Craig Johnson - Hell Is Empty

“Unless you would like me to stay?”

“No.”

It wasn’t fair to dragoon Virgil into official business that wasn’t his own. I slung the strap of the binoculars around my neck, pulled a glove off, and extended a hand. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

I continued to look up at the giant. “Well, for getting an eight-hundred pound four-wheeler off me, for one-I’d still be down there near the creek bed if it weren’t for you.”

He nodded and then glanced at the Thiokol. “Maybe that would’ve been better.” His double head turned back to me, the bear one sitting a full foot taller than mine-short, really, for a grizzly. “Anyway, I got beef stroganoff out of the deal.”

“And a bottle of Omar’s Pappy Van Winkle’s.”

He shuffled his enormous feet. “You saw that, huh?”

I rubbed the lump on my head-the cold must’ve reduced the swelling. “I did.”

His eyes came back to mine, and he finally took my hand, enveloping it in his. “You don’t miss much, do you, Lawman?”

“Nope.” I liked him, as much as you can like a giant sociopath who had killed so often he couldn’t even remember all the lives he’d taken, human and otherwise. “You better get out of here before the shooting starts.”

He stood there looking down at me, and I was sure that even if I could’ve made out more of his face, I still wouldn’t have been able to read his expression. It was hard not to try, though. His mammoth chest rose and fell, but he said nothing more, then stooped through the lower limbs and walked away without comment.

I listened as the deer hooves chattered into the distance, then turned and, bringing the binoculars back up to my eyes, studied the vehicle below just in time to catch someone standing in front of one of the frost-covered side windows strike a match and light what looked to be a cigarette. I lowered the binoculars and remembered one of my late wife’s slogans about smoking: “Cigarettes are killers that travel in packs.”

Following the tree line around the meadow, I found a pretty good spot where I could approach the Thiokol Spryte from the rear where it had no windows. One side mirror hung crookedly and the other was completely encased in ice, so if they were going to see me they were going to have to stick their heads out or open the rear doors.

The closer I got to the thing, the more it reminded me of one of the old APCs we’d used in Vietnam, the one with the clamshell doors. Still a good fifty yards away, I could see the handles and figured the direct approach was the one I would use-simply yank the doors open and lead with the Colt. I certainly didn’t see any reason in yelling out who I was and, more important, where I was until I had the drop on them. I was walking slowly, but the snow was so dry and cold it crunched even under the snowshoes; hopefully, they couldn’t hear it.

I’d left the backpack at the edge of the clearing but had the Sharps cradled under one arm, the binoculars still hanging from my neck. A gust of wind carried over the western ridge, causing the pines to sway and giving me a little white noise with which to work as I traversed the last fifty feet and stopped only a few yards from the Thiokol. I stood there, not moving and listening for any sounds that might escape from the Spryte, but could hear nothing. If my calculations were correct, it’d been about fifteen minutes since I’d watched someone inside light their cigarette-plenty of time to smoke it and go back to the sleeping bag, if not to sleep.

I slowly let out my breath and watched as the vapor trailed to my right, dissipating and fading into the half-moonlit meadow as I took the last few steps.

The handle on the vehicle was a large lever-action one, like those you saw on walk-in freezers in grocery stores. There was a small trip mechanism at the end of it with matching holes where a padlock could be used to secure the two doors. If I’d had enough padlocks and the other doors were so equipped, I could just lock them in and let them drive around until they ran out of gas.

I carefully played the small trip mechanism out of the way of the bar, placed a hand on the foot-long lever, and remembered to breathe, hoping that the moonlight would illuminate the interior enough so that I could see who it was I might have to shoot.

I yanked the handle up and swung the door wide, jamming the. 45 into the opening. There was no one inside near the doors, but something glowed to my right, so I aimed the Colt at the small amount of light and movement.

The other Ameri-Trans guard sat covered in a blanket against the bulkhead. He was puffing on a cigar, his right hand cuffed to the grating that divided the cab from the cargo space. He pumped the stogie like a bellows and rocked back and forth; I could barely make out his eyes, he’d pulled his knit company logo cap so low on his forehead. “Thank God, I thought I was going to have to be here like all night.”

I kept the. 45 on him but allowed my eyes to scan the interior-empty-and then looked back at him. “You’re alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are the others?”

He nudged the cap back with the butt of his free hand. “Gone, man. They’ve been like gone for hours.”

“Where?”

He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know where I am.” He shoved himself a little farther into the corner but continued rocking. “You mind coming in and closing that door? I’m like freezing my ass off.”

“What’s your name?”

“Brian Heathman. We’ve met.”

“We have?”

“Yeah, back at that lodge where the Bureau guys set up camp; it was like just a handshake.”

I readjusted the Sharps and lowered the Colt. “Sorry, Brian, that seems like a million years ago. I’m going to get my pack. Stay here.”

He nodded his head and squinted his eyes through the irony and cigar smoke as he rattled the handcuffs. “Very funny.”

I holstered the Colt, made the round-trip to the tree line, and returned with the pack. I removed my gun-hand glove, tucked it in my inside pocket, and then pulled the Colt out again and stuffed the semiautomatic into the side of my coat.

I opened the door and tossed the pack onto the floor of the Thiokol. Heathman had pulled the blanket up around his neck. I climbed in and shut the door behind me, careful to leave it unlatched, as he reached overhead and turned on the dome light.

“You’re going to run down the battery on this thing.”

Still rocking, he removed the cigar from his mouth and shook his head. “The transmission is like shot; it’s a lawn ornament. Hey, you don’t have anything to eat, do you?”

I pulled the pack up, unzipping and rooting through the detachable top. I found the aged bag of Funyuns and held it up.

He tucked the cigar into the corner of his mouth and took the bag. “Oh man, these have the cutout. Frito-Lay hasn’t used those since like ’05.”

“Cutout?”

He held it up for my inspection. “The little window where you can see the product; they’ve all got solid bags with a photograph now.” He turned the bag to look at it. “Who knows how old these things are.”

I glanced into the pack, aware that I had a few sandwiches further down, but I wasn’t giving those up just yet. “I’ve got some very old Mallo Cups, and some beef jerky that appears to have hardened into iron ore.”

He transferred the cigar into his attached hand and ripped open the vintage chips with his teeth. “Anything to drink?”

Pulling one of the water bottles from the side of the pack, I placed it on the bench at his covered feet and took another for myself. I unscrewed the top, resting it on the seat beside me, and took a swig. No need for ice. “Didn’t they leave you anything?”

I took a little time to study him-he looked rather incongruous with the cigar in his cuffed hand. He was a little heavy, which might’ve explained why Raynaud Shade had left him behind. Maybe.