Zero (9 page)

“How do you get home?”

“I walk.” Cheryl chuckled and looked down at her feet. “Not all of us need a car or a bike to get us around.”

“Are you teasing me?” he asked.

“Maybe. It’s nice seeing you again, Butch.”

He stood still watching her leave the church.

What the fuck are you doing? Follow her.

Walking out of the church, he shouted her name as he spotted her at the gate.

“You’re acting strangely,” she said, stopping at his call.

He felt like he was insane. Butch didn’t want her to go.

“Can I walk you home?”

“It’s perfectly safe for me to walk on my own.”

“I want to walk you. I don’t like the thought of you being alone.”

She frowned. “I walk alone all the time. Fort Wills is safe.”

“Not anymore, I don’t want you walking alone.” He stood close, and he got a hint of lemon. Was that her shampoo or soap? He knew he was really losing his mind. What was it about Cheryl that kept him wanting to come back to her?

Nothing made any sense to him anymore. The sweet-butts at the clubhouse didn’t hold any appeal.

“How about I walk you home whenever you need it?” he asked. He looked forward to seeing her again.

“You’re going to waste your time walking me home?”

“Why not? I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“You’re a strange man, Butch. I’ve got to stop off at my mother’s,” she said.

“Why?”

“I need to pick up my son.”

Okay, something just hit him in the gut, and he felt the big man upstairs was laughing at him.

****

Prue was once again surrounded by warmth. She loved the heat, and opening her eyes she looked up at the ceiling. The television was playing to itself. Zero felt quite heavy against her. Looking around the room, something caught her eye at the bottom of the bed. Something red was there, facing them. Blood.

Screaming, Prue scrambled up waking Zero up in the process. A woman was tied to a chair that was next to the wall.

“Prue, what’s the matter?” Zero asked, waking up.

She screamed again. The sight before her made her feel sick. “Please tell me this is some kind of joke. Is it real?”

Her heart was racing. The machines were beeping. The door to the room opened, and the nurse walked in. The moment the other woman walked in and saw the dead body, she screamed then fainted. Chaos ensued as the noise brought more people. Prue was getting tired of the screaming. The sight before her was making her feel sick. How had someone sneaked in a dead body?

Why hadn’t anyone entered the room?

“Is it real?” she asked.

Zero moved closer. There was a knife in the center of the chest with a piece of paper plastered to the body. Without her glasses Prue couldn’t read it. Zero flipped open his cell phone, pressing buttons madly. Prue couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“Tiny, yeah, you need to get to the hospital before the police do. Alan has struck again.” Zero hung up the phone, sitting on the edge of the bed. He held onto her leg, and she felt him shaking.

“Do you know who it is?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Who is it? What does the note say?” Her hands were shaking. This was not what was supposed to happen. She was a teacher. Her life was not important. This kind of creepy shit was only supposed to happen in the movies.

“It’s the blonde nurse I fucked the other day,” he said.

Her face had been cut up, and from the stench, she’d been covered in petrol.

“What does the note say?” Prue asked, not really wanting to know the truth.

Zero hung his head. “I fucked Zero, and he cannot save me. Every person connected to him will suffer worse than the next. I’m disgusting and need to be reborn. Set me on fire, and see if I rise like a phoenix or die like the next person. I was once a nurse, and now I’m nothing. Come on, Zero, come and play. By the time I’m done there will be zero people you care about. One by one I will pick them off. Come out and play.”

Prue felt sick. “Alan did this.”

Zero leaned down, picking up a syringe. “Yeah, he did this, and he wants us to know how easy it is for him to play us like this.”

“What’s with the syringe?” she asked.

“He drugged us with a fucking sedative. Fuck, I woke last night when I felt a sting in my arm, but I didn’t see anything, and then I couldn’t keep my eyes open. He must have done the same to you only put it in your medication to be fed into you. I bet this is sedative to keep me knocked out. You know we’re not heavy sleepers. We would have heard him enter and do this. Fuck, he knows someone at the hospital. He has to. It’s the only way to get help.”

Prue pulled the blanket up close. “No one is safe, Zero, and you can’t just go around accusing people.”

“I know.”

She stared at Zero without knowing what to say to comfort him. It would have been better if Zero had made sure Alan was dead ten years ago.

“He’s going to hurt everyone.”

“And make sure I know what he’s doing every step of the way.” Zero moved up beside her. “Everyone has to be careful, and so do you. He will come after all of us at some point. I’m not going to make it easy for him. I refuse to.”

“We can’t always be on watch.” She tried to reason with him. Zero wasn’t having any of it.

“The cops are going to want to question me,” Zero said.

“What? Why?”

“My name is on this letter. They’d be assholes not to question all leads, including people she fucked. I was one of them in the last few days.”

Prue whimpered. This was getting worse by the second.

Tiny entered the room twenty minutes later followed by Butch. It was only a matter of time before the police arrived. She knew they were not happy at the sight of the dead nurse.

“They’re going to ask you questions, Zero. You’re going to need to go with them,” Tiny said. “Another death in Fort Wills. There’s only so much the law will take, and your name is plastered to the fucking body. You’re the one they’re going to want to speak to first.”

“Then get the lawyer on the phone. I’m not going down for fucking a woman, and I won’t have anything to do with this. I don’t deal with the fucking police. One of our guys went with the police, helping them, and he got put away for it. He’s still in fucking jail for
helping
the police.”

She rubbed at her neck, hating how easily he spoke of the woman who was dead.

“She didn’t deserve to die,” Prue said.

All the men turned to look at her.

“We know.” Tiny rubbed a finger over his lip. “Okay. I’m calling Devil. We’re going to need his help.”

“You can’t bring that maniac here,” Zero said.

“I’m calling him ready for help. I’m going to give him the heads-up. We don’t know how far this fucker is going to go. He’s a criminal and could have a shitload of backing. You didn’t want to deal with this, then you should have put him in the ground ten fucking years ago,” Tiny said.

“He was supposed to die in the burning fucking building. I fucked up. I know this.”

“You branched out ten years ago.” Tiny stepped closer invading Zero’s space. She tensed. The older man looked like he could squash Zero without any effort. “Not once did you ask for club help, but now we’re all involved. This is our fucking business.”

“No, you’re not. He’s after me.”

“He’s going after everyone close to you. That means the whole fucking club. Angel, Lash, Nash, my kids and my woman, Sophia. Think about it, Zero. We’re going to need all the fucking help we can get.”

Tiny made sense. Alan wasn’t going to stop until Zero begged for death.

“Don’t argue,” Prue said, speaking up. “You know he’s right, Zero. We don’t know where he is. This is a message. No one is safe, and you also know something else.” She turned away from the remains of the nurse. If they didn’t move her soon she was going to throw up.

“What’s that?” Zero asked, going to her side.

“He’s not planning on living. You once told me, in drink, how you got to Alan and what you did. You didn’t care if you lived or died. There was nothing else for you. I was safe. This is what you did to him, but he hasn’t burned her. Alan has nothing to lose. He’s more dangerous than ever before.”

“She’s right,” Tiny said.

Before she could say anything more the police entered the room. They saw Zero next to the body, and he raised his hands. “I’ve got to take you in, Zero. We got a call about you an hour ago, and we need to take you in for questioning,” the officer said.

“I’m not going with you. I didn’t do this,” Zero said, folding his arms, facing off with the men.

“Zero, be reasonable. Go and give them a statement. Don’t make this harder on everyone,” Tiny said. “He’s willing to give a statement, right?”

The officer nodded and put the cuffs away.

“We’re not here to take you in, Zero. We want to ask you some questions about this. There was a phone call earlier speaking of you and this woman fucking. I need to ask you questions, get a statement from you, and then we can handle this.”

She saw the determination on Zero’s face. He wasn’t going to be forced into anything. “Zero, don’t do this,” she said, begging him.

“I want a guard posted on her door. I can’t leave her alone. You know what this lunatic is all about,” Zero said, looking toward Tiny.

“After this incident I’ve already got a man posted on the door. He will follow her whenever she goes. Nothing will happen to her, I promise.”

Zero was silent for many minutes, and no one spoke as he weighed up the problems. Prue knew what was wrong with him. Ever since they were young he’d always had a problem with being in tight, confined spaces. Something happened with his father where he kept him in a cage over a weekend or something like that. When he got out, he spent the week with her and Trevor at their house.

“I’m not doing shit. I fucked the woman, but I didn’t fucking kill her.”

“I’m not saying that you did, Zero. I’m offering my help as an officer of the law,” the policeman said. “I can only do my job if you give me all the facts.”

Zero shook his head. “No, you’ve got no way of dealing with this shit. You don’t have the first clue what to do to help us. You can’t even handle the fucking town. We’re the ones who do it.”

“Zero!” Tiny yelled. He wasn’t listening.

 She squealed as Zero lashed out, hitting the man who’d been talking. In the sudden chaos Zero was tackled to the floor, cuffed, and escorted out. The other Skulls were on the phone as they were also taken out of the room. Tiny was cursing and looking deadly as he followed them out. In the ensuing commotion she was tugged out of the bedroom and moved to a different ward. She heard Zero screaming about not leaving her alone. Panicking, she looked around the new room wishing there was something she could do. It was daylight, so no one could come to her.

What was happening to Zero? Why did he do that? All he needed to do was go with the police and give a statement. Now they could make his life a hell of a lot more difficult.

How did Alan manage to bring a dead body into the room?

The sound of the toilet flushing to her left drew her attention. She jerked as the man in question walked out of the room. He wore a jacket with a hood, hiding his face.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, terrified. Who had wheeled her bed into this room? What the hell was happening?

There was no Skull around, and the hospital staff was dealing with the dead body. She was all alone with a lunatic, a murdering lunatic.

He closed the door, flicking the lock. Next he drew the blind down before standing at the base of the bed. She gasped as he pulled the hood back, revealing his face. Prue stared into his eyes. They were dead of all emotion.

“Did you miss me?”

She pressed the emergency button. There was no light beside her.

“This is an awful hospital. A dead body and they stop plugging in the electrics when they move you from room to room. Someone should complain about the standards in this shitty little town. You can shout if you want. I doubt they’ll hear you over the yelling,” Alan said. “Half of the cameras are fake. Did you know that? The security is around ten fat guards and a few cameras. Most of them are posted near the kiddie wards. They’re more worried about the little ones than the adults,” Alan said, grabbing her feet.

She whimpered at his touch. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I’m letting you know how easy it is for me to get to you. No one will stop me, Prue. Are you scared?”

“Terrified.” Tears filled her eyes, and she gripped the sheet over her lap. “Are you going to kill me now?”

“Why would I kill you?” he asked.

“You want Zero to suffer.”

“And you think him finding your dead body will be enough to make him suffer?” He moved up the bed. His fingers caressed up her thigh. Alan’s touch repulsed her. She tried to jerk her leg away, but he held her tighter, his nails sinking into her flesh.

“I mean nothing to him. He’s in love with someone else,” she said, biting her lip.

“Ah, the lovely Sophia. He fancies himself in love with the other woman, but he’s not.” Alan shook his head. “No, he’s not in love with that bitch, but she’ll be fun to hurt when the time is right.”

“You’re going to hurt everyone?”

“Why, yes. If I didn’t hurt everyone, I wouldn’t be having any fun.” His fingers grazed over her stomach.

Fear unlike anything she had ever known gripped her, threatening to consume her in the heat.

“Such a pretty sight. I love seeing a woman all scared. The blonde whore was scared until I snuffed the life out of her. Probably did the whore some good.”

“Why did you kill her? She meant nothing to Zero.” She bit her lip trying hard to contain the scream she wanted to let out.

“But she fucked him. You’re going to realize, sweet Prue, no one is safe. I’m going to hurt everyone who ever touched Zero. If that means a couple of people die, I really don’t care.” He cupped her cheek, caressing her flesh.

His touch repulsed her.

“You’re a monster.”

“Yet, you’re still alive,” he said, smiling. “I can’t be that bad. You’d be dead otherwise.”

“Only until you’ve finished with me. I’m not a fucking idiot. You’ll kill me when you’re ready.”