“There’s always talk around camp. Nobody knows what’s true and what’s bullshit.”
“Talk.”
“They say he’s eight feet tall and has pointed teeth like a shark’s.”
“Do you want me to shoot your goddamn face off?” Sheila yelled.
“You asked, so I told you.”
“Try us with something a little more credible,” Mortimer suggested.
“Most stories agree his headquarters is down south,” Paul said. “He sends out his spies to get information and deliver orders to the company captains. Sometimes people will just disappear, and everyone always says it’s one of the Czar’s spies doing an assassination.”
“The Czar?”
“That’s what everyone calls him.”
“Why?”
Paul shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
Sheila growled. “You’re a useless asshole.”
“Take it easy,” Mortimer said.
“Fuck easy,” Sheila said. “You don’t think this guy would have taken his turn if you hadn’t come back? Him and his buddies?”
Paul shook his head. “No way. I-”
“Shut your goddamn mouth.” She put the barrel of the automatic against his forehead, pressed hard.
“Hey, man, get her off-”
“Sheila, let’s not get excited, maybe just…” Mortimer took a step toward her.
“I should blow your fucking balls off, pig.” She aimed the gun lower.
“Sheila, don’t-”
“She’s crazy, man. Get her away-”
Bang.
Paul howled.
Bill jumped back. “Fucking shit!”
Mortimer could only watch in horror.
Blood gushed from the ragged hole between Paul’s legs. It came out fast, forming an ever-widening pool, like somebody had kicked over a five-gallon tub of raspberry syrup.
“Oh, God! Holy shit, man.” Hot tears rolling down Paul’s suddenly pale face. “You’ve got to help me. Oh, Jesus.”
“In some places, they chop off a thief’s hand,” Sheila said. “This is what you get.”
“Oh, Jesus God, help me, fucking shit, I’m going to die, oh, shit.” The blood gushed out so fast, they could see him actually deflate, shrinking against the pine trunk.
Mortimer gulped. “Do we have a first-aid kit, something to staunch the blood?”
“Are you kidding?” Bill looked green. “He’s like a damn blood geyser or something. How do we stop that?”
Paul’s head flopped, and his chin hit his chest. The bloodflow had slowed to a dribble. The former Red Stripe sat in a pool of his blood so big and round, it seemed impossible that it had all fit inside him. Paul had drained and looked shriveled. A raisin that had once been a grape.
“I never seen anybody bleed out that quick before,” Bill said. “Must be some kind of world record.”
“Good.” Sheila turned her back on the mess and began to pack.
Mortimer stood a little while, feeling vaguely sick. The copper smell of blood mixed with coffee and pine.
They finished gathering their gear and followed Sheila back to the road. They walked a long way in silence.
XXVII
They walked for two days toward Chattanooga, looking for human settlements but finding none. There was only the long broken highway and the occasional dead automobile. They saw people in twos and threes once or twice in the distance but paid them the courtesy of leaving them be. Once, a line of Red Stripes sent them into a ditch, where they watched and waited as the column marched past.
They said little to one another. An uneasy pall hung over the trio. To Mortimer, Sheila now seemed like something alien and dangerous. Equally disturbing was how Bill took the episode in stride, almost as if a young girl hadn’t blown a stranger’s testicles into hamburger at all.
Mortimer realized his problem had nothing to do with Bill or Sheila. They knew how to conduct themselves in this shattered world. Mortimer didn’t. But he was learning. Violence is the way now. It gets you what you want.
