Well Fed - 05 (37 page)

That was, as Ollie pointed out, her one weakness.

Collie and Ollie’s official honeymoon came when they were deployed to Ottawa to search for the whereabouts of the previous JTF recon teams sent there. Upon determining the fate of those operators and the discovery that Whitecap had fallen, she and Ollie realized they were on their own. Collie believed it had been justice that the underground shelter had been breached. Ollie was more clinical in his assessment.

The virus had simply found a way in.

Some heated discussions had followed between the pair, debating what to do in the absence of a command structure, but they both eventually agreed on one plan: gather whoever was left, whoever was willing to join them, and start over.

It was a proactive mission that Collie found much to her liking. However, the world had changed, gone savage. The undead were the easiest to deal with. Shoot them on sight. The human element was far more cunning, devious, and in some cases, warlike.

Collie figured it was just after nine in the morning, but the town seemed mired in sleep. Nothing stirred as she snaked her way through backyards, closing in on the bridge. A single, forest-green bungalow came into sight, ringed with a smashed fence that reminded her of broken teeth. The house stood on the right, its broken-out picture window giving a shooter ideal coverage of both sides of the river and anyone attempting to cross. There was the chance that no one actually lived on the south side, that they’d relocated to the motel, perhaps even fortified their position.

Collie hugged the corner of one house, looked both ways before proceeding, and walked across the street as if she belonged.

Her senses crackled in the morning silence, eyes flicking side to side, ears on ten. She appeared outwardly calm, as though she belonged to the gang, albeit dressed differently. She suppressed the urge to sprint, forcing herself to take her time to the house. If anyone noticed her and stopped to stare, she’d have only a second or two before her ruse failed.

The house loomed closer, and she walked around the back, found the rear door, tried the knob, and found it locked. As if fumbling for a key, she reached up her sleeve and extracted a small, thin blade, inserted it into the slit between door and doorframe, located the bolt, and knifed her way into the house.

All was quiet inside.

Collie closed the door and walked through a filthy kitchen area, hugging the walls and taking her time peeking into doorways. A smell of alcohol and body odor permeated the house. Her gun came up, left hand steadying the right. The living room was empty, but three hunting rifles lay across a green sofa. An opposing hallway had two of three doors closed.

A toilet flushed.

Collie silently blurred to the side of the bathroom door and waited, gun pointed at the space where a head would appear.

Someone snorted, horked, and spat, followed by a muttering of words.

Fingers fumbled on a doorknob.

Then
two
doors opened––the room that Collie had covered and the other down the hall on the opposite side.

She didn’t hesitate.

The man in her sights got his head blown off, decorating the wall and drizzling the air with bloody pulp, before she smoothly adjusted her aim and double-tapped a blond woman in her chest and face. The blast flung the blonde back with a meaty racket, the door sprayed with head jam and other clumps of sagging matter.

Collie did a quick scan of the bathroom, hopped over the T-shirt-wearing man-corpse in the hall, and went to the opened door. She led with her gun, using the wall as cover, and saw that the dead female’s bedroom was empty. Having cleared two rooms, she went to the last open doorway and found it vacant. A quick search revealed the closets full of clothes and well-used sports padding. The beds rested directly on the floor, so there was nowhere to hide there.

Collie stalked back into the kitchen, deeming the house clear.

The living room might’ve been a mosh pit the night before, and parts of the carpet seemed to have either been ripped or chewed through. Empty booze bottles rattled and rolled underfoot, garnished with empty brass shell casings. Collie stopped and took a quick look out of the picture window, seeing how it lined up with the sofa. Lazy. People could sit there and watch the road, rifles in hands, without having to lift their asses. The indentations in the cushion spoke of many long hours for the shooters.

Collie went back to the closet where she’d seen the gear and clothes. She took a light jacket and a pair of cargo pants, both of which she pulled over herself. Having done that, she returned to the living room and picked up the nearest bolt action: a Remington; chestnut stock with a scope, missing its strap; rubber on the grip; hinged floor plate with a full four-shot magazine and one already in the pipe; good for at least three hundred yards. She looked it over and deemed it solid and capable enough, but she didn’t like using untested weapons. If she remained lucky, she wouldn’t have to worry about that. She jammed the Sig Sauer into her waistband and practiced pulling it free twice. The suppressor hooked both times, but Collie didn’t see any alternative. She hefted the rifle and saw an old Red Wings cap hanging from a peg. That went over her masked head.

If she could get across the bridge, then all was peaches and cream.

A breeze ushered her across the bridge. Rusty guardrails, crumpled in places, ran along the edges of the construction. The dark water below flowed west, gurgling along, conjuring little whirlpools. Ahead, the remaining houses, service station, and motel seemed to press themselves into a tall fence of fir and spruce trees, all under an ominous carpet of cloud. Collie sauntered across at an outwardly leisurely pace, appearing unconcerned with the world, holding the Remington across her pelvis. Her balaclava kept the chill morning air from her face, the weather reason enough for a person to wear a mask. Her boots clicked off pavement riddled with potholes and long cracks resembling spent lightning bolts, the sound of her passing disturbing the otherwise peaceful morning.

Halfway over the bridge, she kept pace, scanning the houses for lookouts or signs of life and seeing none. Whoever had taken the motor homes had completely relaxed their guard. Collie felt the gun in her waistband slip a finger, forcing her to adjust it while laying the rifle across one shoulder as if in a parade. The breeze slashed at her eyes, making her blink.

No one approached her.

No one called out.

Even better, no shots fired.

She allowed herself a mental sigh of relief upon getting across. Without breaking stride, she sauntered toward the motel and the collage of vehicles parked there, several of which she recognized as belonging to her. She reached the nearest RV, walked along its length and paused, listening for voices or snoring.

Nothing.

The front of the RV beckoned, and she slunk around the front, crouching. The main entrance of the motel wasn’t more than twelve meters away, the glass doors smashed out and replaced with stained slabs of wood. A slot had been cut into the surface at eye level, for peeking out at visitors. She looked up and spotted, just underneath the
Cozzzy Inn
sign, a rifle barrel sticking out over the edge of the roof.

I see you.
Collie walked to the base of the building. Most of the windows had been boarded up on the outside. She walked around to the back, passing a secondary entrance that had been likewise fortified, as well as a ringed escape ladder going up to the roof.

Collie placed the rifle against the motel wall and climbed, focusing on the top, willing the area above her to be clear. In short time, she reached the top and paused.

She heard the soft buzz of a snore.

Not believing her luck, she scaled the top and saw a fire-escape door leading to the motel’s second floor. Across from that was a man dressed as if on a hunting spree and sleeping on his back. His head rested against the lower portion of one of the Zs in
Cozzzy Inn
, with a stocking cap pulled down over his eyes.

Collie crept to the fire-escape door and hid behind the housing unit.

She drew her knife and snuck toward the sleeping man. Once beside him, Collie slapped her hand over his mouth, drove her knee to his chest, and stabbed the entire length of the blade up under his chin, hilt deep, skewering his brain. His arms shivered as she pinned him, relaxing a second later. She rooted the blade back and forth before extracting the weapon and wiping it off on his shirt.

A heartbeat later, she returned to the fire-escape door, surprised to see the guard had jammed a slat of wood against its base to prevent the door from completely closing.

Collie pulled it open with a faint, rusty yawn.

Then she was inside.

“Holy shit, was that her?” Gus demanded, squinting at the distant motel.

“That was her.”

“Sweet Christ, did she kill him?”

Wallace turned, his mouth twisting into a
course-she-killed-him
sneer.

“Holy
shit
. Holy shit. I mean, course we couldn’t hear anything from here, but that was
her
.”

“Let’s get moving,” Wallace said and started down the hill, keeping inside the tree line.

“We’re backup?”

“She doesn’t need backup.”

The air inside the building was fresh, and Collie stealthily descended a flight of stairs to the second floor and paused at another door. She listened at its surface, heard nothing, and decided to proceed. The hinges groaned softly as she pulled it open, making her cringe, but no one responded. Collie eased into an alcove filled with two smashed vending machines—for snacks and soft drinks—and an empty ice freezer. There were no working lights, leaving the hallway in deep shadows. A worn carpet covered the floor, which Collie appreciated. She peeked around the corner, seeing that the corridor ran north and south and she was pretty much in the middle. Another staircase was situated around the corner from the vending machines alcove. Boards covered the windows at either end of the hall, but daylight stabbed through multiple slots, reminding her of murder holes found in medieval castles. A few doors hung partially open, glazing the carpet in a dusty, lazy light.

The hallway was empty.

She wondered how many were in the gang and how many might be sleeping behind each closed door. The knife went back into its sheath, replaced with the silenced pistol. Taking a breath, she placed her back to the wall and moved north, trying each knob in turn with a gentle twist. Most were locked, suggesting that folks weren’t so trusting of each other in the little community, and snores ripped through with buzz-saw clarity. Some doors opened to empty rooms, the beds and furniture either trashed or sparkling with dust.

Collie crept toward the end, her balaclava becoming soggy with sweat. She concentrated on maintaining situational awareness, utilizing six senses at once, all cranked up to ten.

The ceiling caught her attention at the same time as a stench, one she’d come to recognize all too well: rotting meat.

Above her head, dangling from the ceiling at varying lengths, were hundreds of cut-out Christmas trees and ornamental glass bulbs. Collie paused and studied this oddity, even reaching up and plucking one of the small trees from its twine for a closer inspection. It was a pine-scented air freshener, its fragrance long depleted. She dropped the thing and tugged free a bulb––another exhausted air freshener.

The farther she crept along the hall, the stronger the smell of decomposing flesh.

The second-to-last door didn’t puzzle her as much as it should have. In her time traveling the countryside, she’d seen a few makeshift cells, some holding the pitiful remnants of flesh and bones too weak to bear a name, others holding people who cried upon being freed. That door had two iron bars on the outside acting as dead bolts, one near the top and one at the bottom. They’d been crudely nailed into the door’s surface, their ends deep into the doorframe. A wide slot, carved out by chainsaw, was at a tall person’s eye level. The opening intimidated her for a moment, dangerous seconds she shouldn’t have spent. Memories of horrors from cells past fogged her mind, sounds and images of the depravity people––crazed people––could inflict upon the weak for no other reason than amusement. Or punishment. Or both.

Collie set her jaw, stood on the balls of her feet and looked inside, and when she did, relief coursed through her.

It wasn’t as bad as others.

The room was a double—that much she could see from the slot—and filled with about a dozen or more people dressed in winter clothing. Three slept on each bed while the floor seemed to be covered in flesh—the living kind. A big bare toe twitched. Someone coughed.

Collie stepped back and checked the opposite door, with a similar slot and locking bars on its surface. The words PLAY PEN were spray-painted between the bars. A short, extendable aluminum ladder rested against the baseboard. She checked down the hallway and tiptoed once more to see, peering into the room. The smell permeated her mask and wrinkled her nose.

What the hell?

It was a mirror layout of the room behind her, but with a slight difference. A man, battered and incredibly weary looking, had pressed himself into the far corner, as if attempting to meld with the wall. He sat with his head drooping and his legs splayed out. Collie didn’t understand what she was looking at, why he seemed to be at the absolute limit of his endurance, or why the interior of the room appeared to be stripped of all furniture.

Then horror set in, prompting her to lift herself a little higher to see, to get a fuller look at the view through the slot.

The floor… the floor had been cut away.

The guy was perched on a shred of wood that was a section of the floor, a seat only wide enough for his ass, leaving his legs to dangle into an open pit that seemed to span the entirety of the room.

Collie realized why the ladder was just outside the door.

But what was in the play pen’s pit
?

Swearing, she looked back up the hallway and made her decision right there. The bars slid across with the barest of squeals, making Collie watch for bandits stepping out of their rooms. No one did, however, and she was able to work the second bar open without incident. She put her shoulder to the door, opened it, and slipped inside. The floor existed a short distance within, allowing access to a dingy bathroom on the right, but where the room opened up was nothing but a chainsawed drop to the first floor. The man’s sleep-deprived eyes bulged at her. Collie held up a hand as she leaned forward, cautiously peering into the pit.