“Hold out your hand.”
Eric did so, and he was rewarded with a half-dozen pills. He clenched them in his fist, and the two of them shared a comrade’s embrace.
The drug-addled moment was broken by an angry holler from the other side of the room. Arthur looked towards it. It was Rick. He’d just arrived, and he was angry about something.
Arthur spoke. No one heard him.
“If this cocksucker ruins my buzz…”
17. Difficult to Tell
Mothballs…
When they finally stopped jostling her around, the first thing she sensed was the unmistakable odor of mothballs.
There was music. It was loud and violent. She heard voices every once in a while, but nothing distinguishable. At one point, a screaming argument erupted behind her. She could hear morsels of it over the buzz-saw guitars and cannon-fire drums. None of it made sense.
“…what is this!? What does any of this have to do with the bullshit you fed me when you brought me in!!?”
“…you wanna go to the cops? Go ahead! You were in that junkyard with the rest of us!”
“…She’s got nothing to do with this!”
“…you’re outnumbered, faggot! Get the fuck out of here!”
Considering the stupor she’d just left, she was surprisingly lucid. Her abductors hadn’t used any of the standard knock-out drugs. She had no personal experience with any of them, but she knew the recovery symptoms. She was on her side lying upon a soft surface that she (by the mothballs) guessed to be an old mattress. Her hands were tied behind her back, and she was blindfolded, but she wasn’t gagged.
Good. She could scream.
By the sensations against her skin as she inhaled, she could tell they hadn’t removed her top or undone her belt. She wiggled her toes. Her shoes were still on.
Good. She could run.
Her heart thumped inside her chest as she fought to keep her breathing under control. She didn’t want to give the dickless cowards an excuse to dose her again. Her instincts conquered her fear: fight or flight…a no-brainer. None of this ended happily without a clear escape route. She had to get a glimpse of her surroundings. She slowly and repeatedly squinted, manipulating her blindfold upward until a sliver of viewable space appeared under her left eye.
She was facing a couch. She could see the knees and feet of the couple sitting on it. The woman had on strappy shoes and was getting cozy with a guy who had on …
What is that? A black skirt? A long black coat?
The guy didn’t seem to be terribly into it.
It wasn’t enough. She couldn’t get the blindfold up any higher while her head was resting on the mattress. A tiny lift was all she needed. She tried to constrict her neck on one side, and a glaze fell over what little vision she had. She rested her head back down, but it didn’t help. The room started to spin. Stars darted around the insides of her eyelids. There were heavy footsteps near the couch. Her struggle with equilibrium and her instinct not to be stepped on made her roll onto her back.
She screamed, realizing what she’d done.
She expected a rag over her mouth, but instead felt a gentle hand against her face, accompanied by a cloud of cheap perfume. The touch turned into a caress fueling her rage. She spit and gnashed at the hand. She heard laughter. Something small and plastic landed on the floor next to her head and dribbled away…a bottle cap. She felt a drip on her arm. They were loading the rag again. She tried to kick with both legs, but they had the drug over her face before she could find her purchase.
The second dose sent her further into oblivion than the first. Once, maybe twice, she faded into dim consciousness over the next two hours until she woke up in the driver’s seat of her car. She was in her own driveway. She felt her face peel off the window as she sat up. She was dazed, and it was dark, but the light of the full moon allowed her to stay oriented. She slid to the left slightly as she fumbled for the driver’s door handle. There was pain…a distinct pain.
18. The Old Flag Factory, West Springfield
Like a mule train, Beck, Lynch, Gomez, and assorted utility FBI agents pulled into West Springfield with a paddy wagon at the rear. It was close to midnight when the abandoned flag factory came into view. It took them twenty-five minutes to get there from Potterford. It took them almost the same amount of time to find the only open area with access to moonlight. Samuel was right. If the UJ ever set up camp there, it would have been as a last resort. The building was on the edge of a scarcely populated industrial complex similar both in appearance and consequence to Potterford’s. Its six stories of brick, mortar, and mold threw an uninspiring silhouette against the night sky. The stench of a nearby landfill was in full force as it was most nights. The only way to the top floor was via an unlit concrete stairwell with no railing. Schlepping up as much as a case of beer would have been a chore.
Shafts of light from five government-issue flashlights skidded across the floor, walls, ceiling and dilapidated amenities. Apart from the swirling dust, the room was without activity, as was the rest of the building. There was no point in looking for a fuse box. The company’s electric bill hadn’t been paid since the reign of the Broad Street Bullies. There were mattresses, beer bottles, hundreds of cigarette butts…everything that would indicate that at least someone used the room for a party at some point. It was Gomez that found the kicker.
“Hey, Jaime. C’meer.”
There it was, lit in all its glory by Gomez’s torch. It looked barely used.
Lynch spoke. “The knife target…sweet. The tip was only ninety
