Dead South Rising: Book 1 (38 page)

Gills finished wrapping up Doc like a Christmas present, then commenced to binding David’s wrists together. A whimpering breath spilled over David’s lips, pain firing through his sprained hand.

“Better buck up,” Gills said. “You gonna be busy here in a few.”

Finding his breath, David asked, “So y’all are gonna kill me?”

“You got some work to do first.”

Guillermo yanked David to his feet.
 

David swayed on wobbly legs and fear, pure pain pulsing through him: his stomach, his jaw, his neck, his wrist. He was a wreck. And on his way to being a dead one.

Sammy eyed Doc with sinister eyes, thumbing his granitic chin. “Wanna take El Jefe to the truck, Gills? I’ll finish up in here.”

“Finish up?” Doc said. “I’m under the distinct impression we’re even, as per your own admission.”

“Oh, we’re fixin’ to be even, alright.” He uncocked and tucked away the revolver. “Gills? May I?”

Guillermo pulled his Bowie knife, handed it hilt-first to Sammy.
 

Sammy strolled up to Mrs. Morris, and she twisted, her milky eyes following him. He began slicing lengths of gray tape, popping one strand loose at a time. And he chuckled as he cut.

David watched, helpless, angry. Livid. One tear rolled down his swelling face. Another tear. Then another. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Today should have been a day of old goodbyes and new beginnings. A day of freedom. A day of hope.

Now, all three were hopelessly gone.

As Gills shoved him out the front door, David managed to look back one last time. He saw Sammy brush the backs of his fingers against Natalee’s cheek, his chin dipped David’s direction. Such an evil grin. So evil. Then he viciously ripped the tape from her mouth, and another tear plummeted to the porch as he realized this would be the last time he’d ever see his wife again. This was how he’d remember her. And that she’d be trapped. A monster. Forever.

Sammy appeared in the doorway, smiled, then slowly closed the door. Something heavy, sliding—the couch perhaps, or maybe David’s La-Z-Boy—in front of the door, blocking and effectively locking it. Footsteps on the hardwood floor. Stumbling. Growling.

I’m sorry, Natalee.

And the world blurred.

PART FOUR

Better Dig Two

The tears wouldn’t stop. The goddamned things just would … not … stop.

“What’s wrong, Nancy?” Sammy said, navigating the Dodge dually diesel through the vehicular carnage choking Mason Street, Jayville’s main drag through town. “Start your period?”

David rode shotgun, staring out the passenger window, hands bound by duct tape. He deemed wiping away the salty rivulets a pointless endeavor. They’d already seen him at his lowest. His weakest. His saddest.

“Need a tampon?” Sammy laughed, his gravelly voice grinding on David’s eardrums. He wrangled the wheel, refocusing on the challenging labyrinth of ruin, the Dodge brushing billowing inky smoke onto the crystal clear sky. It was barely noon.

David said nothing, his gaze glued to the broken world beyond the glass. He didn’t turn to Sammy. Didn’t acknowledge the hazing, the heckling. The bullying. He guessed his own death was high on their agenda, and preferred to suffer in silence. To not give these two banditos the satisfaction of getting to him with their tormenting harassment. He’d be as strong as his will allowed.
 

Let’s get this over with. Make it quick.

He guessed it wouldn’t be.

But then Sammy stuck it in, and twisted. A searing emotional blade David could never ignore. And didn’t. “You’re little wifey sure looked hungry when I turned her loose on ‘ole Doc back there. I bet she was a fine little piece of ass before she started eating folks. Bet she goes straight for his crotch.”

That chuckle. That goddamned chuckle.

David had experienced rage before. Recently. Knew
exactly
what it felt like, recognized it easily. Had come close to acting on it several times, managed to turn it off, turn it away. But Sammy’s double-edged dig ignited something else in him that he’d never, ever endured before. And never wanted to again.

He launched from his seat, consequences be damned.

Sammy didn’t even see it coming.

Stars lit David’s vision when his head hit Sammy’s with a horrible
thud
, and the truck veered off course from the collision in the cab. Sammy’s skull cracked the window.
 

“Motherfu—” Sammy started. His voice had gone up an octave.

David had him by the neck, best he could being bound. He bared his teeth, chest rumbling a guttural scream that sounded like nothing of this world. His bite found Sammy’s one good ear.

“Fuck! Get him off!”

Gills jumped forward from the back, reaching between the seats to pull David off of Sammy.

Blood filled David’s mouth, mixing with his own. He bit harder, cartilage and skin tearing loose. Screams. Then, a whole galaxy of stars as Gills pumped his tattooed piston of an arm, the fist attached at the end exploding on David’s face. David swore his face broke.

The world faded in and out, spinning on a wobbly trajectory. Another fist found its mark. He was into his own orbit now. David slipped from the seat and onto the stick shift. Gears ground, a growling protest, then the truck lurched. Another fist. Sammy’s this time. Something cracked. Hot blood ran down his throat and out his nose. He coughed, choked. Felt like he was drowning. His nose felt too big, like his lip.

“Goddamn … shit!” Sammy screamed. He eyed his bloody hand, looked at himself in the rearview mirror.

Gills exclaimed something in Spanish. David guessed it was an explicative-laden tirade aimed at him directly.

The truck chugged into an abandoned car, died.

Sammy cradled his torn up ear, blood streaking down his arm.

David fought to stay conscious.

Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Stay … awake. Stay …

Voices became muffled.

“My fucking ear!”

“Kill that motherfucker. He ain’t worth it.”

“Fuck. No, wait. We need that asshole.”

“Fuck that.”

David spit; something launched from his lips.

Part of Sammy’s ear. Part … of … Stay awake … Don’t throw—

He retched, blood and bile splashing the cab’s floor. Maybe one of his own teeth.

Another obscenity laced rant. The slam of a door. Then another. Quiet, but for only a moment.

Sleep. Now.

Hands on his back, clawing at his shirt. His collar choking him while being dragged through blood and bile and out the passenger door.

Sammy and Gills tried to stand him up, but his legs wouldn’t work, and he simply spilled to the asphalt in a heaving heap. His lungs wheezed. Or maybe it was his nose. Or both. He could no longer breathe through either.

Natalee, I’m sor—

He was losing a one-sided battle he never had a chance of winning. He was drunk on pain. Floating on the blacktop, spinning in his own low, dizzy orbit toward a numb nirvana.

He thought of Natalee and how his last visions of her would be tainted with death and hate, Sammy’s filthy hands on her. Touching her. Freeing her, but not the way she was supposed to be freed. David would be dead before he could release her. He’d be by himself when this was all over. She wouldn’t be there on the other side, waiting for him. Like he’d promised himself she would be.

The air left his lungs with such force, he believed he’d breathed his last breath. Gills’ gators. In his kidneys. His back. His muscles tightened, screaming for help as bruises welled deep down in his body and mind. His death was certainly near.

Another well-aimed alligator boot, this time to the back of his head. He would have sworn on his mother’s grave that his brain spun inside his skull and landed upside down.
 

Spin the fucking bottle. C’mere, Sammy. Let me bite another chunk out of your goddamned—

The side of his face raked the asphalt. He was losing it—feeling … thought … all of it. He would not last another round of blows.

Hands on either shoulder, yanking him to his feet, ready or not. The two men slammed David’s back to the Dodge, his skull smacking the metal, denting the shit out of both.

David’s neck was a blazing inferno, incapable of holding his head up. His head dropped forward, lolling, drooling a cocktail of spit and blood. Sammy—or Gills, he wasn’t sure which—slapped his face. Either cheek.

“Hey, over here,” Sammy said, waving his hand, his face in David’s. “Don’t you die on us.” He snapped his blood-crusted fingers. “Wake up, El Jefe. You still got a job to do. No sleeping on the goddamn job.”

They let him go, and he immediately started sliding down the side of the Dodge. They caught him before he crashed to the ground again.

Their voices faded in and out, a doppler effect of sorts teasing his mind. “Throw his ass in the back. He ain’t going no-fucking-where.”

“Fuck him.”

David was moving, but he wasn’t walking. Sammy and Gills carried him, his legs dangling, boots dragging. A long string of blood clung stubbornly to his oversized lip and chin. His left eye was swelling shut, closing off sight from the rest of the world.

The tailgate dropped.

For a moment, David felt the sensation of flying, his feet leaving the ground. He thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, he was headed to heaven, after all.

He scrunched his face when his temple hit the truck bed, his neck ablaze. He couldn’t do it anymore. Just couldn’t. He’d welcome sleep. Unconsciousness. Or death. Whichever came first.

* * *

Every muscle in David’s battered body begged him to stop. Cease and desist. Enough already. No more. Please.

His bruised bones echoed those sentiments. But the men at his back would have none of it.

“Keep digging, Shirley,” Sammy quipped from his perch on the dually’s dropped tailgate. High off the ground, he was swinging his legs in child-like fashion, his Smith and Wesson propped and pointed limply at David’s back. Guillermo sat beside him, picking at his own nails with his Arkansas toothpick.

David stopped, standing the shovel so he could straighten himself and lean on it, catch his breath. Stinging sweat flooded his eyes. Well, flooded the eye he could see with. The other was so badly swollen, it’d be closed for days. If he even lived for days, of course. He had to breathe through his mouth since he could only sip the air through his broken and bulging nose. It was like trying to breathe underwater through a thin straw. Wasn’t happening. Not with the forced physical labor currently bestowed upon him.

It was already early evening, the sun searching for the horizon. But that didn’t halt the heat, the blazing ball above delivering its typical and predictable crematory lashing of the land. Not a goddamned cloud in the ever-loving sky. Plenty of vultures soaring, the only creatures sharing that cerulean expanse.

And down below, all around him, bodies. Over to his right, Mitch’s.

“He said keep digging, puto.”

“I need a break,” David said. His voice was nasally, his words tripping over a fat lip. He didn’t even sound like himself, the tones coming out all wrong. A stranger’s voice.

“You’re fixin’ to get a break,” Sammy said, hopping off the high tailgate. He raised his revolver, pistol-whip style.

David let the shovel drop, hands to his sides. With a shuffle of his feet, he turned to face Sammy. His countenance begged mercy through death. “Just go ahead … fucking shoot me. You’re … going to, anyway.” He hurt so badly, he could barely push the words out.

Sammy stopped, raising the pistol higher, seemed to consider this.

Gills slid off the tailgate, his stout frame vibrating the ground. He laid a hand on Sammy’s arm, prompting him to lower the weapon, then shook his head, gravity tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Later.”

Sammy paused, eyeing his Mexican friend. A slow nod. “Yeah. Yeah, later.” He looked back at David. “You hear that, El Jefe? Later. We’ll kill you later. ‘Cuz right now, you work for Sammy and Gills, Incorporated. And you’re on overtime and behind schedule. So get to it, asshole.”

Sheathing his Bowie knife, Guillermo added almost as an afterthought, “Could have avoided this whole mess, puto. All you had to do was let us borrow your truck. But you’s too proud. Too stingy. That’s all you had to do, and you’d be home with your dead wife, sticking it to her. Instead, you pull a gun on us. You and your fat friend. Cuff us to a tree. Leave us to die.” He shook his head. “Estúpido.”

Sammy reiterated the last word as he hauled himself back onto the tailgate. “Estúpdio.”
 

“I came back for you. To free you both.” David immediately regretted uttering the response. It sounded desperate and pleading. Like he was begging for his miserable life. Maybe he was.

Smiling, Sammy said, “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

“I did.” David’s voice was a hoarse mess. He coughed, winced.

Sammy glanced at Gills. “You see Nancy come back out there after he left us cuffed to that fucking tree, Gills?”

“I didn’t see no Nancy.”

Another irritating chuckle, grating David’s tender spirit. It hurt to talk back, and maybe that was a good thing.
 

“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” Sammy turned his full attention back to reclaiming his perch. “Maybe my brother’d still be alive if you had, El Jefe. His blood’s on your hands.”

“I had … nothing to do with … Mitch’s death.” He grimaced, every syllable a struggle.

“Oh, I beg to differ. Yes I do. You see, evidently you made ‘ole Doc back there a widow the night you peeled outta here so quick-like. Pissed him off real bad, you did.”

David gravely disliked conversing with this redneck thug, but focusing on something other than the symphony of pain shrieking a discordant opus throughout his body helped plug the tears. He welcomed the reprieve, however brief and unpleasant.

“I didn’t kill anyone’s wife.”

“Oh, yes you did, El Jefe. Ran her down in cold blood. Like a goddamned dog.” Sammy patted the truck bed. “Exhibit ‘A’ right here.”

David’s thoughts jumped back to that night. Mitch showing up on the Franken-Harley. Mitch grabbing the shotgun, heading to the pond where Sammy and Gills were chained to the tree. David and company taking off in the truck. The rough and bumpy ride down the driveway. The driveway.