Ever Onward (28 page)

There were no shoppers now, however,
and the quaint little stores had taken on the look of pretty flies
encased in amber. A lone dog sniffed at the quaint waist baskets.
(No such crass a thing as a garbage can was allowed to mar the
ritual!) Og, riding in Eddy’s van, sniffed at the strangeness as
they passed. Princess growled quietly.

At the bottom of the street they came
to the docks. Turning right, they passed the restaurants and boat
rentals and moved on to the working section. Here quaintness
quickly faded away. The ritual played out here was an even older
one: men had gone to sea in ships, braved wind and wave and brought
back their catch. If they got back at all.

Now the nets hung limp on the racks.
Lobster traps by the dozens were stacked against weathered shacks
and boathouses, waiting patiently for the hands that would never
come again. At the end of the street was a long, low building. The
dirty white sign on top read: J.W. Chisolm and Sons, Processing
Plant. A shiny new pick-up was parked out front.

Flame pulled off the road opposite the
plant. Josh and Eddy followed. Everyone got out and stood behind
their vehicles. Flame joined them. The tow-truck stopped two
hundred feet back, crouched in the middle of the road like a wary
beast.

“Don’t see anyone,” Flame said. “We
going in?”

Josh nodded, taking the second Coach
Gun and slinging a belt of shells across his chest, he turned to
Gus. “That the same pick-up that stopped by your place?”

“Aye-ya, that’s her.”

“Brad, you cover us from here. Eddy
and the boys will do the same. Flame and I will go see who’s home.
Gus, you still want to come along?”

Gus hefted his new weapon. “Hell,
yes!”

Josh grinned. “But we go easy. All we
want is a friendly chat with Mr. Chisolm.”

Flame grunted. Like Josh, a belt of
shotgun shells crossed her chest. Her Smith & Wesson hung from
her shoulder holster. Dressed in boots, olive hiking pants and a
black tank-top, she looked like something out of the Terminator.
Pumping a shell into the short Riot gun she’d brought from her
bike, she smiled at Gus. “Just in case they don’t feel like
chatting.”

“Aye-ya.” Gus had probably
never heard of Arnold Swartzinager, and he certainly had no idea
who Sarah Connor was, but he knew
Death
when he saw it ---
and it was standing there right beside him in the form of this
beautiful young woman.

The three of them walked over to the
processing plant. Josh called Princess and the large hound came
running. They were half way across the street when the door to the
office opened and a man dressed in bib overalls stepped out. He had
a beer in one hand and a revolver in the other. By the look of him
he was three sheets to the wind and working hard on the fourth.
Squinting into the sun, he raised the hand with the beer to shade
his eyes. If he’d have raised the other hand he would have been a
dead man. As it was, what he saw was enough to make him drop the
beer.

“Who ta hell ‘re you?”

“Neighbors come calling,”, Josh
replied casually, keeping his eye on the revolver. Both hammers of
the Coach Gun were already cocked.

“Neighbors?”, Bibs replied, looking
more confused than ever. “Neighbors from where?”

Josh kept his tone light. “From down
the coast a bit. We came to see Chisolm. He around?”

Bibs seemed to take some time to
process this complicated question. At last he shook his head. “He
aint here.” He took an unsteady step forward, peering at Gus. “Say,
aint you that old fart from ov’r Seal Cove way?”

“That’s right, Sony. N’ I’ve come to
have a word with Chisolm. Now, go fetch him out here.”

Bibs leaned on the railing for
support. The revolver in his hand all but forgotten. “I already
done told ya. He aint here. Now bugger off!”

Flame moved forward, swaying her hips
and smiling. “How about asking a girl in for a drink,
handsome?”

Bibs didn’t take nearly as long to
process this bit of data. A crooked smile gleamed through a week
old beard. “Shore thang, Missy. Come on in. Those others ‘ll have
ta wait here. Mister Chisolm don’t want no strangers
inside.”

“No problem,” she purred. “They don’t
mind waiting.” She moved up to Bibs and gently stoked his stubbled
chin, then kneed him hard in the groin. Bibs’ eyes crossed and he
sank to his knees. The butt of Flame’s Riot gun slammed into the
back of his neck. Casually she kicked the revolver into the
sand.

“Shee-yit!”, Gus whispered.

Josh was already moving forward,
Princess at his heels. He stepped over

the unconscious form, checked quickly
for a pulse, then signaled for Brad to come. Eddy stayed back with
the boys while Billy moved the tow-truck up. Flame and Princess
were already inside.

“Damn her!”, Josh hissed. “She takes
too many chances!”

Brad grinned. “She likes it that
way.”

Josh grunted and followed her into the
building.

Terry Hobbs was even more drunk than
Bibs had been. He had a vague notion that something was going on
outside, but if the truth be known, he really didn’t give a fuck.
Sitting in his underwear in the middle of the processing plant, he
was working his way through a bottle of vodka and a tattered
Playboy magazine. The issue was several years old, but
Terry

wasn’t too interested in the articles.
The way Terry looked at it, boobs were boobs.

Chained to the rows of filleting
tables were seven people; three men and four women. Though alive,
they seemed lifeless, like muppets patiently waiting for the return
of Jim Henson’s ghost. Two lay on the filthy tables, the others
were sprawled on the cluttered floor. To the right of Terry’s chair
was a mattress. Sitting on it was a girl wearing the remains of a
torn dress. A chain went from her ankle to the leg of a big desk.
Sipping from another bottle of Russia’s finest, she seemed nearly
as drunk as Terry. On the other side of the plant was a glassed in
office. Inside a young woman paced nervously back and forth while
an older man seemed to be trying to calm her down.

Terry himself was taking a little
break. This wasn’t the toughest job he’d ever had, but it had its
down side just the same. Sitting here all day watching a bunch of
zombies was a major downer. So was the fact that he couldn’t get it
up. That was where the Playboy came in. The skag on the bed was
sure as hell no centerfold. No way Ho-Say! Not like the fresh meat
pacing back and forth in the office. But Mr. Chisolm had made that
little fact perrr-fectly clear.‘Leave Bridger’s daughter alone!’,
he’d said. Terry considered himself a real righteous dude, able to
stand his own with the toughest of them. But he hadn’t the
slightest desire to go up against Old Man Chisolm. That old bastard
had been a real hard-ass before even the Change. Now that his sons
had gone the way of 99% of everyone else in this fucked-up world,
J.W. Chisolm had taken a major walk on the wild side. Even now he
was out with that big black looking for fresh meat. Terry wasn’t
even too sure what the hell the old man planned to do with these
all people he had chained up, but Terry knew what he’d like to do
to that rich-bitch in the office! Yes in-deedy!

He took another slug of Vodka, fumbled
out the centerfold and concentrated on getting ol’ Peter Pecker to
salute. The blonde with the staple in her belly looked nothing like
the skag on the bed, but hey, like his daddy used to say, ‘all cats
are grey in the dark’.

Terrible Terry had worked himself up
enough to shuffle over to the mattress when Flame and Princess made
their entrance. Kneeling over the skinny zombie on the make-shift
bed, Terry looked around at the sound of growling. What he saw
suddenly made Peter Pecker dive for his foxhole. There, framed in
the doorway, was a large woman and a very large dog. The woman held
a mother of a shotgun and the dog bared a set of fangs that made
Terry’s spit turn dry.

Panic flowed through him. Scrambling
off the mattress, he reached for the rifle leaning against the
desk. Flame, seeing a blast from her shotgun would probably kill
the girl as well, cast it aside and pulled out her Smith &
Wesson. At the same time she told Princess to “Sick man!” She had
no idea if this would work, but the big dog was a fast learner. At
the least it would give her time to get the .357 out.

Princess was off in a flash. Claws
clacking on the factory floor, she made for Terry like an arrow
shot from a bow. Indeed, her canine brain was already deeply
imprinted with the ways of the hunt. Hadn’t her ancestors
millennium ago perfected the art of sudden attack? The throat or
the groin the primary targets. Much to Terrible Terry’s chagrin,
Princess chose the latter.

Teeth, that until recently had chomped
nothing more demanding than Alpo, now clamped down on Terry’s
crotch. The scream that came from that righteous dude was enough to
get a rise out of each and every poor soul chained to the cutting
tables. The girl on the bed went white and curled up into a ball.
Even the Bridger Family paused in their respective pacing and
contemplation to peer out at the spectacle unfolding down below
them.

Flame hauled back on the dog’s collar
and spoke her name. The hound backed away, still ready to spring
forward at the slightest provocation. The man, however, gave her
none. Rolling around on the floor, both hands covering his bloody
groin, Terrible Terry screamed like a baby.

“Shut the fuck up!”, Flame ordered,
giving him a tap alongside the head with her .357. In his rush to
obey Terry bit his lip.

“Better,”, Flame said. The blue-black
barrel was now pressed against Terry’s forehead. “But what the
hell,” she said, taking in the room and its inhabitants. “Go on and
yell. It’ll give me a reason to blow your fucking brains
out!”

Terry bit down again, this time
tasting blood.

“Flame? You all right in there?”
Josh’s voice echoed through the silent building.

“Ya, I’m fine. Got a dog-lover in here
who wants to say hi.”

Josh and Brad came in, followed by
Gus. The old man took one look around and began swearing a blue
streak.

“I told you, man, I don’t fucking
know! He said he’d be back yesterday! What am I, a fucking
mindreader?!”

Josh looked over at Princess. The dog
stiffened, the hackles on her neck rising. That was enough for
Terry.

“Shit, man, I’m bein’ square with you!
I don’t fucking know! He goes off with the black guy, Kaream. Stays
away two, maybe three days at a time. Comes back here, dumps off
some poor smuck and heads back out. He’s fucking crazy,
man!”

Terry was sitting on the ground with
his back to a telephone pole. Bibs was on the other side. Both were
tied to the pole by a rope going around their necks. Bibs was still
out like a light. A towel was stuffed down Terry’s boxer shorts.
The heart pattern had all run together, giving the casual passer by
the impression that Righteous Terry had eaten one hell of a lot of
beets, then pissed himself.

Og sniffed Terry’s bare feet, wined,
then went off to find Jessie. Princess stood staring at Terry’s
crotch.

“I think he’s telling the truth,
Josh,” Brad said. “Even if he isn’t, we’ve got to get these people
out of here.”

Josh looked at the group of
half-starved people sitting on the picnic tables at a Clam Bar down
the road. From here they looked the survivors of a shipwreck. Gus
and the others had taken them there and were feeding them. Eddy,
with a walky-talky, was farther down the road at the intersection.
Josh could see the flash from the scope on his rifle.

Josh suddenly bent down close to
Terry. “Two of them? You’re sure?” Josh’s ‘teacher’s voice’ was in
high gear.

“Ya! Old man Chisolm n’ Kaream! That’s
all, I swear!”

“You’re lying.” Josh stood and walked
away. Brad followed. Princess didn’t.

“Hey! Don’t leave this fucking animal
here!”

Josh continued to walk
away.

“Alright! Alright, for Christ sake!
He’s got two more with him! A man and a woman! Four in
all!”

Josh stopped, but didn’t look back.
Brad glanced from his cousin to Terry and back again. The stern
voice spoke again. “When is Chisolm due back?”

Terry’s eyes went to Princess. The bid
dog was closer now and growling. “This afternoon! Sometime before
dark! Now, get this bitch off me!”

Josh snapped his fingers. “Here
Prin!”

Princess bounded over, leaving Terry
to sob quietly against the pole.

Brad looked at his cousin. “How did
you know he was lying?”

Josh shrugged. “I didn’t.”

Just then a tall man in his middle
50’s came towards them from the Clam Bar. He was wearing white
pants and an expensive sweater, both smudged and dirty from his
ordeal inside the fish factory. He was also carrying the rifle
Terry had been reaching for when Princess introduced herself. “I
just wanted to thank you, all of you, for what you did. Heather and
I will never forget it.”

“Neither will they,”, Josh said,
nodding to the other survivors still back at the picnic
tables.