Taylor found it quite enjoyable to watch. He’d been recruited by the Red-ops, secretly saved from death row, because of his appetite for death. For him, killing was like riding a roller coaster or seeing a good movie. His levels of serotonin and dopamine rose, prompting a sense of well-being and pleasure. The Chip enhanced this effect. Taylor licked his lips, and his heart rate increased, but he made no attempt to touch his growing erection. Rape wasn’t in the programming today.
The three of them stood there for almost five minutes. Not everyone died, but those that still breathed were comatose or on their way. Taylor was grateful that the gas mask filtered out odors, because the gym was lousy with bodily fluids. He tugged Olen by the arm and followed Logan to the table near the gym entrance, watching his step. The town treasurer still sat at the table, mouth open and eyes bugged out. He’d managed to get the keys out of his pocket but died before being able to use them. Logan tugged them from his hand.
It took a bit of pulling and pushing to move the large pile of bodies away from the door, and when they got to the bottom of the stack Taylor was tickled to see Mayor Durlock still alive, twitching and wheezing. His chest and face were speckled with bloody vomit, and the front of his pants was stained.
Taylor bent down so the mayor could hear him.
“I lied to you about seeing your wife and daughter again. They’re already dead. But thanks for helping out.”
Mayor Durlock’s face contorted into a lovely mix of shock and anguish, which morphed into pure pain when Logan cut out his eyes. Logan tossed one to Taylor.
“I’ve got an eye on you.”
Then Logan’s face went blank. The Chip, rebooting. No time for play right now.
Taylor unlocked the door and dragged Olen outside.
“Where’s your vehicle?” Taylor asked.
Olen didn’t answer, but he did raise his hand and point to a tanker truck with a skunk painted on the side.
“How far is Warren Streng’s place from here?”
Olen stayed silent. Logan poked him in the stomach with the knife, slipping the blade in an inch.
Olen flinched violently, letting out a scream.
“How far?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
Taylor and Logan exchanged a knowing look.
“You have ten minutes to get us there,” Logan said, “or I’ll feed you your own liver.”
As they got into the truck, the Chip initiated another thought in Taylor’s head. Call the others. He held open his plastic leggings and tugged the Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service Communicator out of his front pocket. He slid back the cover on the MMDSC and held it to his head like a cell phone, speaking loudly to overcome the distortions of the gas mask.
“Head bird acquired. Stand by for directions to the nest.”
The Honey Wagon pulled out of the parking lot and onto Main Street, and Logan again poked Olen with the knife, for no particular reason. Taylor smiled; he wasn’t the only one aroused by the pain of others. He mentally ran through the next few objectives, and he closed his eyes and pictured the last one. The one that missions always ended with. Have fun.
All good soldiers got to partake in a little rest and relaxation when combat duties were finished. Sometimes R&R lasted for days before evac was called. He’d be free to indulge in whatever warped fantasies he could dream up. No rules. No laws. No repercussions. He hoped there would be a few survivors left for playtime. Maybe that sexy waitress, Fran. Taylor smiled. Her blood had been deliciously salty.
The Chip sensed the electrochemical changes in Taylor’s cerebral cortex and rebooted. Taylor dug out a Charge capsule and slipped it up under his gas mask.
The fumes took away the daydreams. But Taylor’s smile stayed.
Streng pulled into the Water Department parking lot and had his choice of spaces. He parked in the handicapped zone because it was closest to the front door.
Bernie had behaved for the remainder of the ride, sitting silently and staring straight ahead. Streng flipped on the interior light and turned around, studying his captive. Bernie’s face had swelled up even more, purple and red hues peeking though the dried blood. Streng noted the lump on his forehead where he’d introduced Bernie to his thirty-two-inch tires and didn’t feel a shred of pity. Though the killer was beaten, acting docile, and still had his hands tied behind him, Streng wouldn’t relax until he was locked in the drunk tank.
The sheriff considered his next move. He kept a spare gun in his office. Streng didn’t want to risk moving Bernie without being armed, but if he left him in the Jeep he could climb out the broken front window and run away. Streng decided he’d put Bernie’s seat belt on; it’d be impossible for him to escape without using his hands.
Streng kept his eyes on Bernie’s eyes and slowly reached for the belt. This required Streng to lean between the seats, exposing his face and neck to Bernie’s few remaining teeth. The farther he reached, the closer he got, until they were face to face. He smelled Bernie’s breath, metallic and hot. Bernie’s eyes were dark brown, almost black, and betrayed nothing. If eyes were the windows to the soul, this man had none.
What turns a person into a monster like this? Training? Some horrible event in his past? Genetics? How does a man lose his humanity?
Streng felt around Bernie’s hips for the seat belt but couldn’t find it. He’d have to lower his eyes to look. It would take only a second or two. What could happen in a second or two?
“Fuck that,” Streng said. He withdrew his hand, grabbed the Ka-Bar knife, and stepped out of the Jeep. Then he opened up the rear door and put the blade tight against Bernie’s throat, revealing a gnarled mass of pink scar tissue at his collar line.
“You move, you die,” he said.
He located the seat belt, pulled it around the pyro, and locked it in place.
“He burned me,” Bernie said, startling Streng. “Daddy did it, to make me stop playing with matches.”
Streng pulled away from him and said, “I really don’t care.”
Bernie went on. “He put my—my arm—on the stove, and he … held it there. I had to count, count to ten. I keep seeing it. I keep feeling it.”
Streng walked back to the front seat. He dug the office keys out of his glove compartment and picked up the McDonald’s bag full of Bernie’s belongings from the passenger-seat floor.
Bernie said, “I don’t, I really don’t, want to remember. Stop it, Daddy! Stop hurting me!” Bernie’s eyes pleaded with Streng. “Make it stop.” Then he began to shake and moan, tears forming ski trails in the blood on his cheeks.
“We can’t control what happens to us,” Streng said, recalling something his father used to say. “Only how we react to what happens.”
Dad had been a lumberjack. He’d been deep in the woods, scouting virgin forest, when a tree fell and pinned his leg. He had his hunting knife with him and spent two days drinking rainwater and hacking away at the tree and the ground. Neither one gave way. So on the third day he went to work on his leg. Streng remembered his father telling the story, about trying not to scream while he did it, for fear of attracting coyotes, and how the bone wouldn’t cut so he had to use a large rock to break it. He crawled three miles through the woods, during a terrible storm, and when he finally made it to safety the first thing out of his mouth was to ask for a beer.
Dad wasn’t bitter about it. In fact, as soon as he was well enough he went back to the tree and cut a section from it, from which he carved a wooden leg. Then he opened a bar in Safe Haven and named it Stumpy’s, which thrived until his death years ago.