“That's bullshit,” Juan answered thro
ugh the microphone, resorting to talking his normal way and dropping the pretense. “I want to talk to your leader. ”
“I am the leader,” the bald man answered.
“Katarina,” Nerit said softly into her mouthpiece.
The man went down, screaming, gripping his shattered knee.
Juan blinked.
“He's not the leader,” Nerit explained.
“Oh. ” Juan hesitated, pushed the button, and then said, “I said your leader, not his girlfriend. ”
Curtis laughed at this.
Calhoun snorted and said, “Yeah, damn aliens. They have ugly ass women. ”
There was more discussion on the video feed. Finally, a door opened on the opposite side of the truck, facing away from the fort, and figures were slipped out and moved to the back the truck. At last, a tall, almost handsome man stepped into view, dragging a girl with a gun firmly pressed to her temple. The girl looked to be around sixteen.
Her features were badly distorted and her arms and legs were covered in bruises and cuts.
“Enough of the bullshitting. We want guns, ammo and enough food to get us through the winter, or I'm going to kill this little girl,” the man shouted.
“That's Martin. Gawddammit. They busted him out of prison. He'll do it. He'll kill her,” Curtis said.
“No, he won't,” Nerit answered and said into her mouthpiece.
“Katarina. ”
“High or low,” Katarina's voice said, small and tinny and barely heard by those around Nerit.
“Low,” Nerit said after a pause. “It will be merciful. We can't save her anyway. ”
On the monitor, the tall, gruff, charismatic man was jerking the girl about by her hair, making a good show. Her head jerked back and blood splattered his face. He found himself holding a very dead young woman. Her blood dripped from his startled features. With a wordless exclamation, he dropped her and stepped back in shock.
Curtis jerked his head toward Nerit. “What the fuck?”
Katie covered her face with her hands and turned away.
“It’s a better fate than the one they would have dished out,” Travis said in an agonized voice.
“We just don't kill innocent people,” Juan protested, then hesitated, before adding, “do we?”
Katie looked back at the monitor to see the leader had recovered.
“Oh, so you'll kill someone who doesn't mean shit to you, huh?
Then what about one of your own?”
Travis later thought he shouldn't have been surprised when a large burly man dragged Shane out of the back of the camper. He should have known that Shane was too mean to die at the hands of the zombies like Philip had. It shouldn't have been a shock that he would find a way to the bandits. But the once arrogant sonofabitch was dressed in a ragged dress and had makeup smeared all over his face.
He looked battered and abused with his mouth gagged and his hands tied with rope. It bothered Travis to no end to see tear marks streaking Shane's face.
Beside him, Katie put her head down, and whispered, “Oh, God. ”
Shane was struggling, trying to get free. Maybe he had not told the bandits why he was out of the fort, but it didn't matter.