Hellbent, page 16
Eric and Anton exchanged glances. “Bring it,” Anton said. “I have a few things I’d like to say to that guy.”
“Oh, great,” Demi snapped. “Your brother’s as bad as you are.”
“Worse, actually,” Fiona commented.
Demi smacked her hand down onto the table, making her coffee cup rattle. “So you two are just going to egg each other on?” she demanded. “You want to just go up there and what, spit in their eye? Offer yourself up as fucking bait?”
“We should break this wide open,” Chief Bristol said. “Right now. Call the FBI. Turn it over to the CDC. Call the press. Make a lot of noise. Let them overrun the place and test the living bejesus out of everything. If we turn this into a three-ring circus, that’ll keep those bastards away.”
“What makes you so sure?” Eric said. “What if they retaliate? They have a doomsday weapon, as far as Shaw’s Crossing residents are concerned. They’ve killed before. What would they do if they had nothing to lose?”
“I don’t know,” Chief Bristol said impatiently. “But that Lone Ranger stuff you fellows want to do is reckless and irresponsible. I can’t condone it.”
“We’re the only ones who can face the death pen safely, so we should—”
“Safely, my ass!” Demi yelled. “They could still just shoot you!”
“They could try,” Eric corrected softly.
“The death-pen didn’t work on you, yes,” Demi said hotly. “That time. It’s a big leap to assume it won’t work on Anton, or Mace, or Fiona. Or that it will never work on you. That conclusion is premature. Maybe that death-pen’s battery ran down. Maybe he had a bum death-pen but there are eleven more in the box that work just fine. We don’t know! We can’t know!”
“We’ve waited as long as we can.” Eric turned to the police chief. “Don’t call the cavalry just yet. One more look around up there first. Just one last time.”
The two men stared at each other. Wade Bristol’s jaw was set.
“Your wife lived here thirteen years ago, right?” Eric said. “And your girls? They were little then. In primary school, right? They would all have been exposed to this thing.”
“Don’t jerk me around, Eric,” Bristol warned.
“You think these bastards won’t target your family? It’s the first thing they’ll do.”
“Angela and the girls can fly down and visit her sister in San Diego,” Bristol said stiffly. “I’ll give you today. Tomorrow I call the Feds, and the CDC.” He looked over at Fiona. “What about that microchip? What’s on it?”
“Nothing I can use,” she told him. “It’s a password-protected portal. I had six password attempts. I’ve burned five of them.”
There was a dismayed silence.
“Yes, I know. It was years ago.” Fiona’s voice sounded defensive. “At the time, I had no idea what was at stake. I thought it was just something in my past for me to process and hopefully move past. I never dreamed that anyone would come after me for it.”
Anton pushed the envelope up the table toward his brother. “Here’s the chip.”
Eric nodded. He took it and slid the envelope into a briefcase beside his feet.
It felt strange to have it out of reach, as if she were giving up part of her body.
The bell over the door pinged. Nate came in, hunched against the chilling wind in his Shearling leather jacket. “Here’s her new phone, as requested.” He placed a smartphone on the table in front of Fiona. It was nested in a protective case of hideous lime green rubber. He set down the box next to it. “Paperwork, charger, cords and whatnot. Sorry about the color. It was that or pink, and I didn’t take you for the pink type. They also had moppets, puppies or kittens. And a skull with snakes coming out its eyes, which I actually considered for you. But in the end, I didn’t have the nerve.”
Fiona smiled at him. “Green is fine. I’m not fussy.”
“I charged it for you,” Nate told her. “And programmed in all our numbers.”
“Thanks,” she said. “How much to I owe you?”
Nate’s eyes slid over to Anton. “Take it away, pal.” He looked at Fiona. “Talk to the guy whose name is on the credit card.”
Fiona nodded. “Of course.”
“Never mind that,” Anton said. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
Nate slid back into his chair, his gaze flicking down to the table where Elisa sat, sipping her coffee and carefully not looking at him. “So? What did I miss?”
“Nothing I haven’t filled you in on before,” Anton said. “You and Wong will cover Demi and Fiona here at the diner this afternoon while Eric and I go up to check out the situation up at GodsAcre.”
“I’m coming with you guys,” Fiona said. “As I stated before.”
“Goddamnit, Fi—”
“If you want to be gallant and chivalrous, give me first pick from your gun stash,” she suggested. “A big-ass shotgun would suit my mood.”
Eric looked impressed. “I hope you have something she likes,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint that woman.”
19
The pick-up truck was dead silent on the way up Kettle Canyon Road. Fiona had planted her ass in the tight back seat of the truck’s cab, and there was nothing he could do about it, apart from dragging her out bodily. He’d even considered that idea, and then abandoned it. That could only end in disaster, and possible dismemberment.
He couldn’t control her or persuade her, which made it really fucking hard to protect her.
After one too many sidelong glances from Eric, he finally turned on his brother. “What the fuck are you looking at?” he snarled. “Watch the goddamn road.”
Eric shot Fiona a glance in the rear-view. “It’s the look on both your faces. Like you’re being marched to your execution. Fi, if you’ve changed your mind, say the word. I can turn this truck—”
“I never change my mind,” she said flatly. “I need to see GodsAcre. Drive on. We’re not going to enjoy it, but we’re tough. We’ll live.”
Eric stared out at the road ahead. “I don’t think we’ll run into those assholes up there today,” he said. “I doubt they’d mobilize again so soon. I slammed them hard the other day, and you slammed them again in Seattle. We’ve thinned out their ranks.”
“And pissed them off,” Anton said.
“I can’t wait to piss Kimball off,” Fiona said. “Personally. Right before I shoot him in the face.”
That was a conversation killer, if anyone had felt like talking.
Anton started recognizing landmarks. Rock formations that loomed above them as they rounded the final bend were eerily familiar. Eric slowed and then stopped next to the huge boulders that flanked the entrance to GodsAcre. There had used to be a gate between them. Now there was only a heavy, rusty chain lying on the ground.
Eric gunned the engine. The truck’s tires bumped over the chain. They crossed the bridge, weathered and sagging but still miraculously intact, over the creek. Slightly farther down the hill that creek joined with another spring that then became the Upper and Lower Kettle Falls. They drove along the washed out road alongside the creek bed that cut through the narrow canyon. That access point had been chosen by Jeremiah for defensive purposes, and Anton and Eric and Mace had all spent many long, chilly nights perched in those rocks with a gun, wearing infrared goggles. Sentry duty. No rest for the vigilant.
They emerged into the small hanging valley beyond, and they had arrived.
Eric drove past the ruins of the Great Hall without stopping, and onto the muddy track leading downhill. He parked on the hillside and they got out of the pickup, struck silent by the strangeness of being there.
There were no signs of any people. Just the sound of birds and the rush of the wind in the trees. No vehicles. Just tire tracks in the mud and garbage everywhere.
Fiona shouldered the bag that held her pistol, spare ammo, flashlight and water and set off briskly toward the excavated pit over what used to be the caverns without even turning to look back up at the ruins of the Great Hall.
“Hey,” he called after her. “Wait up!”
She didn’t seem to hear him. But he knew what drove her. The memories that thronged this place were deafening. One look at the Great Hall took the air right out of him. He was skilled at not thinking about shit that bothered him, but not when it was all rolled into one big fucking lump and shoved forcibly down his throat.
He and Eric scanned the place as they followed after her, but they saw nothing but trees bending in the wind. There was a smell of snow in the air. They were high up in altitude here. The crisp, clean scent of the air was achingly familiar.
They were approaching the edge of the pit when his brother spoke again. “Their cars were parked there,” Eric said, pointing at the tire tracks.
“I doubt they’ve been back since their clean-up crew came and went,” Anton said.
“Nate’s drone has been monitoring the place. We haven’t seen any movement up here,” Eric said. “Not yet.”
“They couldn’t clean up the blood,” Fiona said.
Eric and Anton walked up and joined her on the hillside near the big pit. The hair escaping from her tight braid whipped around her face in the cold wind. She stared at a brownish stain on the ground, her mouth grim.
“One of them shot himself in the thigh by accident while we were fighting,” Eric said. “He bled out right here. Another one got knocked out right about…here.” He indicated the spot. “Two of them fell into the pit. One was face down in the water when I left, and he’d been that way for a while. I’m pretty sure he was dead. The other one had a broken leg, but he was still alive when we left.”
“I would have killed them all,” Fiona said.
Eric shrugged. “Demi didn’t want me to. They were already neutralized.”
Fiona crouched down next to the bloodstain. “The vanguard of the Army of the Faithful has gotten soft,” she commented. “The effect of corruption from too much contact with a decadent society speeding toward its inevitable doom.”
“Or maybe it’s love,” Anton said. “Love fucks you up.”
Eric looked like he was trying not to smile. “I’m riddled with fatal flaws,” he said. “No longer worthy to be God’s holy weapon. Big shame.”
“We’re all defective,” Fiona said, prodding at the bloodstain with the end of a twig. “That’s why we’re all still alive.”
“Don’t dwell on it,” Anton said. “Stay sharp.”
“Like a razorblade.” She stood up and tossed the twig away. “I’m glad the blood is still visible. I wish it was all visible. Like a scorecard. They got my Patti. I want to see the chalk outlines where those bastards fell.”
She brushed her hands off on her jeans, and without hesitation, lowered herself over the edge of the excavated pit at a point where the drop was shortest. She dropped down, landing in a deep crouch.
Anton followed her down, a swift, jolting slip-and-slide through rocks and mud. “Damn it, Fi. Slow down.”
“Can’t,” she said. “This place will eat us alive if we wander around in a daze.”
Anton looked up at Eric on the ledge above. “Can you keep watch?”
Eric lifted Otis’s Glock. “Make it snappy. This is no place to linger.”
Hard to be snappy in sloppy, sucking, ankle-deep mud. They slogged their way laboriously all around the perimeter of that big, wet hole in the ground. At first they saw nothing but rocks, brush and a whole lot of garbage.
Ultimately, the garbage was the key. Once he started to really see the cigarette butts, soda cans and pop-tops, a pattern began to emerge. Like a trail of bread crumbs, the scattered trash got thicker, on a beaten trail that finally dead-ended up against a raggedy pile of cut tree branches leaning against the side of the pit, which was deeper and sheerer on this side. Anton grabbed some armfuls of the branches, tossing them aside.
Then he saw it. A diagonal line in the mud, too long and regular to be anything but man-made. A concrete wall, partially collapsed. A weather-beaten sheet of plywood leaned against it.
He pulled the plywood aside, revealing a triangular black hole that led back into utter darkness. Near the door, the tunnel had been shored up with chunks of new lumber.
He pulled out a flashlight as Fiona joined him. Her eyes shone hot with excitement but she was playing it cool. “What did you find? A tunnel into the cavern?”
“Looks like it.” He peered in, flicking the beam of light around. “Looks like it could collapse at any moment.”
Fiona crouched down, peering at the ground around the opening. “I don’t think so. They were using it a lot. Look at all this trash.” She gestured at the shreds of cellophane, scraps of fast food wrappings, the straws and plastic tops of soft drink cups. “Bored sentries hung out here for hours while other people were inside working. Looking for that mysterious whatever-the-hell-it-is.”
Anton studied the floor of the passageway. “It’s covered with boot prints.”
“Well, then. Good enough for me.”
“What do you mean? That’s your standard? If it’s good enough for Kimball’s goons, it’s good enough for you?”
She rolled her eyes and crouched down, leaning to look deeper with her flashlight. Then she tucked the flashbang necklace inside the neckline of her sweater. “No,” she said. “All I meant was, they were free to take their chances, and I am free to do the same. Ladies first.” She disappeared inside.
“Fuck!” he hissed. “Wait for me! Hey! Eric!”
Eric’s face appeared above him. “Found something?”
“A collapsed wall with a passageway underneath. Fiona just went in before I could stop her.”
Eric looked appalled. “She’s fucking insane!”
“Tell me about it,” he said, as he dove headfirst into the suffocating darkness.
20
The darkness had a heavy, sticky quality to it. Fiona fought to breathe.
She was bent nearly double, sometimes crawling on her knees through mud to get through the lopsided triangular tunnel, sometimes slithering on her belly.
She stuck the small flashlight between her teeth to free her hands. Tasted mud and grit. The sickly beam bobbed and wavered over broken concrete as she wiggled past it.
A fainter light beam danced around her as Anton came up behind her. “Fi,” he hissed. “For the love of fuck. Wait for me.”
She didn’t turn or stop. “I’m not being a bitch on purpose,” she called back. “I just have to keep moving. It’s like riding a bike. If I stop the forward motion, I’ll fall over.”
“At least let me go first! I won’t block you.”
“Sorry. Can’t.” She approached the narrowest part of the passageway yet and squirmed through it. “You’d never get past me. You’re too wide for this rabbit hole, big guy.”
She ignored the muffled cursing from behind her and just focused on moving forward. The bag she was carrying was awkward in the tight, irregular passageway. She had to constantly duck and turn to keep going. Anton was twice her size but he kept grimly on, closing the gap between them.
She finally felt air moving, and crawled out into a larger space. It smelled of mud and mold, and the ever-constant, eye-watering smell of piss. Anton emerged from the passageway behind her and unfolded his long body with a sigh of relief.
The two of them played the beams of their flashlights along slabs of concrete that lay at crazy angles. Rusted rebar spikes jutted every which way.
They made their way carefully and quietly, boots crunching, taking the most obvious and most heavily traveled way through the chaotic darkness.
“It’s like a labyrinth in here,” Fiona whispered.
“I’m keeping track of the turns,” Anton told her.
Thank God. She realized that she was holding her breath as they picked their way through the place. Tiptoeing, as if there was a sleeping monster, and they didn’t dare wake it. It was so quiet. The air was clammy. Water had seeped in from outside. She heard constant, hollow dripping.
At one point, they found themselves walking alongside a wall that was intact and upright. The tiny halo from her flashlight picked out faded colors, obscured by dark mold.
Recognition slammed into her. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
“What is it?” Anton spun, gun at the ready.
“Look at the wall. It’s TJ’s mural. See? It’s the Army of the Faithful entering the happy valley. This must have been the library wall.”
The painted images were barely recognizable. Just a few details of stylized faces and hands were visible, a windmill, a cornstalk, a plow, showing through like ghosts. TJ’s colorful utopian fantasy had once covered the entire library wall. Now it was obscured by mold and crawling roots.
Pot-bellied, gray-bearded TJ had been the GodsAcre art teacher. He’d taught drawing and drafting and painting, ceramics, glass-blowing, stained glass, art history. She’d spent a lot of time in that library, staring at TJ’s mural while Jeremiah ranted about his own dark interpretations of history, philosophy, political science and economics.
She’d spent all the years since unpicking those knots. Unlearning Jeremiah’s bizarre convictions. She’d been given a set of truly fucked up maps to navigate the world with.
But who knew? Maybe in the end, everybody’s maps were just as fucked up as her own had been. Maybe everyone was just blundering around in the dark with their fingers crossed, just like her.
Right now, that thought was far from comforting.
The beam of Anton’s flashlight wandered over the mural, and then moved down to the rubble at his feet. He kneeled down to pull something small out of the rocks.
A paperback book, or it had been once. Now it was swollen with moisture and eaten by fungus. The pages disintegrated under his fingers as he opened it.
“Pride and Prejudice,” he said quietly.
That slid right under her guard. Mom had read that book with her when she was twelve. She’d read it on her own many times since then. Probably that very same copy.
Pride and Prejudice tore the lid off of all her memories. They welled up all at once, overwhelming her.
