Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands Read online

  Now he had a mess to clean up and not a lot of time in which to do it. Placing the bloody knife on the counter, he rifled through the cabinets until he found a box of rags. It wouldn’t be much, but hopefully enough to wipe up all the blood.

  But first, he’d need to deal with the body. Carefully and quietly Lester took one of the rags he’d found and made a makeshift scarf around Rita’s neck. It darkened as the blood spread into the fibers. He tied it tightly to keep any additional blood from draining out and onto the floor, avoiding even more of a mess to clean up later.

  With the wound covered, Lester considered his options for ditching the body. The house had no basement, so that left only an extra room in which to stash the body. That wouldn’t do. Chloe being the nosey type, she’d be likely to snoop around the house, especially once she found Rita inexplicably gone (another problem he still had to deal with).

  No, the body had to be removed from the house. But that meant venturing out into the darkness, a place owned exclusively by the new breed of carrier, a very real and very deadly risk. Something he really and truly did not want to have to do.

  But the thought of never seeing Chloe with blood pouring from her throat, never seeing that look in her eyes…

  Well, the carriers were a risk he was willing to take.

  * * *

  Rita had been a dumpy old cow and Lester damn near couldn’t get her fat ass out of the house without throwing his goddamn back out. He finally managed to lift the bitch up and carry her out the back door. The work wasn’t as quiet as he would have preferred it to be, but he was careful not to make any overtly loud noises. Besides, he was used to working quietly, especially before the virus.

  Now, sweating and straining under the dead weight of their former host, Lester found himself in the back yard of the farmhouse. The air, cool and damp, surrounded and enveloped him like a blanket. Unseen crickets chirped from the tall grass, an ancient song that only they understood. The moon had traversed the sky a considerable distance now, heading toward the horizon. He had plenty of time before it disappeared behind the hillside, leaving him in total darkness.

  He walked away from the house and into the tall grass, glancing at his surroundings as he went. The moonlight allowed him to see reasonably well, but he knew that if the carriers locked on to him before he finished his work then it wouldn’t matter if he saw them coming or not. He’d be dead either way.

  In the distance, past a hundred yards of overgrown weeds and grass, dark and foreboding forest loomed. The carriers hunted at night, Lester knew. He’d seen it before. A few weeks back he’d watched a pack of the things chase down a deer, exploding out of the forest and into a field, surrounding their prey until one of them successfully felled it. Like a pride of lions hunting on the savanna.

  Taking the body all the way to the forest’s edge was a bad idea. But taking it a few dozen yards away from the house and dumping it in the waist tall grass would work just fine. He’d make sure to lead Sam and Chloe away from that spot when they left the house. And if he was lucky, the carriers might just find the carcass and take care of it themselves.

  And if Sam and Chloe wanted to go look for her? Well, he’d figure that one out when the time came.

  He trudged through the grass, making his way further from the house. The bitch was getting heavy now, really heavy, and he wasn’t sure just how much longer he could keep going until he’d have to unload her. He walked, one foot in front of the other, his muscles straining with each passing second.

  A rustling in the grass caught his attention. He stopped, turning in a circle to scan the field around him. He saw no movement, but he felt unsettled, like he was being watched. Suddenly the farmhouse from which he’d come looked very far away. Too far away.

  Another rustle came from the grass. Lester spun around, searching for movement, still shaky under the weight. The feeling of being watched loomed heavier than ever.

  Fuck it, he thought. This is far enough.

  Thoroughly spooked now, he tossed the body to the ground. It hit with a loud thud, taking down a patch of the grass along with it. Her blood-soaked yellow shirt looked gray in the dim light.

  Somewhere in the distance, Lester thought he heard a low growling. He glanced around again, nothing but tall grass swaying in the light breeze.

  He listened hard.

  The crickets had gone silent.

  He ran back to the farmhouse, never letting up until he made it through the door and safely inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ed sat against the rough wood wall of the makeshift jail cell, his body and mind numb with shock. Jeremy was dead. Zach would be next, along with Trish and everyone else who he knew and loved. All because of one very bad decision made by one very bad leader.

  The door at the end of the dim prison hall opened, drawing Ed’s attention. His pulse quickened. They were back. This time for Zach? Or maybe Trish? Who knew what these psychos were capable of. He glanced at Jasper and Trish, both of them had the same confused look. Terry stood, muscles flexed, ready.

  But the figure coming through the door wasn’t a guard. It wasn’t the cult’s crazy leader. Even in the low lamp light he recognized the person coming through that door.

  Jeremy.

  Ed leapt to his feet and ran to the chain link fencing, gripping it. Jeremy trotted down the walkway, keys jangling. When he got to the cell door Ed got a better look at his youngest son. Blood spatter covered his face and clothes. He looked tired, older somehow.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Jeremy said.

  Ed thought his heart might break. “What happened? We thought you were…”

  “Nope,” Jeremy replied.

  “Open that lock,” Terry bellowed. “We can catch up on things later.”

  Ed nodded. “Open the lock, buddy.”

  Jeremy fumbled through the dozen or so keys on the ring, searching for one that might fit. The first key didn’t work, neither did the second.

  “Make sure you remember which ones didn’t work,” Ed said. “Just go through them one by one.” He glanced at the open door, imagining a shadow appearing on the other side at any moment.

  The third key didn’t fit.

  The seconds ticked by like hours.

  The fourth key went in, but wouldn’t turn.

  “Take your time,” Trish said.

  “We got all day,” Jasper said.

  “No, we don’t,” Jeremy replied. “They’ll figure out what happened eventually.”

  The fifth key went in.

  And turned.

  The lock sprang open.

  “Fuck yeah!” Terry cried out. “You’re the man!”

  Jeremy stepped out of the way to allow the door to open. The prisoners exited quickly, some heading toward the door.

  “Stop!” Terry called out. Those closest to the door stopped abruptly. “Not yet. We got another cell to open here.”

  “But we gotta go!” a man with blonde hair said.

  “Then you gotta go through me,” Terry replied, standing up to his full height. He was six foot five if he was an inch.

  Blond Hair nodded.

  “Hand me those keys,” Ed said. Jeremy handed him the keys and Ed touched his son on his bloody forehead.

  “Hurry, Dad,” Zach said from the second cell.

  Ed hurried. He flipped through the keys one by one, until the seventh key on the ring twisted and the locked popped open. Zach rushed out through the door and into Ed’s arms. He hugged both boys tightly.

  Terry looked at Blonde Hair, raising his eyebrows. “Now we go.”

  Prisoners filed out of the jail cell, one by one. As the last few exited, Ed caught sight of Alice near the end of the line. Anger flared inside him. He thrust out an arm, catching her in the shoulder and knocking her back into the cell. The last two people streamed through the door as Ed slammed it closed.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Alice screamed.

  “Ed?” Trish asked.

  Ed closed up t
he padlock, securing the door. “She doesn’t get to leave,” Ed said, addressing the crowd.

  “Ed, you can’t just leave her in there,” Jasper said.

  “She earned it,” Ed said, his look serious and determined.

  Jasper didn’t reply.

  Ed looked the group over. “Anybody who wants to let her out, raise your hand.”

  No hands went up.

  “No,” Alice said. “You people can’t do this.”

  Ed shrugged as he walked away.

  “You fucking asshole!” she screamed. She looked frantically at her former co-leader, also part of the departing group. “John? Not you, too?”

  John looked away.

  Alice shook her head. “You can’t do this. You can’t leave me here.”

  “Let’s go,” Ed said. Terry nodded as the rest of the group followed.

  “You fucking pricks!” Alice screamed. “You cocksuckers! You better watch your asses because if I find you I’ll kill every last one of you!”

  The group of former prisoners exited the room, closing the door on Alice’s screams.

  * * *

  “How do we get out of here?” Jasper asked. He stood with the others, more than three dozen strong, just outside the makeshift prison. Moonlight shone all around them as dark shapes moved around in the shadows just outside the fence.

  “Over the fence is out of the question,” Ed replied. He looked around the church’s fenced in lot. “The carriers will tear us to shreds. We’ll have to go through the building to get out.”

  Trish glanced around the moonlit yard. “Those guards are armed. They’ll mow us down before we make it two steps.”

  “Better to go head to head with them on our terms than sit and wait for them,” Terry said.

  “I don’t think going unarmed against a bunch of guys with guns is really on our terms,” Jasper added.

  “Would you rather be locked up in that cell back there?” Terry asked.

  Jasper shook his head. “Point taken. But how the hell are we going to get our hands on a gun?”

  Before anyone could answer, the sound of automatic gunfire erupted from within the church. A few moments later the back door opened and a dozen men brandishing knives, baseballs bats and guns spilled out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lester stepped into the kitchen that had once belonged to the former Rita McClaren, recently deceased. It seemed a foregone conclusion that Chloe would be up, perhaps sitting in a chair, shotgun across her lap, simply waiting for him. Waiting to expose him, to call him out for what he was. Sam would be there, at Chloe’s beck and call, foolishly proclaiming Lester’s innocence...until he saw the blood, of course. The blood on the floor and the blood on his hands would sign Lester’s death warrant. Chloe would pull the trigger and Lester would flash to black in a shotgun’s explosion.

  But the kitchen sat empty and dark, the congealing blood pools on the dirty linoleum inky and black in the dim light. The bloody knife lay where he’d left it, a faux pas in the old world of forensic science and nosey police, but simply an afterthought post-virus, a detail that could be cleaned up with a simple rag and some water. No dusting for prints, no collecting of hair and skin samples, no analysis of semen stains. If he cleaned up before the teenagers woke up to what would likely be their first hangover then he’d get away with it.

  And if not, then he’d slit both their throats and go back on the hunt.

  But it would be a shame to end things prematurely, so he got busy with the cleaning. He swabbed the floor with the old rags and the water he’d found, smearing the red mess everywhere before eventually getting the bulk of the stuff mopped up. The bloody rags went under the sink as they became saturated, one by one until the floor showed virtually no residue from the messy event that had taken place only hours before. He finished up by cleaning the bloody door handle. He changed his clothes, stuffing the bloody stuff in an old box in one of the back rooms.

  He used the last of the water to rinse out the bloody film in the sink before rinsing his hands clean. As the water swirled down into the drain, a sound came from the living room. Taken by surprise, Lester spun around to greet it.

  A moment later a bleary-eyed Chloe appeared, squinting in the meager light. “What are you doing up?”

  Lester dried his hands on his pants. “Couldn’t sleep,” he lied. “You?”

  “My head, it’s killing me.”

  “That’s the whiskey.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  Lester ignored the remark. “You need some water. You’re dehydrated.”

  Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you were doing in here? Getting water?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lester asked. Too harsh, he chastised himself. Keep your cool.

  Chloe paused before taking a deep breath. “Nothing,” she replied, exhaling. “I just feel like shit.”

  “Been there myself,” Lester said, smoothing his tone. “It’ll pass.”

  Chloe took a step deeper into the kitchen just as Lester noticed the knife he’d used to kill Rita stilly lying on the counter where he’d left it, thick blood congealed on the blade like dark syrup.

  “No,” Lester said, holding up a hand. “Have a seat in the living room. I’ll bring you some water.”

  Chloe gave him another suspicious look before finally agreeing. “Sure,” she replied before heading back into the living room.

  Close call, Lester thought. He wrapped the knife in one of the rags and hid it in the back of the cabinet beneath the sink. That would do for now, at least until day came and he could dispose of the thing properly.

  The knife had been a close call, but he wasn’t free and clear just yet. He still had to concoct a story about Rita’s whereabouts and then deliver said story with conviction to Sam and Chloe. As long as he could get Chloe back to sleep without asking any tough questions he’d have time to think it through.

  Lester poured the tepid water into a reasonably clean plastic cup retrieved from one of the kitchen cabinets. He delivered the water to Chloe on the couch.

  “Thanks,” she said, sipping the water.

  “Sure.”

  Chloe glanced at the rocking chair. “Where’s Rita?”

  Shit. The girl was sharp, Lester had to give her that. “Asleep in her bed, I’m sure,” he said, covering. “You saw how much whiskey she had.”

  Chloe nodded.

  A few seconds passed. Lester waited, wondering where things might go.

  “You’d better not be full of shit,” Chloe said, breaking the silence.

  “Come again?” Lester braced himself. Had she figured him out?

  “For Sam’s sake you’d better not be full of shit. Don’t fill his head with a bunch of bullshit and then flake out.”

  Lester sighed with relief. Not quite out of the fire, but not accused of murder. Not yet, at least. “I’m not sure where this is coming from.”

  “Look, I want to trust you. I care about Sam and I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

  “Neither do I,” Lester replied.

  Chloe nodded, a look of suspicion on her face. “I’m just telling you now that if you’re full of shit then leave. Make yourself gone before he wakes up and I’ll break the news to Sam. I’ll even tell him I told you to leave. But if you’re still here, then you better be legit. No bullshit. Now’s your chance to leave if you can’t keep up your end of the bargain.”

  “Understood,” Lester said. “I’m legit.”

  She stood, still eyeing Lester in the dim light. “I’m going back to sleep,” she said. “Thanks for the water.”

  Lester watched Chloe disappear back into the guest bedroom. A smile formed on his face. No wonder he liked her. She was clever…too clever, maybe. He wondered if he’d be able to keep his true self hidden from her for as long as he needed to. If anybody could sniff him out, she’d be the one.

  Chloe was going to be a challenge, all right. He almost hated to have to kill her.

  Alm
ost.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A shot rang out in the night. A split-second later a bullet tore through the head of a man standing beside Ed. Dark blood and brains exploded from the back of his head before he dropped to the ground in a heap.

  “Get down!” Terry yelled.

  More shots ripped through the churchyard as more men spilled through the doorway.

  “Who the hell are they?” Jasper said.

  Gunfire erupted from behind Ed and the rest of the prisoners. He glanced back to see three men in robes firing automatic rifles toward the unknown attackers, trapping Ed and the others in a crossfire in the dark.

  Ed and Trish gathered Zach and Jeremy together, hunkering down behind a large pile of firewood in an attempt to avoid the gunfire. Jasper followed, along with Terry and a dozen of the prisoners. The remaining prisoners scattered, spilling out into the churchyard as rifle fire chattered from both sides.

  “You guys okay?” Ed asked. Trish, Zach and Jeremy said they were.

  “How the hell do we get out of this?” Jasper asked. “They’re all around us.”

  “Over the fence?” Terry suggested. “Take our chances with the dead heads.”

  “No,” Jeremy replied. “They’re out there.”

  “Who?”

  “The white carriers.”

  “The what?”

  “They’re carriers, but different. They’ll kill us if we climb over the fence. Believe me.”

  More shots crackled in the night air. A man cried out in pain somewhere out of sight.

  “Then we need a plan quick,” Terry said. “Got any ideas?”

  “Not yet,” Ed replied.

  “What about the others?” a gaunt woman asked. Ed took inventory of the people crouched behind the woodpile. He recognized John, leader of truck one, squatted with his back against the pile, staring out into the dark. The Kevins were there, along with the dingy woman in the army coat that had shushed Ed back at the Kansas City compound. The remaining three, including the gaunt woman, he didn’t recognize. He had no idea where the others had gone off to.