The Black Death (8 page)

Matt came out of the thinned crowd of drug-crazed attackers at the exact same moment that the smaller of the two black-eyed addicts came bounding around the circle of fighting. Ignoring the knowledge that the larger of them would soon be at his heels, Matt squared his shoulders to face her. Gripping the ax in both hands, one at the bottom of the shaft, the other just under the blade, Matt watched her charge. Time seemed to slow as she leaped for him, her jaws impossibly spread and baring ruined, gray teeth. Matt swung the ax like a baseball bat, letting his hand that had been near the blade slide down to meet the other one, and the ax was singing in the wind as it met her.

The blow removed the head from her body in just a single swipe, and she rolled harmlessly in the lawn next to Matt as her arms and legs remained twitching, still trying to figure out what to do. Not sure why, Matt threw himself to the ground next to her headless corpse. It
was as if a little voice in his head demanded it. Whatever it was, little voice or just dumb luck, Matt was on the ground as the bigger of the two bounders filled the air where his torso had been just moments earlier. The thing was screaming as it missed, and then Matt was back on his feet and ready to fight.

The larger junkie seemed more hesitant than the first one had, moving laterally, then switching direction to bounce on all fours the other way. If the movement was meant to be distracting, it was working. Matt had left Free and Danimal to their own devices only moments ago, and he had no idea if they were even alive anymore. Not that it really mattered, at least as far as his own safety was concerned. If they were dead, then he would be, too. He couldn’t fight off the horde and this thing alone.

Matt watched as the beast circled him, never quite leading him back to the fight, but not allowing him to progress any closer to the parking area, either. As dumb as the thing was, it wasn’t unintelligent, not completely. When it did finally charge, it did so deliberately, much slower than the girl had, and much less likely to miss. Matt squared his shoulders to the thing, ready to fire another Babe Ruth swing at the neck of the beast, when he realized his mistake. It hadn’t been circling him at all. The thing was setting him up for an attack from behind. Unable to check his six, and knowing he had only one option, Matt charged the lumbering brute, breaking into a run with the ax aloft above his head.

The beast trembled when it realized its plan had failed, and then it started its own charge at Matt. It instinctively raised its arms to protect itself from the inevitable overhead ax strike, and Matt kicked the thing in its withered genitals, dropping it to its knees, and then punched the blade of the ax through one massive ham of a forearm and halfway through the beast’s neck. Blood jettisoned from the arterial wound as the brute screamed, and Matt yanked the ax free. Turning at last, he was able to see that three more lumbering zombies were set upon and dividing him from his friends of circumstance. Leading the three was the somehow even worse-looking Sally, and Matt went for her first.

He took her unfortunate head off with one well-placed slice of the ax, severing it at the base of the neck and making her starved and meth-addled corpse look almost better without the overly made-up and rotting head. The other two zombies he dispatched quickly as well, their staggered formation a threat only if they had hit him from behind. Attacking like this, they were
easy fodder with a few well-placed blows with the ax, and when the last of them fell, Matt returned to the fray.

Free was firing the Glock now, finally having found the time to retrieve it from his jacket, and Matt saw him fell three attackers, one after the other.

The crowd of attackers had been thinned, and Matt did his best to disable the few that blocked his view of Free and Danimal. Matt dropped the last of them with a blast from the ax, and it fell with the lower jaw still attached to the body, looking as though it were yawning as it dropped. It wasn’t until Matt called to Free that he realized Danimal was missing.

“They fucking killed him, man!” shouted Free, a madman with the gun amid the pile of bodies.

It was true. Danimal’s body lay at Free’s feet, and next to him was one of the whores. Danimal’s face had been battered nearly beyond recognition, and a stiletto stuck out obscenely from his neck. The woman had been shot three times, twice in her neck and once through the forehead, likely as she killed Danimal, from the look of things. Matt knelt and took Danimal’s pistol and then the keys from his pocket while Free looked on incredulously.

“You’re stealing from a dead guy?”

“We need this stuff more than he does.” Matt flipped the keys to Free. “You’re driving, back to town right now.” Matt turned, realized Free wasn’t coming, and spun back around. “Free, it’s time to go.”

“We can’t just leave him, man,” Free said. “He was like a brother since we were little.”

“Do your brother a favor,” Matt hissed, “and start listening. There will be plenty of time to mourn later, if we live.”

“You mean there’s more of them?”

“Please, get in the van, and I’ll explain. But we need to get to town, and we need to get there now, before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” Free asked as they walked to the van, his legs finally moving. “Seems to me like the world has already done gone to pot. My two best buddies both died today.”

“You’d be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t after what just happened.” Matt swung the van’s passenger door open and climbed in. “But there could be a lot more where that came from if we’re not careful. What you need to do, at least for right now, is listen to me and do exactly as I say.”

Free turned over the engine on the van and got Danimal’s rolling bucket of loose bolts into drive and away from the parking lot, then pulled onto the gravel road.

“All right, I’ll listen,” said Free. “Can’t say not listening has ever done me much good.”

“We’re going to the sheriff. Don’t talk. You’ll get a turn in a minute. We’re going to go to the sheriff, and you’re going to tell him where this Bucky asshole is, and if he’s not the one making this poison, you’re going to tell him who is...Because we both know that everyone around here is going to die if we don’t stop this shit from spreading.”

Free was quiet for a few minutes, speaking only as they turned onto Main Street. The traffic light lay in the street, smashed, and the lights in all of the businesses were lit. A pair of bodies lay in the road in front of the bar, one of them wearing an apron. Matt assumed it was Mort.

“Looks like everyone’s already dying,” said Free.

***

Matt had Free park the van in front of the police station, right behind Frank’s cruiser. Matt got out first and wasn’t surprised to see that a barricade had been erected inside the station: Flo’s desk had been turned on its side, and the glass door into the station had been shattered. Judging by the shells on the floor, Matt assumed the door had been ruined by gunfire. He pulled open the door slowly, entering first, with Free in tow.

“Stop right there,” called a female voice—
Flo
—and Matt did, Free bumping into him lightly. “Tell me your names.”

“Flo, it’s Matt. This is Fr—”

“Your full name.”

“Matt Cahill.”

“Don Freeman.”

Matt turned to look at Free. “Don?”

“Free, man. Since high school.”

Flo appeared from behind the makeshift barricade, holding the pump gun Matt had seen her with earlier, and she waved her hand toward them. “Hurry up, get back here!”

Matt and Free ran to her and then knelt behind the desk with her. “What happened?” asked Matt, and she shook her head.

“Frank pulled over a couple of guys DUI about two hours ago, right outside of Mort’s. They both went crazy when he got out of the car, beat him up pretty bad. He shot and killed one of them, but the other one ran across the street and broke back into the store. Frank was going after him when Mort came out and attacked Frank. Frank ended up killing him, too, but Mort had a knife. Frank came back in here and collapsed. I tried to call EMS, but the phones are down, land and cellular, and no one is responding on the CB. Two more men tried to break in. I had to shoot at them. I’m not supposed to do this part of the job. This is why—”

“You’re doing great,” said Matt. “You did everything you could have, and I know you’re worried about Frank, but this will be okay.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” she said, her eyes shifting from Matt to Free. “The whole town is acting crazy.”

“You’re right,” said Free. “Right down the shitter.”

“Where’s Frank?”

“He’s in a cell, through there.”

“Next to the junkie?”

“You’ve been gone a while. That guy beat himself to death on the bars hours ago.”

“I’m going to talk to Frank. You two stay here. Don’t let anyone in here if you can help it. You’re doing a good job, Flo. The name test is a good one. Make sure anyone else who comes in can do at least that before you put your guard down.”

“My guard down? I’m half expecting to need to shoot Free the second you turn your back.”

Free scowled at that, but Matt smiled. “Any other day, maybe you would have. But Free is doing just fine right now.”

***

Matt walked into the sheriff’s office small jail, nervous for Frank and also nervous that Free and Flo would be overrun, or perhaps even turn on each other. Seeing the blood on the cement floor from where the doped-out teenager had smashed his head didn’t help things, and seeing Frank in the cell next to the stain, that door open, made Matt feel much, much worse. Frank was lying on the simple jail bed, his breathing labored but rhythmic. Matt could feel Mr. Dark in the room, even if he wasn’t there. Ignoring that as best as he was able, Matt turned from Frank, his eyes returning to the mess from the dead hophead in the other cell. Then he opened the
door to return to Free and Flo. Feeling as if he had the puzzle but was still missing far too many of the pieces, Matt swung the door closed, hearing the locks slam home. Frank still wore a gun on his belt, and with the door shut, at least they would have a harder time getting to him. Sparing Frank one last look, Matt left the room.

Free and Flo were hunkered down behind the desk exactly where Matt had left them and looking no happier for it. Matt took a deep breath and told them what had to happen.

“Free, you’re going to drive us to Bucky’s, and we’re going to put an end to this crap.”

“I can’t take you there, man. It’s suicide.”

“Besides,” said Flo, “we can’t leave Frank here alone.”

“You’re driving us there, Free,” ordered Matt. “And Frank will be fine as long as we go end this. He’s locked in, and he has his gun. I don’t know Frank, but I do know that if one of us were taking a snooze in there, he’d still be up for catching the bad guys, or doing whatever else it was that needed doing. Since he can’t do that right now, we’re going to do it for him. Flo, what do you have in the way of weaponry?”

“We have another shotgun, the one that would normally be in Frank’s car.”

“Will you get it, and all the shells you can carry?”

“Sure thing,” she said, before standing and walking to Frank’s office. Matt turned to Free. “You’re going to drive?”

“I will,” said Free, sighing, “but I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” Matt said, locking eyes with Free and probing him for some sense of imminent betrayal. “But you do have to drive us there, and then you need to help me get rid of Bucky, end all this meth garbage. You know what Danimal told me? He never smoked black flake. But you did. I can see it on you. I can smell it. Are you going to be able to let it go?”

“I can drive you there,” said Free. “I’ll even help you dust Bucky, if it comes to that, but that other thing, no guarantees. I’ve been smoking speed since I was a kid, and that is the best damn speed I’ve ever had. Some other cook is going to pop up with this same recipe, and you’re crazy if you think I won’t belly up to the counter to partake when the notion strikes me.”

“That’s not what I meant, Free. When we stop Bucky and whoever he’s working with, there will never be any more black flake ever again. I need you to help me do that.”

“Man, you believe way too much in this idea of yours. Trust me, if black flake came along once, it will be back. I’m with you, though. I know that’s what you want to hear. Besides,”
Free said, grinning, “we’re all going to wind up dead up there. Bucky don’t like people coming by unannounced, and if you think it’ll go any different for us, you’re crazy.”

Flo came back to the desk barricade holding her own pistol-gripped shotgun and another with a black stock, along with a canvas sack full of twelve-gauge rounds. She handed the gun with the stock to Matt, and in turn, he gave it to Free.

“Your AR is empty,” Matt said by way of explanation and then turned to Flo. “Besides,” he said, pulling the ax free from his duffel, “I’ll be just fine with this.”

They were silent as Free drove. Matt figured they all had a lot to think about. His mind was stuck on thoughts of Mr. Dark. Even though he’d yet to actually see his adversary, Matt could all but feel him whenever he saw the black flake or someone under its influence.

But maybe what he was sensing was the presence of straightforward evil. Matt had learned that people could be evil bastards without being touched by Mr. Dark. Most of them just came by it naturally.

What was more troubling to Matt was the possibility that Bucky had managed to make a drug that could spread evil more broadly than even Mr. Dark’s touch could.

Then again, maybe it was Mr. Dark who gave Bucky the formula to start with.

Either way, Mr. Dark had every reason to want Bucky to succeed and probably had had his hand in the massacre that had broken out at the whorehouse. The evil seemed to spread among the crowd a lot faster than could be accounted for by the drug.

Matt stared out the windshield. He didn’t have the answers, but he didn’t need them. The drug had to be stopped.

Flo was almost certainly thinking about Frank, lying in his own jail, locked up like a common criminal, and with a head injury. Not best-case scenario by anyone’s logic, but Matt figured what Flo was really wondering was, if they didn’t make it back, how long would Frank be stuck there? Even if he had the keys, and Matt figured he did, that wouldn’t do him much good if he fell into a coma or had a stroke. Still, even with the stresses, he’d seen Flo with the shotgun, and she was more than confident with it.
Hopefully not too confident.