29

  When the man in the leather pants returned to the room, Caine had just about had enough. His embarrassment had abated, and his boredom had grown to the point that he was full-on pissed off.

  “Oh, if it isn’t the big flirt,” Caine said. “It’s about time you came back. Now, do you want to tell us what the hell is going on?”

  The guard wasn’t as cordial as he had been at first. The situation had changed, and his demeanor changed with it. He wasn’t rude about it, but the best buddy guard was gone.

  “What’s happened?” Eve asked as she stood up from the couch.

  “It looks like your friend is going to need more convincing.”

  “What does that mean?” Lana asked.

  “They want Mike to help them,” Eve said. “And he won’t.”

  “Wait a minute. Back up.” Caine was making the time-out sign with his hands. “You think we’re friends with Mike. That’s why you’re keeping me here? I can promise you he is not our friend. He was our cabby. That’s it. So, we can go now, right?”

  Caine stepped toward the door and the guard put a hand in the actor’s chest. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until the commander says so. So why don’t you have a seat and get comfortable. You may be here for a while.”

  Caine backed away, and Eve stood up quickly enough to make the guard take a step back. “I can’t believe you, Caine. You wanted to be this big hero, and here you are abandoning our friend and backing away from a fight.”

  “He’s not my friend, you’re the one that…I’m not backing away from a fight.”

  “Leather pants here gives you a little shove and you tuck your tail and run.” Eve gave Fidget a look that the beagle knew better than to argue with.

  “I’m not tucking my tail…I’m not a coward!”

  “Oh, yeah? I’ll bet you can’t even make a fist.”

  “Of course I can make a fist!”

  Eve folded her arms across her chest. “Show me.”

  “What? Now? I don’t want…not right now.”

  “Now!” Eve said, and Caine made a fist.

  The guard chuckled.

  “You call that a fist?” Eve laughed.

  “What’s wrong with…yeah, I do.”

  Eve stepped over to Caine and grabbed his fist. She positioned it level with his shoulder and straightened his arm. She stepped behind him and repositioned his hips and kicked at his legs until he had the proper stance.

  The guard was chuckling at Caine’s emasculation.

  Caine blushed and started to lower his hand.

  “Not yet,” Eve snapped at him.

  He sighed and put his fist back up.

  Eve backed away and took in the bigger picture. She nodded. “There. Just like that.”

  Eve turned around and stepped toward the guard.

  He put a hand in her chest and said, “I’m going to need you to⁠—”

  Eve grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted her body. She used the guard’s force and pulled him through the shove, forcing him off balance and into Caine’s outstretched fist.

  There was a crack and a thud as the guard hit the ground. Caine waved his hand back and forth and did his best not to actually say how much the strike hurt.

  Eve knelt next to the guard and made sure he was out before taking his pistol and tossing the keyring to Lana. “Go get the dogs.”

  “That was awesome!” Caine said, still favoring his hand. “How did you know that would work?”

  “People like laughing at you. You may not know this, but you make comedies.”

  “I make serious action films,” Caine said.

  “Yep, and they’re hilarious.”

  “Satch!” Fidget bounded off the couch and met the Great Dane as it bounded into the room.

  Lana reappeared a moment later. “Blue won’t come. She…well, she looks sad.”

  “I’ll get her,” Eve said.

  “We need a plan,” Caine said.

  Eve turned the gun and handed it, grip first, to Caine. “I’ve got one. I need you two to go get the Boomer.”

  “Wait. What?” Caine looked at the gun in her hand and backed away. “That’s not a plan.”

  Eve turned to Lana and handed her the weapon. “Get the Boomer, or any boat, and head upstream.”

  “Where are we taking it?” Lana asked.

  Eve grabbed one of the brochures Caine had dropped during his hissy fit and turned it over. There was an area map inset near the company’s address. “It looks like there’s a bridge just up the river. Meet us there.”

  “Us?” Caine gasped.

  “I’m going to find Mike and get him out of here.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Caine said. “We, we three, need to get out of here now.”

  “We like Mike,” Fidget growled.

  Eve looked back at Lana. “Stay quiet. Stay in shadows. And keep him quiet, and we’ll see you at the bridge.”

  Lana nodded.

  “Caine, shut up and do what Lana says.”

  Caine started to protest but realized he had no argument to make. Surely, he realized being on the boat was the better part of the plan. It moved. They could run away.

  Eve checked the hallway and found it clear. She pointed the pair toward an exit at the end of the hall and wished them luck. She watched until they were out the door and then headed back to where they had kept the dogs.

  The mastiff was lying in a corner. Thanks to their loose skin, the breed always had a somewhat sad look on their faces, but Eve could see true sadness there.

  “C’mon, girl,” she said, and tapped her leg.

  The dog raised her head and looked at her but didn’t move. The dog grumbled and stopped just short of a growl.

  “What did she say, Fidge?” Eve asked the beagle.

  “I don’t know,” Fidget said after taking a moment to process the sounds. “I don’t speak mastiff. But I understood what you said. If that helps?”

  Eve ignored the beagle and dropped down on her haunches. She patted the ground in front of her and spoke like she was talking to a child. “Come on, girl. Come over here.”

  The mastiff snorted and lowered her head. She was more than content to mope.

  “Yeah, she didn’t like you talking like that,” Fidget said. “No one does.”

  Eve stood up and dropped the kiddie tone. “Come on, Chewy. Let’s go get him.”

  “Oh good. I’m glad we get to use her real name now,” Fidget said. “It’s really been bothering her.”

  Hearing her true name was enough for the dog, and the mastiff leapt to her feet and raced over to Eve’s side. Eve scratched the dog’s head and led the trio of canines through the holding room and out into the night.

  Clifton was a small town, and sticking to the side streets proved difficult in that there were very few to choose from. Eve and the dogs dashed for a tree line behind city hall and found cover there. They watched the town for several minutes, trying to determine their next move.

  It may have been a small town, but it was big enough to hide a person pretty easily. From their perch they watched a military vehicle race south toward the outside of the town. They appeared to be in a hurry and Eve figured it was the best clue they were going to get, so they started heading south.

  More vehicles sped in that direction. They were answering some kind of call, and Eve hurried the group along. Maybe he had found a way to free himself, she hoped. Even if that was the case, with the amount of people racing out of town, he was going to need help.

  They found an old postal Jeep in the post office parking lot. She hot-wired it and was delighted to find it in working order. She wasn’t about to question her good fortune and assumed the faux raiders had some plan for the small truck.

  It wasn’t the fastest getaway car, but no one gave her a second look as she drove through the town, following the speeding vehicles southbound. They reached the edge of town in little time and pulled over into a truck stop parking lot. From there they watched the vehicles race down Third Street. A directional sign at the end of the street took all the guesswork out of where they might be holding Jerry.

  “A prison would be an ideal place to hold a prisoner. Don’t you think?”

  Breaking people out of prison was a notoriously hard thing to do. Even if it was minimum security, Eve was sure the guns-blazing approach would fail spectacularly.

  She looked around for another way. There was nothing but the truck stop diner. The lights were on inside and she could see several of the Penance members sitting at a counter in the dinner like some twisted, post-apocalyptic version of Hopper’s Nighthawks.

  The woman behind the counter was dressed in Penance wear as well and Eve grimaced. As dumb as wasteland apparel was for men, it was worse for women. She had never had any problem finding clothes that fit her well, much less clothes that covered her entire torso. But every poor woman in every gang she had encountered was doomed to wear a leather corset no matter what. The woman behind the counter was no different. She had the corset on and some kind of shoulder pads, possibly from a BMX brand.

  Eve knew she had to hate it, but it was impossible to tell because the ridiculous war paint made her expression difficult to read. It was even possible that she wasn’t a woman at all. The makeup was so thick that it could be Eve’s best friend and she wouldn’t recognize her. There was her plan, and she hated it.

  “What’s wrong, Eve?” Fidget asked. “You look sad?”

  “I’ve just had a terrible idea, Fidge. Can you do your wounded puppy act for me?”

  Fidget rolled over on his side and started whining. “Help me. Help. Help. I’m hurt and need some gentle heart to come⁠—”

  “Not for me, Fidget.” Eve said.

  “Oh.” The beagle rolled back to his feet. “For who?”

  Eve pointed to the woman in the window. “I’m going to need a disguise. A terrible, terrible disguise.”

  30

  Jerry had done everything he could in his life to stay out of prison. He’d never really been a troublemaker before the apocalypse, so it wasn’t particularly difficult. In fact, things had been rather boring until the whole world went to hell, and some people wouldn’t have hesitated to call him a goody two shoes. But, thanks to that boring life, he’d never seen the inside of a cell outside of a tour he took of his local police station with his Webelo group.

  But here he was in a medium security prison in the middle of Tennessee for trying to do the right thing, like the start of some old Paul Newman movie. Movie guards were friendlier though. At least they’d come by to mock the prisoners every once in a while. His jailors just beat the hell out of him, and he hadn’t seen them since.

  There’d been no sign of fake Andy, Dalton, or that liar Laura either. They were probably letting him have a good think before they dragged him out to make their pitch again. This time it would include more threats. Those threats would no doubt be centered around his friends. But that’s where he had them licked. He wasn’t sure he had any friends. As far as he knew, Caine and Lana could have been undercover the whole time, just like the rest. And Eve. He didn’t want to think it, but he had to be practical. The whole boat could have been in on it. At this point, that punk kid, Connor, was the only one he knew wasn’t out to play him because he’d already sold him and the Boomer out to Marco. That left only Chewy. And he knew that would be enough.

  No. Eve wasn’t one of them. She had a reputation, and if she was working with them, then they at least would have gotten the look of the Penance right. He could trust her, he decided. And he was satisfied with that decision.

  But that didn’t get him out of here.

  It was his first time in prison, but it wasn’t his first time being a prisoner. Usually it was a guarded basement or cellar. Sometimes they’d lock him in a shipping container. Those things were impossibly heavy, but every two-bit gang seemed to have a few lying around to lock people up in. Sometimes it was literally a hole in the ground. Once it was a freezer in a Piggly Wiggly. And somehow, he always managed to get out.

  He stood up from the bed and was quickly reminded that the bars weren’t the only thing keeping him in the prison. He was pretty sure he’d cracked a couple of ribs. His legs were two giant purple bruises and one of his eyes was a little more squinty than he’d like it to be.

  Those soldiers had really put a hurt on him.

  Even if he could get out of his cell, he was in no shape to get past anyone.

  He laid back down slowly and tried to take a better measure of the situation.

  On the upside, he seemed to be the only prisoner. So at least he wouldn’t have to fight anyone for dominance.

  He wasn’t alone, however. He’d been somewhat conscious when they dragged him in, and he saw that the facility was being used for housing. He guessed that after years in a bunker, anything was better than sleeping underground.

  He was a bit of an oddity to the soldiers. Whether they knew who he was or not, they couldn’t resist peeking into his cell whenever they walked past. Most remained silent. Others laughed at him. Some obviously had some inkling of who he had been. They muttered, “He doesn’t look so tough,” or “That’s what passes for a legend these days.”

  His good deeds were still haunting him. He couldn’t even hide on the river. He should have gone to South America. Or maybe taken the Boomer and made his way to Europe to see if they had fared any better.

  He knew they didn’t. If anyone anywhere had escaped the destruction, they’d have shown themselves by now. But maybe he would have had a better chance disappearing there.

  Instead he’d decided to stay, and now he was the first exhibit in the new National Zoo.

  He ignored the remarks of another solider and closed his eyes. He needed a plan, and one was starting to form. He couldn’t fight his way out, that was clear. It would have to be more subtle.

  So, step one was to get the warden’s confidence and become his bookkeeper. Over the years he would gain the respect of all the screws while secretly digging a tunnel out of his cell. In time, he would escape with enough proof to make sure the warden never saw the outside of a cell again, or hopefully, took his own life.

  Jerry sat up in the bed and sighed. No, that was Andy Dufresne’s plan. It took twenty years or so and he didn’t even have Morgan Freeman to narrate. Plus, if he remembered the book correctly, Andy got raped a lot. So it was a really bad plan. He’d have to think up his own.

  He stood once more and measured the pain in his legs. Fairly confident he could get up a good hobble, he figured making a break for it was worth a try. He made it to the cell door and decided on his new plan. It was pretty simple. He was going to grab the next face he saw and slam it into the cell door over and over again, all while making clever and biting remarks. He couldn’t decide if he was going to focus on the victim’s looks, stupidity or parentage when it came to the insults and decided to play it by ear. But, when the time came, he was going to make sure they really burned.

  Standing hurt too much so he slid down into a seated position. His plan was falling apart. He needed to prepare more, so he started working on some one-liners that weren’t so much dependent on the person whose face he grabbed.

  “A man walks into a bar” was one that would work. It was short enough that he could say it, then smash the face. That way they could hear it. It was obvious, though, that he planned on some pretty serious face smashing, so the victim deserved better.

  He could draw a guard close by asking them, “Why is a nucleus so angry?” They’d certainly want to know the answer to that, and he could shout, “Because it’s trapped in a cell,” just before the face smashing happened.

  No. It was too high brow. He had to remember his audience and play to the crowd.

  The ultimate would be the double pun trap. He’d tell the guard he had a problem and when the guard moved closer and asked, “What’s the problem?” he’d grab him and say, “I’m only getting two bars.” The face smash would come on the “two” for emphasis.

  No. He shook that one off as well. Cell phones had gone the way of the apocalypse, and he wasn’t sure they were relevant anymore.

  He searched the cell for inspiration and just kept coming back to the cell/bar combination and started to think that if there was a way to work “reception” into it, it might be salvageable. But he couldn’t make it work.

  He heard footsteps. He’d have to think of something fast or abandon the cutting remarks bit all together.

  He forced himself into a crouching position. His ribs were killing him, but from there he could spring up and attack. He hoped the guard he was about to face smash had keys. That was another important part of his plan. The next face he saw had to have keys. If they didn’t have keys, he was really just lashing out and not so much escaping.

  The footsteps were definitely coming his way. Oh well, having keys was on them. That was their part. He couldn’t be expected to do everything. He made one practice grab-and-smash move to make sure his body could take it. It was going to hurt, but he could do it. Now all he had to do was wait for a face.

  The next face he saw was Chewy’s. Instead of grabbing it and smashing it, he smiled and collapsed to the floor. The mastiff stuck her head through the bars and licked at his smile.

  Fidget tried to jump through the bars while whispering, “Don’t worry. I’ve come to rescue you.”

  Eve was standing outside his cell. The outfit was something else. Some of the elements taken separately, maybe he could see, but the corset and the shoulder pads were really sending mixed signals. She wore the shortest shorts he’d ever seen, but the crotch had spikes on it. The war paint? He could take it or leave it, honestly.

  “I’m extremely turned on and very frightened right now. Is that what you wanted?”

  “I don’t want to hear it. It made getting around easier.”

  “Even with those spikes in your⁠—”

  “Do you want out or not?”

  He smiled bigger. He knew she was one of the good guys.

  “We have to find the keys.”