Authors: Joe McKinney

Mutated - 04 (33 page)

BOOK: Mutated - 04

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C
HAPTER
28

The rain was cold. Sylvia sat against the back railing of the platform, shivering and miserable, her arms wrapped around her knees. The world seemed to swirl around her in a blur of muddy images. Since being led up to this platform she had managed to hold herself together, but that was becoming harder with every passing second. The thought that she was going to die here couldn’t be pushed down anymore, and with it came nausea and a fear that prickled her skin and made her lips tremble.

She glanced over at Avery, and for a moment, the girl was ten years old again, a plump little waif in ruined clothes hiding behind Niki, so fragile it made her heart break for all the good that had been drained from the world.

Avery was staring back at her.
What are we going to do?
she said, silently mouthing the words.

Sylvia wanted to answer, but couldn’t.

She didn’t know, and the memory of the last time she had tried to scoot over next to Avery rose up in her mind, the way the Red Man had whirled around on them when he saw them together. She remembered the way his filthy hands had felt on her skin, the stink of his breath. And the words he’d whispered into her ear.

“Think about this as you wait for Niki Booth to come for you. Think about life. Did you love it like you should have, while you were holding it in your hands? Did you love it enough to go into this moment with an open and a ready heart?”

The sting of those words was still hot on her cheek, for she knew the answer was no. There were too many regrets and too many broken hearts.

She looked again at Avery and shook her head in resignation.

Avery’s gaze sank to the plank boards under them, and when she started to sob, it felt to Sylvia like the worst sort of accusation.

It had been like this after San Antonio all those years ago, her greatest failure. She became a college professor because she loved the glory of a young mind opening to the world. Ben had been wrong, all those years ago, when he condemned her motives. She really did set out to teach, not just to publish her way to tenure, but to teach. She loved the vitality of youth, its blind trust and violent rebellion. She loved its innocence, and its skepticism. She loved all the contradictions that made a college student a child on the cusp of adulthood; and yet, despite that love that had shone so brightly and so intensely, she failed the youth who had trusted her back then, just like she was failing Avery now. But the real tragedy of it all, the thing that really made her angry, was that she didn’t even know why she failed. She couldn’t fathom it. Love was supposed to find a way.

Feeling like she was groping blindly for an answer that would always elude her, she glanced up at the Red Man. His back, dripping with bloodred rainwater, filled her with dread. There were no answers there. A part of her wanted to ask what he was waiting for, but in truth she already knew. He was waiting for Niki to come to him. And why shouldn’t he? He had his black shirts on their boats watching the riverbanks, and on land he had his army of rotting slaves. There was no way for Niki to get to him. And that meant that time was on his side.

A sudden crackle from over by the river broke her thoughts off clean. It took a moment for her mind to realize that she was hearing gunfire, but that’s what it was. It had to be.

And something else, too.

Men yelling. Yells turning into screams of rage and pain. Even over the pounding rain, she could hear the emotion in those screams.

Niki, she thought, and perked up. She looked over her shoulder, toward the river.

Not Niki. It was the Hintons!

And then confusion set in. What were they doing? Were they leaving? Abandoning them? She could see the
Sugar Jane
backing up, Gabi down in the rear deck firing at the black shirts on the nearby boats. Sylvia looked over at Avery to see if she was seeing this. Avery’s eyes were wide, staring down through the smoke swirling over the water, absorbing the slow, cumbersome movement of the boats.

The Red Man slowly crossed the platform and put his hands on the railing. But to Sylvia’s surprise, he wasn’t upset. At first he showed no emotion at all. But then a slow, sly grin tugged at the corners of his mouth, exposing the tips of his brown teeth.

Sylvia looked away, focusing instead on the boats.

The river battle pondered on. From up here, the battle developed with the rigid predictability of flotsam caught in a river of molasses. Sylvia found herself strangely torn. She saw the violence unfold, and she cheered under her breath as the
Sugar Jane
destroyed three opponents in turn. But at the same time another part of her, the skeptic, was burning with the rage of betrayal.

And then the Red Man laughed. Even as the
Sugar Jane
pulled away, he laughed.

Sylvia looked up at him, and was surprised to find him meeting her gaze.

“Looks like your friends have had enough,” he said. “That was your ride, wasn’t it?”

“They’re beating your men,” she countered.

He shrugged. “That matters to you, does it? The lives of a few dozen men?”

She almost snapped off an answer, but was horrified by what she realized she was about to say.
Not your men.
As if the loss of a certain class of men was somehow a good thing. She recoiled at the heresy that nearly passed her lips. She had devoted her life, and especially her life after the outbreak, to the belief that all life was precious, even that of the zombies. And now look at her.

But she was more horrified by the look on his face. All the red paint in the world couldn’t hide the smug superiority, the knowledge that he had reduced her to his level.

The wind stirred, gusting all around her. It blew a strand of her wet gray hair into her face. She brushed it aside.

He looked amused by her distress.

“You’re a bastard,” she said.

He shrugged again.

Suddenly bored with her, his attention drifted back to the river battle. The screams had stopped. The river was enveloped by a foul, roiling black smoke, but the
Sugar Jane
’s progress was still easy to see as it tracked its slow course out to the middle of the channel. The Hintons were standing in the stern, watching the black shirt fleet that was rapidly overtaking them, hand in hand.

“Your friends have not only abandoned you,” the Red Man said. “Looks like they’ve given up entirely. This part should be fun.”

On the bow of the approaching boats Sylvia could see black shirts on their bellies, their rifles flashing as they fired on the fleeing
Sugar Jane
. It was only a matter of time now, she knew.

She was watching one of the black shirt snipers when the
Sugar Jane
exploded. The power of the explosion caught her off guard, but she did not flinch. Instead, her gaze rolled slowly across the smoky water, across the burning debris still streaking through the air, trailing smoke like little comets, and finally settling on the blackened, rectangular raft of fiberglass that was all that remained of the
Sugar Jane
’s hull.

There was no sign of the Hintons.

The Red Man sighed and turned away. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I was hoping for a bit more than that.”

Sylvia stared up at him, dumbstruck. There was so much rage coursing through her, so much horror and resentment, that she couldn’t put it into words. And for a moment, it almost overcame her.

Perhaps he saw it in her face, for his smile suddenly evaporated, and his bloodshot eyes narrowed.

“I wouldn’t,” he said.

“Sylvia, look!”

Sylvia looked past the Red Man to Avery. She was crawling forward on her knees, mouth open as a smile started to form there.

“Get back,” the Red Man snarled at her, his hand raised like he might backhand her across the cheek.

Avery froze, but the half-formed smile remained.

“It’s Nate,” she said.

Sylvia followed Avery’s gaze out to the muddy field before the platform. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Nate, fighting his way through the center of the zombie crowd. She gawked at him, pushing and shoving and kicking his way through the throng of zombies. They were surging after him as he passed. Ahead of him, a few heads turned to investigate the moaning of their brethren.

“He’s coming for you,” Sylvia said.

She meant it to sound derisive, baiting; but she couldn’t help but wonder where Niki was. Sylvia scanned the field without trying to be obvious—and then she saw her! She was moving along the far side of the field, near the hotel, looking for a way to flank the zombie crowd.

It’s perfect, she thought. Nate draws the zombie crowd like a magnet dragged through metal shavings while the Hintons draw the black shirts away, down the river. And meanwhile, Niki creeps silently along the riverbank, coming up behind the Red Man. It was perfect.

“Oh,” said the Red Man.

Sylvia heard that startling smugness in his voice and turned her attention back to the field.

“No,” Avery said. “Nate, no!”

Nate was faltering down there. He stumbled, went to a knee, and the next instant, four zombies waved over top of him, dragging him down into the mud.

More zombies fell on top of him. The scene, perversely, reminded Sylvia of football games she’d seen in long-gone days. Adults rolling around in the mud like children. But this was no game, and she didn’t need the hitching whine in Avery’s throat to remind her of that.

Nate was down there.

And he was dying.

He fought to his feet, shucking his elbows from side to side like some huge wounded beast. Nate stood there for four, five, six seconds . . . and then he was down again. The pile of bodies on top of him grew ever larger, and soon all she could see was a heap of writhing figures squirming around in the mud like worms. Even the blood was lost beneath the mud.

“And he’s dead,” the Red Man said.

Avery climbed to her feet.

“Sit down,” the Red Man said.

“You killed him,” Avery said. There was a wounded rage in her eyes that Sylvia had never seen before. It both startled and amazed her, like someone had ripped away a mask, revealing some new wonder of creation.

“Sit down,” the Red Man said, this time through gritted teeth.

Avery took a clumsy swing at him.

The Red Man sidestepped it easily, then lashed out at Avery with a fierce backhand, his knuckles cracking against the line of her jaw.

“Avery!” Sylvia cried.

She jumped to her feet and rushed the Red Man. He turned just as she made contact and the two of them flew into the metal railing, shaking the whole platform and nearly sending them both over the railing.

Grunting, he threw her back.

She struggled to regain her footing on the slick platform. He loomed above her, red and strange and fierce, but her fear gave her strength. She lunged for him again, this time meaning to throw her shoulder into his gut and send him sailing over the edge, knowing that she had just this one chance to get it right or they were both dead.

She never saw the foot that swept her legs out from under her. One moment she was rushing headlong toward him, and the next she was flat on her back, staring up at him, at his red face and leering black smile.

“You do not get to win,” he said. “Not today.”

And the next instant he fell on her, his hands turning her face to one side as his teeth pushed their way through her hair and over her ear.

The pain was intense.

She felt as though the whole side of her face were being ripped away. She screamed up into the rain, hands instinctively moving to the torn flesh that only a moment before had been her ear.

Through tears and rain she blinked at her hands. They were bloody and her face felt like someone had pressed a hot iron against her flesh.

Then the Red Man came into focus.

He was holding something white in his bloody fingers. Her left ear.

He took another bite and chewed it while he watched her writhe on the platform. “You don’t get to win,” he said. “I told you that. Not today.”

But all she could think of was her life.

How she didn’t love it nearly enough to meet this moment with an open and a ready heart.

C
HAPTER
29

The boat was a white-over-yellow Moomba Mobius with a raked-forward canvas canopy over the steering wheel. The canopy was in tatters now, flaps of it fluttering slightly in the breeze. Niki could see three dead black shirts sprawled out over the seats and a rifle hanging from one of the dead men’s hands.

She stopped, knee deep in the water, studying the corpses. Something didn’t feel right. She had that familiar prickling feeling along the back of her neck, a sudden alertness that she had come to trust over the years.

Where were the other rifles? Every black shirt she’d ever seen had carried a rifle, yet she saw only one here.

She waited, but none of the men moved. And judging from the amount of blood pooled on the seats and dripping down the sides of the boat, they weren’t likely to do so any time soon.

She was getting paranoid, she decided. Of course they’re dead. They’d have gone after the
Sugar Jane
if they weren’t— or at least sought some medical attention from the other boats if they were wounded. Of course they were dead.

She took another step into the river, but the sounds of moans behind her made her stop.

She whirled around. Not all the zombies had gone after Nate, it seemed. Twenty, maybe twenty-five, were staggering down the grassy slope toward the river, their vacant stares locked in on her.

“Shit,” she said.

She looked back to the boat, and her eyes settled on the rifle hanging from the dead black shirt’s hands. Niki glanced out to the river, where smoke from the
Sugar Jane
had lowered a curtain of inky blackness over the water. The Red Man’s boats were heading into that veil, disappearing inside it. That meant the Red Man’s back was exposed. A thrill went through her. The rifle—it would be an easy shot from the water. But she would have to hurry. The boats would be returning soon.

She ran for the little speedboat.

One of the black shirts was bent facedown over the gunwale. He had a pistol on his hip, as did one of the other soldiers, who was lying facedown in a thick pool of blood. She grabbed the gray hair on the back of the man’s head and pulled it up so she could see his face.

Niki sucked in her breath.

It was the older guard from the bed of the pickup, from back in St. Louis. The same one she’d kicked in the jaw when she tried to make a run for safety. The same one who had shot her in the ribs with a rubber slug from his shotgun.

“Not so tough now, huh?” she said.

The man’s dead eyes stared at nothing. His mouth hung open uselessly, gathering flies. She let his head drop and his face thunked against the gunwale. Niki grabbed him by the back of his belt and pulled him into the water. The alligators or the zombies could have him, she didn’t care which.

She climbed aboard and took a quick inventory of the weapons the dead men had left behind. She saw one pistol and one AR-15. There were two men with hip holsters, but she didn’t see the other pistol. It must have gone over the side, she thought ruefully. Too bad. There was no time to look for it, either. The first few zombies were almost to the waterline now. Niki turned the black shirt with the rifle over and was surprised at how young he was. Avery’s age, maybe even younger. Such a shame. So young and already things were bad enough he felt the need to join up with this lot. She thought of the men impaled on spikes on the opposite riverbank, and what the black shirt there had said. Those were all the ones who wouldn’t serve the Red Man. She wondered if this boy here had been presented with the same choice, and she found it hard to hate him.

She searched his corpse and came up with two fully loaded, thirty-round magazines for the AR-15. A good haul.

She put her boot to his chest and shoved him overboard.

“Okay,” she said, turning to the third black shirt. “Your turn.”

She flipped him over, wincing from the pain in her side, and froze. As soon as she saw his eyes open and his pistol coming up, she cursed herself for her stupidity. A rookie mistake if there ever was one.

He motioned for her to put up her hands. “Real slow,” he said.

She raised them halfway, at the same time gauging the distance to the AR-15 leaning up against the captain’s chair.

“I wouldn’t,” he said. He slowly climbed to his feet, careful to keep the pistol trained on her chest.

She stared into his eyes, taking the measure of the man. He had a round face with a thick black beard. There was blood in his beard and in his hair, but that didn’t bother Niki. She had seen blood before.

Instead, she kept coming back to his eyes.

Niki had never seen the man before, she knew that, for she would have remembered eyes like his. They were cold and brutal. He didn’t serve the Red Man out of fear. He was too emotionally dead for that. Too hollow inside even for something as instinctive as fear. No, he served the Red Man because he liked the killing. She had been wondering about the bodies on spikes on the opposite riverbank since she first saw them, not only at the courage and pain of the dead and dying there, but also at the men who put them there. How fucked up and depraved did you have to be to impale another man through his ass on an eight-foot spike?

Well, here was her answer, staring her right in the eye.

Niki’s lip curled in disgust, but not because he offended her sensibilities. He disgusted her because she had had dreams of looking in the mirror and seeing eyes very much like his staring back at her.

That recognition scared her the most.

“You ought to shoot me if you’re gonna do it,” she said. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

“Not the way you’re favoring your ribs there. You’d never make it.”

She forced a smile. “No,” she said, “I guess not.”

BOOK: Mutated - 04

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