Breeds 2 (15 page)

“This is pathetic. Morris and Ezekiel alone are going to need a ton of calories to repair themselves.”

Standing in the doorway, Kirk shrugged and agreed with her. It was pathetic, now that it was pointed out to him.
Weres
in general burned through a lot of food. Regenerating
weres
even more so.

The food didn’t impress Carma in the least. She closed the lid and reached into her coat’s inner pocket.

“Can’t believe you didn’t stock this place.” She pulled out a wad of bills and straightened out an impressive collection of reddish-pink and browns, with a smattering of green just for color.

“Here,” she said, holding out half of the cash to Kirk. “Two things. First, Janice and Ken are going to strip out your linen closet and clean up the bed of your truck. You got cleaners, right?”

Kirk nodded as he took the money.

“Once that’s done, get your ass to a supermarket somewhere and buy up everything they got in ways of meat. You know what we like. Ian, you go with him. Keep in mind we have a freezer to fill. I’ll leave this here.”

She slapped the remainder of the cash on a nearby counter. “We’ll refill this tank as necessary.”

All that money in plain sight didn’t even raise an eyebrow amongst the assembled crew.

Carma fixed her attention upon Kirk as she pulled out a cell phone. “Well?”

She placed the device to her ear.

“Move your ass.”

Perhaps forty minutes later, Kirk followed Ian Bryce––the lumberjack––through the empty aisles of a twenty-four-hour supermarket. Overhead lighting flashed off the freshly waxed white floor tiles, the cleaner a sickly cherry scent in Kirk’s nose. Bryce wasn’t the kind of guy Kirk kept company with, and not because he was a
were
. Bryce struck Kirk as every bit the soldier that Carma had become. He said little on the ten-minute drive to the warehouse supermarket and merely pointed at the row of shopping carts as he entered the building, leaving that task to Kirk. The task of an underling.

Kirk shook his head, really having no time for the unconcealed exhibition of rank.

Bryce grabbed items as he saw them and tossed them into the cart. A fifty-pound sack of potatoes, bags of carrots, and other assorted vegetables. Condiments, breads, and even some choice canned goods. He passed the frozen foods section and stopped to inspect the selection of turkey and chicken.

“Turkey’s on special,” Kirk muttered and was ignored. But Bryce did load up on eight of the birds, however, so Kirk mentally patted himself on the back.

“Not much room left,” he observed after the final bird had fallen into the cart.

“So get another cart,” Bryce said and moved to the chicken.

“You gonna take this one?”

Bryce dumped three birds into the fray, considerably adding to the total, and regarded his companion with a scowl. “What do you think?”

“Hey man, I’m just asking.”

“Yeah, I’ll take the cart,” an impatient Bryce remarked.

Kirk didn’t like the waves of negative energy coming off the guy. He glanced around to ensure they were relatively alone. “You got a problem with me?”

Bryce pulled the cart over and straightened his back, a few fingers taller than his shorter companion and broader across the shoulders. The guy could’ve played football and terrorized defensive lines. Wavy hair covered his face and head, but some flesh could be seen, permanently tanned.

“What do you think?”

“There wasn’t anything I could’ve done,” Kirk said.

“There’s always something you could’ve done,” Bryce said, fixing Kirk with a steely gaze. “Always. You had orders. You all had orders. Baxter was wrong but you followed the pack anyway.”

“Seemed like a good plan at the time,” Kirk muttered.

“Yeah, well, here’s a good plan. Get another fucking cart and we can finish grocery shopping.”

Lips puckered and cheeks burning, Kirk returned to the long rows of carts and yanked one free. Bryce was right, to a point—he could’ve done something. But what that was exactly escaped him. Kirk wondered how he would’ve fared against the gung-ho trio of Baxter, Ezekiel, and Moses Morris. In the end, he buried the thought, caged the anger, knowing he’d need that and all his energy for later. He wheeled his way back and located Bryce before the beef section. The warden proceeded to dump chunk after plastic-wrapped chunk of beef into the new cart, and when he finished, he pulled it away from Kirk, leaving him the first one to push.

A light bulb flickered to life in Kirk’s head. “Can’t believe you’re out shopping for Carma, can you?”

In answer, Bryce unloaded an armful of pork chops into his cart, but Kirk sensed he’d hit the mark. Bryce might have been annoyed with him, but he was pissed at having to pick up food.

Kirk was careful to hide his amusement.

“Where’s the booze section?” Bryce asked after the two of them had filled the second cart to the rim.

“No booze here. That’s what the liquor corporations are for.”

“Not even any beer?”

“No. Where are you from anyway?”

“Montreal.”

“You can get booze in a grocery store there?”

“Sure can. Hell, even Newfoundland and Labrador has beer in corner stores.”

“Yeah, I know,” and Kirk did, remembering his time in the easterly province.

“No wine either?”

“No wine.”

Scowling, Bryce shook his heavily bearded head and looked ready to growl. “Fuckin’ backwards.”

“We can pick some up in the morning,” Kirk offered.

Bryce didn’t answer. The Montrealer led Kirk to the nearest checkout counter. He stood tall, dressed in a denim tuxedo. Bryce was about Baxter’s height, and he puffed out his substantial chest while the young guy at the register stoically checked the items.

A snack rack containing bags of beef jerky hung to the left of the register and Bryce eyed them, calculating how many he could buy with the money in hand. Kirk watched him deliberate with solemn concentration as the checkout clerk continued to scan items.

“Go ahead,” Kirk finally said.

Bryce made side-eyes at him, sending the message that he didn’t need
his
permission to buy a few packs of beef jerky. He grabbed four packages off the rack and tossed them amongst the chicken, still eyeing Kirk with condescension, daring him to comment.

Kirk, however, didn’t give a damn. He moved past the bigger man and started bagging the food.

His thoughts drifted to Carma.

In the back alley of a late-night donut shop, Haley Walker peered eagerly at the large, green dumpster. There she stood for a few moments, breathing in the cold air, staring in disappointment at the thick padlock barring her progress. She hefted the lock, studied it, and let it be with gentle acceptance. The manager of the donut shop had finally gotten sick of the mess made by the throngs of homeless folks who’d show up after-hours, so he put a halt to the midnight feedings. The dumpster was a treasure chest of goodies—donuts, cookies, muffins—everything from the day that had failed to sell and what the nightshift didn’t care to take home. Two nights ago, however, Haley had dropped by and discovered a young couple, barely out of their teens, inside the dumpster and pawing through the garbage bags with rabid delight. Plastic and refuse and unwanted baked goods littered the floor, and bent over it all was a pair of dumbfounded fuckheads looking like cornered raccoons. Animals who quickly realized Haley was much older (in her late fifties), much smaller (a “fuck-all” five-foot height) and, most importantly, all alone.

They’d driven her away with threats and curses, loud enough that Haley departed because she didn’t need the hassle. They seemed wild, those kids. Strung out on Crack or Meth or any number of street drugs. Perhaps even a combination. She silently cursed them back, not for their threats or their addictions, but for their blatant ignorance of others who frequented the place for edible refuse. Folks who took care not to make a mess in the dumpster.

A mess pissed off the owners and brought about padlocks. Padlocks ruined it for
everybody
.

The early morning air had a dampness about it that bespoke of an autumn ready to spit snow. Haley wore a pair of men’s gloves, a thick scarf that nearly mummified her face, and a puffy winter coat that, though tattered in places, was still quite warm. She’d already had a late-night meal at the soup truck, which was her second bowl of the day, and figured, what the hell. Leftover donuts sounded pretty damn good.

But the dumpster was locked.

Well, she thought, backing away from the property and minding the shadows, there were other places to visit. Other secrets the city had to offer a homeless woman like herself. One only had to walk there and be prepared to do a little foraging.

And she wasn’t really homeless. Not truly. She had a home, squatting in a tumbledown two-story Victorian over on Whitewood Street, just off of Quinnpool. She’d lived there for the past three years, waiting for the city to do something about the aging house and the attic that cooed damn near all hours of the night. Haley didn’t go into the attic. That much accumulated pigeon shit couldn’t be good for a person.

Thoughts of where to strike next ran through her head. She wondered where she could hunt for something a little tastier, maybe even a little sweeter, than soup. The sun would rise in a few hours so she had time to walk home before it got light. The light distressed her. Revealed her plight to others, for better or, on occasions, for worse. Haley splashed through a puddle, cursed softly, and felt the dampness soak through her worn sneakers. She stopped and turned, an environmentally friendly reusable bag dangling from her right hand, and studied the water.

Great.

She hated walking in soaked socks. Just hated it.

And she’d already decided upon the pizza place over on Discovery Road. A little place only a few people knew of besides herself. The garbage bin out back was hit or miss at times, but just last week Haley had taken a look inside the topless container and discovered a large pizza pie with all the toppings. A discarded deluxe pie just staring back at her. The edges had been singed to a crisp and deemed unsellable, so the cooks chucked it. Perfectly edible yet trashed because no one wanted to pay full price for charred pizza. Haley wasn’t surprised. Over the years of scrounging the streets, very little surprised her at what people threw away. Food, drinks, clothing, electronics, everything. She remembered one summer how whole boxes of bananas had been thrown into a garbage bin. The skin was black and unfit to look at but the fruit underneath (though her friend Andy had argued that,
botanically
, a banana was a berry) was ripe and perhaps the sweetest she’d ever tasted. That had been a real prize, to find whole fruit without teeth marks. That find had made her a local celebrity amongst the other homeless folks, as she told everyone at the shelter about it and where to go. It was how she liked to roll. She’d take what she wanted, share if she could, and give a little when she located a motherlode. She even traded goods and services with the guys under the bridge and around the docks. Everything was of value to someone, Haley knew—it was only a matter of finding that someone.

Pizza place it was then, she decided. It was worth it. She waddled along the back alleys and avenues, shoulders slack and head somewhat lowered, enjoying the really early hours and the emptiness they provided. There were few people on the prowl at such a time. Few people to glare at her or hold their nose at her––which was something Haley couldn’t rightly understand, as she bathed at the homeless shelter once a week and washed her clothing there, too, whenever she was able. If she’d habitually stepped in dog shit she might understand, but for some reason, folks were repelled by her scent.

Regardless, pizza popped back into her head. She hoped she got lucky, thinking that hope was a good thing.

Enjoying the damp dark and the freedom it provided, Haley threaded her way a little farther downtown, hiking toward Barrington, finding Discovery, and looping around the long way to get to the back alley of the pizza place. The streets, clean and utterly deserted, gleamed under yellow cones of light. A car roared somewhere down the street, but Haley paid it no mind as she slipped deeper into the city’s many crevices, where the alleys weren’t so clean, and a person minded the dark.

Soggy newspapers and discarded cardboard cases lined the sides of the alley, and the ripe smell of sewage forced Haley to screw up her nose despite her scarf. She moved along the nearby walls, maintaining silence and spotting the garbage bin’s bulk just ahead, a large angular mass that blocked the distant streetlight on the other side. She stopped beside the back door of the pizzeria, saw no light behind the barred windows, and waited, just to be sure. Once, a couple of cooks had hung on despite it being almost morning––a near encounter that almost ended badly for Haley.

All was presently quiet, so she proceeded to the bin. Her chin rested on the metal edge and she peered inside, sticking her nose in places she’d gone before. There, in the corner just to her left, was a generic white box dumped right atop a batch of old pizza dough. The dough could stay, but the box interested her greatly. She got her arm over the edge and reached for it only to come up short a good four inches.

Shit, she thought and looked around. A milk crate rested near the back door of the pizzeria. That would definitely stretch her reach, Haley knew, so she gathered it up and knocked over an empty bottle just behind it. The glass rattled brightly along the concrete floor, pulling her mouth into a frown, so she got a foot down to halt the roll. Empty beer bottle, she saw. That went into a pocket. There was good money in collecting empties.

She lifted the crate and placed it with care against the side of the bin, testing its bottom with a solid two-handed push. It would hold her. She climbed aboard and, now waist high, got a better look at the bin’s goods. Pizza box sighted, she leaned over and stretched out a hand.

A car passed by the alley’s mouth on the far side. Haley glanced over her shoulder on impulse and saw a large figure rising from the bin’s other side.