Jason Frost - Badlands

Eric stood shivering in the dark, waiting for the squeaking to get closer, lifting his crossbow, following the sound with the point of his arrow.

Squeak.

Squeak.

Whoosh.

The bolt zipped through the brush, rustling leaves as it spit into the night, finally chipping the edge of a pine tree and sticking in the ground.

Eric immediately dropped to the ground. He hadn't really expected to hit anybody, but he had expected something else. It came.

A blast from somebody's pistol, a 9mm from the sound of it, maybe a Steyer GB or a Tarus PT-99. Eric could see the flash only twenty feet away, hear the slug whizzing overhead on its way to the creek.

Less than two seconds after the shot, half a dozen other shots drummed the air. All of them directed at the flash twenty feet to the left of Eric. As he'd hoped.

"Stop it, goddamn it!" Dobbs yelled. "What the fuck you doing? Kriegstern? Hey, Kriegstern?" There was no answer. "Nice work, morons. You just blasted Kriegstern. Remember him? He's the guy with the wart on his eyelid. Worst fucking poker player in the squad. You killed him with me still holding his markers worth eight cartons of cigarettes and fifty rounds of ammo. Christ."

Eric crawled behind another tree. He'd been tempted to go after Kriegstern's body, see what provisions he might scavenge. If nothing else, that 9mm would come in handy. But they'd be expecting that. They'd be waiting.

Absently, Eric pinched at the thin, white scar that clung to his jawline before dripping down his neck like hot wax. Another memento from Dirk Fallows.

OK, get organized, Eric. First thing to do is hotfoot it back to Tracy, who he'd left to make camp just outside Santa Carlotta. Or what was left of Santa Carlotta. Wait here, he'd told her, I'm just going to scout their camp. Nothing more. She'd nodded, told him to be careful, she'd seen a cougar earlier when she'd gathered wood. He'd known she was lying, but had agreed to be extra careful. That was one of the strange things about Tracy. Lately, maybe in the last month, she'd started lying. Not about anything serious, not in a malicious way. About small things, things he'd usually know were lies anyway. But she'd say them with a straight face and argue like hell if he challenged her. At first it had bothered him. Now it was almost like a game, a charming game that somehow enhanced their intimacy. Like with the cougar story, he could tell she'd been disappointed when he hadn't challenged her about it, so right before he left he'd asked her exactly where she'd seen this cougar. She'd pointed south.

"That's south. We came in from the west."

She pointed west. "Right. I meant there."

"Uh-huh. There haven't been any cougars there in years. They moved north toward the mountains."

"They must be making a comeback."

He gave her a look.

She bristled. "Hey, Eric, you don't have to live with the fucking Hopi Indians to know a cougar when you see one. Big tail, pointed ears, claws the size of garden rakes. Yeah, it's a cougar."

"They're called pumas, not cougars."

"Whatever. Still rip your heart out."

He nodded and she gave him a triumphant smile.

"I'm just going for a quick look around. Be back in an hour."

That was four hours ago.

Eric had circled Fallows's camp, counting men, studying defenses, etching a mental map into his brain. Everything according to plan. Until he'd seen Timmy.

He'd had to get closer. Timmy's thirteenth birthday had been last week. The first birthday Eric hadn't been with him. Now, after three months as the captive of the man who'd butchered his mother and sister, Timmy was standing only a hundred yards away.

Eric was tempted to just dash in, grab the boy and run out again. But he knew they'd both be cut down within seconds. He had to swallow his emotion, jam it back somewhere deep inside where it wouldn't interfere.

But looking at Timmy touched something he couldn't protect. The boy's face was pale, the eyes dark, hollow. Not from malnutrition. If anything he'd even gained weight. But there was something in the walk, a bit of a swagger now. And the mouth, pressed into a mean sneer. Gone was the gentleness in the eyes, the quick smile, the whooping laugh of his mother. Instead he was starting to resemble the cruel soldiers he was living among. My God, starting to look a little like Dirk Fallows.

Eric struggled to think of some way to get a message to Timmy, some warning to be ready. At least assure him that Eric hadn't forgotten him. But there was no safe way.

Eric watched from the brush, suddenly startled by a drop on his cheek. Immediately he looked up, fearing rain, but realizing with some surprise it was his own tears. He hadn't shed a single tear since Annie's and Jenny's deaths. Had tried to kill that part of him, that feeling part, until Timmy was freed. But there it was anyway, damn.

They'd spotted him almost by accident. Three of Fallows's troops were chasing one of the girls they'd bought the day before from some roughneck camp. The girl was maybe twenty-three, twenty pounds overweight, with short, stringy hair. Naked. She ran, waddled really, through the woods, thorny branches clawing her pale skin raw. The men ran after her, laughing and squealing like pigs. One of them had her panties stretched over his Padres baseball cap, the leg openings hooked around his ears.

"Here, sweetie," he yelled. "Oink, oink."

She kept running, her mouth open and gasping for air, her chubby legs wobbly. Finally she collapsed into the dirt.

The three men stood around her laughing. The one with the panties on his head reached down, pinched one of her nipples, and yanked her by the nipple to her feet.

"P-please," she sobbed. "Please."

One of them grinned. "Christ, Roy, she's beggin' for it. Beggin'."

"Well, now, I told you I had a way with women. I guess she ain't never known somebody with as much imagination as me. Hell, 'tween the three of us, we showed her more combinations than a fuckin' bank vault." He tugged the bill of his cap lower. "Hey, honey, you ever see that movie Deliverance?"

"W-what?"

He twisted her nipple hard and she screamed. "Deliverance, you fat sow."

"I saw it, Roy," one of the others said. "Burt Reynolds. Son of a bitch can act."

"Well, there's a scene in there we're gonna act out right here, just the four of us. Right, fatty?" He twisted her nipple again.

"Yes! Yes!"

He smiled. "Good. Now get down on your knees like a good little sow."

She was sobbing hysterically now.

Roy jabbed his shotgun butt into her flabby stomach and she doubled over, grabbing her stomach as she dropped to her knees, sobbing. Mucus puffed from her nostrils.

"Yccch. You really are a pig." Roy handed his shotgun to one of the others and began unfastening his pants, pulling them down over his hips. He wore no underwear and his skin was even paler than the girl's, but with red sores all over his buttocks.

Eric watched, breathing silently through his mouth. This really had nothing to do with him. He was here for one thing, to get Timmy. Anything he might do to help that girl would only risk his life and therefore Timmy's. That was unacceptable. Besides, whatever happens would have happened anyway.

Roy let his pants puddle around his ankles while he hopped closer to the sobbing girl. He took off his hat and whacked her twice across her naked backside. "Quit moving, damn it!" He handed his hat to the same guy holding his shotgun. "Here, Greene. I always take my hat off in the presence of a lady."

"You got real manners, Roy," the other guy said.

"Dobbs, I got manners up the wazoo. Come here, you fat little watermelon. Quit yer bawlin'."

There was a sudden tearing sound, like a zipper being opened too fast. Then Roy yelled, spun around, his eyes huge with pain and fear. The crossbow bolt had drilled through his lower back, scraping his spinal column, severing a few important nerves on the way, and poked out of his abdomen a few inches below his navel. Roy staggered a couple steps, gaping at the bloody tip as if it were an alien invader. Then he grabbed the tip with both hands and pulled it all the way through his body. "Bastard!" he cried, staggering toward Eric on shaky legs, kicking at the pants around his ankles, holding the dripping arrow over his head like a spear. "I'll… kill… you." He pitched face forward into a thorny bush. Dead.