Well Fed - 05 (47 page)

Gus leaned in, blinking in horror quickly changing into anger. “What fuckin’ life?”

“This.”
Jerry swept his hands wide. “Bringing dedicated folks like myself into the fold. Getting them ready for war. You know what’s on the other side of Canada?”

“More like you?”

“
Worse
than me. There’s guys and gals over there who’ve banded together and pretty much dance naked in their own shit. Yeah,
that
fuckin’ crazy. Armageddon-level insanity. When law and order went down the shitter like two flushed turds headin’ out to sea, the anarchists came out to play, and they came out in force. Then the crazies. Then the
cannibals
. Some of them banded together and made small armies. Others made tribes. They got their hands on guns and explosives and either started shootin’ people or rounding them up. Why people? Because that’s the only resource left in the world that’s worth a goddamn. People are
key
to starting over. The more you have, the more power you got. Without them, you’re just one shit monkey sittin’ in his recliner, wonderin’ if he should face the morning or exit with a shotgun blast to the head. And if it’s not me waking them up, it’ll be someone else—someone a lot less sociable.”

Roxanne’s voice whispered in Gus’s ear then, a soft breath of deadly sweetness, warning him about the west, warning him about what was out there. He couldn’t remember her exact words, but her message had been clear enough.

“Like surrounding them with guns and yanking the kids away?” Gus countered, his tone rising. “You could’ve pulled up and asked for a meeting or something.”

“Ask for a
meeting
? How often did someone fuckin’ ask for a meeting with you? I mean, when you met someone on the road? Huh? Folks don’t ask for
meetings
anymore. They fuckin’ blast you first and cattle prod the pieces left over. Maybe they’ll wonder about you when they’re squatting over a hole and taking a dump. That’s all after they’ve fuckin’
looted
your ass. That’s the world today: shoot first and talk about dead assholes later. I’ve done both, and yeah, this way is far and away more preferable. I’ve got a system down—pretty reliable. The people I need are behind me: blood brothers who survived up north with me. Seriously, if I had my guys hide out of sight and then approach a group of people all alone, which is a pretty goddamn dangerous proposition to begin with, right? Stupid too, I might add. But, say for argument’s sake I do that. What do you think’ll happen? Ninety percent of the time? I’m left for dead. That’s just all hypothetical, though. Now, say you do listen, and I tell you I’m committed to protecting myself and you––your people. Okay? And I
know
what’s out there. What’s coming. I tell you everything and make the argument for joining forces. Well, guess what? Sooner or later, there’s going to be a disagreement about some shit. There always is. Two clans can’t coexist under two leaders, so one will have to assume power. Thing is, a clan is usually pretty loyal to its leader, so the two groups become fragmented once again. Maybe there’s debate on how things are done. Then arguments. Then fistfights. Then knives and guns. See where I’m heading with this? And even if that new bunch of survivors says, ‘No, thank you, it’s not our concern,’ well, what do you do? Leave those folks alone? Just
leave
that pocket of skills and knowledge for the next, not-so-sociable clan to roll into town? I see you’re missing some teeth in front there, Gussy. How’d that happen?”

“Got into a fight.”

“Life or death, I take it?”

Gus paused. “Yeah.”

“You find a dentist to take them teeth out?”

“No.”

“And there you go. Now, maybe you’re in need of a mechanic, and the only one you know happens to be part of another group. You’d really leave that behind?”

Gus rattled his head and stared. “Holy shit, skippy. You jumped some big steps in that logic there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jerry said. “My point is, you
get
them, whether they want to join up or not. You can’t just allow people––skilled labor––to
walk
. You bring them into the fold, show them how the world works now, and if they don’t like it…” Jerry drew a thumb across his throat and stuck out a tongue. “Because the next group will use them against me. And to that, I say, ‘Fuck you.’ Better me than somebody else.”

Gus sat slack-jawed, his head spinning from the warped logic Jerry was spewing.

“Are you fuckin’ insane?” he finally blurted.

This genuinely perplexed Jerry. “Whaddaya mean?”

Gus inhaled and steadied himself. “You can’t be killin’ people just because they won’t fuckin’
join up
.”

“I’m the lesser of any evil out there. If I don’t do it, someone else
will
. Believe me. And they’ll do worse.
Horror
story–type shit.”

Gus regarded his brother as if a mutated head was sprouting from his shoulder.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Jerry said. “There’s only one way to make it in this world today, and that’s to take it by the nutsack and not to let go. Impose your will, control it, and hammer onward. The only way. Anything else, and you’re meat waiting to be fed to a machine.”

“What in God’s name happened to you? Last time I saw you, you were a shovel operator working with Bolg Oil.”

Jerry smirked. “You know the difference between God and a shovel operator?”

Gus once more shook his head, failing to understand what
that
had to do with anything.

“God doesn’t think he’s a shovel operator,” Jerry chuckled.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Look…” Shovel said and stood. He stretched his back and smiled brightly. “Let’s get out of here. I have a place up north in Ontario being renovated while I’m over here collecting names.”

“
Collecting
?”

“Yeah, so let’s head on back, and I guarantee you when you see what I have to show, you’ll think differently.”

Shovel leaned across, gripped Gus by the back of the neck, and pulled him forward to land a kiss on his forehead. “Good to see you, Gussy. Very good to see you.”

He didn’t so much release him as shove him away, and he strode back to the inner door.

“Come on.” Shovel kissed the air as if calling a loyal dog.

His head damn near swollen and liquid with dark thoughts, Gus reluctantly followed. He replayed the whole crazy lecture he’d just sat through, wondering if his only remaining brother had gone over a precipice of savagery and crash-landed as a wasteland general or had just gone bugnuts
insane
.
Jesus Christ
, Gus thought pensively, walking through the inner door and ignoring Nolan’s silver mask.

Gus stepped outside the office, stomach and mind churning, suddenly believing he should’ve tried for a rifle from the wall rack.

Sounds of a fight in progress sidetracked his attention.

Just ahead, grunting and fighting within a fragmented ring of armed soldiers, the redheaded woman known as Marie slugged another man across the jaw, laying him out on the ground. In the drifting smoke and brightening day, she jumped onto him and raised a hammer.

She brought it down as if pounding a crooked nail into a knot of wood… except it wasn’t wood she was hitting.

Marie buried the tool into her opponent’s head, and he ceased struggling, limbs flopping as if drilled by a Taser. She ripped the hammer free in a red arc, shrieked, and whacked the skull again, quieting those thrashing arms and legs. She continued hitting the dead man, grunting with every impact.

The killing stopped Gus cold in his tracks. “Holy fuck.”

Shovel sighed, half turned, and rolled his eyes with impatience.

“Christ above, I don’t want to hear it,” he declared and glanced over his brother’s shoulder.

Nolan slapped Gus upside the head with the flat of his axe, dropping him like a laundry bag falling off a moving truck.

A whirlpool of inky blackness sucked Gus down. Voices crackled in that weightless void, right in his ear at times, far away at others. He came close to consciousness, skimming the underbelly, and floated just beneath, aware enough to know that being so close to the surface wasn’t a comfortable experience. Forces tugged and jerked on his limbs, some hard enough for Gus to wonder,
What was that?
just before a warm undercurrent enveloped his sense of self, originating from the crook of his elbow, flooding him in a puff of euphoria, sending him spiraling, hands and fingers outstretched, exploring. The darkness lit up with mute explosions of intoxicating purple, pink, and blue, calming him with their serenity, warping into streaks of light as he flew outward, heading for reaches unknown.

Sand.

He lay upon sand, the earth’s heat radiating through his back, shifting and seeping into his weary physical form while luminescent waves soaked the shoreline with a rattle. He glanced right, then left, seeing nothing but beach and heat shimmers. Roxanne stretched out beside him on the left, naked, her skin the color of the sky. This didn’t disturb Gus in the least. In fact, seeing the woman delighted him in a subdued kind of way. She smiled twinkling silver teeth at him, and a surreal glow engulfed her head. She pointed, and Gus looked toward an ocean of glittering purple that magically alternated between flat tranquility and gentle ripples, like a plain of velour being smoothed by the invisible hand of God.

“Beautiful,” Gus said, feeling the heat at his bare back, the sand working magic into his aching frame, into the very fiber of his spirit.

“I feel fucking amazing,” he said, the words formulating in elegant cursive smoke before his eyes, curling into nothing, leaving only a curious taste of vanilla and strawberries. The waves rolled. The sky fled and blotted with fireworks that took eternities to blossom. Roxanne scooted a little closer, snuggling into his arm, her chin becoming part of his upper shoulder. The contact made him blink, the action taking a whole year.

“How much of that shit you give him?” Roxanne asked in a voice that sounded like she was gargling a microphone, but with everything so wonderful, Gus didn’t think it weird at all. He went back to watching the sky, his eyes opening to their maximum potential.

“Fuck me,” Slick Pick muttered as he studied the opaque shell of Gus’s left eyeball. He released it, and the skin slid over the curvature like a slug, easing into a dreamy slit. Slick Pick pulled back the right eyelid with a rough thumb. “You used too much this time.”

Sick stood silent next to the trailer’s wall and shrugged nonchalantly, inspecting the syringe he’d just emptied into the sedated man’s arm. Shovel had okayed the first injection two hours before, a light dose, just to see how his brother would react to the heroin.

Sick didn’t do light doses—it was fucking thunderbolts all the way.

To his surprise, Gus had reacted just fine, mellowing out like a sleepy cat.

“This cocksucker’s never gonna wake up, Shovel,” Slick Pick stated, flashing a dirty look in Sick’s direction.

“Hey,” Shovel said, offended, “That’s my blood you’re talking about there. So don’t call him a cocksucker.”

Slick Pick straightened and frowned. “Sorry, Shovel. Meant no disrespect.”

“Well, it fuckin’ sounded disrespectful.”

“Sorry, bro.”

Shovel didn’t reply, letting Slick Pick wallow in unease. Sometimes, silence was the best way to keep the grunts in line.

They stood around Gus, who’d crashed, drugged, on a couch in the designated command trailer Shovel had taken for his own. The narrow quarters contained a plush but worn living-room set, bolted down to avoid slippage. A weapon rack for firearms and blades hung beside a desk. The office furniture partitioned off the bedroom section and the double-size mattress in the rear. Thick quilts lay in a snarl upon the bed. Shovel couldn’t give a shit about housekeeping.

He stood above his tripping brother and shook his head, pissed at having to drug Gus for the road and aware of the implications.

“So how long you gonna keep him like this?” Slick Pick asked, mindful of Sick and the intimidating Nolan leaning against a wall. The big man still hadn’t removed his silver helmet, seemingly enjoying the fear he instilled in Slick Pick.

“What do you mean?” Shovel asked back.

“You can’t keep him doped up like that.”

“Why not?” Shovel regarded his henchman. “You laying claim to the dust now?”

Slick paled and swallowed. “Course not, Shovel. We got plenty of that. But sooner or later, he’s gonna come out if it. Now, I’m no shrink, but I saw his face when you came out of that cop shack, and I can tell you, he’s
not
with the program. All due respect.”

“He’s with it. He’s my blood. That alone makes him with it.”

“He’s gotta fight someone.”

Shovel’s face darkened into a Halloween mask of displeasure. “I don’t like you goin’ on about this, Slick.”

“Shovel, I’m only
sayin’
. We all follow rules here—rules you set down to make sure whoever came into the fold was reliable.
Dependable
. It’s like fuckin’ protocol now for all these new bastards. Weed killer for the undesirables, right? And it appears to me, this is one case of true colors you’ll want to get to the bottom of ASAP. Christ, how many times have you said we can’t have anyone around who don’t believe in what we’re doing? And brother or not, whoever was in the street there this morning saw that Gussy here might have issues.”

Sick’s dangerous eyes flicked to gauge Shovel’s reaction. At the same time, Nolan straightened, a golem coming to life, pulling his back an inch away from the wall, offering maximum, decisive violence if needed.

Shovel didn’t summon them, however, and Slick Pick, perspiring and visibly aware of the two killers, pressed on with his argument like a man threading his way through a minefield using a dinner fork.

“If Giovanni were here, he’d say the same thing.”

“You shut the fuck up right there,” Shovel warned. “Just fuckin’ shut up. The day you speak for Giovanni is the day I fucking take a drill to your skull. You don’t talk for him. Got it?”

“Just sayin’ if he were here, he’d say––”