Cannibal Reign (18 page)

Thirty-Two

T
he next morning, Marty awoke in his own motel room beneath a pile of musty smelling blankets and lay staring at the ceiling. He had slept fitfully the night before, and he was feeling incredibly guilty for not having killed himself when he’d had the chance. That was an easy situation to remedy, however. The first chance he got, he would grab a gun, shoot a couple more bikers—if he could manage it safely this time—then kill himself.

He couldn’t get over how badly they had smelled the night before, all of them crammed into the Humvee together for the ride back into the city. He had also been able to smell what he was sure was human flesh cooking on the way up the stairwell.

He got out of bed, took his winter coat from the chair and pulled on his shoes, then went to the window, seeing the same gray world as the day before, dark and dim as before a heavy rain. There were spits of dirty snow in the air, and it was only late August. He considered jumping off the balcony but thought better of it. That was just too scary.

The door flew open and he spun around, half expecting someone to attack him.

“In the hall,” Gig told him.

Marty obeyed and stood in the hall waiting to see what the man wanted.

Brutus stepped from a room a few doors down, pulling a female soldier with dark red hair and stocking feet along behind him. The soldier’s hands were tied behind her back, and Marty recognized her immediately as the medic from the highway.

Brutus came up to him and said, “You can go. You killed the sorry fuck who killed my brother, and we made you kill your old lady. Makes us even.”

Marty wondered how in the hell that made them even. It was obvious from the look in Emory’s eyes that she recognized him, but she didn’t say anything or acknowledge him in any way. “Well, can I have my guns back? I won’t make it very far without them.”

“Gig, get him his shit when we get downstairs,” Brutus said, towing Emory toward the stairwell. “Then bring the truck around front . . . but
don’t
make it obvious.”

“Is something wrong?” Marty asked.

“There’s some shit comin’ down,” Brutus said. “So keep your mouth shut.”

They hurried him down ten flights of stairs to the lobby, where a couple of other bikers sat around in blue parkas, each of them with a biker chick in his lap for warmth.

“Hey, Brutus man, is that the dude who killed the Jeeper?”

“Yeah,” Brutus said, shoving Emory down in a chair. “Don’t get up, bitch!”

“What’s goin on, Brutus man? Somethin’ up?”

“I’m lettin’ this cat go,” Brutus said. “Gig’s gonna give his ass a ride outta town.”

Gig led Marty behind the counter and into an office where they kept the weapons.

“What’s goin’ on?” Marty asked again, seeing a number of machine guns on the table. He slung Joe’s carbine over his back and tucked his .45 into his belt.

“It’s time to ditch the rest of these dudes,” Gig said. “It’s gettin’ too hot here.”

“Oh,” Marty said. “Hey, suppose I can have one of these too?”

Gig thought it over for a second then shrugged and gave him an MP-5 submachine gun, showing him how to operate it. “Ain’t hard,” he said.

“No, seems easy enough,” Marty said, blasting Gig across the room. He grabbed some extra magazines and dashed back into the lobby where the other bikers were jumping up and grabbing for their weapons. He sprayed them with automatic fire and in short order had either killed or wounded each one, the house mice included.

Emory was already running toward him. “Cut me loose!”

He found a pair of scissors in a drawer behind the motel counter and cut the lace that was bound so tightly around her wrists that her hands were a deep crimson.

She flexed her fingers and took the MP-5. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” She ran to where Brutus was crawling on his belly toward a shotgun, hit through both lungs and his spleen, and stepped on his back, taking the hunting knife from his belt.

“Remember me?” she said, grabbing his golden braid and jerking his head back. “This is your last fuck!” She stabbed the knife into his anus and he let out a shriek. Then she gave the blade a twist and jerked it free, using it to scalp him before stomping on his head. She threw his scalp to the floor and whipped around in time to gun down three more bikers who came scrabbling into the lobby to see what the hell was going on.

“Ammo!” she called as they ran for the exit.

Marty gave her the extra machine gun magazines, and she jammed them into the cargo pockets of her trousers.

“What about your feet?” he asked as they burst through the doors and ran down the outside wall of the motel.

“I got worse shit to worry about,” she said, dumping the spent magazine from the weapon and inserting a new one. “Like how the fuck I’m gonna tell my kid I scalped its father.” She checked around the corner and pulled her head back.

“You mean he got you . . . ?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Emory said. “I’ve been puking every morning for a week.”

“Why were they in such a hurry to get out of here?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “They were spooked about something, though. I think a lot of their people are still asleep. Let’s see if we can find a car with some gas.”

There was a loud blast, followed by a secondary explosion that took out the lobby of the motel. They spun on their heels to see an M60 tank at the end of the street, a cloud of smoke dissipating before it.

“All right!” Marty said. “We’re saved!”

She looked at him. “No, hon, we’re in twice the shit we were ten seconds ago.”

They took off down the block and hid inside a ransacked Starbucks as troops began surging toward the motel.

Emory crouched inside the door, watching the soldiers fanning out. “Is it true what he said upstairs about your girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” Marty said. “I was supposed to kill myself right after . . . but I decided to kill some of those guys first and that Brutus guy jumped me.”

“Don’t feel bad. She’d want you to live.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Don’t be stupid. You only killed her to keep her from ending up like I did. Imagine how you’d feel if they’d taken her. She wasn’t tough enough to live through what I’ve been through . . . trust me.”

“We got married,” he said proudly.

“Really? Who’d you find to do that?”

“We did it ourselves.”

“Aw, that’s the sweetest thing,” she said, turning to look out the window. “Oh shit, get back! Those two are coming in here.” She dragged him behind the counter. “Stand here with your hands up. I’ll stay down until I hear what they’ve got to say.”

“But—”

She grabbed his carbine and dropped into a crouch.

The two soldiers came into the shop and stood looking at him with his hands in the air.

“Where’s the woman?” one of them asked, glancing around the shop. “The GI with long hair.”

“She’s my sister,” Marty said.

“I didn’t ask you who the fuck she was!” the soldier said. “I asked where.”

“She’s in the restroom.”

The first soldier went to the back of the shop and stepped into the ladies’ room.

Emory stood up and gave the second soldier a six round burst through the neck and face, missing his body armor entirely, then emptied the rest of the magazine through the ladies’ room door as the other soldier was scrambling back out.

“Quick!” she said. “Strip that one’s armor and ammo . . . and check his boot size!”

Marty ran to the ladies’ room and Emory went to the window to make sure no one else had heard the shots.

“These clowns are Air Force troops,” she said, checking the dead airman’s boot size and seeing that it was nine. “Boot size, Marty, on the bottom of the sole!”

“Eleven!”

“Guess nines will have to do,” she mumbled, stripping the dead airman of his boots, then his gloves, armor, combat harness, and weaponry. When she was set, she pulled on the helmet and ran to the back of the shop where Marty was still having trouble shaking the dead soldier out of his harness.

“You look like a monkey fucking a football,” she said, shoving him aside.

“How do you people wear all that shit?” he asked. “I’ve never seen so many buckles and zippers on one human being.”

“Shut up. It’s not that many. Go strip that other dude’s ACU. This guy’s a lot bigger than you.”

“What’s an ACU?”

“Army combat uniform. Come on, Marty, we don’t have all fucking day here!”

She had him suited up and looking like a proper soldier five minutes later, with the exception of his sneakers and the bloody mandarin collar. They slipped out the back of the coffee shop, leaving all the other weapons behind save for Joe’s Springfield Armory .45.

“Goddamn, it feels good to be back in harness!” she said, punching him in the shoulder. “Full battle rattle! Hooah, Marty?”

“Who what?”

She laughed and grabbed him around the neck with her arm as they walked north up the alley. “Thanks for saving my ass back there,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re my fucking hero.”

“I’m tired of being a hero,” he said wearily.

“Here, hold on a second. I’d better make sure you know how to operate your weapon system before we hit the street again . . . this is an M-4 carbine. It shoots as smooth as that other gun you had, but it’s got better range and better penetration. Just look through the scope and put that red dot on whatever you want to hit. Got it?”

“Got it.”

She made sure he knew how to load the weapon and they started off again.

“Let’s make a pact,” she added. “Neither lets the other be taken alive. Hooah?”

“Who what? What is that?”

“It’s the Army battle cry. I say, ‘Hooah’? You say, ‘Hooah’! Got it?”

“Got it, yeah.”

“You’re a grunt now,” she said. “So let’s hear it.”

“Hooah!”

“Good. So we got a deal?”

“Hooah!” he said again.

“Fuckin’ A,” she said, slapping him on the back. “We’ll probably both be dead by dark, but what the fuck!”

They got to the end of the alley and Emory checked west then east, seeing troops crossing southward two blocks up.

She ducked back. “Okay, listen. Whenever we’re moving, it’s your job to cover our ass. And whenever we cross a street, we do it one at a time. First I cover you, then you cover me. Got it?”

“Hooah!”

“Don’t overdo it,” she said. “Now, get across the street and take cover at the corner, then cover me as I come across.”

Marty ran across the street and tripped over the curb, falling on the sidewalk. His weapon went off and shot a hole in a shop window on the opposite corner. He got up and ducked around the corner of the building, self-consciously watching up and down the street as Emory came across.

“Nice job, dumbass!” she said, belting him on the helmet. “Keep your finger off the goddamn trigger unless you’re gonna shoot!”

When they got to the next corner, they spotted a soldier in the second-story window of an apartment building waving them down.

Emory pushed back against Marty and pulled him down into a crouch.

“What’s he want?”

“He’s warning us to stay put,” she said. “He’s Army, but be ready to blow his ass outta that window.”

“How do you know he’s not Air Force?”

“Because his camo doesn’t match yours . . . it matches mine.” She double-checked to make sure the M-203 40mm grenade launcher on her carbine was ready to fire.

“Why don’t I get the one with the grenade launcher?”

“ ’Cuz you can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time.”

The soldier continued to signal for them to hold their position as he watched eastward down the street. A minute later he signaled for them to cross as a pair, and Emory dragged Marty across and into the lobby of the apartment building. They went up the stairs to the second floor, where the soldier met them in the hall.

“In here,” he said. “There’s bad joo-joo up the street.”

Emory saw the blue arrowhead of the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division on his shoulder. On her own shoulder she wore the red and yellow patch of the Arizona National Guard with two arrows crossed over a bayonet. He was a broad-shouldered man with handsome dark eyes, and his name tag identified him as Sullivan.

“You’re a long way from home, Sullivan.”

“Tell me about it,” the trooper said. “But Texas ain’t where you wanna be.”

“Did you desert or get run off?”

“Depends how you look at it. I wasn’t exactly down with the shit they were doin’.” He took a second to check out the window. There was a lot of gunfire coming from the direction of the motel now, building to a crescendo.

“So did Mexico attack us or the other way around?” she asked.

“It all went to shit too fast,” Sullivan said, turning back to them. “We’d just gotten into Nogales. We were trying to restore order there when somebody said the Mexicans were firing on us across the Rio Grande, but who the fuck knows? They didn’t have any tanks, so it was a pretty lopsided battle. Personally, I think we picked the fight.”

Sullivan recognized the camouflaged pattern of Marty’s uniform but didn’t recognize the unit. “How about you, Miller? The Air Force doesn’t issue boots anymore or what?”

Marty looked down at his sneakers. “Me?”

“No, the other Miller standing over there.”

Emory chuckled. “That’s Marty. He’s only just enlisted, actually. The real Miller was dishonorably discharged.”

“Explains the blood,” Sullivan said, checking briefly out the window again. “Closest most of those Air Force jerks down there ever got to combat before this was dragging a can of gasoline over to an airplane.”

“They’re all Air Force?”

“Yeah,” Sullivan said. “From Tinker AFB. They’ve been probing Mesa all week. Now they’re finally attacking some biker gang a few blocks over in that motel.”

“We just came from there,” Emory said. “You got any food to spare?”

“Got a case of MREs in the closet. I swiped it from the Air Force last night.”

Emory showed Marty how to use the chemical heater contained in the MRE pack to warm his food, using a little bit of water from the back of the commode. The heater was a plastic bag containing a simple combination of powdered, food-grade iron, magnesium, and salt. The added water started a chemical reaction that gave off enough heat to warm the ration to more than a hundred degrees.