The Damned (22 page)

“One here and one at the jailhouse oughta do it.”

Carlo turned to the guy with the two-way radio. “Make it happen,” he said, and Dub’s request was relayed: one at the Ambassador and one at the jailhouse.

Bert and the trucker left the lounge. Moments later, Carlo and his crew followed suit, leaving Dub and Ernie standing by Tony Carlicci’s misshapen head.

Scott spent a great deal of time looking through the album. Every now and then he would stop and stroke a finger across a photo, close his eyes and remember what he and Sandi had been doing back when the future was bright and love was in bloom. It was a special time in his life, and he cherished each and every moment that bubbled up to the surface of his memory: Sandi, standing on the shoreline, bathed in the golden hue of a glorious
Bermuda
sunset, her blonde hair blowing sideways in the soft, tropical breezes. Another photo of Sandi stretched out in her bikini on the shimmering pink sands, baking beneath the early morning sun. Scott remembered taking the picture, how he had wanted to take
her
right then and there. He had demanded she wear a thong that morning, but she’d laughed the idea away. Now he was glad she hadn’t worn it, because the picture would never have been allowed into the album, and that would have left him without this vivid jolt to his memory.

He flipped through the pages slowly, savoring every shot, every smile,
every
sparkle of an eye. When he finished he tossed the album aside, stood up and walked down the hallway, to the spare bedroom. Sandi’s dressing table was there, the creams and ointments, the makeup mirror and cosmetics, lipsticks and powders. Many a time he had paused in the doorway as she sat around in her slip, or maybe just her bra and panties, readying herself for work or a night on the town. He would stand, mesmerized, staring in the mirror at a face that centuries ago would have launched a thousand ships. A face that belonged to him, and he to it. It was a wonderful feeling he hoped to have back again, and he would have it back again when he found her.

He walked to the dressing table, picked up a bottle of perfume and sprayed some into the air, closed his eyes and pictured his wife standing beside him in the low-cut black evening dress she used to love to wear. He could see her standing there, smiling and laying her head against his shoulder, her musky scent filling his nostrils. When he opened his eyes the image faded away, leaving nothing but the lilting fragrance to remind him of what he no longer had.

Scott stepped out into the hallway, turned and walked down to the master bedroom. He lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He was tired. It had been a long and stressful night, and an even longer morning. Before he knew it he had closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. He had no idea how long he’d been under when his eyes opened, only that he felt rested and relaxed, more aware of his surroundings. He got up and walked to the bathroom, and stood in front of the sink, turned the water on and splashed some on his face. It amazed him how something he had taken for granted seven weeks ago now felt so wonderful. After toweling off, he brushed his teeth again, and that felt great, too. He went back to the bedroom, grabbed his shotgun off the mattress and went out into the hallway, down the hallway to the living room, where he propped the shotgun against the couch and picked his holstered weapon up off the floor. Brushing his hand against the shag carpet reminded him of his crazy, blood-soaked dream back at Warren’s stash house, where opening his eyes inserted him into a blood-spattered nightmare worse even than the one he had woken from. Because in
that
nightmare, his friend Lila lay back on the couch with her neck ripped open.

Scott shook his head, and shook those thoughts away. He began to feel restless. The time for action was close at hand. He had a pistol and a shotgun, a bagful of ammunition and a bike to carry him to his mission. Now all he needed was the balls to put one foot in front of the other, the willpower to get his ass in gear and get on with it. He had no plan and no plausible course of action, other than to crank up the Harley and head into town, scour the streets and see what he could make happen. He thought for a moment of the people he had met, of Lila and Warren, Davey, the boy he had killed. And Dennis. He wanted to talk with him one more time before he left, to say goodbye in case something happened and he never made it back this way again. Besides, he was hungry, and he wondered what kind of food Dennis might have down in that cellar of his. Surely it was better than what Scott had in his backpack. There was an oval-shaped mirror hanging on the living room wall. Scott walked over to it, slipped into the harness and checked himself out. The holster hung loose against his chest, the 9mm. snug in its leather sleeve. He was clean and refreshed. He turned his head so the indented mark on his skull didn’t show.

Bullet,
he thought.
I’m fucking Bullet.
But, of course, he wasn’t. Bullet would already be heading for town to kick the shit out of the bad guys, to kick ass and get the girl back. Not staring into a mirror wondering what to do next.

Scott left his house and headed across the yard, through the hedges and onto Dennis’ property. It could have been two neighbors getting together on a Saturday afternoon, forced inside due to an impending storm being ushered in on the hazy, grey skies. But it wasn’t. It was two neighbors drawn to each other because they had no one else to turn to. Scott certainly didn’t, nor did Dennis, as far as Scott could tell.

He made his way to the front stoop, and knocked on the door. Moments later, Dennis appeared in a semicircle of sectioned glass. The door opened, and Dennis said, “C’mon in, man.”

Scott stepped inside and Dennis closed the door behind him. They went down the hallway, to the living room, where a plush leather chair sat across from a matching sectional sofa, divided by a polished maple coffee table. There was a flat screen television on the far side of the room, a half full bottle of Jack Daniels on the table, beside an ashtray and a pack of matches, and an open pack of smokes. The shotgun Dennis had carried with him at Scott’s house sat propped against the end of the couch. Scott could see a silver-plated revolver sitting on the counter dividing the kitchen from the living room. He took a seat in the chair, and Dennis said, “Want something to drink? Coke, water, shot of whiskey?” His eyes were puffy and red.

“Wouldn’t mind some water.”

Dennis walked into the kitchen. Moments later, he returned carrying two plastic bottles. He tossed one to Scott, sat down on the couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. Both men uncapped their water. Scott took a drink, and Dennis said, “So, what’s up?”

“Just wanted to stop off, you know, before I head out.”

“So, you’re really gonna do it—go look for Sandi?”

“Yeah, well, sure looks that way.”

“You’re gonna do what, face down a motorcycle gang by yourself?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, exactly, but I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to try—wouldn’t you?”

“Dude, I would do anything to have
Charlotte
back safe and sound.”

“Then you understand.”

“I understand, all right. I just hope you can pull it off.”

Scott took another drink of water, looked up at the ceiling and sighed. He hoped he could pull it off, too. But could he? He had no idea where she could be, or if she was even still alive. He was one and they were many. He had a gun and they had an arsenal. When he left here today, where would he go, what would he do? And what if he found them, what then, pull out his gun and start shooting people? He wouldn’t last three seconds.

“Hungry?”

“Huh?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am.”

Dennis put his feet on the floor, leaned forward and said, “What’ve you been living on, canned food, bottled water?”

Scott nodded his reply.

“Then you’re in for a treat. I’ve got a cellar full of MREs.”

“M R
whats?
”

“MREs, dude. Prepackaged, ready to eat meals. Beef stew, pot roast, smoked salmon and fixings, grilled chicken, spaghetti and meatballs. I’ve got it all. Picked it up way back when 911 hit, had it down in the basement ever since.”

“Please,” Scott said. “No more beef stew. That’s
all
I’ve been eating.”

Dennis laughed.

“No problem,” he said. “Be right back with a couple of hot meals.”

“Bless you, my son,” said Scott.

Dennis stood up and walked into the kitchen, opened a door and stepped through the entryway. Scott smiled as feet thudded down the cellar’s wooden staircase. A meal was going to be good, a hot meal, even better. He stood up and headed for the bathroom. He needed to take a leak. He was about to go inside when he noticed a dark outline through an open bedroom door, a lump at the edge of the mattress, the familiar sight of a foot forming a protrusion beneath the bedspread. Scott moved down the hallway, and stepped into the bedroom. A dim light filtered through the open window, casting a dull luminescence over a lifeless form that lay half covered by the bed spread, the skin across its face drawn tight as leather left for days on end beneath a scorching desert sun. One arm lay atop the covers; at the end of that arm, a withered hand whose hideously long fingernails curled under like the talons of a dead vulture. The long hair sprouting from its head was brittle as old twigs, the lifeless eyes long ago sunk back into the caverns of its sockets. Even in this sorry state, Scott knew who it was. Dennis said his wife and kids were gone. ‘Gone’, he said. ‘My wife and daughters’. But
Charlotte
wasn’t gone, she was right here. What had he done to her? What had he done to his—

“You shouldn’t have come in here.”

Scott turned to see Dennis standing in the doorway, the shotgun by his side. His hands were shaking, his eyes welling with tears. He stepped into the room, leveling the shotgun at Scott.

“Jesus, Dennis, what’d you do? Where are your girls?”

“They’re gone, Scott. Just like I told you.”

“You said
Charlotte
was gone, but here she is. Where are the girls?”

“You shouldn’t have come here, Scott. We could’ve had a nice meal together.”

“Dennis, for fucks sake; where are the girls?”

“They’re gone, goddamnit! GONE! I went to the school and they weren’t there. I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find them. She said it was
my
fault, that our girls had left us behind, gone to heaven and left us behind because I wouldn’t let us go to church with them. She kept
screaming
it at me, over and over and over again! I didn’t know I’d done it until I looked down and saw her lying dead at my feet. I choked the life out of her and didn’t even know it.” Tears streamed down his face; he was sobbing now. “She’s gone and I can’t get her back but I can’t let her go! I drink myself into a stupor and lay my head on her breast and cry myself to sleep! I want her back! Dear God, I want her back!”

Dennis dropped the shotgun and fell to his knees. “Kill me, Scott. Please, just kill me. I want to be with her. I want to be with her so
bad!
I want to be with all three
of them!”

Scott walked over and laid a hand on Dennis’ shoulder. He wasn’t going to kill him. He couldn’t—he didn’t have it in him. Wherever the girls were, Dennis hadn’t done anything to them. Whatever happened between Dennis and his wife was between Dennis and that highest of beings he had talked about earlier in the day. Scott wouldn’t kill Dennis, he couldn’t, and that was what he told him before he lifted his hand and left his neighbor sobbing at the feet of his dead wife.

Scott saw two prepackaged meals sitting on the coffee table as he passed by the living room, saw them and kept right on going. The tantalizing smell called out for him to stop, but who could know what Dennis might do if he came away from the bedroom to find him still in the house. Scott sure as hell didn’t want to find out. He went back to his house, gathered up his knapsack and shotgun and left them by the front door. Then he locked the door, because he really didn’t know what Dennis might do in his current state. Blow his own head off with that shotgun? Come looking for Scott? Scott didn’t know, and he didn’t want to take any chances. Something else he didn’t want to do was straddle that damn shotgun on his way to wherever he was going. So he went into the kitchen and rummaged through a utility drawer until he found a couple of Bungee cords, took them and the shotgun and strapped the shotgun to the chrome backrest rising off the rear of the bike. He went back inside for the knapsack, opened it and started going through its contents. The smell of that prepackaged meal still lingered—whether in his nostrils or in his mind, he didn’t know. He only knew that he could still smell the grilled chicken as if it were in the room with him. He withdrew his hand from the sack, because the best within its confines were the cans of beef stew he had been living on, and he just could not bear to eat any more of it. Not now, not with that tantalizing scent overwhelming his senses.

On his way out of the house, he unlocked the door and swung it shut behind him, continued on to the Harley and hooked the knapsack around the shotgun and over the backrest. Then he climbed onto the bike and fired it up, maneuvered the kickstand back into its resting place and put the bike in gear. He sat there for a moment, squeezing the clutch and staring back at the home he had shared with his wife, remembering the good times and the bad times, and everything in between. He should’ve brought a photograph with him, but he didn’t. But it didn’t matter, anyway. Because he saw her everywhere he looked, her dazzling green eyes, the color of her hair and the curve of her lovely spine. He let off the clutch and roared off down the road, out of the neighborhood and on to the main drag, past the drug store and the fast food joint, until he was back on the Interstate—headed where, he did not know, or at that very moment, care. He just knew that he needed to keep moving and let the thoughts swirl through his head. He roared down the highway, wondering for the umpteenth time how something like this could’ve happened. Was it as Dennis had said, some kind of biblical event—the Rapture? Had people really just up and disappeared, vanished? Scott had no firsthand knowledge of this, only the hearsay of people who had been around while he was out like a light. People like Dennis and Warren, Lila and the kid. He had no reason to think they were lying, but who could believe such a thing?

Unlike Dennis, Scott had no religious background to fall back on. Sure, his parents had trotted him off to church when he was growing up, but he had never gotten much out of it. He had gone because he had to, and the minute they stopped insisting, he found other, more enjoyable things to do with his Sunday mornings: basketball, football and fishing. Later on, cars and girls and drive-in movies, until now, all these years later, he was left with nothing but vague remembrances of the Sunday morning sermons that had come his way. There was Jesus, yes, that he knew, a great flood, a crucifixion and a resurrection. There were the Ten Commandments, but he couldn’t have remembered them all if his life depended on it. Some, maybe, but certainly not all. He’d heard of The Rapture, but didn’t recall anything about it from his childhood. He’d never even given it a moments thought… until now. And he had to admit that,
now,
after hearing Dennis go on about it, the theory made perfectly good sense. But good theory or not, Scott had other, more important things on his mind. More important than God and his Rapture, and the mysterious figure Dennis had spoken of.

Sandi was either dead or being held by a gang of degenerates so perverse as to defy description. For if they would toss someone onto a fire, and then eat them, what kind of foul act would be perpetrated against them before it got to that point? Scott had once read a book where one of the characters had told a grieving father who had just lost his son that, ‘sometimes dead is better’. Now those fictional words pressed down upon Scott with the full weight of the world behind them. Dead
would
be better than her having suffered the endless shopping list of depravities those monsters could inflict. But if she was dead, Scott would never find her, therefore he would never know for sure that she
was
dead, and as he traveled down the highway, he knew he could not allow himself to believe that she was, because if he did believe it, what would be the point of carrying on? He might as well pull over and blow his brains out and be done with it. But he was not going to do that, because if she was alive, he would be running out on her, and he would not go to his grave as long as there existed the slightest possibility that he might find her.

He roared down the highway, the wind in his hair, the open road before him. A carload of people came up from the opposite direction, a man and a woman, a couple of kids in the back seat. That meant he was right: there
were
other people out in the world, families with children, doing their best to survive the madness until the pendulum swung back around and normalcy was restored. There was the proof, rolling up the highway hoping for a safer environment to hide out in. Lila said she hadn’t seen any children, but they were out there—Scott had just seen two of them, and if there were two, there had to be more somewhere, and that instilled a small measure of hope in him that things
could
get back to normal, eventually. Back at the pit,
Warren
told him the world had gone to hell, and when Scott wondered aloud where his wife was, what did the dwarf say? Gone to Heaven if she was righteous? On a goddamn spit if she wasn’t, or being fucked to death by those pricks if she looked halfway decent?

Sandi looked a damn sight better than ‘halfway decent’. They wouldn’t waste her on the pit. They’d have her locked away somewhere, someplace they could… Scott couldn’t allow himself to finish the thought, could not allow it to dampen his hope that he could still find her and get her back. The only thought he
would
allow in his head now was that she was still alive, that if luck was with him and he played his cards right, they could be reunited. He hadn’t known where he was going when he got on the Harley and rumbled away from his house, but he knew now.
Warren
seemed to know something about The Devil’s Own. He knew it was them manning the pit, seemed to know their routine—ugly, throw them on the pit; attractive, haul them back to camp. He must have had dealings with them in one way or another. He sure as hell showed up with them this morning. Maybe that shocked look of surprise wasn’t just that he had seen Scott slipping up on the biker. Maybe he was shocked to see them turn on him, shocked because they were two peas in a twisted pod and, like the Nazi collaborators of bygone years, he figured as long as he did their bidding he was safe from reprisal. Probably never thought he’d end up hanging from that doorframe. Scott hoped he
still
was hanging there.

An exit ramp appeared in the distance, and Scott sped toward it, down it and into the city. Before he knew it he was heading past the warehouse he and Lila and
Warren
had passed by on their way to
Warren
’s place. On his right was the field they had crossed. He slowed as he entered the subdivision. He didn’t want to veer off course and have to go wandering around the neighborhood looking for the place. He took a right and a left, and saw the headless biker lying dead on the sidewalk. He pulled up beside him and killed the engine, slammed down the kickstand and looked up at the house. And there was
Warren
, still hanging from the doorframe, the door closed behind him, his small feet resting one atop the other on the doorknob. His eyes were closed, and he was grimacing. Scott could hear him whimpering all the way to the street. He took a step closer to the dead biker, and saw his head lying beside him, a bizarre yoyo held in place by those taffy-thin strings of bloody tendon. Flies were buzzing in and out of his wounds. Scott kicked him and a thick, dark cloud of them whorled and lifted away. Seconds later they were back on him, and Scott was on his way to the front porch. By the time he got there his gun was out of its holster. He wasn’t about to take any chances. Not with this bunch. He jacked a round in place and
Warren
’s eyes snapped open.

“You,” he said.

Scott said nothing. He stepped onto the porch and leaned against its wooden railing. He looked at
Warren
, the nailed palms, his parched and flaking lips, the dried blood on his forearms, the way his legs trembled as they tried holding him in place.

“Get me loose.”

“What?”

“Help me.”

“Does it hurt?”

“
What!
Fuck yes it hurts!”

“Why’d you have Davey tied up back there yesterday?”

“The crazy fucker tried to kill me.”

“Why didn’t you warn us about him?”

“C’mon, Scott. Get me down.”

“Why didn’t you warn us?”

“What are you,
kidding me?
You already didn’t trust me worth a damn. I’ve got a kid tied up butt-naked to a piss-soaked mattress, and I’m supposed to tell you what, the crazy bastard tried to gut me? With those big old innocent eyes of his, that bitch would’a shot me dead as soon as she saw him. She’d already squeezed off an empty round in my mouth—did you know that shotgun was empty? I sure as hell didn’t know it was empty. Hell, I pissed all over myself.”

Scott smiled, holstered his weapon and took a step forward. “Listen,” he said. “Listen very carefully to what I have to say, and think long and hard before you answer.”

“Can’t you just get me down first? Geez, I’m—”

“Shhh. Listen… Those Devil’s Own pricks, you know them?”

“Yeah,”
Warren
said, still whimpering, his trembling legs still locking him in place against the closed door.

“So you know where I can find them, where their home base is.”

Warren
nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

“Where they take their prisoners, where they hold them.”

“Yes, yes, all that shit. Just get me down, please.”

“You’re almost there, little man. Tell me.”

Warren
squeezed his eyes shut. “God, it hurts,” he said.

“Tell me.”

“They took over the jailhouse. That’s where they take their prisoners. They’re using the Ambassador Hotel for a clubhouse. Most of the leaders stay there, them and the people they hold in high regard. They’ve got a meth lab set up in an old rundown motel on the north side of town. That’s where the rest of ‘em crash, the soldiers, they call them. Now get me down, will ya?”

“How are they running a meth lab without electricity?”

“Jesus Christ! Please, just get me down… get me down and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“All right,” Scott said. “All right.” He stepped up to
Warren
. The hammer Dub had used to nail him to the doorframe lay on the porch in front of him. Scott looked down at it, then back at
Warren
’s hands.

“How long have you been in that position?”

“
What!
”

“You know, your feet tight against the doorknob, jamming you in place.”

“Christ Almighty,
please!
”

“Why didn’t you just tear your hands away from the doorframe?”

“It hurts too much.”

Scott chuckled. “I’ll bet,” he said. The two nails had been pounded flat into
Warren
’s palms. They had small, round heads that would have ripped a ragged tunnel through his flesh. Scott wondered if he could have ripped his own hands away from something like that. He could have grabbed the hammer and gone to work on the frame, maybe torn it apart in an effort to get
Warren
down. It would’ve hurt, sure it would have, but nowhere near as bad as just snatching him away from the doorframe.

Scott reached up and grabbed his wrists—

“The hammer, get the—”

“Grit your teeth.”

—ripped his arms toward him and
Warren
fell screaming to the porch.
He lay there, writhing and whimpering and holding his hands against his chest, crying out in pain while Scott stood back and watched him. Eventually, he rolled over onto his back and held his hands out in front of him. Tattered strips of meat threaded their way out of two trenches the nails had dragged through his palms, and now the blood was flowing again, down his hands and onto the underside of his forearms.

Scott sat down on the front porch stairs, and
Warren
said, “Look at what you did. Look at what
you did
.”

“
I
did? You’re the one who brought your biker buddies back here. What exactly was the idea behind that anyway? What, they pay you for shit like that? Give you food?”

“They caught me,”
Warren
said, his voice still twinged with pain. “They
came
outa nowhere and caught me in the middle of the street. They were pissed off. That leader of theirs was about to slit my fucking throat. I didn’t want to bring ‘em back here. I had to—I’d be dead if I didn’t.”