"My name is Boricio," he said into the mirror, rolling the "r", even though the guy in his dream didn"t seem Spanish.
If anyone asks, my name is Boricio. Heh, I kinda like the sound of that.
Charlie was speeding along the highway screaming out the lyrics to Eulogy when the car started acting weird, as if the engine had just been cut off.
He turned down the music as the car coasted to a stop. That"s when he saw the red gas light on the dashboard.
f.u.c.k me!
As the car died, he stared out his window along the long rural stretch of road. Nothing as far as he could see ahead. And behind him, it had been at least a few miles since he"d pa.s.sed any signs of what was left of civilization.
As if on cue, the sun was eclipsed almost all at once by dark, angry looking clouds.
So, what you gonna do now, Charlie Boy? Only it wasn"t his inner voice that mocked him. It was Bob"s.
"f.u.c.k you, Bob."
He thought about getting out of the car and walking back the way he came until he found a place to hole up for the rest of the day and night, or maybe find a new car. But as he was about to get out of the car, he was interrupted by the loudest thunder he"d ever heard. It sounded as if someone were tearing the roof from the top of the world. Lightning flashed not too far ahead.
Rain followed, hitting his windshield in fat, loud drops that sounded like rocks.
Charlie reached into the duffle bag, found a book, a collection of P.K. d.i.c.k stories, and eased his seat back. He was going to be in the car a while.
About an hour into this book, he saw headlights in his rearview mirror.
He pulled the seat back up and threw his book on the seat, then reached into the duffel bag for the Glock. He checked the ammo, made sure the safety was off, and put the gun in his lap as the lights drew closer.
His first thought was that Bob and Callie had come after him. But as the vehicle got closer, he saw that it wasn"t a car, but rather a van.
It parked right behind Charlie"s car.
Oh s.h.i.t.
Charlie sat, frozen, unsure what to do.
It was too dark and the rain falling too hard to see the driver of the van.
The van"s lights flicked on and off twice.
He wants me to get out?
The lights flicked again as if in response.
Charlie put the gun in his waistband and stepped from the car, instantly drenched by the rain. He ran to the van"s driver side, relieved as he got closer and saw that the driver was a woman. She looked a bit older, a little heavy, with long, dark red hair.
She rolled down the window a bit, "You okay, honey?"
"Ran out of gas!" Charlie yelled over the howling wind.
"Get in," she said, pointing to the empty pa.s.senger seat.
"Okay, lemme get my bag," Charlie said, running back to the car, putting his book in the bag, along with the pistol from his waistband.
He eyed the shotgun sitting in the back seat, but would have to leave it. If he came running to the van with a shotgun, the lady would probably freak out and drive away.
He grabbed the Tool CD from the player and put it in the bag, then ran to the van and hopped into the pa.s.senger"s seat.
"Where ya" headed?" she asked as he got situated, putting the bag down between his feet. A black curtain separated the front of the van from the back.
"Wherever," he said. The van moved forward and that"s when Charlie noticed that they weren"t alone. The curtain parted and a man with red hair and a scruffy beard appeared, wearing all black, with something behind his back. As Charlie was trying to figure out what it was, the man quickly wrapped his arms around him and injected something into his neck before Charlie even had a chance to fight.
Seconds later, Charlie hit the dashboard and was out cold.
The first thing Charlie noticed when he came to was the shaking. And he couldn"t see a thing, blindfolded and arms bound behind him. He was in the back of the van.
A woman was laughing in the front. Charlie"s mind flashed on the woman who had lured him into the trap.
"You believe that s.h.i.t?" a man said, also from the front.
Though he was bound, and in the back of a moving van, Charlie felt a strong impulse to squirm, kick, push, anything to break free.
Not now. Someone else is in the van.
"Shhh, you"ve been kidnapped," a voice said.
Only the voice wasn"t coming from anyone in the van.
Instead, it was in his head.
Boricio?
"The one and only," the voice responded, "You just sit tight and let these people take you where they"re gonna take you."
How are you talking to me?
"No time for questions, kid. Don"t you worry "bout a thing. You"re about to meet the most awesome motherf.u.c.ker you"ve ever laid eyes on."
You?
"Who else, kid? Just close your eyes, go back to sleep, and don"t rock the boat until it"s time for us to mutiny on these motherf.u.c.kers."
Charlie had never been one to believe in things like fate or things happening for a reason. But there was no mistaking that something was happening here. Something weird, fantastic, and terrifying all at once. He was on the verge of discovering his destiny in a man named Boricio.
BORICIO WOLFE.
Now why can"t he just shut the f.u.c.k up? I"ve got Manny, Moe, and Jack to my right and only Moe has to be a f.u.c.king hard-on. Can"t wait to shut your yap box, you whiney b.i.t.c.h. Gonna start things off with you, too. Should start with Manny, but f.u.c.k if you deserve to live an extra 16 seconds.
Boricio had been trying to brew banter with Adam for the better part of 15 minutes and Moe kept b.u.t.ting into the conversation. If Adam were a chick, Moe was a c.o.c.k Blocker Extraordinaire. Adam knew something. Something big. Boricio needed to know what it was. That was enough to spare his life, but the kid had been smart enough to tip Boricio with another reason or two.
He could get answers out of Adam easy as s.h.i.t, but only with rhythm, and that wasn"t going to happen with Moe shoving his d.i.c.k into the conversation every five minutes. Worthless piece of s.h.i.t hadn"t delivered a single fact Boricio could use, except maybe that the Jackson "Dead Guard Walking" f.u.c.ker is a s.a.d.i.s.tic a.s.shole, but Boricio didn"t need a back bayou shaman to see that one. At least the other guys were mostly quiet.
"Hey, Jack, how"d you get caught?" Boricio asked, hoping if Jack spoke for a little bit, Moe might latch onto him and give Boricio some s.p.a.ce to talk with Adam.
"Was the strangest s.h.i.t. You"d never believe it if you didn"t have all this other no way, no how to believe already. And it"d be funny even if it wasn"t so G.o.dd.a.m.n terrifying, or maybe if I heard it from someone else. See, weird thing was, I was wide awake when it happened, least I had been just a ball hair before. I came home late, worked till 1:30 at the Ugly Tuna because Richie always stops showing up for his shifts whenever it"s his first week with some new tail. And he ain"t never gonna get fired because Nate"s been married to his ma for the last two years. Anyways, I was out of there by 10 til, and home by five after. Me and Nadine started f.u.c.kin" straight up at 2:12, because the clock is on her side and we was both facing that way. So I started getting my face on, you know, but right before I popped, I suddenly blacked out, except I wasn"t gone nowhere unconscious. I was still f.u.c.kin" and feeling and all, but I was sorta suspended with animation, or whatever they call it. Couldn"t move and couldn"t see. Time just hung like that for a h.e.l.luva spell until all of a sudden I was poppin the weasel without a Nadine to catch it. She was totally gone and the clock was blinking 2:16.
"So you only lasted four minutes?" asked Manny.
"I told you there was suspended animation."
"That"s a crazy story, man," Boricio said, "You must have been out of your head! What did you do? How long until you found someone else? Where did you go?" Jack was sucking down his own story like a fat kid with cake, so Boricio obliged him with a new handful of questions.
"I left the house and saw the town was full of nothing but empty, then came back home for two days not knowing what to do. I finally got into Nadine"s Honda; it had less gas in it, but got way more to the gallon than the Chevy, and I hit the road. I didn"t see no one for a long while until I came on an old church my second day driving. The church looked Catholic, and all the lights were on, which seemed like a miracle in itself. Fools gold, though. Before I hit the holy water no less than three guns were aimed at my face. Something hit me hard from behind and next thing I knew, I was in here."
A lot of s.h.i.t seeped in the silences between people"s sentences, finished and unfinished. That f.u.c.ker Jack knew something about something, and wasn"t saying s.h.i.t about it. That wasn"t gonna do Boricio one c.u.n.t hair of good. No, he"d get that f.u.c.ker to kick a jumbo pot of beans before he ended him.
"That sounds so scary," Boricio said. "I bet it felt right good when you first saw those lights and thought you"d found some people." He seasoned his sentence with a sympathetic pause, then added, "Too bad it turned out like it did."
"Yeah, but at least I"m with other folks now. It was awful being in the middle of all that nothing..."
There it was. Boricio heard it clear, even if everyone else was too stupid to hear the s.h.i.t that wasn"t being said. "What else did you see out there, man?"
Silence.
"It"s okay, we"ve all seen some crazy stuff in the last few days. World"s gone upside down. We"ll believe you. Right guys?"
A murmur of agreement rippled around the room, followed by a lingering silence. Boricio didn"t press it. A long silence was exactly what Jack needed to be drawn into talking. Finally, he drew a deep breath and let it spill.
"Day before I hit the church I saw something moving off the side of the road. Crazy looking and not quite right, a bit like road kill, but longer, more human. I slowed as I got closer, and sure as the s.h.i.ts at a chili cook off, it was wearing people clothes. I got out, real slow cuz it was just laying there, but laying there all wrong, if you know what I mean, though you probably don"t. I was halfway to it before I thought to go back and grab the Winchester from the Honda. I tiptoed to the thing, and about lost it when I got up close. It was black and white, dirt and light. The grimiest, scariest, living scarecrow of a creature I ever saw, and I worked at a slaughterhouse for two years. The thing started making all sorts a unholy sounds and then it tried to get up. I don"t even know if it could have, but I emptied the rifle into it before I got the chance to find out. I put every bullet where its face should"ve been, just in case. Then I saw another creature just like it later that night. So the short of it is, I"m with the kid; maybe this place right here ain"t so bad after all."
No one spoke, then Moe said, "Anyone else see these jitterbugs?"
A chorus of yes"s followed, Boricio"s included, though he added his last, and he was lying.
These Mexican bean jittery f.u.c.kers don"t sound like no soldiers of any sort. They sound like some kind of accident, courtesy of whatever Armageddon dips.h.i.t let the fries burn in the first place.
"I seen worse," Adam said. "I seen a bunch of them things. First one was in my house. I swore the thing was coming for my old man. Would"ve sworn on a stack a Holy Bibles a foot high. I thought the Devil had come to bring him home, and I ran from the house as soon as I saw it. I ran straight for the gorge, since that"s where I like to go when I don"t want to be found, and I saw six or seven more on the way. When I got there, I couldn"t believe what I saw - a couple dozen more of them things just quivering at the entrance. And just past them, that was the scariest s.h.i.t I ever seen. There were bodies, dead people, hundreds, maybe even thousands. All of "em stacked. Stacked so high you wouldn"t believe. It looked like..."
Eureka! Organized disposal! Hunters!
"What do you mean stacked?" interrupted Manny. "You mean the bodies were in a pile?"
"No, sir. Not a pile. A stack. The bodies were stacked in rows. Like pallets in a warehouse."
Boricio smelled something on Moe. Whatever the f.u.c.k had been brewing in that guy"s ball sack earlier was boiling now. Something was off, and it had to do with the way Adam was telling his story.
There was a click, a whine, and a warm gust of air, followed by the unmistakable scent of that a.s.shole, Jackson.
Looks like it might be game time. Don"t know how much more I"m gonna dig from this crowd. I"m leaving with some intel and an ally. Might be ready to leave with a scalp or two, too. Maybe I"ll let old Dead Guard Walking decide, give him a chance to live another small while just to be a good sport. But if he wants to live, he"ll have to be a good puppy and show me.
"What"s up dips.h.i.t?" Another slap on the side of Boricio"s ear.
"I"m sorry about earlier, Sir. Really I am." Boricio kept his hands behind his back, laying flat on the mat. "I meant no disrespect. I"m just awful scared. These last couple of days have been terrible hard, and I sure didn"t expect to get thrown in here on top of it all."
"Aww, shucks, well ain"t that a nice apology?" He"d become Dead Guard Walking the second he shoved food into Boricio"s mouth, but he just sped up the sands in his hourgla.s.s with the condescending tone and a second slap to the ear. Boricio"s ear stung loudly, but he didn"t mind. It was fuel.
Boricio laughed.
"What"re you laughing at? You need me to remind you about some of the rules before I show you firsthand who makes "em?"
Boricio continued to laugh, harder and harder, forcing himself into the rhythm at first, until he lost himself to the insanity of the beat. He could feel Dead Guard Walking start to sweat. "Better tell me what you"re laughing at, f.u.c.ker, or I"ll make you swallow your chuckles along with a few of your teeth." To punctuate his threat, Dead Guard Walking slammed a boot heel on Boricio"s knee. He should"ve screamed but Boricio only laughed harder.
"You"ve seen Star Wars, right?" Boricio said, once he stopped laughing.
Dead Guard Walking was silent, but mostly because he didn"t know what to say. Finally he said, "Course, everyone has."
"You know what a Tauntaun is? They"re those furry snow camel kangaroo things from Empire Strikes Back. Remember when Han Solo has to keep Luke warm so he cuts open the belly of the Tauntaun to steal his heat? Well, I was just picturing doing that to you, except I"d be doing it just for fun, seeing as how I"m plenty warm as is. I got to laughing once I realized I couldn"t truly picture it on account of me not knowing what you look like. So I just pictured a big old rusty sheriff"s badge tacked to an a.s.shole." Boricio erupted into an encore of raging laughter.
Dead Guard Walking leaned down and put his face just inches from Boricio. "What are you going to do with your hands behind your back, you f.u.c.king freak? Only thing you can do in the position you"re in right now is suck my d.i.c.k and thank me for the pleasure."
"I will thank you. I can"t wait until your c.o.c.k is in my mouth. Mmm, yummy," Boricio said, laughing. "I"ll bite it off and swallow it without chewing, then I"ll make sure I stick around long enough to make you gobble every bite of my s.h.i.t, even if I have to drag you out of here half dead and screaming."
Dead Guard Walking took a big step back. Boricio laughed again. That type of fear was probably new for Jackson, but then again, so was Boricio"s brand of crazy.
"You"re jumping to the front of the line, a.s.shole." Dead Guard Walking"s final words were followed by a whine and the door shutting. Boricio figured he had maybe three minutes before Jackson was back, probably with Testosterone and Big Nippled b.i.t.c.h in tow.
It was now or never.
Boricio gave up the pretense of being bound, and slowly reached up and took off his blindfold.
Well, f.u.c.k me.
He almost didn"t believe what he saw.
TO BE CONTINUED...