After The Virus (13 page)

Even before, this area must have been hell personified for its residents.
Why squat here when this picturesque coastal city was mostly empty?

They crisscrossed through the streets and alleys, as if evading a tail they didn’t seem to have, and finally drove right into a slum motel.

The other cars took off while they — her, the Doctor, and Shriller in the back, with Grunt driving and Mandy yammering — parked in the lobby.

As they got out of the car, five others climbed in and backed out. Decoys, she guessed, and almost laughed at their cloak-and-dagger play.

Brick, wood, and glass littered the lobby, like they’d just rammed a car through the front and left it a ruin. That said a lot about them, none of it good.

They crossed through the hotel out into the back alley, so that wasn’t their home base. Finally, they ended up in a waterfront warehouse. Rhiannon figured the warehouse wasn’t base of operations either, but she wasn’t sure if it was the lights, makeup, or wigs that gave it away.
 

Perhaps it was just the life-sized reproduction of her latest Vanity Fair cover hanging from the rafters that was the most obvious tell.

Why haul a generator to some printing house just to print that jumbo photo?
She sensed she wasn’t going to be able to figure these people.

There had to be twenty dresses, all in shades of green matching the one she’d worn in the cover shoot, hanging on portable racks nearby.

“After we knew he wanted you, we thought about using a double,” Mandy explained as she crossed to turn on the lights ringing the mirrors. “I’ve been styling wigs and collecting dresses, we discarded a few ultimately unsuitable candidates… no worries, now we have the real deal.” Mandy actually smiled, like Rhiannon should be excited to be included in their madness, but she’d never been a fan of spy films; too many twists.

Mandy returned to examine her in the bright light, and chided, “You’ve lost weight you couldn’t afford to lose.”
 

“You haven’t,” Rhiannon smirked.

Mandy just ignored her as she turned to complain to Grunt. “This is going to take me hours. Just look at her hair: sun-bleached straw! And don’t even get me started on her skin. I’m worried these are more than dehydration lines, and the uneven tan… I’ll have to airbrush.”

“You never did like the natural beauty look, did you Mandy? I guess such a thing just isn’t doable when you don’t have the right canvas.”

They’d reverted to ignoring her. Grunt, so typically, grunted in response to Mandy’s bitching, then turned to settle into a dilapidated couch out of place and era against a cement wall.

“She’s going to have scrapes and bruises, especially on her ribs,” the Doctor warned.

“I don’t give a shit about her ribs. By the time he sees her ribs, it’ll be too late, in more than one way.” Mandy sneered with narrowed eyes in a feeble attempt to menace.

“Sleepy, Mandy?” Rhiannon asked. “Maybe you need to pee pee? Or maybe it’s an infection? Get the Doctor to look; wouldn’t want to lose an eye.”
 

“I hate you, Rhiannon Wells. I always did. You never, never… you’re so… cold,” Mandy sputtered. “I never got, never understood why —”

“Why what? Why people want to fuck me? Be me? A character on the big screen? Why not? Wasn’t it better than their lives, than your life?”

Mandy stepped close, ready to hurt, ready to kill, but without the wherewithal or skill to pull it off. She was too short to be threatening.
That’s what hate really looks like
, Rhiannon mused.
Guess I never really got that
. Then Grunt grunted and a little muscle went out of Mandy.
 

The Doctor redirected the boring catfight. “The dress has a very low back, too low to hide the rib bruising. It might spoil the package.” Though she seethed at being referred to as a package, it wasn’t the first time she’d been called dirty names. She opted to sow more discord.

“Actually, it has to be glued into place,” she unhelpfully offered. “If you‘ve found the right one.”
 

“I found the right one!” Mandy snapped, and then turned on the Doctor. “And I’ll cover any bruises. It might take hours, but I’ll make her look like the picture. I am that good.” Nothing to dispute there; unfortunately, Mandy was that good, and Rhiannon Wells would be looking like her old airbrushed self in no time.

The Doctor retreated to the couch, but chose to stand at the grimy window rather than sit. More red-painted freaks snuck in to get a look.

“Get her clean and into a robe. The hair will need toner,” Mandy ordered Shriller, and then flounced off to play with her warpaint collection.

“I am not undressing for you,” Rhiannon stated firmly.

Shriller laughed. “Oh, honey, I’ve seen it all!”
 

“Not me, you haven’t,“ she retorted.

 
Mandy’s giggle hit more than one false note. “Really, Rhiannon, the whole world saw those pictures. It’s the Internet.”

She didn’t respond. She’d never done nude. There had been too many other abuses, mostly as a child, where she hadn’t had a choice, so this she had rabidly protected. Thinking about it now, she wouldn’t have put it past Manic Mandy to have posted those Photoshopped pictures to the Internet.
What a bitch!
As head of makeup, Mandy made at least a thousand dollars day off Rhiannon Wells’ box office appeal. But then, she was just that good. And Rhiannon Wells had never been one to deny anyone their talent.

“So let me get this: you’re going to dress me up like that…” — she gestured toward the life-sized Vanity Fair cover — “…and what, use me as bait?”

“You always were quick, Rhiannon,” Mandy maliciously purred. “Don’t worry; we’ll give you a little script to follow along and everything.”

“I understand the guy is bad news — ” she started to negotiate, but Mandy flew into a rage:

“Bad news! Do you even know what he’s doing?”

“Okay, Mandy, you don’t have to foam at the mouth about it! I saw the baby mills. And they did slaughter everyone in my group, except me.”

“You always were undeservedly lucky, Rhiannon,” Mandy bitched. “Your face gets you everything.”

“It was my ovaries that time,” she countered.

“Well, this time, it’ll be us trading your face, and you’ll finally do some good instead of just milking money from masturbating losers. And the fact that it will be the last moments of your life makes it an even sweeter victory.” Mandy flounced her hair again, and turned to open another box.

“Ouch, nasty. Have you been reading again? That’s a lot of story for such a little head.” Rhiannon smiled like she meant it as a compliment.

Mandy didn’t rise; playtime was over. Now she was going to have to face what they wanted and figure a way to get Snickers and get gone.

Shriller tugged her elbow toward a dressing area. “Come on, sugar,” he prompted.

“And if I say no?” she tested. Shriller shook his head.

“There’s no ‘no’ here, you get it? You’re not worth much more than that cutout to them,” he cautioned. “Except you they can get in the door.”

“That’s what I thought,” she sighed.

“They got you out the first time,” he whispered. “And you weren’t supposed to go back for the dog.”

“That was them?” Rhiannon was surprised.

“Yep,” Shriller continued, “but the dog was bait. You ruined that. Then they figured out who you were.”

“Bait?” she queried casually, aware that at any moment he was going to stop answering questions.

“He collects things,” Shriller answered.

“And when he collects me?” But she already knew the answer. She saw it flashing within Shiller’s fervent eyes. They all watched her too closely.

Fanatics suck balls.

“Then we’ll know where to find him and end his reign of terror.” Shriller’s eyes gleamed, and his voice took on a preacher’s resonance.

“You guys aren’t much better, are you? Look how you’ve treated Snickers and me, like meat.” Shriller physically recoiled at her suggestion.

“We’re saviors of the world!” he yelled. Grunt looked up from his magazine. “You are the vessel of that salvation; you should be euphoric!” Shriller continued to shrill.

“I am not, nor will I ever be, interested in sacrificing myself for your cause.“ She turned to face Grunt as he slowly shifted off the couch. “Give me Snickers and a gun,” she offered. “I’ll take care of the guy. Maybe you think I should’ve before, but it wasn’t my place to do so.”

“No,” Grunt bluntly answered. “You’ll do it our way. We’ve worked out all the angles. We know this one’ll work. Take. Off. Your. Clothes.”

Mandy, who was playing at styling a wig, looked up, eager for another match of wills, ready to gobble up any energy, negative or otherwise.
 

The virus now tallied survivors’ souls in its body count.

Rhiannon didn’t know how much to gamble on them not hurting her. It wasn’t just her life she was throwing away. She had Snickers to consider. They might be all half-dead inside, and though she’d known that feeling, it wasn’t her anymore, not with Will and Snickers on the horizon.

“Give me Snickers. I’ll do anything.” She actually lifted her chin for emphasis as she counter offered. “No Snickers, no cooperative play.”

The Doctor sighed and rubbed his face like he didn’t want to see what was to come. She had a sinking feeling she’d overplayed her hand.

Grunt lunged to grab her arm and drag her toward a desk chair that was set up in front of a TV. So they’d been ready for her refusal.

He slammed her into the chair. He slapped on the TV. She thought about attacking him, but was sure the others wouldn’t let her get in many hits. The TV displayed a live feed of a street that looked to be in the middle of the city. She wondered how they’d gotten the technology working.

“Release the girl.” Grunt, his hand clamped to her shoulder, spoke into a walkie. Her heart sank so heavy she couldn’t breath for a moment.

A man on the TV suddenly darted out into the middle of the street. He was carrying a little hooded person, carrying a hooded Snickers.

Rhiannon just sat there, frozen in her terror for the child as the man placed Snickers down on the double yellow, yanked off her hood, and ran. He left her there, alone and bewildered. Her arms were tied at her back, and with her broken arm, that had to hurt terribly.

Snickers, absorbing her new environment, rotated in a slow circle. In doing so, she momentarily faced the camera.

Rhiannon felt the pain of Snickers' abandonment like a knife through her heart. Mandy leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“Your fault, isn’t it?”

The camera zoomed into the sign around Snickers' neck, which read: “Ask me how I know Rhiannon Wells.” Her face was streaked with dirt, not tears. Snickers tried to run to the side of the street, but stumbled over her cobbled legs. She fell to her knees, and, head bowed, stayed down.

Rhiannon moaned. She couldn’t help it.

“Ah, Rhiannon, don’t worry. Because of that sign, they’ll pick up the girl and maybe take her to him. We can’t track her, ‘cause they’ll search too thoroughly. But you, when you go in after her, he won’t let anyone lay a hand on you.” Mandy stroked her hair and cooed, “I’ve got you figured out, Rhiannon. You have a soft spot for this child; who knows why, but we’ll use it.”

She had her hands around Mandy’s neck before anyone reacted to her move. She slammed the makeup artist to the floor and began to choke death from her. Grunt tried to yank her off, but she wasn’t going anywhere until the bitch was dead. She had made a pact with Snickers, and she would honor it.

She heard the Doctor yell, “Don’t hurt her! Otherwise all this will be for nothing!”

Mandy’s face was turning a lovely shade of purple.

She felt the sting of the needle and lost her grip on Mandy when she reached to pull it out, but in the end, the Doctor was too fast.

Suddenly her ribs didn’t hurt anymore.

She couldn’t operate her hands.

Mandy, coughing up a lung, rolled away.

Rhiannon’s eyes and then brain fogged.

She clung to her final image of Snickers abandoned on the street; that way, when she woke up, she’d remember exactly what she had to do.

She noticed they didn’t let her hit ground when she finally gave in and slumped forward.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WILL

In the end, One Ear did actually draw them a map. Surrounded by candles in the lounge of the hotel, they all hunched over to study it.

One Ear had obviously spent some time in art class as a kid, and took well to the crayons they’d provided; he used color liberally. The known population — blue for the bad guys, red for the other bad guys (who took Rhiannon and Snickers), and yellow for unknowns — seemed grouped around one main street. Heavily armed, barricaded checkpoints stood at the four main entry points to the city, and only one of them had a working gate.

That is, if they could trust One Ear, which Will for one certainly didn’t, not for a moment.

Rhiannon must have slipped through an unclaimed part of the city to get out, but they certainly weren’t getting a tank in that way.

“It’s all about offensive and defensive lines,” he murmured out loud, and resisted cradling his head in his hands out of hopelessness.

One Ear snorted and Big cuffed him on the back of the head. “Let the man talk it out. You never planned to invade a city either.”

Will’s head shot up as he figured through Big’s unwittingly accurate statement. One Ear avoided his gaze as he added details to the map.

“You guys didn’t need to invade. The city was just sitting there waiting for anybody to lay claim. Hell, it would have been chaos back then, what eight, nine months ago?”

Big nodded in agreement. One Ear was coloring in what looked like a large park surrounded by water with a large bridge spanning off it.

“No city has a park that big right in prime real estate,” Big bitched. “He’s lying to us, Tex. Let me remind him how to draw straight.”

“It’s there, Big. I saw it once, I was in town for a charity thing.” Will smiled at Big’s disbelief, and wondered at his ability to do so in this dark hour. Except it didn’t really feel that dark. He knew Rhiannon would do anything to keep Snickers safe. Hell, she threw herself off a damn cliff. So it was just Rhiannon’s safety he had to worry about, and if they all were right about her being a prized possession, then he had leeway. Well, until she pissed the highest bidder off enough for them to think about doing damage in order to control her.