“Get back,” Franklin said to Bandana Boy, stepping in front of him and kneeling to the girl. He didn’t see any blood, but she could have been struck by shrapnel. “Are you okay, honey?”
She stared past him at Robertson, whom Franklin assumed was her dad. Her mouth opened but no words came out.
She’s probably in shock.
“What’s your name?” Franklin asked. A hot ring of metal pressed into his neck, scorching his flesh, and he slapped away the gun muzzle that had inflicted the pain.
“She’s mine,” Bandana Boy said. “Finder’s keepers.”
Robertson let out a roar of anguish and leapt for Bandana Boy, but Hayes swung the butt of his rifle into the back of the charging man’s skull. The crack was so loud that it surely caused a concussion, and the man flopped heavily to the floor.
“Daddy!” the girl wailed, and crawled out of the blankets toward him.
“Get out,” Bandana Boy said to Franklin, pressing the gun against his neck a second time. Franklin balled his fists, stood, and eyed the shotgun on the bed, but Hayes shook his head to deter him.
“Been way too long for Jimbo,” Hayes said. “I wouldn’t mess with a man who’s been deprived.”
“She’s just a child,” Franklin said.
“Not for much longer.” Bandana Boy grabbed her by the back of her jacket and yanked her to her feet. She kicked and screamed, and he snickered wetly in response.
“Get out of here,” Hayes said to Franklin. “If you behave, maybe you can have a turn later. If you got anything that still works, that is.”
Both men erupted into animalistic laughter, and Bandana Boy shoved Robertson’s shotgun to the floor and flung the girl onto the bed. He leaned his own rile against the headboard, climbed atop the girl, and straddled her, loosening his belt buckle. Robertson’s head oozed a dark thread of blood, and his splayed fingers twitched.
Lord, I don’t ask for much, but please let him be dead so he doesn’t have to hear what’s coming next.
“Better hurry,” Hayes said to Bandana Boy. “The others probably heard the shots and they’ll be coming around before long.” To Franklin, he said, “Now get out of here, you old goat, unless you want to watch a real man in action.”
Franklin turned as if to leave the room and saw Jorge in the hall, just outside the door. From the angle, neither Hayes nor Bandana Boy could see him. Jorge gave a slow nod, his dark face nearly rippling with barely suppressed rage. Franklin could imagine these pigs treating Jorge’s daughter Marina in the same manner. And so, apparently, could Jorge, judging by the tight grip he held on the fire poker.
Franklin walked back to the closet, eliciting a sharp command from Hayes. “Stop it, you bastard.”
“Thought I saw something,” Franklin said, rubbing at the burn on his neck. The girl whimpered and slapped at Bandana Boy, who only laughed at her struggles as he tried to undress.
Jorge burst into the room, swinging the poker in a two-handed grip as if it were a baseball bat. The metal bar thwacked Hayes across the back of the skull, cracking bone and jolting the semiautomatic from his hands. Franklin dove for the shotgun, joints shrieking in agony, and he came up with it just as Bandana Boy realized the party was over.
“Don’t do it,” Franklin said, but the man glanced at him and then Jorge, a sinister smirk crossing his face.
“You ain’t got the balls,” Bandana Boy said, going for his rifle. Franklin pulled the trigger and painted the walls with the top of his head. The girl screamed beneath him as the corpse wobbled for a moment and collapsed, the soggy bandana dropping to the floor with nothing left to hold it in place.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You’ve got a fever,” Campbell whispered in Rachel’s ear.
Despite the anxiety of the circumstances, collecting her from amid the circle of curious Zapheads, he was struck by the clean scent of her hair and skin. Her odor emanating from her leg, though…
Campbell was afraid to lay her on the table, especially with the Zaps huddled around, watching intently. He didn’t trust the bedroom, either, not considering the atrocities they’d committed on Pamela, so he carried her to the living room.
“Where are we?” Rachel said.
“Where are we?” a doddering, toothless old Zaphead said. Immediately other Zapheads took up the phrase, cacophonous at first but rapidly falling into a uniform, deafening chorus.
“Shhh,” Campbell whispered as he carried her through the hallway to the living room. “Don’t say anything.”
Soon the echo died away to murmurs, and the Zapheads crowded around as he laid her on the couch. Their cries must have summoned the professor, because his boots drummed down the stairs, followed by whatever group of Zaps he’d been attempting to teach.
“You…you’re living with them?” Rachel whispered.
“I wouldn’t call it a life, but it still beats the alternative.”
The professor entered the living room, and Campbell was startled at the change in him. He’d draped a filthy sheet around his shoulders like some mad Roman emperor and he appeared to be naked beneath. The Zapheads that followed him into the room were nude, including the young Goth Zap he’d been eyeing, and Campbell turned his head away in disgust and shock. He couldn’t even admire them on a physical level, like a farmer might appreciate a prize heifer, because they were so alien and threatening.
Holy Christ, I wonder what the professor is teaching them up there.
Rachel looked wildly around, her breath coming in panicked gasps, no doubt having a hard time processing an entire houseful of Zapheads. “Let me out!” she shouted, trying to sit up.
The Zapheads immediately repeated the phrase, with various inflections and cadences, until once again they built into a massive chorus that seemed to shake the walls. The professor flung open his makeshift robe, raised his arms in the air, and then brought his hands under his chin, palms together. The Zapheads followed suit, and the professor waited until every head was bowed and every eye closed.
Campbell clamped a hand over Rachel’s mouth and restrained her, and soon she grew exhausted and lay back down, muttering “Sweet Jesus” over and over. The professor eased through the ring of nearly-catatonic Zapheads surrounding the couch, kneeling beside Campbell.
“I like your new fashion move,” Campbell murmured.
“Clothes are an ego attachment of the old ways,” the professor said.
Campbell wasn’t ready for a philosophical debate. If the professor saw himself as some sort of New Age cult leader of the damned, well, at least it gave him a purpose. That was more than Campbell had going. Except now he had a chance to help someone. A real person, not these parroting, sociopathic mockeries of human beings.
“How long has your leg been like this?” Campbell asked Rachel as he removed the bandage from her leg. His nose crinkled at the odor of rancid flesh.
“Two weeks.”
“Infection’s bad. You’ve got a fever, too.”
“Got some antibiotics in my backpack—”
“Which is out in the field,” Campbell said.
“Too late for medicine,” the professor said, keeping his voice low so that it was disguised by the background murmuring of the Zapheads. “Gangrene has set in.”
“Gangrene?” Rachel said. “No, I’ll be fine. Just need to walk it off.”