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The others seemed to be at an impasse. Kyle and Hughes were prepared to shoot him and throw him over the cliff before Annie took them aside out of earshot. Parker had no idea what she said, but it startled them and bought Parker some kind of reprieve.
“Guys!” he shouted. “Please! Can you loosen these ropes? Just a little?” He doubted anybody could hear him. They didn’t want to. That’s why they left him tied him up in the other house.
He still couldn’t believe what he’d done. And he wasn’t just horrified that he failed and got caught. He’d be no less despondent had he succeeded. The only person he’d ever killed was Roland, and he did that to save himself and the others.
How many people sentenced to life in prison for murder were little different from him? Psychologically normal until one day they slipped and changed everything forever in a matter of seconds. Maybe everyone had it in them to kill under the right (or wrong) circumstances. Just look at those things. Even a Buddhist monk would turn into a cannibalistic predator if that virus got into his system.
On the other hand, maybe Parker wasn’t psychologically normal. Perhaps he’d had a murderous personality all along that just hadn’t been triggered yet.
He deserved to be punished. They had the right to put him in jail, so to speak, at least for a while. But they didn’t have to restrain him like Hannibal Lecter.
They must be planning to let him go at some point, though. Why tie him up and stick him in a room if they were still going to shoot him?
But Parker didn’t know what he didn’t know. The only reason they hadn’t killed him was because Annie took the others aside. She hadn’t taken them aside to object. She took them aside and said something so shocking it brought Kyle right down on his ass.
What did she say?
“Guys!” he shouted. “Please! Somebody talk to me!”
Nobody answered. Nobody came.
Annie sat on the brown leather couch in the guesthouse. She could see her breath and felt the cold seeping into her backside and legs right through her clothes. Hughes and Frank hadn’t returned yet from Eastsound. Kyle sat in a recliner on the opposite side of the room. He seemed a little afraid of her now. She couldn’t blame him.
“How long do you think they’ll be gone?” Annie said.
“Depends on if the town is still overrun,” Kyle said. “If those things have cleared out, they should be back this evening.”
“They aren’t things,” Annie said. “They’re people. With a virus. And viruses can be cured. How can you still not understand that?”
Kyle would never look at her the same way again now that he knew. Maybe he’d look at the infected ones differently. Eventually. He should.
But for now he looked pensive, still processing what she’d told him. Hughes and Frank were shocked too, but Kyle seemed more disturbed than the others. He had a thing for her. That was obvious. But now he wouldn’t stand or sit anywhere near her, as if she could transmit the virus by breathing on him.
“You don’t know that it’s curable,” he said. “Maybe it is. Maybe it’s even preventable. Or maybe you are just really damn lucky.”
Eastsound looked clear from the water. Hughes saw nothing moving in any direction. The town appeared as empty as it had been a few days earlier. Those things must have moved on.
He and Frank rowed ashore as silently as possible. This time they were better armed and better equipped. They had enough ammunition to take down a medium-size herd. They also had night vision in case they got pinned down again.
Hughes considered waiting for nightfall before hitting the beach. He and Frank would have the advantage this time since they could see in the dark. But the town really did seem to be clear, so they pulled the rowboat onto the rocky shore and set out.
They started with the pharmacy, where Hughes easily found what he needed, then hit the sporting-goods store. Hughes wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for in there, but he’d know what he needed as soon as he saw it.
“How about this?” Frank said and held up a fishing net. It was big enough to hold a few gallons of fish. The net was attached to a hoop two or so feet in diameter at the end of a six-foot-long pole. Perfect.
“Grab two of those,” Hughes said. “And we need some more rope and a roll of duct tape. Can’t forget the duct tape. Might not make it back without duct tape.”
He saw something else that caught his eye. Bear spray. He had never heard of bear spray before, but it sounded promising, and when he read the label he knew it was exactly what they needed.
The stuff was the same kind of pepper spray used against human assailants. Hughes once bought his wife a small can the size of his finger for her key chain when she was still able and willing to leave the house. The bear spray, though, came in a can the size of a beer bottle. It’s industrial-grade mace, more or less, and according to the label, the entire can empties in ten seconds if you hold down the button. This shit will drop anything with a respiratory system for at least a half-hour.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “where have you been all my life?”
“What did you find?” Frank said.
“Big-ass can of mace.” Hughes held it up. “For bears.”
“Not just for bears,” Frank said and grinned. “So we have everything we need now?”
“We have everything we need.”
They returned to the boat and shoved off. After paddling out 100 feet or so, Hughes raised his Mossberg in the air and fired a single explosive shot, one that would be heard for miles in every direction.
Then they waited.
It no longer made any difference if Kyle and Hughes still planned to shoot Parker. His back would kill him first. The way they’d tied him up forced him to lean all the way forward, and he’d been stuck in that position for at least twenty-four hours.
“Help!” he moaned. “You guys have to loosen me up! You’re torturing me!”
It really was torture. He wasn’t exaggerating. The human body can’t be contorted like that for such a long time. If they ever planned on letting him go, they damn well better get him comfortable, fast, or he’d turn homicidal again.
He never should have tried to kill Kyle, but he was beginning to wish he’d succeeded. Living with guilt and suspicion was far preferable to living with guilt, imprisonment, torture, and the threat of execution or exile.
He heard a boat engine approaching in the distance. Apparently they’d left and were now coming back. Was that why they hadn’t answered? Maybe they’d let him go now. Or at least let him know what in the hell they were planning.
Kyle heard Hughes and Frank on the gravel pathway outside. He opened the door and stepped onto the porch. Hughes carried his shotgun in his right hand and a brown paper bag in his left. Frank followed.
“Did you get it?” Kyle said.
“We got it,” Frank said. “It was a bitch and a half and we damn near got killed, but we got it.”
Annie joined Kyle on the porch. She crossed her arms and hugged herself to keep warm. “Where is it?”
“Still down at the dock,” Hughes said.
They left it down at the dock? Unguarded? “Is that a good idea?”
“It’s not going anywhere,” Frank said.
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