After two cigarettes, Katarina finally said, “I should have shot his dick off. ”
They both laughed.
Chapter 19
1. Alone Time
Bill was weary, bone weary. Every muscle in his back was cramping. If it was possible, his eyes were even cramped. Rubbing his grainy eyes, he sat on top of the city hall roof. Since the hotel had opened, that roof with its gazebo, pool and nice patio furniture had become the place to hang out. The wind could be brutal up there, but the building had been angled to break down the wind. Personally, he preferred the city hall roof. He sat in a plastic chair, staring out over the fort.
He could hear sounds of the party in full swing up on the top of the hotel. The music and laughter were loud. People were ecstatic at their victory. He wished he was.
Popping open another beer, he exhaled slowly. Nearby Katarina was on patrol. She was so silent he barely noticed her. Well, he did notice her. She was pretty in a sort of rough way. Her face was very lean, her cheek bones high. Her eyes were very keen and had fine lines around them. Of course, what was truly beautiful about her was her long, thick red hair that was now always braided down her back. He had considered asking her out, but when he wasn't sure what that meant in this dead world, he just gave up. One thing for sure, she was Nerit's star pupil, and scary as hell when on the job.
He sighed.
Right now, he hated his job.
A lot of people had thought it was all over when the bandits hightailed it out of town. Of course, that wasn't the end of it, but the civvies had thought it was. While they celebrated, Bill and Curtis, with a small group of armed guards, had exited out the loading dock door and grabbed one of the surviving bandits. Actually, it had been easy to grab him since he was crying hysterically and banging on the door.
The two survivors from the vehicle that had chased Travis' team had tried to shoot their way out of town. Out of ammo and his partner being eaten by the zombies, the last man standing had run back to the fort.
It had been Clyde Otis. Bill knew him. Clyde was the youngest of a family of crooks that hung out with the Boyds. The Otis Auto Repair Shop was nefarious for underhanded dealings and the scamming of unlucky travelers who broke down in the county. But the family was also in the center of other illegal dealings that went back a century.
Though the Boyds were the main crime family in a three county spread, the Otis family was tied into it by marriage and association.
Clyde, all of twenty-two, had cried like a baby the second Bill had hauled him into the fort. He reeked of alcohol and body odor. His redrimmed eyes and haggard expression spoke of hardcore drug use.
Unfortunately for Clyde, he was on his way back down from a high and completely overwhelmed. He had not struggled one bit. As a precaution they had tied him to a chair, but all Clyde did in response was cry more. He was unshaven and pale. His pupils were dilated and his nose raw.
“Lots of drugs, huh,” Curtis had said coldly.
Clyde had cried harder.
It had taken nearly an hour for him to calm down. The story came out in angry, then desperate answers to their questions.
The story was simple.
When the zombie plague hit, the Boyds rounded up their buddies and went on a crime spree. The first few days were full of looting, raping, revenge murders, and zombie hunting. The Boyds took full advantage of the situation. Clyde, unmarried, cried when he said his Mama and girlfriend had been eaten, but admitted that the gang had not attempted to protect their family other than the boy children. The wives, who had often sported broken noses, blackened eyes, and had a terrible lack of teeth, had been left to fend for themselves. The men gathered up the boys and took off in a caravan of death.
They picked up women survivors along the way, used them until they were lost to the zombies or died. Sometimes they played games with the women, dangling them off a rooftop over crazed zombies.
Sometimes the women were bitten and they tied them down until they died. Clyde swore up and down he had nothing to do with it, but Bill had seen all the classic symptoms of a man who was lying.
The bandits lived in a blur of violence, drugs, and alcohol. The new violent, deadly world was to their liking at first. They would listen to the fort's contact with survivors until they figured out where the survivor's were located, then swoop in if there was any indication of women or food.
Clyde admitted that the ruse that had often worked was to hold one of the women or young girls they had kidnapped at gun point and threaten her life if they were not given supplies. It was a ruse to get the survivors to open up their safe haven. The false promise to let the girl go was often believed, much to the bandits' amusement.
Moving from one place to the next, the bandits had slowly dwindled in numbers. In fighting among the bandits, zombies, and armed survivors had an impact on them. From the sound of it, most of them had been inebriated or high as a kite through most of the first months.
The bandits had avoided the fort out of fear of a military presence. It was only later that they realized the fort was just civilians.
Then the hot weather blew in and their steady diet of drugs, junk food, and alcohol began to have an impact. The need for food sent them scavenging. It was then they realized that the fort they had been ignoring had salvaged the food before they arrived. They had done some drunken hunting to sustain themselves, but eventually, their desire for guns and food had pushed them toward the fort.
Bill took a long drink and stared out toward the hills.
How long the bandits had watched, Clyde wasn't sure. But their leader, Martin, had been smart and sober enough to herd some zombies down to the fort to see how the survivors reacted. He had put the gun store under constant watch. Martin had been sure that the people in the fort would return to the hunting store when they felt threatened enough by the bandits and zombies. He had monitored enough of the conversations between the fort and Ralph to know of its importance. Clyde did admit the truck that attacked the rescue mission Bill had been on had not been planned. Martin had a sense of prison justice and the men who had screwed up so royally were given a fate similar to Shane's.
Bill rubbed his brow and sighed.