E j deen, p.9
E. J. Deen, page 9
considering the danger they could bring to themselves, to Serena, and the rest of the family. If the Hunters ever got wind of it, the girl’s presence could be the death of them all.
No. He’d made the right decision. It was best to leave things just as they were. Besides, he never misjudged people, and there was something altogether untrustworthy about Taylor.
“You certain?” the man finally asked.
Zach nodded, his face set in grim lines.
The man detached himself from his wife and stepped a little closer to Zach, his eyes on the ground between them. “Thank you for your time, mister. But we need to be alone now, and we’d thank you to leave.”
“What about the fuel you promised me,” Zach reminded him. It seemed a callous thing to do under the circumstances, but, dammit, he needed that fuel to get back, and he wasn’t leaving without it.
“Mister, you didn’t bring my daughter back alive,” the man began.
“You hired me to find her. No one said anything about bringing her back alive. Besides, after what those men did to her, you wouldn’t want her alive,” Zach replied through clenched teeth. He knew his eyes were narrowed in that dangerous look so many people feared. His anger was to the boiling point now, threatening to spill over on anyone who got in his way, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to control.
“Why didn’t you at least bring her body back so we could bury her,” the woman wailed, her face red from crying.
Zach gave her a brief, assessing glance before looking back at the man, waiting, expecting.
The man shook his head, adding to Zach’s ire. “I’m afraid you didn’t do your job, mister. I won’t give you the fuel. You didn’t earn it.”
“Won’t, or can’t?” Zach’s voice was a lethal growl.
“Either way you’re not getting it,” the man countered. “How do we know you’re even telling the truth?”
Zach was on him in an instant, catching the smaller man by surprise when he grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him off the ground with one hand. An enormous hunting knife appeared in his free hand.
He pressed the blade to the man’s throat, the tip biting into the flesh and releasing a slow trickle of blood that oozed out around the steel.
“Do you have fuel here?” Zach hissed in his face, his eyes angrily searching the other man’s gaze.
Unable to speak because of the tight grip and the knife at his throat, Taylor gurgled an answer. In an unexpected turn, the worn shirt that Zach clutched in his fist suddenly gave way, ripping in two, and the man went crashing to the ground, leaving Zach with nothing but a handful of cloth. Taylor instantly began to scramble away, screaming for his wife to get the gun.
“Ma’am, if you get that gun, your husband is a dead man. You’ll never be able to get back with it in time,” Zach warned as he casually slammed a heavy, booted foot down on Taylor’s back to stop his slow progress across the yard.
Certain she would obey him and not her husband, Zach paid no more heed to the woman, just bent forward and grabbed hold of a big clump of Taylor’s hair, jerking his head back at a painful angle and once again pressing the big knife to his throat.
“You have two seconds to answer me. Do you have the fuel?” he reiterated.
Taylor started to nod, then realized how dangerous that could be and stopped himself. “Y-yes, I have the fuel.”
“Where?” Zach demanded, roughly yanking on the hair he held and causing the man’s neck to crack ominously.
“J-just let me up, and I’ll sh-show you…ungh!” He ended on a grunt of pain when Zach gave his hair another yank.
”If you do anything stupid, you’ll die. Understand?” Zach warned.
“Y-yes, ungh, I understand.”
Zach released the man so quickly that he fell face forward in the dust, bloodying his own damn nose.
Bastard! He should kill the asshole just for the general principle.
“Tell the woman and the girl to get back into the house,” he quipped.
“Go on and do like he says, Beth,” Taylor called to his stricken wife.
“T-taylor….” she began.
“You listen to me, Beth! And don’t do anything rash. He’s a dangerous man, you hear?”
The woman glanced once more at Zach and shouted, “How can you do this?” before taking her
daughter tightly by the arm and running for the house. Her words didn’t even come close to piercing the thick hide around Zach’s heart. He had long ago ceased to care what anyone thought of him.
Zach waited until the woman and her daughter were both inside before lifting Taylor off the ground and shoving him into motion. “I did the work, and that fuel is my payment. You just remember that next time you try to swindle someone,” he hissed in Taylor’s ear as they walked out around the house and approached the barn.
Fortunately, the man didn’t try anything stupid. He just stood in silent defeat while Zach collected all the fuel his tank could hold, plus the two holding tanks in the back of the Hummer. When they were full, he called, “You have a nice day now,” and left Taylor standing in the middle of his front yard, looking a little bewildered and a whole lot mad.
“Fuck with me and you get what you deserve,” Zach muttered to himself as he steered the Hummer out onto the highway.
Jesus, he couldn’t wait to get home. West Virginia wasn’t close enough for him. But he still had to make a few more stops yet. Just a few. Then he could disappear into the mountains, get away from the rest of the world for awhile, rest, meditate, and plan. Once he was rejuvenated, he would come out with a vengeance, to vent the anger that was building inside him, the anger that threatened to blow him apart.
It was nightfall, a day later, when Zach pulled the Hummer off the highway for the last time. West Texas, the perfect place to find what he was looking for. Still, though he searched carefully, a celestite flare lighting his way, it took considerable effort and an equally considerable amount of time before he found his first victim. Out to absorb the heat the rocks had accumulated during the day, the first mojave rattlesnake he found coiled at his approach, its tail buzzing a warning. One of the most lethal and dangerous snakes in the United States, the mojave rattler could be an excitable animal. Zach would have to exercise extreme caution.
As he drew closer, the snake’s head reared higher, its tail waving a furious banner of impending death.
In a flash, the rattler struck at the long stick he was using to fish it out of the rocks. Clear of danger, Zach used the flat end of the stick to press the snake’s head into the soft dirt, then reached down with his bare hand and picked it up by the neck, just behind the head.
“Big sucker,” he muttered to himself as he drew it closer to his face for a more thorough inspection.
Satisfied with the size of the animal, he used his free hand to draw a glass vial from the inner pocket of his fatigues. He pulled the rubber cork out with his teeth and then carefully pressed the snake’s fangs over the lip of the vial, gently milking the poison sacks of all the lethal venom they had to offer. This was just the first. His hunt would take precision and patience, but the painstaking task would be well worth the effort. The poison these snakes carried would be more than sufficient for his purpose.
When he’d filled several vials, Zach gladly left Texas behind. The wind whipped his long, black hair into a tangled wad as he sped along the dusty roads heading for home. Eager to get there, he pushed the vehicle to its limits. Despite the lack of headlights to brighten his way, he traveled at an alarming speed. He didn’t need headlights. The moon helped to light the way, and his keen eyes had long since grown accustomed to seeing things in the dark, anyway.
His trip into Texas had been lucrative. Not only had he been able to acquire the fuel that would get him back home again, but he’d also managed to find more celestite, a considerable load of sulfur, which he’d mined from a cave the day before, and the precious poison from his little friends. It had taken him more time than he’d cared to spend, but he was satisfied with his haul. The items he had collected were priceless.
Now it was time to get back home, for a bath, maybe even a shave, but most of all for some much-needed solitude.
He was free to do as he chose now, and he was glad of it. While working in the caves to mine the sulfur, he had come to the decision that he was finished helping people. He didn’t need them. His last taste of humanity would be his final act of vengeance, and then he was through with the damn ingrates.
8
As soon as Zach crossed over into Tennessee, he made a beeline for Franklin’s pub. Franklin’s was a hub for information, one of the best, and Zach made it a point to visit whenever he was in the area. He had always liked the place. It had a slightly less roughneck clientele, and he felt at home there. He was accepted. It was a place where he could relax.
Zach sat at the bar, sipping 100 proof homemade whiskey that burned all the way down and helped take the edge off like no other liquor. As far as he was concerned, it was the best whiskey in the world. A thin, black man sat next to him, sharing a round with him. Grady Jones was his name, and he was the news network in these parts. What he didn’t learn by traveling, he learned through his own private grapevine, and he was always accurate. Grady told events precisely as they happened. There was no other way, since there was no point in prettifying anything anymore.
Zach made a circular motion with his index finger, indicating the two shot glasses between himself and Grady, and then passed another cutting of sugar cane across the bar. Franklin smiled and gave the two men another round.
“So, tell me, Grady. What’s been happening while I’ve been away?”
“Uh-uh. You first,” the black man insisted. “Did you find the girl you was lookin’ for?”
Zach frowned and glared hard at his shot glass. The glass was worn and cracked from overuse, and the amber liquid it held seemed to glare back at him. He didn’t want to talk about Serena, didn’t even want to think about her. He didn’t like the way it made him feel. Awful inside. And angry.
Grady noticed the long silence and the frown between his friend’s brows. “Uh, oh. Touchy subject?”
Zach didn’t say anything, just picked up the shot glass and tossed the liquid down his throat, squinting against the burn that traveled all the way to his gullet.
Grady glanced away and fidgeted with his own glass for a moment before beginning again. “There’s a faction down in south Florida, a group of boys, none of ‘em more than fifteen years old. They goin’
around killin’ the elderly for their food, their clothing, their shelters, anything they can get off their dead bodies. And the Hunters are in action again. They found a colony of GV-3s livin’ up north of here, and they went after ‘em with a vengeance, burned their shelters, burned most of the men alive.”
“Don’t you have any good news?” Zach broke in.
“They ain’t no good news in this world we livin’ in, Zach. You know that.”
“Sorry. It’s just that….” He shrugged his massive shoulders and didn’t bother to finish.
Grady just nodded. He understood what Zach was feeling. He’d been feeling it for some time now himself. Everyone who had a heart did. The futility and apathy. The frustration. It was like a living entity, pressing down on all of them.
“There’s a group out in Texas tryin’ to get some of the old oil rigs goin’ again, tryin’ for some industry,”
Grady offered.
Zach shook his head in disbelief. “Industry, huh? Crazy asses. Don’t they know there isn’t any industry anymore?”
“Most people would agree. But not the Pirates. They’s just sittin’ back and waitin’ to take it from ‘em.”
“More killing,” Zach muttered.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Grady agreed, running a hand over the patch of graying fuzz on his head.
Their conversation was interrupted when a young boy came into the building. A scrappy little towhead named Tadpole. When he saw Zach sitting at the bar, he gave a whoop of delight and rushed forward to greet him.
“Hiya, Zach,” the boy crowed as he plopped down onto the stool next to him.
“Hey, Tadpole,” Zach returned, gazing down at the boy with an expression that was as near to affection as he could come. “How goes it?”
“The usual.” He grinned back at Zach. “I’ll take a whiskey, Franklin,” he said to the bartender.
Franklin poured him a small shot and passed it down the bar. The boy tossed it back like any hairy-chested man. The act created a stir nearby, and some of the onlookers clapped and cheered him on.
Everyone knew Tadpole, everyone liked him, and no one ever said a word about him being too young to drink whiskey.
Tadpole was a unique individual. Near as anyone could tell, he’d been born some time after the rioting had begun, born into a tumultuous and corrupted society. Like many others, his parents had been killed shortly after the revolt. He’d been an infant at the time, left alone in a heartless world. But by some divine miracle he survived. He’d been taken in by one family after another, with long stretches of isolation and solitude in-between as each family either abandoned him or were killed by one faction or another, until he’d finally been left completely alone at the age of seven. No one knew how old the boy really was. Tadpole figured he was somewhere near around the age of nine, but he didn’t act like a nine-year-old. Hardship had made him an odd mixture of child and man, yet the trauma hadn’t
corrupted him like it had some of the other youngsters. He was one of the good guys, his heart solid gold. He idolized Zach, wanted to be just like him, much as Zach tried to dissuade him from the notion.
“Did you find her, Zach?” Tadpole demanded, his hazel eyes gleaming with excitement and
hopefulness.
Tadpole loved an adventure, and that was precisely how he viewed every aspect of Zach’s life. Just one big adventure after another. If he only knew what pain and suffering Zach had gone through, maybe then he wouldn’t want to be like him. The boy had already experienced enough hardship as it was. But no one could ever tell another about pain. It was something that had to be experienced first hand.
“I found her,” Zach admitted, unable to hide his amusement at the boy’s zeal.
“I knew you would,” Tadpole crowed. “There ain’t nothin’ you can’t do. And you know what I’m
gonna do when I get big and strong like you, Zach? I’m gonna rescue people. Just like you.”
Zach had heard this declaration before. Ever since he’d met little Tadpole outside this very bar two years ago, the boy hadn’t left him alone. Anytime Zach was in the area, Tadpole was underfoot, incessantly pestering him about one thing or another. Zach had a particular affection for the boy, so he tolerated Tadpole’s vocal attempts to be included in on his clandestine operations. He just couldn’t get it through the boy’s head that he was a loner and didn’t need any help from anyone. Tadpole was no quitter, and he refused to give up on his hopes and dreams. No matter how unattainable they seemed.
Zach ran a critical eye over Tadpole’s wiry frame. Perhaps due to an inadequate diet, he seemed small for his age. Poor kid. But he was feisty as they come, and he’d fight tooth and nail for a cause. Still, he led a lonely existence. Like Zach, he didn’t know any other way.
Tadpole was the only name the boy had ever known. The moniker had been given to him years ago by some crusty mountain man. The only parents he’d ever really known were the hooting of an owl in the middle of a cold, dark night and the underside of a tiny tin roof that had kept him out of the rain for half his life. It was an odd existence for a boy, but he’d refused most offers from older folks to take him in, always insisting that he didn’t want to be a burden. When he found Zach, he’d been even more
convinced to stay independent, just like his hero.
It was sad that a child had to be bereft of family, but that was reality. A reality they all had to deal with in their own individual way.
“Can I help carry anything back for you, Zach?” Tadpole asked, looking too damn eager to please.
“Thanks anyway, Tadpole, but you know the rules.”
“I know.” His face fell. “No one knows where Zach lives.”
“One day you’ll understand, kid,” Grady added. “Zach didn’t get all those scars for nothin’, you know.”
“And the less people know about his whereabouts, the less people will get hurt,” Tadpole finished for him, his voice a mixture of pride and disappointment.
“That’s right,” Zach said.
The boy turned away and began to fiddle with his shot glass. Zach grew a little uncomfortable. He had hurt the kid’s feelings. Again. He understood the boy’s eagerness to help, but Zach wouldn’t break the rules for anyone. That was just the way of things.
What Tadpole really wanted was for Zach to be his father figure, but that wasn’t a scenario Zach could embrace. He was no father figure. He was a killer, just as ruthless as the Pirates, only in a different way.
Besides, he didn’t want any responsibilities to weigh him down. He had chosen his path a long time ago, knowing the sacrifices he would have to make, and he was willing to accept that. Tad would have to accept it, too.
“I don’t suppose you’ve been keeping an eye on Pete and Sara for me while I’ve been away, just like I asked you to?”
The boy’s face brightened. “Every day. And Sara’s been feedin’ me real good, too.” He grinned and rubbed his belly.
“You do look a little bigger around the middle,” Zach teased.
“A lot bigger,” Tadpole said. “Sara says all that eatin’ will help me grow a big chest like you, so I worked real hard at it. Miss Sara’s a good cook. She even made me sweetcakes.”
“Well, well. If she’s willing to waste all that sugar on you, you must be pretty special in her eyes.”
“Mighty special,” Tadpole agreed, his eyes gleaming. After a short pause, he added, “Hey, Zach, will you gimme a ride in the Hummer. I was thinking maybe you could take me out to Sara’s house.”
