Dead Man's Song

A farm truck came along the road and Vic just lay back in the weeds, invisible. His pickup was parked fifty yards up a curving access road that was almost never used. When the truck had passed, Vic sat up and then stowed his gear back in his bag. He rose, leaving the bag in the weeds, and moved farther down the bank to the closest iron leg, keeping a weather eye on the road. Confident that no one was coming, he pulled a Stanley tape measure off his belt and spent the next few minutes measuring both the concrete base and the steel leg of the bridge support, pausing to jot some numbers down in a notebook. The last measurement done, he pocketed the book, clipped the tape measure onto his belt, and climbed the hill to recover his bag. He checked the road carefully and then headed up the access lane to his truck.



Pine Deep was completely surrounded by water, with the Delaware on its eastern flank and the Pine River on the west; the Crescent Canal bordered it in the north, and a hooked arm of Pine River swooped down to meet the Delaware again in the south. In colonial days, before the town was officially organized it was generally called Pine Island on old maps. There were four bridges connecting the town to its neighbors: Crescent Bridge, Old Corn Bridge, Swallow Hill Bridge, and this one—the Black Marsh Bridge.



Vic glanced at his watch. It was just 7:00 A.M. He smiled. There was plenty of time to quietly measure all of them and still have most of the day left to do some other chores. At home he could download the digital pics onto his computer and make a closer study of stress points to pick just the right spots to plant the dynamite.



After that he could settle down and have a nice long conversation with his new houseguest. That should be enlightening. He was whistling a happy tune when he pulled his pickup off the access road and headed north up A-32.



(3)



Karl Ruger sat in darkness while Vic was out. There were basement lights he could turn on, but he preferred the darkness. It was less dark to him, he knew, than to others, and that knowledge pleased him. It made him feel like a cat. Not a little housecat, but a big hunting cat. A leopard slinking through the jungles, eyes seeing all the way through the shadows. Like that.



Ruger used the time alone to prowl through Vic’s library, and what he read was enlightening. Such as the fact that it didn’t matter that it was bright sunshine outside. There were no windows in the cellar, and all he needed was to stay out of direct sunlight, out of the heavy UV. That was just one of the things he learned in his first hour of browsing, his searches through the pages nudged along by the voice in his head. The voice of his god; the same voice that had spoken in his thoughts moments before Tony had crashed their car the other night. Tony and Boyd hadn’t heard anything—the message wasn’t for them. Ruger, you are my left hand. While Griswold had whispered to him time had seemed to slow, to revolve around Ruger’s need to hear the message of his god. Vic Wingate has been my John the Baptist…he has paved the way; but you, Karl…you will be my Peter, my rock, and on this rock I will build my church.



“Yeah, you’re damn right,” he said to the darkness, and there was great love in his voice. Dark and twisted, but as passionate as any monk who whipped himself by night in the darkness of his cell.



He wondered how much of the Plan Vic really knew. He knew a lot, sure, had laid the groundwork, and even Ruger had to admire the attention to detail as Vic had outlined it all a few hours ago. When the Red Wave hit the poor bastards in this town wouldn’t have a chance. Not a prayer. Props to Vic on that. And Vic seemed to know a lot about what Ruger was, and what his limits were, pro and con. He kept that pistol with him all the time, with its special loads. Another point for Vic. Vic had even drawn up a list of the locals who were least likely to be missed while the Man’s army grew—loners, families in isolated farms, unpopular assholes who wouldn’t be missed under any circumstances. Vic called it his Greatest Hits, which Ruger found funny; it was the only time he and Vic had laughed together. Boyd had started the recruitment, but now that Ruger was in the game the whole process would accelerate so that they would be completely ready on Halloween.



For all that, it wasn’t Vic who was seeing the most important part: Vic, blackhearted son of a bitch though he was, couldn’t turn anyone, couldn’t make more soldiers for the Red Wave. Vic could kill people, true enough, but only Ruger, and to a lesser degree Boyd and the ones that brainless jackass already recruited, could make a kill and then turn that kill into a recruitment. It didn’t matter that there were already twenty soldiers out there like him because in truth none of them were quite like him. The Man had told him so. He was special. A general, a king among them, just as the Man was a god to their kind. This was the pecking order. Vic thought it was the Man then him and then everyone else on their bellies below him, but that was bullshit. Ruger knew different because the Man has whispered inside his head while Ruger was doing time in the morgue drawer. Ruger was key to the ongoing success of the Man’s agenda. So, once the Red Wave hit, what good would Vic really be to the Man? Either he’d have to be made into a soldier himself, and Ruger didn’t like that idea, or Vic would have to be someone’s lunch.



That thought made Ruger smile in the darkness.



Vic must know that his usefulness was limited, too, otherwise he wouldn’t be holding back so much information from him. He clearly knew more about what Ruger was than he let on. Maybe even more than was in the books. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why. Vic wanted to have an edge over Ruger and his recruits even after the Wave came and passed, and Vic needed to be seen as a valuable resource just in case Ruger ever exceeded him in the estimation of the Man.



Ruger looked down at the clipboard that lay on his lap. Once Vic had gone out for the day Ruger had started making a list of things he did, and did not, know about who and what he was. He was wasting no time. When Vic came home Ruger would hide the list. There was almost a month to go before Halloween. Plenty of time to poke around, read a book or two, and maybe do some experimentation. It was always better to be more in the know that the mooks you had to deal with. Not that Vic was really a mook—he was smart and he was sharp, but he wasn’t as smart or sharp as he thought he was, Ruger was sure about that.



He looked down at his list. The word “blood” was written near the top and he considered that point. Yeah, he could feel the urge, but it wasn’t at all like he expected. It wasn’t an ache in the stomach like a starving man would get, or even a burn in the veins like a junkie. This was way deeper than that—more like a stirring in the groin, something sexual. Ruger knew all about that and he knew that only a total idiot let his dick drive the bus. That kind of thing could be controlled. Maybe, he thought, even refined. That would take some thinking, maybe a little practice.



He heard muffled footsteps echoing from upstairs. Vic’s wife, Lois. Ruger hadn’t met her yet, but he could smell her, even all the way down here. Gin and perfume, nervous sweat and fear. A nice combination. She might be worth practicing on one of these days when Vic was out. He’d have to think about that.



Lower down on his list was the word “sunlight.”



“Go outside and you’ll burn, sport,” is the way Vic put it. Ruger saw that a lot in the books, too, and he’d seen it in movies. The thing was, that it wasn’t in all of the books. Not the older ones, anyway. He had to wonder about that and thought of ways to test it.



“No time like the present,” he murmured as he got up. The back door was closed and locked and Vic had the key, but that didn’t mean jack shit to Ruger. He took the door-knob in one hand and closed his left hand around the dead-bolt assembly and pulled. It resisted his pull, but only for a second, and then the screws Vic had sunk into the oak just tore loose with a screech of protest and the door jerked inward.



“Well kiss my ass!” Ruger breathed, impressed. It was far easier than he had thought it would be. Good to know. Outside the sunlight filled the entire alleyway and by instinct Ruger lunged back away from its touch as it painted the door with clear light, but then he stopped, just on the safe side of the line of the glare, still in shadows. He licked his dry lips and stared at the light outside for a full minute, counting the seconds. Looking at it was no problem, and that was good. Then he raised his left hand and tentatively reached out, coming right up to the dividing line between shadow and sunlight, and then crossed it with just the tips of his fingers. His hand was shaking as he felt the warmth wrap itself around each black nail, around the paper-white skin.



It hurt. It hurt a lot, but he did not catch fire. His skin didn’t blacken, didn’t even turn red. Even when he leaned forward and let the golden morning light bathe his face and hair. Not a whiff of smoke. Only pain, and what was pain to him but an old friend?



Ruger closed the door and went back to his chair. It took over two hours for the pain to subside, and for a while he had to grit his teeth together to keep from yelling. Time passed slowly, and while it did Karl Ruger learned a lot about himself, and about what he was. It was stuff he was certain Vic would not want him to know.



While the pain was at its worst, Ruger used the agony to focus his mind, used it like a whip to keep his train of thought on its tracks. As he endured the misery of it, he thought of Malcolm Crow, and of all the things he would like to do to him. Crow, and that black-haired Guthrie bitch. Twice he had tried to kill them, and twice he’d had his ass handed to him. There would have to be a third time, and he didn’t know if he could wait until the Red Wave to see it done. No, by the time the Wave hit he wanted them both broken and dead. Or better yet…recruited. Yeah, that had a nice feel to it.



A fresh wave of pain hit him and he kept the hiss of suffering inside as a plan began to form in his brain. Yeah, he mused, maybe recruit Val Guthrie and then use her against Crow. First break his heart, then break him down, and when he had nothing left, maybe Ruger would let Val send him on with a big, red kiss. He closed his eyes and with that thought in his mind the pain transformed from agony to true ecstasy, and he reveled in it, allowing the pain to be both his teacher and his mistress. There was a lot to learn from pain, and how one handled pain; Karl Ruger had learned a lot over the years, but right now he was learning its deeper secrets. Boy, would Vic be surprised.