Well Fed - 05 (51 page)

Slick Pick remembered his job and pointed at the doors. “All right. Haul his icy ass over to that empty trailer next to med-house.”

The two wearing masks moved in and grabbed Gus by the arms, pulling him to his feet. Gus resisted, feebly at first, but once on his feet, he yanked an arm away and got shoved up against a wall for his efforts. An elbow pressed hard against his throat, settling him down.

“You finished?” Slick Pick asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Listen. You give these guys any trouble, and they will slap you around. Just so you know.”

“Thanks.”

Slick Pick stepped out of the way, brushing against Rachel. “That’s how you do it.”

“I like how you handled that,” she said as the pair of guards locked Gus’s arms up behind his back and walked him out of the trailer.

“I’m good at handling things,” Slick Pick said with a wink.

Daylight made Gus squint in pain. They pushed him past parked transport trucks and groups of people unloading trailers. He took in the compound, awestruck at the size and scope of the valley and the mountain dominating it all. Chain-link fences topped off with twirls of wire ringed the tree lines. A noisy backhoe grumbled up a wide ramp toward a wide tunnel. Work crews carrying picks and shovels followed the machine. At the base of the ramp was a flatbed with an honest-to-God minigun mounted on the back. Ammunition feeds linked crates to the menacing weapon. Gus swore at the sight before being walked past some low housing or office structures as well as the motor homes he recognized as belonging to Collie and Wallace. Where the special operators were now, he had no idea. Alive, he hoped. Preferably planning a rescue. That made him chuckle.

The men twisting his arms behind his back didn’t appreciate the sudden merriness from their prisoner. They jacked his joints until the bones and musculature were about to pop.

Gus grunted in pain but smiled it off, basking in the residual effect of the drugs injected into him. People walked with purpose around that mountainside pit stop and paid little attention to him. His eyes wandered to a long trailer parked next to a single-story house. The front door was opened, and––

Gus’s eyes widened.

A shocked Maggie stood on the threshold, dropping her hands, which she’d been drying with a towel, and stared back at him.

Holy shit. Here.

That meant Shovel––or a pack of his pyschopaths acting on his word––wiped out the farm. Killed Adam and the others and started this whole goddamn journey of horrors.

Gus’s guts curled into icy knots. He slowed, but his guards pushed him on. The guards escorted him to the rear of a forlorn-looking trailer where another masked man appeared like some irradiated ninja.

“Jesus Christ,” Gus moaned. “Not you again.”

Sick’s eyes sparkled with evil intent.

“You’re gonna get me addicted to that shit.”

Sick pulled on the trailer door, opening it with a metallic groan begging for oil. The guards shoved Gus into the lower lip, catching him unprepared, and he crashed with another grunt. Slick Pick moved and lowered a retractable set of steps from below the doors. Hands dug into Gus’s armpits and the back of his jeans, and they pushed him up the stairs into the container. One of the guards tripped him, and he crumpled to his side. Gus rolled over, and the man called Sick was already beside him. He drove his knee into Gus’s chest and held him there while guards pinned him down.

“How much you giving him, Sick?” Slick Pick’s face appeared over a shoulder.

“Thirty milligrams,” the man said in his raspy voice.

“He’s getting up there fast.”

Sick didn’t comment. Instead, he produced a long syringe and rolled Gus’s sleeve up.

“No moving around now,” Slick Pick’s voice instructed. “No moving. Don’t want Sick snapping that needle off in your arm. I don’t think you’re covered under our medical plan.”

Gus didn’t move. Part of him
wanted
the needle. At least on the beach, things weren’t so shitty. And he’d found Maggie after all. Small world indeed.

The needle sank into the vein.

“You’re the man,” Gus informed the impassive ski mask as Sick held an administering pose.

“Oh, here,” Slick Pick pulled out a plastic bottle from a leg pocket of his cargo pants. He slid it across to Gus’s hand. “In case you find it cold in there.”

It was the bottle of Captain Morgan—the same one with the twine still attached to the neck. No one had chugged the booze yet. Seeing it lifted Gus’s spirits like a lucky charm.

Then that liquid heaven rushing through his arm, invading him, finally reached his brain.

Gus’s consciousness sped off like a wayward torpedo, spinning into a deep, deep blue.

The beach delivered therapeutic heat to his back, seeping through his tired muscles, slowing his pulse, as his detached consciousness sailed over falls of euphoria. Water rolled over the sand, scrubbing it softly, surging and retreating, in tune with his sedated heart and his breathing.

Paradise.
Gus exhaled and inspected himself, seeing a ripped body glistening in oil. That he was wearing oil didn’t seem strange at all. His memory did point out an oddity, and he took a moment to realize he was missing the scar dear old Alice had given him. He searched for it, probing with fingers, but it was gone, replaced with smooth, sun-browned skin.

Not bad
. He wormed his way deeper into the sand, soaking up the rays and listening to the hushed rhythm of the surf.

Too bad Maggie isn’t here.

That thought made him crack an eye in drunken puzzlement. He couldn’t place the name or a face, yet he sensed it was somehow important. He had a feeling she was close, but for the life of him, he didn’t understand why she wasn’t on a perfect beach like that on such a day. Not a soul walked the shoreline, and the palm trees waved gently, making him think of the Caribbean, telling him not to worry. All was just
ducky
.

A contented smile stretched over Gus’s features, and he idly scratched at his beard, wondering if beach flies might find him. Food entered his mind, but
later… later.
The sun dulled the notion away, making it too much effort to leave the beach.

Gus dozed, breathing in the heat and the smell of tropical seawater.

He woke up a while later, maintaining his peaceful vibe, and casually checked out the beach, hoping he’d catch a glimpse of some sand bunnies in thongs—or even topless. Seeing the coast was clear, he settled back and took a deep breath. A brief chill touched him, enough that he wondered where it had come from, then he relaxed and got back to work on his tan.

His eyes opened.

Gus sat up, feeling the surf cream about his lower legs, and glanced left. Nothing. He looked to the right and saw a figure on the beach, too far away for details. Gus squinted, thinking he saw red. The shape continued trekking along, making no attempt to dodge the surf.

“Well, holy shit,” Gus muttered.

There, walking a line between the sea and beach, strode the Captain.

The officer waved, his infectious grin leaping to Gus’s own suntanned mug, and Gus waved back before staggering to his feet.

They met halfway along the beach and threw their arms around each other.

“My God, it’s good to see you again, man,” Gus gushed, releasing the Captain for a moment before hugging him again. “Thought I was going to be alone here.”

“Never alone, my son,” Captain Morgan replied, his tanned crow’s feet making him all the more dashing. “Never alone. How’s the water?”

“Great.”

“And how’ve you been?”

“Fucking great since I got here!”

That outburst earned a sympathetic smile from the old sailor.

“C’mon, sit down,” Gus said. “This place is spectacular. Always wanted to go south, and man, it’s everything I figured it would be.”

The pair sat, oblivious to the warm seawater rushing around their backsides. The Captain appeared unconcerned by the surf—and the heat, as he’d dressed in his brightest finery. He tipped his hat and swept it from his head with a flourish, uncovering a black cloth wrapping his head. The Captain leaned back with a sigh and studied the horizon, taking it all in with an expert eye.

“Lovely,” he whispered and cocked an eyebrow at Gus. “Beautiful spot.”

“Ain’t it? Only wish there were a few ladies around, eh? Just a little more to look at. And I’m sure there’s a place to eat just past the trees there behind us. I haven’t gone looking yet, but since you’re here, we can check it out. Maybe there’s a luau cooking up. If there is, it’s on me.”

The Captain looked over his shoulder, nodding, and considered the thick curtain of vegetation before returning his attention to the surf.

“Simply lovely,” he said. “You’ve been here long?”

Gus chuckled. “Yeah. Can’t tell you how long, though.”

“You look good, yeah.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gus said smartly. “You appear to be in fine health yourself.”

“I watch the intake. Mind the grog. Don’t mind the ladies too much as that’s just as important as food and drink.”

“I understand completely.”

“This truly is a beautiful place. In all my time on the water, I don’t believe I’ve encountered such waters of clear blue… sands so inviting. The very air is a pleasure to breathe. Can you taste that? So fresh it’s intoxicating. You’ve done well for yourself, Gus, my old friend.”

Done well for myself?
Gus thought, and the corners of his smile drooped just a bit.

“It’s almost a shame you can’t stay here,” the Captain said with a sympathetic sigh.

“I can’t?”

A mild frown darkened the officer’s face. “I’m afraid not. Things aren’t quite done yet, you see. You’ve traveled far, and you’re very, very close. Maggie and the children are very near.”

“Maggie…” Gus stretched out the word, recognizing the name, a face appearing in his mind. “Oh shit, yeah, she… she got taken. Her and the kids.”

“But you found them.”

“I did?”

“Concentrate, now…” The Captain smiled gently, but the glow stopped at his eyes. “Concentrate, my lad. You have to remember. I’m afraid your lives depend on it…”

Collie and Wallace returned to their secluded cabin, not thirty minutes from Pine Cove. They’d found the little getaway after exploring one of many side roads along the highway and decided to make it a refuge from the surviving civilian types. As Wallace’s condition deteriorated, that choice seemed all the wiser.

They parked the pickup, got out, and unlocked the door to the rustic dream getaway on the bay, smelling gasps of pine and other hardwoods. In truth, the cabin was actually a second home for someone long gone, designed to bestow an open, spacious feel. A modern fireplace and cozy furniture filled the living room. Stacks of paperbacks and magazines lay about. A dartboard hung from a wall.

Collie and Wallace went to the ground-floor bedroom converted into a holding pen. The windows had been boarded from the inside and the door reinforced with a few extra planks and deadbolts. A slot had been cut into the door at eye level. A bed remained in the room but little else. Wallace had long maintained that if he was going over,
really
going over, why the hell should he have any furniture in the room? Collie insisted on the bed.

“Ready?” Collie asked him.

“Yeah.”

“Love you, babe.”

Wallace hit her with an emotional look that said the same.

Collie closed the door on that face. She locked it from the outside as he did the same from within. Then she sat down on the floor, feeling the gun in her hip holster clatter on the hardwood floor, and leaned her head against the wall.

There she stayed, stationed at the door—waiting, listening, conversing with her husband on the other side. She remained there the whole time. If she got hungry or thirsty, she went to the kitchen. If the stillness made her weary or sleepy, she slept right there with a pillow under her head and a tangle of quilts for everything else.

The first day, Wallace didn’t say very much at all. He stayed in the room, lying on the bed and brooding at the ceiling. Just that position alone was almost too much for Collie to handle, reminding her too much of a deathbed. So she refrained from peeking through the slot to check up on him. All the while, he maintained silence. After the episode with Gus, Collie really didn’t know what Wallace was experiencing during those long bouts of silence, so she called out to him whenever the quiet started to really get her.

Eventually, Wallace asked her to lay off.

Hours passed, and the sun went down, casting long shadows within the cabin, hiding the bay. Neither bothered with a light. Collie didn’t light the fireplace.

Later, deep in the night, Wallace spoke from just inside the door. The sound of his voice so close startled Collie. She hadn’t heard him get off the bed.

He started talking about trivial things: people they knew, places they’d been, lives saved and lost, experiences shared.

The hours filled with a litany of
remember when
s and
never forget
s, as they conjured up memory after memory, each one lighting the dark with smiles. Well past midnight they whispered, like children fearful of being overheard by some unseen force lurking just beyond the cabin walls. At times, they chuckled. At others, they paused until the emotion passed. Eventually, Collie could talk no more and drifted off to sleep, barely hearing Wallace’s
good night.

The second day was the same as the first except Wallace’s need for conversation disappeared. He paced his room, waiting, at times angry and resentful at having received Whitecap’s injection, hating what was happening to him. Curses streamed into a vicious rant, unheard of from the operator. He stomped, slapped walls, and shoved the bed.

She didn’t interrupt him, hunkering down until the storm had passed, keeping her sidearm close just in case.

By early afternoon, the poison had worked out of his system, and he returned to lying on his back. Collie scarcely ate, and when she did, she did so quietly, for fear of reminding Wallace he no longer needed real food.