shelter, its tail fluffed over its nose.

“Right, sleep it off,” he said, but he was also relieved. Better that the dog should rest up and start out with a full belly.

It was when he was scattering scratch feed for the chickens that he noticed something.

Wade had a
lot
of feed: barley, corn, good hay, scratch for the chickens. He stared down at the handful of seed and cracked corn raining between his fingers. But how was Wade getting it? Wade’s only wagon had a broken axle. Even if the wagon had been in good repair, there was no way that one horse—not even a dray at that—could pull very much for very long in deep snow. Plus, there just weren’t enough animals to justify all this feed. Despite his talk about maybe building up his hogs, Wade wasn’t exactly energetic. The old guy couldn’t care for the animals he already owned.

And why wasn’t the feed stored in that stone silo? It was perfectly sound, yet Wade kept all his feed binned in the barn off the main paddock.
All
of it.

Then Tom really thought about all that manure he’d shoveled, all those poop piles scattered around. So much crap—and not one burn barrel. Instead, the Kings had Porta-Johns: not one or two but three.

So he hauled those here?
That was a possibility, and it would be good thinking. Emptying chamber pots would get pretty old, and he bet there weren’t many farms with outhouses before the Zap. He and Jed had built an outhouse with a removable barrel just like Tom had used in Afghanistan, and traded off on burn shitter duty. But if Wade
had
hauled the portable toilets to his farm, how had he done it?

Maybe another wagon in that old barn?
After closing up the coop, he trudged out to the wheelbarrow. That was probably it. At the back of the hog barn, he slotted the wheelbarrow, then glanced in the direction of that prairie barn. He couldn’t see it beyond the limits of the flashlight, but he sensed it silently brooding in the snow.

Of all the jobs Wade mentioned, he’d never once suggested they work on the barn. Why was that? Sure, there were more immediate problems. But any farmer took care of his tools and machinery.

He flicked a quick look at the house. The front windows were dark, although the kitchen window in back fired a dull yellow. Nikki would be there and Wade, too.

He slid the flashlight out of his hip pocket.

Just a peek.

It was a machine graveyard.

Tom fanned his light over a tractor, a manure spreader, and two Ford F-150s. Racks of farm implements and tackle lined the right wall. He even spotted a branding iron, which made him pause. Had those hogs been branded? He searched his memory. No, a farmer notched a pig’s ears. Some complicated system; he didn’t know what. Branding was for cattle and horses. So maybe the milkers or that bay. He just couldn’t remember.

A loaded Peg-Board was mounted above an elaborate tool bench with two vises. The cave-in had dumped snow over a large electric band saw with a circular blade that Tom thought was used for slicing through meat and bone. If so, that saw hadn’t seen action for a long time.

But the ax and that cleaver had.

Both rested on a freestanding workbench that reminded him of the butcher block his dad had used to hack beef ribs. The hand ax had a thin stainless-steel blade and leather grip: lightweight, easy to swing, well-balanced. The steel was clean but nicked in places, as if the ax had seen heavy use. Purple splotches stained the leather grip, and more blood had seeped into the cleaver’s handle, swelling and then cracking the wood. A slop bucket rested on the concrete next to the butcher block. Stiff rags stained with dark, oily splotches were draped over the rim, and smelled of old gore.

Alongside the workbench was a large white chest freezer. Of course, it wasn’t plugged in. The barn was colder than any meat locker. Rust-red tongues drooled from the freezer’s lip.

Nikki had served pork stew the first night. Wade had offered to feed hamburger to the dog.

No, that’s crazy.
He felt his mind flinching away even as the suspicion formed. So the Kings did their own butchering. So what?

But would I know?
Aiming the flashlight at the dried blood, he felt suddenly queasy.
God
,
shouldn’t I be able to tell if it hadn’t been pork or beef. . .but a person?

Heart thumping, he levered open the freezer—and his breath left in a white rush.

Empty.

Then, across the barn and to the right, something scuffed.

Startled, he pivoted, raised his flashlight, expecting to see the bright coins of the cat’s eyes, or maybe a rat or raccoon. The light broke over a trio of what might once have been long-abandoned horse stalls, with doors on sliders. Something winked from the back corner. Stepping around the freezer, he aimed the light, caught the sparkle again—and frowned. A fourth stall, completely closed off, with a heavy, shiny, stainless-steel padlock dangling from a black ring latch as thick as his thumb.

Scuffling. Then, a low whine.

A puppy. That was his first thought. The Kings had locked up a dog, probably muzzled it. He thought back to that growl Raleigh had aimed toward the barn. No wonder Raleigh wouldn’t stay away; there was another dog locked up in here.

Maybe it was sick. That was possible. When he was a kid, his dad had rented
Old Yeller
. He remembered how after the wolf fight, when the dog went rabid, the boy had locked Old Yeller in the corncrib and then shot him. Tom must’ve cried for a week. Knowing Wade, Tom thought he’d have gotten rid of a rabid dog, but it would be perfectly in character for the Kings to simply sequester a sick puppy and maybe neglect it to death. Save on a bullet.

Poor thing.
“Hey, boy,” he called, softly. The dog responded with another whimper as he crossed to the stall. He played the light over the lock, then the rest of the door and the adjacent wall, looking for a key. Two keys dangled on a thin wire ring from a nail just to the left of the door. He reached—and then paused. This was none of his business. He was leaving. The Kings had the right to run their farm however they wished.

The puppy whined again.

“Hey, boy.” Slipping the ring off the nail, he slotted one of the keys into the lock. “Hang—”

That last word never did leave his mouth.

He saw now that the door was oak, and sturdy but not completely solid. There was a large knothole about two-thirds of the way down, near the level of his right knee. It was dark, and he shouldn’t have been able to see a hole. By definition, no one ever did. A hole existed because of where it wasn’t.

But there
was
something here: grimy and very thin but completely recognizable.

A finger.

And then, it moved.

“Shit!” Tom sucked in a quick, startled gasp. The keys tinkled to the frigid concrete. Every hair on the nape of his neck stood on end. Then he knelt. “Hello? Are you hurt?”

The finger slid away and then he saw a flash of white as the kid—he was convinced it was a child—briefly pressed an eye to the knothole before wincing away from the light.

“Sorry.” Tom aimed the flashlight away. Now that he was closer, he smelled stale flesh and ammonia and moldering straw mixed with feces. “Kid, kid, are you okay? What’s your name?”

The child might’ve said something, but Tom’s heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear.
My God, he sounds hurt.
He swept his light back and forth over the floor until he found the keys.
Get him out, then saddle up Dixie. Find my gear, get the guns and then Raleigh.
His hands shook. Clamping the flashlight under an arm, he used both hands to sock the key home. If he had to, he would herd the Kings into a room and lock them up until he was ready to go.
Wait until morning when it’s light.
His wrist turned. The lock snicked open.
Then we get as far from he—

A wide spotlight pinned him in place. On the door, before his eyes, his shadow sprang to life, black and perfectly defined, as if Tom were an actor backlit on a stage.

Then, there came a loud, unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked:
ka-CHUNK-crunch.

In the stall, behind the door, the boy whimpered.

Tom turned, slowly, a hand up to shield his eyes.

“Oh, Tom,” Wade said. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

Nikki made him strip. Unlike Wade, his wife was thin as a whippet and brittle as broom straw. Her gray eyes showed absolutely no emotion, but when Tom stopped at his underpants, she said, “No, no. All the way. Every stitch.”

The woodstove kept the kitchen and this small back room very warm. Fear-sweat slicked his body and ran down the sides of his face, but he was shivering. Jed’s tags rattled on their bead chain. “Why?”

“’Cuz we can’t have you running,” Wade said, from the kitchen. Through the open door, Tom watched as Wade withdrew the brand, inspected the iron, then slid it back into the firebox.

“That’s bullshit. I’m not running in my shorts,” Tom snapped. “Oh, I don’t know.” Grunting, Wade planted his hands on his thighs and heaved himself up. “I saw this one National Geographic about this Eskimo who run over the ice for miles with not a stitch.” “Come on, Tom.” Nikki gestured with the shotgun. “Shorts, too.” “No,” Tom said.

“Fine. Right knee or left?” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Don’t think I won’t. So long as you’re alive, they don’t care what shape you’re in. It’s all the same to us, but . . .” Her eyes trailed over his body, first down and then up again, her gaze touching on every scar left by shrapnel, lingering on the divot in his right thigh. Her lips curled when she saw the scar on his neck. “That’s a nice hickey. Girlfriend get a little carried away? Well, she probably won’t mind another ding or two, considering that you’re kind of tore up already.” Her face blanked again. “Don’t make me waste a shell, Tom.”

All right, this is about domination.
He hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his underpants.
Come on, this is right out of survival training. Don’t let them get on top on you.

But what could he do to stop them? He let his underpants fall to his ankles and then kicked them away. They had the gun, and he’d been an idiot.

“That’s good.” Nikki lifted her chin toward a straight-backed chair bolted to the floor. “Now, you sit down and put on those plastic thingamabobs. First your ankles to the chair legs and then whichever hand you want to do first. Last hand you’ll have to use your teeth.”

God, how many times had they done this before? His heart was trying to thrash its way out of his chest. He didn’t move toward the chair. He might already be finished, but if he put on those plasticuffs, he was as good as dead. “What did you do to Raleigh? Did you kill him?”

“With any luck.” Nikki shrugged. “Shame to waste a good farm dog, but can’t have him barking every time he scents a Chucky.”

What?
Something cold settled in his chest. The ax, the blood on the freezer . . .
Oh God, the
kid . . . “You’re
feeding
him.”

“Sure. Get more if you can deliver a Chucky alive.” Then Wade saw his face and hawked out a laugh so hard his belly jiggled. “No, we’re not going to chop you up into burgers, if that’s what you’re worried about. Although we kinda run out a day ago, and I know that little bastard’s hungry. Thing is, you’re worth a lot more alive than in some Chucky’s gullet.
He
starves to death, I don’t know I care very much. They’ll take him no matter what, and he’ll keep just fine in the cold. Hunters are due real soon anyway.”

“How do they know when to come?” Tom asked. He didn’t really want the answer, but every second he stayed out of that chair was one more when he still had a chance.

“Run up the old flag when we got something. I guess they got spotters.”

The
flag.
Tom clamped back on a moan. My God, it was so
obvious
, right there in plain sight. He’d wanted to believe he was safe—and now he was dead.

“I don’t ask a lot of questions. They go about their business, I mind mine.” Wade pulled open the stove’s firebox. “All I care about is getting what’s owed me.”

“That’s where the feed’s coming from, isn’t it?” Tom asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Wade reached into the firebox with a hand sheathed in a thick red leather glove. “I turn you in, I bet I’ll get a nice new wagon and maybe a good dray.”

A barter system, that had to be it. Capture a Chucky or young people who hadn’t turned, and you’d be rewarded. With mounting horror, Tom watched as Wade inspected the brand. The black iron—an open V that Wade said represented a broken bone, which Tom thought very apt—was turning a soft gray. The choke of scorched iron lodged in his throat . . .

It’s the smell of SAWs going cyclic; of spent brass cascading over rock; of a gun barrel so hot it jams and he has to spit into the breech as he works, desperately, to clear his weapon; and there are voices, always the voices, streaming out of the merciless sun and through the speaker in his helmet: “Jesus Christ, cut the wire, cut the fucking wire and grab the kid or you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re—”

“Tom.” At the sound of his name, Tom blinked away from the horror-show of memory to find Wade there in this nightmare of the present. The broken-bone brand was not red-hot the way it was in movies but ashen. Tom felt the heat-shimmers from five feet away. “Time to sit down now,” Wade said.