He went back to the fire. “A pity.”
She looked at him coldly, but inside she was aghast and dismayed by the double entendre he’d made. Another chill spread over her skin.
He rose from the fire, the poker in his right hand. Niki watched the smoking orange raven at the end of the iron shaft and a muscle in her cheek twitched, but she showed no other reaction. The truth was, she was terrified. But she had no intention of giving him that satisfaction.
“Can I tell you something, Niki?”
Her eyes flicked from the orange tip of the smoking poker to his face.
“Back in high school,” he said, “I used to dream of fucking you. Seriously, that was the only reason I ever showed up to Algebra. Oh man, the sick shit I wanted to do to you. Tell me, Niki, you ever take it in the ass?”
She swallowed, trying hard to breathe in the stench of his breath without gagging.
He shrugged.
“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe here in the next few days we’ll get a chance to find out. You and me, we’re gonna be spending some quality time together.”
“You’ll never get the chance,” she managed to say. “Ken Stoler’s gonna—”
“Ken Stoler has been betrayed by his little favorite.” He brought the poker closer, passing it within inches of Niki’s face. She could see the glowing tip reflecting in his eyes like a sadistic joy. “He may come looking for you, Niki, but he’ll be hunting, not rescuing. You’re a traitor. How does that feel, knowing you turned your back on the one man who believed in you?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Niki said. “I’m on a scavenging mission. I’m looking for antibiotics.”
“You’re looking for Dr. Don Fisher,” he said. “Don’t lie to me.”
He dipped his face close to hers, and the stink of rot that emanated from him made her eyes water. But even worse than the smell, worse even than the bloodstains between his teeth, was the bright glow of insanity that filled his expression. The necrosis filovirus had eaten honeycomb chambers through his psyche, and what remained of his mind was like a window straight into hell.
“You’re not on any scavenging mission,” he went on. His voice was barely more than a whisper now, but still full of hate. “I have my spies in Union Field. I know the trouble you’ve had with Ken Stoler. And I know what you’re planning on doing. You’ve sent messages to Fisher. Where are you planning on meeting him?”
His words sent a chill through her. How could he know that? Was it true, did he really have spies in Union Field?
She forced the questions down.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Loren, please. Just let me go. You don’t have to do this.”
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “That name died when I did, Niki. Just like your name will die.”
“Loren,” she said. “Please . . .”
He took several steps back and nodded to his soldiers. They grabbed her by her arms and threw her facedown on the pavement.
“Pull down her pants,” the Red Man said.
Niki felt the guards groping at her belt buckle, then at her waistband as her pants and panties came down over her hips.
She kicked and tried to bite the hands that held her down, but there were just too many of them. And when her pants were down around her ankles, the guards pressed their knees into her back and shoulders. She might as well have been nailed to the street with railroad spikes. No matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t move.
The Red Man put the iron on the pavement in front of her face and she could hear the metal hissing. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve got a confession to make. I don’t really care if you tell me or not where Fisher is. You know why?”
She shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the smoking tip of the poker.
“I used to dream about fucking you. I did. I thought about it all the time. But pretty soon, I won’t have to wonder what it would have been like, because I’m gonna have as much of you as I want. Here in just a bit, I’m gonna be knee-deep inside of you.”
“Stop it!” she said. She hated the fear she heard in her voice, but she couldn’t hold it back now, not with her pants down around her ankles.
“Tell me where Fisher is.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t.”
“Where are the others you were with?”
“There aren’t any others. You killed the two men who came with me.” She struggled against the hands that held her to the pavement.
The Red Man turned his head slightly and one of the soldiers ran forward.
“Find the others she had with her. Bring them back here alive, if you can. If not—just bring them back here.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. He cast one last longing look at Niki Booth’s bare ass and then climbed into one of the trucks.
“If you tell me where they are, I won’t turn them. They’ll die quickly. I promise.”
Niki didn’t speak.
“No? I think that’s too bad, Niki. And a bit hypocritical. I remember you from school. Little Miss Homecoming Queen. Gooding County Corn Princess. You made me sick with your Meals on Wheels and your church choir. Someone who puts such a premium on life shouldn’t give it away so casually.”
He reached out a diseased hand and stroked her ass longingly.
“You know what I’m gonna do?” He grabbed himself by the crotch. “I’m going to take away everything you love, Niki. And when it’s all gone, I’ll be there waiting for you.”
The Red Man stood and walked around Niki until he was behind her. He forced her thighs apart. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled over top of her. She could feel his bare chest pressing down on her back and feel the heat of his breath at her ear.
“Remember back in the old days?” he said. “I think they used to call this a tramp stamp.”
A moment later, the orange-hot poker tip was frying the skin at the small of her back, and Niki Booth’s screams echoed down the lonely street as the windowless buildings and the swaying zombies silently watched.
C
HAPTER
5
There was a storm coming. Richardson could smell it in the air as he and the two women watched the Red Man’s soldiers moving south through the abandoned buildings. He figured they had two, maybe three hours before the rain started and he wanted to be out of this place and tucked in someplace warm and dry when the weather hit.
But there was Sylvia and this other woman here with him, and that was a problem he hadn’t counted on.
“You guys know someplace we can hunker down before the rain gets here?”
Sylvia Carnes gave him a quick look, then went back to studying the street. Richardson had the feeling he’d just been dismissed. Evidently she had decided he wasn’t much of a threat. Or perhaps the least of her worries. Either way, she wasn’t saying anything. And as the soldiers and the zombies moved off to other lots and searched other buildings, the younger woman calmed down as well. Richardson was glad for that. He’d never had much patience for sobbing, and even less since he started wandering the roads.
Maybe too much of the old roving camera, he thought. Not enough empathy.
He smiled.
No, screw that. Empathy had led Marshal Ed Moore and the rest of the Grasslands survivors to their deaths. It wasn’t going to get him too.
“Hey, you hear me?”
It was Sylvia. She was looking at him, expecting an answer.
“I . . .” he said, shaking his head.
“I said we can’t stay here.” She motioned for him to head toward a large section of tar paper that was hanging from the side of the roof behind him. “Over there.”
“Sylvia,” the younger woman said, “what are we gonna do about Niki?”
Sylvia’s expression softened. If Richardson was reading her right, the tenderness in her face almost looked motherly. “Avery, listen to me,” she said. “I know we have to get her back, but we have to get ourselves out of sight first, okay? We can’t help her if we’re dead.”
“But they shot her.” Even in the low light, the girl’s plump face looked stricken.
Sylvia took the woman’s hands in her own. “They were using riot guns, sweetie. They were trying to take her alive.”
“So they could torture her.”
Sylvia frowned. “We’ll find her,” she said. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find her.”
She glanced at Richardson. “You ready to move out?”
Richardson nodded. He couldn’t hear the trucks anymore, but there were still eight of the zombies out there, searching the apartment buildings on the east side of the street.
Sylvia pointed at two of the zombies trying to pry the plywood off an apartment window across the street. “Those are the smart ones. They’ll search those buildings systematically. We need to leave here as soon as we can.”
“But what about Niki?” the younger woman said.
“We’ll find her, Avery. Please, just work with us here, okay? Niki let you come along because she knew you could handle the risk. I need you to be tough now. Can you do that for me?”
The girl started crying again.
Richardson looked away.
It was humid and sticky. Richardson could feel a thick, oily sweat coating the back of his neck, seeping down under his shirt. He watched Sylvia Carnes run her hands through her frizzy gray hair, trying, unsuccessfully, to press it down on the back of her head. She had tied it back into a ponytail with a black piece of cloth, but the band didn’t seem up to the task. It occurred to him that she was actually quite pretty. Prettier than he remembered.
“What are you looking at?” she said to him.
“Do you remember me?” he asked. “It was a long time ago, in San Antonio.”
Her expression didn’t change.
“Eight years ago? You were leading a group of kids from—”
“I remember you, Mr. Richardson. I recognized you when I saw you back at the Pizza Hut.”
He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.
“So, what brings you to—”
“It’s a long story, Mr. Richardson. If you don’t mind, I’ve kind of got a lot on my plate at the moment—
Oh shit!
”
Sylvia Carnes was on her feet and running from beneath the awning before Richardson could react. One of the zombies from across the street had spotted them and he was advancing on their hiding spot with a crooked, hobbling gait. But he was moving fast, grunting rather than moaning, his eyes locked on them with the keenness of a cat stalking a bug.
A rusty ventilator fan had fallen from the wall above them and was resting against a pile of bricks a short distance away. Sylvia reached the fan and scooped it up just as the zombie stepped into the brown patches of weeds on their side of the street. As the zombie closed on her, she swung the fan and caught him on the cheek with one of the blades. The man dropped to his hands and knees, but didn’t cry out. He glanced back up at Sylvia. The shiny red gash on his cheek spread open as he reached for her, revealing a row of busted, bloodstained teeth. Sylvia brought the fan down on the zombie’s face right as he lunged for her, sinking one of the fan blades deep into his forehead. He fell back into the weeds, dead.
Sylvia whirled on Richardson and the girl. “Run.” She pointed at an eight-foot-high brick wall on the other side of the collapsed awning. “That way. Hurry it up.”
Responding to the commotion, four other zombies were already crossing the street.
“Come on,” Richardson said. He grabbed the girl by her upper arm and pulled her to her feet. They ran for the wall, jumped onto a pile of debris that had collected in one corner, and grabbed for the top of the wall.
Richardson heard the girl grunting as she tried to pull herself up onto the top of the wall. She’s not gonna make it, he thought.
A moment later, she dropped. She was still holding on to the top of the wall, but just barely. She looked at him, the ligaments standing out in her neck, her expression a mixture of pain and abject fear.
“I can’t,” she said.
Richardson turned back to the street and saw Sylvia Carnes sprinting toward him.
“Hurry up,” she yelled.
“It’s okay,” Richardson said to the girl. “Pull yourself up. I’ll help you.”
He grabbed her by the knees and pushed her up until he felt her crest the top of the wall on her own. Then he pulled himself to the top of the wall and sat facing the street just as Sylvia Carnes reached the debris pile below him.
“Let me have your hand,” he said, reaching for her.
“Get out of the way,” Sylvia said, and a moment later was scrambling past him and dropping down on the other side of the wall.
She landed next to the younger girl and looked up at him.
Wow, he thought. Not bad.
“You coming?” Sylvia Carnes asked.
They landed in a small, weed-choked alley. Sylvia led them to the head of the alley where they stopped and looked around. There was nothing to see but a tattered plastic bag floating down the empty street on a sluggish breeze.
“Come on,” Sylvia said. She stepped into the street, turned south, and moved out at a trot.
Richardson, walking briskly alongside her, started to tell her how surprised he was to see her again after so many years, but she frowned, shook her head, and went back to scanning the surrounding buildings.
“Later,” was all she said.
Richardson quieted down, focusing on his breathing. Though he was accustomed to living on his own, and doing just about anything he had to do to survive, he wasn’t exactly in the best physical condition. Over the last few years he’d had to do little by way of real work. Nothing beyond a light sprint now and then. Sometimes a few whacks with the old machete. Occasionally, he had to chop wood with a hatchet, but nothing strenuous. He was about to ask Sylvia Carnes if they could stop when she turned and looked at the younger girl running along behind Richardson. The girl was not doing well. Her weight, he guessed. Her arms were jerking by her side, rather than swinging back and forth naturally, and Richardson could hear the rattling wheeze in her chest.
Sylvia stopped and waited for the girl to catch up. When she finally did, Sylvia put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and asked her if she was doing okay.
The girl nodded unconvincingly.
“We should rest for a second,” Richardson said.
“No,” Sylvia said flatly. “We need to put some distance between us and the Red Man’s people.”
“That man back there in front of the Pizza Hut? Is that who you mean?”
“You see anybody else around here who paints themselves red?”
“No,” Richardson said, a little stunned. “I just . . . who is he?”
“The enemy.”
“Whose enemy?” Richardson asked.
Sylvia didn’t answer, but she did slow her pace to accommodate the younger woman. What had she called her, Avery?
“He killed those two men you were with,” Richardson said.
Sylvia Carnes had started to lead the younger woman away, but when she heard that she stopped and stared at Richardson. “You saw them die?”
Richardson nodded, remembering how he’d wanted to help and had almost stepped into the street to do it. “He killed one of them. The one in the St. Louis Cardinals hat. The other he turned, I think.”
The girl let out a sharp, nasally gasp.
“Tommy,” the girl groaned. “No, not Tommy.”
Sylvia put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and squeezed, still looking at Richardson.
“Why did he kill them?” Richardson said, when what he was really wondering was why the man would paint himself all red. “Who is he? Why is he after you?”
“Because he’s one of them,” Sylvia Carnes answered. “He’s a zombie.”
Her comment stopped him cold, but she wouldn’t say more. The younger woman was still sobbing over Tommy—a boyfriend or a relative of some sort, Richardson guessed—and Sylvia was more interested in comforting her than she was in filling in the backstory for Richardson.
“He’s going to kill Niki,” the girl said. “Just like Tommy, and Steve. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t think he’s going to kill her, Avery. He knows how important she is. She’s worth a lot more to him alive than she is dead. Or as one of his zombies.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Niki told me what to do. She said no matter what for us to go to Chester. She said she would catch up with us there.”
“But how is she gonna do that?” Avery said.
Sylvia drew in a breath, measuring her response. “I . . . I don’t know, Avery.”
“Shouldn’t we go after her?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvia said.
“Can’t we get somebody to help us?”
“I don’t know, baby.”
She pulled the girl close to her and smoothed the hair on the back of her head. The girl sank into Sylvia’s chest, her wide, rounded shoulders hitching now and then with a sob.
Sobbing women made him feel helpless and oafish, so he did the only thing he knew how to do. Richardson took off his backpack and unzipped the main flap. Digging past his poncho he found a plastic water bottle and removed it.
“Sylvia,” he said, and motioned toward the girl with the bottle. “Does she want some of this?”
Sylvia Carnes looked at the bottle, and then to him, and the hard edge in her features softened a bit.
“Thank you,” she said, and took the bottle and offered some to the girl.
Avery drank it eagerly.
When she was done, she wiped the moisture from her lips and handed the bottle back to Richardson. He took the bottle from her without comment, then offered some to Sylvia.
They definitely didn’t come prepared for this, Richardson thought as he watched Sylvia drink. She had her eyes closed, savoring the taste of the water. He was about to ask her what they were doing out here when she opened her eyes and extended the bottle to him.
“We need to get going,” Sylvia said.
“Uh, okay,” Richardson said.
He took the bottle and screwed on the cap. Sylvia and Avery started walking while he slid the bottle back into his pack and zipped it up.
And then he stopped, and listened. A faint rustling, like rubble shifting underfoot. He scanned the surrounding buildings, looking for signs of movement, and saw only a vast, empty city.
“Hey,” Sylvia called back to him. “You coming?”
“Yeah,” he said. He took one last look at the empty street. “Yeah, on my way.”
They walked south, and soon fell into a marching order, with Sylvia and Richardson out front, and the younger woman trailing along about ten feet behind them. Richardson tried to make room for the girl next to them, but she seemed to prefer to be by herself. Richardson let her be.