The Dead Run Page 6

  “I didn’t know that,” Nichols said evenly, wondering where she was getting this stuff.

  “Given the choice, Sheriff? I’d rather be dead.”

  The sheriff glanced over his shoulder, at the shotgun lying in the backseat. “If you’re right about any of this, Seth’s compound will be heavily fortified. What do you think we’re gonna do, just stroll up to the front door, ring the bell?”

  Cantwell’s eyes burned up the road. The Audi’s speedometer edged past ninety.

  “The one solid piece of information I got from Melinda is that before the girls disappeared, they were removed from the living quarters and brought to an old barn, far from everything else. She was terrified of that place—of her daughter ending up there. It’s how I finally convinced her to get out. And unless I miss my guess, that’s exactly where Sherry is right now.”

  AARON SETH’S BUICK rolled slowly up the rutted road and came to a stop before the compound’s meetinghouse. He shut the door without a sound and ran a hand over his thinning brown hair, carefully parted and meticulously combed.

  He was a slight man, neatly attired in khakis, a white shirt, and a blue blazer adorned with an American flag lapel pin. At first glance, his most notable feature was a lack of notable features—an overall plainness so pronounced that the eyes slid right off him, made a second glance seem like a waste of time.

  It was an impression he had spent years cultivating.

  If one looked longer, one might notice some other things. That he never seemed to sweat, for instance—as if the brutal afternoon sun beat down on everything but him. Or that he possessed a strength and quickness remarkable for his age.

  Whatever age that was. For the longer one looked at Aaron Seth, the less it became possible to say, with any degree of certainty. He might have been seventy and exceptionally spry, or forty and formerly hard-living.

  Seth could not have said himself. His memories of childhood were blurred and distant, a painful morass he’d learned to shunt to the margins of his consciousness. He’d never met his mother, did not even know her name—had been taught to regard the woman as little more than a husk, a vessel. He had no doubt that his father had killed her, probably during Seth’s birth as a way to increase the infant’s potency. Cucuy’s was a world of unapologetic horror, of chaos systematized into ritual. It had taken Seth decades of study to assimilate the ancient ways—to understand that what he saw around him was a false civilization, a façade constructed by a species that had turned its back on its gods, its nature. He had his father to thank for that. For everything.

  It was Cucuy who had insisted Seth study the new religion—that pathetic children’s theater of martyrdom and morality. In his boundless wisdom, the Ancient One realized that his son would need a flock, and that to gather one he must speak the tongue of the people. The very language of redemption and justice that had rendered them so docile, so blind. And thus, the faith Seth preached was deeply infused with symbolism the typical American churchgoer would find comfortingly familiar. The process of building a following had been eased immeasurably by such simple gestures; it was amazing how the mere use of the word lamb or apostle or the number three convinced a neophyte that he was on familiar ground and opened him to the long, gradual process of accepting a very different truth.

  In the worn valise Seth carried were a variety of brochures, with titles like ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: THREAT TO OUR WAY OF LIFE and TEN FACTS THE LIBERAL MEDIA DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW. He’d been out canvassing. Ringing doorbells, seeing who answered and what he could learn by reading their auras. He was holding auditions. Planting seeds. When the families he decided were worth bringing into the fold met him again, a couple of years later, they never recognized Aaron Seth as the door-to-door man.

  He handed his valise to Marcus, the muscular young aide who met him at the door. He stepped into the cool foyer, accepted the glass of lemonade Marcus proffered, and drained it in one swallow.

  “Is she here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any problems?”

  “None of which I’m currently aware, sir.”

  Something in Seth’s countenance hardened ever so slightly as he turned toward Marcus.

  “You know I hate doublespeak. Yes or no?”

  “I— no, sir.”

  “This girl matters, Marcus. She’s not like the others. I hope I’ve made that clear.”

  “Very clear, sir. Are you going to see her now? Shall I radio Reevus and Buchanan, tell them to meet us?”

  “Please. And, Marcus?”

  “Yes, Mr. Seth?”

  “Bring me my knives.”

  SHERRY AWAKENED WITH a gasp. How long had she been out? The numbness running down her arms and up her legs suggested it had been some time, that her body had chosen to shut down rather than confront what it could not handle. She looked up at the ribbon of light, as if it might provide an answer.

  Then she wondered why it mattered. She was floating outside herself now, scrutinizing the prisoner in the chair with the detachment of a scientist analyzing the behavior of a lab rat.

  How strange that I don’t pray, she thought. Half my life on bended knee, and now it’s the last thing in the world I want to do. Is it because I don’t believe? Or because I don’t want to give Him the satisfaction?

  She could hear footsteps, above her. The faint voices of men.

  I’m not even curious about any of this. Why I’m here, who they are. So strange.

  It’s like I’m already dead.

  Or like I never lived.

  Sherry looked up at her ribbon of light and thought she saw it move. She squinted, leaned toward it.

  The ribbon became a thin rectangle, and then a square. A beam of daylight shot through the room, fell into Sherry’s lap. She stared down at it, awed, feeling its warmth.

  Feeling alive.

  Wanting, suddenly and desperately, to stay that way.

  “Sherry!”

  A rough, throaty whisper.

  She looked up, into the beam, and saw a body dive through it, legs first, arms over head, the shower of sunlight a cushioning waterfall.

  It was the most beautiful thing Sherry had ever seen.

  An angel, she thought. I’m already dead, and an angel has come to—

  He was up, kneeling in front of her, pulling the gag out of her mouth. The sunbeam brushed his brow.

  “Eric?”

  “Shhh.” He worked feverishly at the rope around her hands, a musk of sweat and chlorine and cologne coming off him in hot waves. “They’re right upstairs. We’ve got to hurry.”

  The rope fell from her wrists, and Eric bent to free her ankles.

  “How—”

  “I followed you. There. Come on.”

  He hauled her to her feet, and Sherry’s vision went spangly from the sudden change in altitude. The numbness in her limbs loosened, became a plague of pins and needles.

  Eric threw an arm around her waist, grabbed the chair with his other hand, placed it directly below the window.

  Sherry looked up. Remembered to whisper, this time. “It’s too far.”

  Eric climbed onto the chair, measured the distance with his eyes, and jumped.

  The fingertips of his left hand caught hold of the window frame, and for a moment Eric’s legs dangled like a hanged man’s as he struggled to swing his other arm up to the ledge. On the third try, he caught it. Then, slowly, Eric began to vanish. Head, shoulders, waist, legs.

  For a moment, he was gone, and Sherry felt a stab of panic—that was it, he’d changed his mind, abandoned her. Then Eric’s head reappeared, and he thrust an arm toward her. Beckoned.

  “Let’s go.”

  Sherry climbed the chair, grabbed on to him with both hands. Eric lifted, biceps bulging beneath her weight. A moment later, she was up and out, pressed against him, the two of them
curled panting in the dirt.

  He stood, pulled Sherry to her feet again. She palm-shaded herself from the sun and tried to get her bearings, but there was nothing here. Just the building they’d escaped from, cavernous and looming. The distant rush of traffic. Low, flat land littered with browning scrub and tumbleweed.

  Eric took her hand, and they crept cautiously along the barn wall. He paused at the corner, peered around, then flattened himself and motioned for Sherry to lean across him and take a look.

  Four or five buildings, clustered together, a quarter mile away.

  Two little girls on a swing set, twice as close.

  Their mothers behind them, doling out pushes.

  Two men with rifles slung across their backs, strolling and chatting, close enough to the women to trade pleasantries.

  Sherry fell back, looked to Eric.

  He bent to whisper in her ear.

  “My car is that way.” The trajectory his finger mapped cut across the compound at a forty-five-degree angle. Skirted the buildings, but took them dangerously close to the swing set.

  “The guards’ backs are turned,” Eric reported. “If we stay low, we’ll make it.” He dropped onto his stomach, edged forward in a military crawl.

  Sherry crept back toward the corner, took another look.

  “Quick, Sherry! Before they figure out you’re gone and lock everything down.”

  “I know this place,” she said slowly. “I’ve been here before.”

  SETH SLID THE key into the lock inch by inch, listening as each ridge found its slot. Savoring the satisfaction of purpose fulfilled, bodies moving in harmony. A smile played on his thin lips at the thought of the girl on the other side of the door, ears perked to these same tiny sounds. The world housed such a remarkable multitude of realities, simultaneous and unknowable.

  The final click. He turned the key and let the door swing open, closed his eyes to grant himself the pleasure of smelling sweet young Sherry Richards before he saw her.

  A deep inhale.

  No. No, this was all wrong.

  He smelled Sherry, yes. But only a wisp of her, an echo. Another scent was stronger. It was that of a young man. Not one of Seth’s people.

  A stranger.

  A boy in heat.

  A rescuer.

  Seth turned on his heel, opened his eyes, trudged up the stairs. He was careful to keep the fury he felt from rising through his pores; he’d never betrayed his emotions to his followers, and he wasn’t going to start now.

  Reevus and Buchanan were sitting at the kitchen table when he crossed the threshold. Marcus stood by the counter, dumping fragrant grounds into the coffeemaker.

  “She’s gone,” Seth said quietly.

  Reevus stood so fast his chair fell over backward. “That’s imposs—”

  Seth crossed the room in a flash, grabbed Reevus by the throat, and slammed him to the ground.

  At least this display of incompetence granted the opportunity to fulfill a dictate Seth had thus far neglected.

  On the Day of Reckoning, you shall spill the blood of an impure man.

  “Anything’s possible,” he whispered, tightening his grip. Reevus gasped, arms bucking, face shading toward blue, mouth yawning open, tongue lolling. Seth watched for a moment, then clamped down on the fleshy pink protuberance with his thumb and two fingers, and ripped it out.

  Reevus’s howl became a gurgle as blood filled his mouth. Seth tossed the curl of meat behind him. It hit the wall with a small slapping sound and slid down slowly, leaving behind a red perforated trail.

  Seth stood. “You seem to have forgotten my knives, Marcus.”

  “They’re in the car, sir. I can—”

  “Never mind.” He pointed at the pinewood butcher’s block on the counter. “Just hand me one of those right there.”

  “Yes, sir. Here you go.”

  Seth accepted the blade, examined it a moment, then fisted the handle, lunged forward, and sliced a four-inch vent into Marcus’s throat.

  The aide buckled, staggered forward. He grabbed wildly at the table, slipped in the blood geysering from him, and crumpled to the ground.

  Buchanan never moved an inch. His wolf eyes took it all in, darting back and forth in his skull. They were the only parts of his charred, mottled face that looked alive.

  Seth opened a cupboard, unfolded a hand towel, and wiped himself clean.

  “Find the Richards girl,” he said, dropping the rag. It landed on Marcus’s chest and instantly turned red. “The mother’s phone line may help. It’s number twelve on the switchboard, in the communications room.”

  “On it, boss,” Buchanan said, and rose. He stepped over the bodies of his colleagues without so much as a downward glance and headed for the door.

  Seth surveyed the mess he’d made and shook his head with sympathy—for himself, surrounded as he was with men of such scant talent.

  But Buchanan was different. Buchanan had never failed him.

  “Before dark please, Marshall,” he said. “It’s important.”

  He almost said more—nearly told Buchanan that a new age was upon them, that a power beyond reckoning was so tantalizingly close Seth felt like he could almost reach out and touch it, and that the girl—

  But Aaron Seth was no fool. He cut the thought short, bit his tongue, and dismissed his soldier.

  CHAPTER 8

  The five of them stood beneath the midday sun and squinted at one another. Directly beneath, it felt like. Ten seconds and you were drenched with sweat, whether you moved or not. Galvan flashed on the fat scented candle he’d once left on the hood of his high school girlfriend’s car, a present she was supposed to find in the morning, on her way to school. By the time she got out of bed, it was a puddle of wax. She’d called him, furious, convinced a rival for his affection had fucked with her ride.

  Thought that counts.

  It didn’t take long for every eyeball not his own to fix on Galvan. He appraised each man in turn: Payaso, shifting his weight from leg to leg, brain no doubt just as unable to settle. He looked even scrawnier, out here with so much open space around him, than he had in the close confines of the yard. Younger, too—dude couldn’t be a day over twenty, so baby-faced he’d probably never touched a razor in his life. Galvan found himself wondering how a mouthy, twitchy twerp like Payaso had fallen in with the gang to begin with, then realized the question was its own answer. Kid never could’ve hacked it on his own.

  Next to him stood Gutierrez, stock-still, glaring down over his own broken nose, shirt soaked through and stuck against his massive, heaving chest. He was the opposite of Payaso, in more than size. The guy was completely self-contained. There was no bend in him, no compromise or subterfuge, no such thing as a half measure. When Gutierrez was in motion, he moved toward his goal in a straight line, whether it was food or murder or sexual release.

  Woe be to anybody who stood in the way.

  Beside the enforcer was a middle-aged man, bald and bespectacled, squat and nebbishy. He was known in the yard as Britannica, Galvan remembered. The prison egghead; Federación Sinaloa owned the guy and hired him out to prisoners who needed legal help—appeals, transfer requests, you name it. He was said to be doing time for some kind of long con: he’d fleeced a church or Ponzied a priest. Or he hadn’t. Who could separate the lies from the exaggerations? In any case, he was that rarest breed of convict: a man who’d made a path for himself by means of his brains.

  What use that intellect would be out here was another story entirely.

  Finally, standing farthest away was a guy Galvan could’ve sworn he’d never seen in his life. Never noticed, anyway. He looked like everybody else doing two-to-four on drug shit, gang shit, poor-dumb-and-desperate shit. A six-month swell to his biceps, some scattered ink-pen prison tats intended to call attention to his brand-new physique—the kind
of thing that seemed like a good idea now but that he’d regret wholeheartedly if he ever decided to go straight, get a real job.

  Not that a guy like this ever would. He’d pick up a package or a gun and do the same dirt the same way, be back inside before his bunk got reassigned or his lockdown muscles softened into flab.

  All of them were waiting. Galvan cleared his throat. “I ain’t much for speeches. You all know what we’ve gotta do. You saw that thing, Cucuy or whatever it calls itself. We stick together, we might make it.” He glanced down at the compass. “North is that way.”

  A nod from Britannica. Payaso scowled and poked his toe at the ground, like a teenager being ordered to clean his room. Gutierrez showed nothing. It was the fourth man who spoke.

  “Fuck him, and fuck you. I’m going home.”

  Galvan sighed, and the baling wire screamed against his skin. “What’s your name, friend?”

  “I’m not your friend. And I sure as shit ain’t the one with a box strapped to my back.” He spread his arms. “You can start by telling us what’s in it.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Which was true, in a way.

  Nobody had told Galvan to keep it a secret, but nobody had told him to confide life’s mysteries to a grab bag of scumbags, either.

  Keep it simple, and keep it moving. That was gonna be his philosophy until something better came along.

  “Bullshit. This pendejo is lying.” Galvan’s not-friend tapped his chest, then swept a finger across them all. “I’m a free man, homes. All you vatos are free men.”

  Galvan hesitated. On one hand, it would be easier to do this alone. Five motley cons weren’t making it over the goddamn border together without a miracle—to say nothing of the hike there. He’d already tagged Payaso and Britannica as weak links, light on stamina. Deadweight, maybe literally. Dismissing all of them right now might be the smart play.

  But something gave him pause. Protected on all sides. Cucuy hadn’t said what from, but he must have had his reasons. And there was more at play here than Galvan could fathom.