Feast (9 page)

11

To Peter’s surprise, the search-and-rescue party sent after the missing group of men was composed solely of Boone and himself. That told him a few things. First, Boone had no fear of what might be hunting him on the outside, which meant he was supremely stupid, or genuinely good at surviving—but still stupid in most regards. Second, it meant that the majority of Mason’s most skilled and loyal men were currently outside the gates. Sure, there might be armed guards watching the walls, and some of them were probably hardliners like Boone, but Peter guessed most of them were more like Stevie and Marcus.

He couldn’t be sure, though, and until he was, playing along was the safest option—until the kids were set free.

Or was it? Boone had the keys. Peter had no doubt he could take them by force. But would the gates be opened to him if he returned alone? And if they were, would he be greeted with a bullet? Even if he could take the keys, re-enter the camp, free the kids, retrieve Ella and leave again, without waging a one-man war, something still nagged at him. Hellhole Bay, perhaps the last bastion of humanity outside a scattering of biodomes and ExoGen themselves, was a corrupt, evil place.

Could he just leave? Even if they reached George’s Island and altered the human genome so that ExoGen food didn’t turn people into rapidly evolving eating machines, what good would that do if their fellow survivors were still monsters at heart?

“Sure you don’t want to wear something a little more protective?” Boone asked. He was dressed in black military clothing and body armor. It would stop a bullet, but wouldn’t do a whole lot of good against an Apex predator, or a knife for that matter. It looked cool, but had limited mobility. If they were walking into a conventional battle, he’d have taken Boone up on the offer, but out here in the wild, he was happy with the dirt-covered tan cargo pants and equally soiled black t-shirt. Not only were they a natural-looking camouflage, but they also smelled like the outdoors.

“I’m good,” Peter said. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Boone stepped over a log, gripping his AR-15, back to Peter. It was the thirteenth time the man had left himself completely open to attack. Peter couldn’t decide if it was an intentional test, or if the man simply had no combat awareness.

Neither,
Peter decided.
He trusts that I care about Ella and the kids, and won’t endanger them by doing something stupid.

“Your funeral,” Boone said.

The swamp around them was still, lacking the non-stop sound of birds and insects normally present in such locations. Peter eyed the water, half expecting something to burst out and snatch one of them. But Boone moved with more confidence, following a worn path through clumps of moss covered islets. ExoGenetic crops grew around them, protruding from the water and from the mounds of land scattered around them. They mixed in with hearty plants and ferns that hadn’t retreated from the ExoGenetic advance. But the path ahead was clear. Maintained. This wasn’t just a jaunt through the wilds in search of missing men.

“Where are we headed?” Peter asked.

Boone waggled his hand forward, indicating the winding path that disappeared behind a stand of short, twisting trees. “The lot. Where we keep vehicles.”

“Why don’t you keep them at Hellhole?”

“Firstly, the bridge at the entrance ain’t big enough for a vehicle.”

“That’s the only way in?”

“Yep. And secondly, it keeps the degenerates and unknown Questionables from stealing them.”

“They’d have to be pretty desperate to leave the safety of Hellhole, don’t you think?”

Boone shrugged. “People do stupid things. A few have tried leaving on foot. Sure you can imagine how that ended.”

Peter could, but his mind’s eye didn’t conjure images of ExoGenetic creatures hunting down those poor people. He saw Boone looking down the sights of that AR-15 in his hands, pulling the trigger with a smile on his face. “Sure can.”

“None of them was like you and me, though.”

“How’s that?”

Boone looked back with a lopsided grin. “Killers. Men who do what it takes to survive, eternal soul be damned.”

Peter gave a nod. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Glad t’ hear it.”

You shouldn’t be
, Peter thought. Then he asked, “And the men we’re searching for?”

“More of the same,” Boone said, trudging through foot-deep black water separating one islet from the next. “Dangerous men. Survivors.”

“You all have a name?” Peter asked.

Boone looked confused. “We all have names.”

“I mean as a group,” Peter said.

“Like a nickname? Naw. Seems kinda cheesy if you ask me.”

“More like a callsign,” Peter said. “All the most elite units in the military have them. Have for thousands of years. The Persians had The Immortals. King Arthur had the Knights of the Round Table. The Paladins fought for Charlemagne. In the Marine Corps, I was a member of the Raiders. Groups of fighting men deserve a name. Helps form bonds in battle. Unity.” He was pouring it on a little heavy, but he wanted Boone to start feeling that sense of comradery with him. Naming this group of men would be a step in the right direction.

“Huh,” Boone said. “S’pose there is something to it.”

“Something like Mason’s Devils,” Peter offered.

“Not bad, I guess,” Boone said, pondering the issue he’d never before considered. “How ’bout Redneck Rampagers?”

It was a horrible name. Not even grammatically correct. But it
was
accurate and revealed that Boone was not only aware of his backwoods nature, but proud of it. “Perfect,” Peter said.

“Redneck Rampagers it is, then.” Boone froze in his tracks, eyes focused straight ahead, like a cat who’d just spotted prey.

Peter looked past him, searching for what had the man spooked, but he saw nothing. The idea that Boone’s attention to detail or ability to detect danger was beyond Peter’s irked him.
The man had no formal training,
Peter thought,
but he did grow up here. He knows the smells, sights and sounds. If something is off, he’ll know about it long before me.

The realization made their prospects of a simple escape less likely. Boone would be able to hunt them down, which meant he would have to be dealt with first. But that was the brewing plan anyway. Peter, in good conscience, couldn’t abandon the large number of people living under Mason’s oppressive rule. It had been a while since Peter had assisted in a regime change, and he didn’t always agree with it, but in this case, with the future of humanity at risk, he wasn’t going to look the other way.

“What is it?” Peter whispered.

“Should be a guard up ahead.” Boone pointed to a tree, where a perfectly camouflaged hunter’s tree stand was mounted, twenty feet off the ground. Boone let out a bird call, which sounded convincing, but in this lifeless swamp, it would attract the same kind of attention as shouting. Peter kept that to himself, though. If the guard was missing, or dead, they could be in trouble. But what kind of trouble?

“The stand looks intact,” Peter said. “No claw marks. No blood.”

“Uh-huh,” Boone said. “Wasn’t one of them mutates, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe he heard the men at the Lot were missing and went to check?” Peter asked.

“If he did, he’s gonna get throttled.” Boone crept forward, heading for the stand. When he reached the tree, he slung the AR-15 over his shoulder and gripped the coarse bark on either side. Then he shimmed up, scaling the fifteen feet in seconds. He slid over the camouflaged wall and into the hide.

“Sombitch,” he muttered.

“He dead?” Peter asked.

“Surely is.” Boone emerged from the hide and slid down the tree. Peter had never seen someone move through a tree with such ease. Boone hadn’t just been raised in the swamp, he’d become one with it. “Dumb shit’s neck is broke.”

Peter eyed the tree stand. “You know what that means, right?”

Boone nodded. “Some
one
killed him. For sure weren’t no mutate.”

How had someone scaled the tree, entered the stand and broken the man’s neck?

“Was he armed?” Peter asked.

“Sheeit.” Boone spat at the tree, and Peter wasn’t sure if he was cursing the dead man or whoever it was that killed him. “Yeah, he was. Hunting rifle with a scope. Sidearm, too. Can’t remember what kind.”

“So the men at the Lot have gone silent and your lookout is dead. Weapons missing. You’re under attack.”

“Sounds ’bout right.”

“Should we get reinforcements?” Peter asked.

Boone sniffed and shook his head. “Redneck Rampagers don’t need no reinforcements. Whatever this is, I can handle it.”

Peter suspected Boone’s decision had more to do with a lack of reinforcements rather than an absolute faith in his abilities. If someone had come through here and killed his men, they might have done Peter a favor. Then again, he might just be trading one Devil for another. Until he knew, Boone was the closest thing to an ally he had.

“Can I have a weapon?”

“You shittin’ me?” Boone said. “This all started not too long after y’all showed up. For all I know, you’re in cahoots with whoever is out here.”

Peter frowned. “Good point.” And it was a good point. Had they been followed? And if so, by whom?

“Thank ye,” Boone said, starting down the path once more. “Lot’s a quarter mile ahead. Follow close, but not too close, and keep your trap shut.”

“You got it,” Peter said, eyeing Boone’s sidearm. It was a Heckler & Koch P30 with .40 caliber rounds. Not heavy enough to do serious damage to an Apex, but heavy hitting enough to drop a human target with one shot to the right spot. He resisted the urge to take the weapon, fell in line behind Boone and followed him down the path.

He wasn’t sure what they would find, but he suspected there would be bodies. The question was, would Peter and Boone join them?

12

“Sweet tea?” Mason asked, leaning against the side of the wooden desk. He’d been polite since Peter left with Boone, but he had a gleam in his eye that made Ella uneasy. He had the cocky arrogance of a high school football star, but if he had trophies, she suspected they’d be something closer to heads mounted on stakes.

She wanted to dive over the desk and bury her nails in the sides of his neck. She could do it. As deadly as he might be, it wasn’t because of his own prowess, but rather the men who followed him—and at the moment, none of them were present. But neither was Peter, or the kids. So she stifled her urge to channel the primal instincts she’d discovered in herself over the past few months, and tried her hand at charming the man in return.

“Sweet tea?” she said, smiling. “God, yes. Don’t tell me you have ice, too.”

“In cubes. Yes, ma’am.” He picked up a small bell from the desktop and gave it a shake.

The door opened and the black woman wearing the maid outfit took a single step inside before bowing her head. Her eyes flicked toward Ella, making eye contact for just a moment before returning to the floor. Her face was hard to see, but Ella felt the woman’s embarrassment. Or was it shame? “Massa Mason. What can I do for you?”

“Sweet tea for two,” he said.

“Yes’ah.” With another quick bow, she turned around and scurried away.

“Won’t be a long wait,” Mason said, “but how about a tour in the meantime?”

“Absolutely,” Ella said, standing. Despite her willingness to play along, her body still burned with tense energy, looking for an outlet. “I’d love to see the biodomes.”

“Sure you would,” Mason said, “but as a former biodome resident, you know that can’t happen in your...” He looked her up and down. “...current state.”

Shit,
Ella thought. She’d set herself up for what was coming next, and with enough enthusiasm to ensure that backing out would look suspicious. Still, she had to try. “Another time, then.”

“Nonsense.” Mason stepped around her, and entered the hallway. She noted the lump on his back where a gun was hidden, tucked into his gleaming white pants. “Once you’re cleaned up, I will personally escort you through the biodomes. We’ve managed to accomplish a lot. I think you will be duly impressed.”

Ella smiled and said, “I’m sure.”

Mason stopped at the end of the hall, resting a hand on the polished banister and calling through the formal dining room, into the kitchen. “We’ll take that tea upstairs, Charlotte.”

“Upstairs?” She sounded nervous.

“That’s what I said, indeed.”

“Yes, massa.”

He grinned at Ella and motioned to the hardwood staircase. “Now then, ladies first.”

“A true, Southern gentleman,” she said.

“One of the few left on Earth, I’d guess.”

“Perhaps even the last,” she said, stepping by him and heading up the creaky stairs. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her shifting backside as she took each step. She was covered in dirt and dressed in unflattering cargo pants, a black tank top and a green, plaid flannel shirt, but men sometimes saw reality and fantasy at the same time. To Mason, she was a world of new possibilities.
More than he knows,
she thought, and she continued up the stairs, putting a little extra thrust into her hips.

The second floor felt much like the first: old wood, white walls, and the gentile décor of a middle-aged Southern woman. Still life paintings hung on the wall. A small table cloaked in a doily held a vase of wild flowers—freshly picked by the look of them.

Ella flinched as a door to her left swung open. A woman dressed in a maid uniform, similar to Charlotte’s, but far too tight, stepped into the hall. “Something I can get for you, Mister—” Her eyes registered surprise at seeing Ella, then a flicker of something else, like pity, before turning toward Mason as he crested the staircase. “Something I can get for you, Mister Mason?”

“Not right now, Shawna,” Mason said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. “Perhaps later. In the meantime, heat up a towel for our guest.”

Shawna feigned an ‘aww shucks’ kind of smile. It was a noble effort, but her jaw was clenched tight. She was pale white, like she hadn’t seen the sun in a long time, with straight black hair and a curvaceous, almost plump body.
Locked inside, but well fed
, Ella thought,
like cattle.
But there was something about her, in that clenched jaw, that said she wasn’t quite as docile as a cow.
That’s what Mason likes,
Ella thought.
What gets him off. Breaking defiant women.
She didn’t look like Shawna or Charlotte, but she had defiance in spades, and he had no doubt taken note.

Ella took a small measure of comfort in the fact that Mason had requested only one towel, and that he seemed interested in Shawna’s...services…later on. He might be interested in Ella, but he wasn’t ready to be overt about it. Ella thought he was still evaluating whether or not she was his type, and no doubt trying to conjure a way to get Peter out of the picture—or perhaps just hoping that would happen while he was out with Boone. Had the two men shared a signal that she missed? Was there really an emergency, or was Boone taking Peter into the swamps to execute him? If that turned out to be the case, Mason would find out that Peter wasn’t the only member of their ragtag, post-apocalyptic family worth fearing.

“Of course, sir,” Shawna said with a strained giggle. “Anything for you.”

They’re living out his fantasies,
Ella thought.
Role playing.
The vivacious, slutty maid. The old-world, Southern, black maid. She wouldn’t be surprised if the next maid she met wore a short skirt, held a feather duster and spoke with a French accent.
Maybe that’s what he has in mind for me?

And if not, maybe that’s where I can get his mind.

When Shawna headed downstairs, Mason snuck around Ella and opened the next door on the left. Inside was a large bathroom with a claw-foot porcelain tub, a white tile floor and marble countertops. Mason flipped the light switch turning on a row of large bulbs mounted over a massive, wall-sized mirror that reflected the bathroom.
And everything that happens in it
, Ella thought.

“Bathroom is one of the rooms I upgraded after resettling Hellhole. It’s a far shade more luxurious than it was before. Hot water, soap, shampoo and conditioner are at your disposal—not that you’ll have much use for the latter two, but your hair will grow back in time.” Mason grinned. “Shawna will stop in with a warm towel and some fresh clothes. I’ll come to collect you in what, twenty minutes?”

“Sounds divine,” Ella said. “The bath, clothes and towel, I mean.”

“Not the company?” Mason said with a faux pout.

“That has yet to be determined,” she said. “But you’re off to a good start.”

He flashed a sly grin and tipped his Ascot hat. “Best I can ask for. I’ll leave you to it.”

Ella stepped inside and offered Mason a parting smile as he closed the door behind her. Her smile dropped into a grimace. She rolled her neck, hearing her vertebrae pop from the tension. Then she looked at herself in the mirror and froze. It wasn’t that her reflection was almost unrecognizable—she was too skinny, covered in dirt, and had a few fresh scars—it was how the mirror itself was constructed. She looked it over quickly, inspecting the side closest to her, and then the top and bottom. It was five feet tall, rising up from the bottom of the sink, all the way up to the ceiling, and it stretched the twenty foot length of the bathroom. She looked for clips holding it in place, but there weren’t any. The mirror wasn’t mounted to the wall, it was part of it.

Her eyes widened for a brief moment, but then she forced a casual smile back onto her lips, the kind of smile a woman thinking about a man might have. The kind a man hoping for something more might want to see. Then she leaned in close to the mirror like she was inspecting her face and placed her finger tips against the glass like she was holding herself up.

She turned her face side to side, looking it over, glancing at her hand against the glass just once. But it was enough. Ella had worked in enough labs, in her long years of schooling and outside it, to have been on both sides of an observation mirror. There were two dead giveaways that a mirror was two-way, designed for spying. First, the mirror was part of the wall, not hung on it. The second was called the ‘finger test.’ A finger placed up against a normal mirror can touch its own reflection. A finger placed up against a two way mirror was separated from its reflection by the thickness of the glass, in this case, a quarter inch.

Mason was on the other side of this mirror, watching. Observing. Waiting for a show. And if she didn’t give him one...

She stared into her own eyes for a moment, picturing Mason on the far side of the mirror, looking back.
If it’s a show he wants...

She lifted her shirt slowly, bunching the fabric beneath her breasts. She’d lost a lot of weight and dropped a cup size while living in the wild, eating a diet of foraged food. If she wore a bra, it was a sports bra, but the tank top had enough support built in, so she’d opted to go braless. And today, that worked in her favor. She let her breasts fall out of the shirt together, smiling beneath the fabric as she lifted it away. If Mason was watching, he was already entranced.

She walked to the tub and turned on the hot water. As steam wafted into the air, her smile turned genuine. She could, at least, enjoy this. Before they went back into the wild, she’d have to wallow in mud again like a pig. But for now, she’d enjoy the bath, and the notion that it would completely disarm the man behind the glass. Thinking of her hands around his throat, she pulled down her pants.