Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row (13 page)

Doc was out there somewhere, getting away, and David aimed to finish what that coward started. He wondered if Doc’s wife was truly dead, or if running her over had jumpstarted her
second
life. Her undead one. And he wondered what he’d do to her if it was the latter…

An eye for an eye, Doc.
 

“Please, Luz. Doc… he’s out there.” His voice started to shake. “He… he’s chopping up… Natalee… my wife. For Chrissakes, please. I need to do this. I have to stop him—”

“And I have to stop
you
.” She brought the handgun up eye-level, gripped it with both hands, cocked the hammer. “Now if you ever want to see the other pieces of her, you’ll unbuckle that belt and throw it over here. Or
I
kill
you
, like
you
killed
Roy.
Comprende?”

David could only stare, his decimated heart and mind—and soul—processing Luz’s hateful, hellish words. An urgent ire for this woman surged inside him. She may as well be partnering with Holliday, have handed the faux gunslinger the hatchet to hack off Natalee’s hand. Handed him the box herself…

The two Docs. Two soon-to-be-dead Docs.

“Doc, listen…” He’d even started calling her, ‘Doc.’

“Goddamnit, David. I won’t ask you again.” She’d started visibly shaking, and David decided to cooperate, preferring to avoid an accidental discharge. If he was going to die, he would die for Natalee, not by an enemy’s unsteady hand.

Crouching, he released the leather to the floor, and said, “Luz, Gabriel won’t be happy about this, what you’re doing. He won’t approve. So, why don’t you just put the gun down and let me—”

“Gabriel’s not in charge anymore.”

He paused to study her face, looking for lies or bluffs. “What do you mean?”

“In our meeting, this afternoon, after you’re little stunt. He abdicated. I run the show, now.”

“You? But why would—”

“Because I know how to keep this place safe and how to put murderous bastards like you in their place. Gabriel doesn’t. We can’t trust our lives to someone who can’t do what needs doing.”

Slowly, David stood. “
I
did what needed doing, Luz. With Roy. Don’t you get it? You’re a medical doctor for Chrissakes. You know that Roy was dead, that he’d turned. Scotty, too. I’m no doctor and even I could see it. I know you saw it. Why are you so adamantly denying it?”

She moved into the room and behind him. “Open the door. If you try for your gun—”

“Why, Luz? Why are you pretending? Turning a blind eye?” Stepping over his gun rig, he opened the door.

“Move.”

“Answer me. You owe me that much.”

“I owe you nothing. You’re a killer. And you’ve endangered us all by bringing your personal war here. We’ll not have it.” She leaned into his ear. “
I
won’t have it.”

He started out the door and into the hall at her urging. “So, what now?”

“Now, I handle what Gabriel should have handled.”

* * *

The tense trek down the hall was short, and the south wing was surprisingly devoid of life, barren, not a single soul to be seen. Eerily quiet, save for the jingle of keys Luz had retrieved from her white coat pocket. David guessed that Dr. Gonzalez had made sure no one would be around to witness this unfair march to discipline. She handed him the key ring, and he accepted it.

The Janitor’s key ring.

He’d never really paid attention to it before, when Gabriel carried it, clipped to a loop on his jumpsuit. It was just natural to see a janitor with a fat ring of keys, so much so that David didn’t really even notice it. Like a doctor with a stethoscope or a cop with a gun—as natural as the sky and clouds or the ocean and fish. It wasn’t until you saw them out of their element, in another’s hands, that they even became visible again, overtly noticeable.
 

Seeing Luz with the Janitor’s keys disturbed David, the cop’s gun in the bad guy’s hands. It gave credibility to her story. Gabriel was so wise, such a natural leader, that it surprised David that he would essentially give up, especially so easily. To hand off the keys, the baton of power, to someone like the doctor. David suspected there was more to the story than Dr. Gonzalez was revealing in her disingenuous version. He was sure of it. He planned to talk with Gabriel to get the
real
story.

In a low voice, Dr. Gonzalez said, “311,” and dipped her chin at the shiny plate tacked to the wall next to the door, the identifying number carved into the plastic. “Number’s engraved on the key.”
 

David started flipping through the keys like playing cards, searching for number 311. He glimpsed the doctor beside him, and he consciously worked to exude controlled calm, to not allow his anger to act. She still had the handgun trained on him, though she’d stopped shaking, finally. He gathered she was working on her own composure and poise, unused to wielding weapons that killed over implements that cured.
 

“Hurry up. They’re in order,” she said, her accent thick and her gaze steady.

He flicked his eyes at her, begging patience as he fumbled with the metal, losing his place. He really wasn’t afraid of Luz, but more apprehensive of an accidental misfire. The doctor didn’t come off as sadistic, like Sammy and Gills. Those two incorrigible bastards had meant harm and broadcasted the fact. Had made it well known to all parties involved that they intended to hurt and maim, death be damned.
 
And welcomed.

Conversely, Luz didn’t exude those traits. Her bedside manner wasn’t the friendliest he’d ever encountered, but she was initially rather soft spoken, seemingly kind, with a touch of compassion. And she was exceptionally young, early thirties, perhaps, and pretty enough to be in movies. A very beautiful woman. Hell, despite the age gap, he could have envisaged them as a couple down the road, after he’d laid to rest his emotional anguish over Natalee.
 

Finally locating key number 311, he plunged the toothy metal into the slot, twisted. It opened with a robust
click
that vibrated the wood. He looked at her, and she nodded again toward the door, a nonverbal command.

Upon opening the door, a glut of questions arose.

“Move,” Luz ordered.

David crossed the threshold. “Gabriel. Thank god.”

Inside the room, Gabriel was sitting on a cot, his elbows on his knees, head bowed. He lifted his head when David spoke.
 

“Dave.”

Stepping into the room, David jabbed his thumb at Luz and said, “Gabriel, what the hell—”

But the door closed. Tumblers clicked, metal meeting the jamb. The ripping of jagged steel from steel. Jingling keys. Footsteps fading.

David tried the door, although he already knew it would obviously be locked. Seeing was believing, though. And seeing ignited a suppressed and seething choler.

He crossed the room, stood before the Janitor. “Gabe, what the hell is going on? Why are we in here?”

With both hands, the old man raked back his long silver hair, and straightened. “Welcome to the pokey, Dave.”

“The pokey?”

“Jail. Prison. The brig. Sing Sing. Call it what you will. Same damn difference.”

 
“You mean… we’re being held prisoner?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t play the game, Dave. And if you’re in here, then that means you ain’t, neither.”

“The game?”

“The Denial Game, Dave.”

He shot the Janitor a perplexed look.

Gabriel said, “The Infirmaries. Remember them?”

A slow nod. “Yeah, the folks who think the dead are just sick.”

“Good. You paid attention. Well, seems they don’t take kindly to those of us who don’t see the world as they do.”

“But, I thought there was a chemistry to the group here. A camaraderie. Ain’t that what you said the day we arrived? Good people, a good thing?”

The Janitor nodded, chin hooked in his hand. “That’s what I thought, too, Dave. Call me a fool.”

“Is this… is this my fault? That we’re in here? Because of Roy?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Not entirely. I’d say it was the catalyst they were looking for. Roy was of the persuasive sort. He’d been rallying folks behind my back, turns out. Oh, I had a hunch. Lenny told me for sure, because Roy tried to work his silver tongue magic on him.”

“Lenny bite?”

Tapping his temple, the Janitor said, “Lenny’s a bright one. Ain’t a stupid man, though to hear him talk, you might get that uneducated vibe. He knows the score.”

“Is he locked up somewhere, too?”

“No. He’s pretending to play the game. Making the Infirmaries think he’s still on the fence.”

David breathed a sigh of relief. “So we have an ally.”

“We do. But we gotta play it smart, Dave.”

Rubbing his neck, David thought a moment, then said, “Why don’t the Infirmaries just kick us out of the Alamo? Make us leave? Send us on our merry way? I mean, why bother with us? We’d be out of their hair, and they could live in their fantasy world—”

The Janitor waved him off. “Because they think this is all just temporary. And that you, me, and anyone else they see as guilty need to pay for their crimes when this all finally blows over.”

“Crimes? You mean killing the dead?”

Gabriel simply stared at him with his usual one eye squinted, head at a slight twist.
 

David got it. He didn’t need the Janitor to explain it to him, to connect the dots. He meant it as a rhetorical question, but he almost hoped the old man would expound on it some more—with wise words, taming tone and cadence, and his knowing gaze. They all had a surreal, calming effect. And David understood why the Janitor had heeded his calling, to abandon the corporate world to chase a simpler dream of consoling the elderly. The dying.

“They ain’t gonna let us go, Dave.”

Protection mode switched on, and David physically bristled. “What about Jessica? Bryan? Randy? Are the Infirmaries going to lock them up, too?” Already, David could feel clouds of fury swirling inside him, a spinning storm, turning faster and faster, a tornado about to touch down.

These people, these Infirmaries, were dangerous. Dangerous to themselves, dangerous to David’s group. His family. Dangerous to the Janitor, to Lenny. Those who believed the dead to be sick would not last, would get themselves killed. Get others killed. Like he’d nearly done to himself.

A sudden claustrophobia robbed him of reasoning, his breathing swift and shallow.
 

The Janitor said, “Dave?”

David looked up. He hadn’t been listening, too busy stirring the emotional pot with a stick of anger.

“There a plan?” David asked.

Gabriel pressed to his feet, his hand finding David’s shoulder. With a squeeze, he said, “Me and you are about to come up with one.”

Jessica forgave David the moment she crossed the threshold of his room. She instigated it, after all. Played a dirty hand, hit below the belt. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and had only succeeded in pissing him off royally.
 

Note to self: Don’t play the ‘dead zombie wife doesn’t love you’ card again. Oh, and don’t play the ‘you have a thing for… fill in the blank,’ one, either.

Jess didn’t mean it, of course. Not sincerely. She’d just tried to upset him, get him focused on her instead of his foolish Kamikaze mission he deemed mandatory.
 

This ‘Doc’ guy was dangerous. She had thought so since the day his slick southern drawl had drifted from the two-way radio. How could he not be? Anyone who would hack off a hand, stick it into a box… sneak into the Alamo’s fence…

She shook her head. That note. That creepy fucking child’s poem, mangled and twisted to express his vengeful whim. Threat of death in poetry.
 

What a dramatic, sick fuck.

It was after the argument with her cousin that she decided to take matters into her own hands.
She
would make things right. David was too weak, still too bruised and beat up. Inside and out, mentally and physically. Besides, she owed him her life.

She kept replaying it, David telling her to leave, to get out. Sent her packing, basically. He was seething when she’d left him, when she’d run into Luz Gonzalez, the doctor, in the hallway.

Luz?

Jessica.

I’m sorry to ask, but I need a huge favor.

What is it, Jessica?

It’s David. I’m worried about him.

I’m afraid I am, too, Jessica. We all are. What do you need?

Is there a way you could…

Could what?

Keep him… here?

What do you mean?

Like… restrain him? Lock him up in a room somewhere?

Dr. Gonzalez had given her a sidelong glance, brows cocked and eyes questioning, but then agreed in rather quick order. It was as if Luz had read her mind, or this was a common request. Or… like she’d been planning to lock him up all along.

Sure, Jessica. No problem. I’ll take care of it.

Thanks, Luz.

Glad to help.

Thanks again.

It pained her asking Luz for help, especially after their very public quarrel. Asking meant saving David from himself and Doc, so she choked down her pride, and did it, anyway. But Jess needed more than just the doctor’s help. This she knew, so she set out to find Randy after speaking with Dr. Gonzalez. She wanted to take him with her, for back up. For moral support. To tell her she was doing the right thing.

But he eluded her.

Probably off somewhere with Lenny.

Those two. They were inseparable. Always talking about professional wrestling or football. Lenny was the best of both worlds, simultaneously filling that big brother/best friend role. A presence missing from Randy’s life for so many years. She was happy he’d finally found it, especially since Mitch had always treated him like a second-class citizen. Anyway, someone deserved some semblance of happiness in this shitty world. Maybe she’d find some herself, soon.

Jess searched the halls, first checking the south wing, then the west. On the west wing, she peered out the tinted front doors. A couple of men armed with rifles chitchatted on the sidewalk leading to the front gate. One of them acknowledged her with a dip of his chin. She wondered how he saw her behind the dark doors, then realized the sun was shining straight into the vestibule. It was already late afternoon or early evening, the blazing ball above about to call it another day.