Green Ice: A Deadly High (29 page)

Trey nodded and relayed the message.

“Why is that guy issuing orders?” Jorge asked. “I heard him in the background. Is he dangerous?”

Trey wasn’t sure how much of the conversation Sonny could hear. His mind was fogged and he didn’t know what to do for the best. Was it an advantage to warn Jorge or keep in the dark?
Trey needed Jorge more than he needed Sonny but Sonny didn’t need Jorge at all.

“Uh…no, we just want to check under the hood to see the T-Bird engine is still running okay,” he said.

“Okay,” Jorge agreed and cut the connection. He decided to stay on the side of caution as he slowed the VW and pulled onto the shoulder.

Sonny took the phone from Trey and followed Jorge onto the shoulder
, nosing the T-Bird behind the Beetle. He knew the guy in the VW was carrying a firearm, as he’d seen it in his hand when he was circling in front of the garage. No matter, Sonny decided. He had two firearms and a couple of hostages. He also held the advantage of surprise.

Jorge brought the VW to a halt but remained in his seat. He
watched in the rear view mirror, waiting for Trey and the other guy to climb out of the Thunderbird and check the engine. Jorge felt the butt of the Heckler and Koch handgun resting on the seat below his thigh. He was prepared to use the firearm if he had to. The only reason he hadn’t shot Mancini was to let him suffer a while before he was inevitably brought down by the infected. Who knew, Mancini may have managed to hole up someplace, away from the ghoulish hordes. At least Jorge had provided him with a sporting chance. Either way, Mancini would never catch Jorge now or locate the house in La Paz where Luiz had met up with Logrono. Mancini was history. If he survived, he’d have to crawl back to LA somehow, empty handed and full of excuses. Oreilles wouldn’t look on him too favorably and he’d probably be demoted to a lesser role in the organization.

Jorge needed that cash to make his getaway and didn’t care if he had to kill all three occupants of the Thunderbird to get it.

Trey and Sonny hauled themselves from the front of the Thunderbird. Sonny popped the hood and decided to take a look to see if his fix up job was still holding up.

“Stay where you are,” Sonny instructed Trey. “I can still draw a weapon and shoot your ass before you make it over to that VW
to warn off your buddy.”

Trey sighed and shoved his hands in his pants pocket.

Sonny gave the rubber hoses at the bottom of the engine a brief once over and was satisfied they were still in place. He dropped the hood cover and pressed it back into place until he heard it click.

“Call
out to your pal over here,” Sonny demanded.

Trey turned to the VW. “Hey, Jorge
, come here a minute,” he shouted, waving his arm.

Sonny turned to face the back end of the VW and leaned against the Thunderbird’s nose, waiting for Jorge to exit his car.
His right hand drifted around his back, touching the handle of his Beretta then moving to the butt of the Heckler and Koch.

Trey and Sonny waited but Jorge didn’t budge.
Trey looked around to check if Leticia was okay. She sat in the backseat staring into the desert to her left. Trey didn’t want her caught in the crossfire if the standoff resulted in a shoot out. She was the only innocent party in the whole, sorry situation.

“What’s he doing in there?” Sonny hissed. “Is he jerking off or something?” His impatience was evident. “Okay, go over there and tell him to get out of his car real slow,” he ordered Trey. “And if you try and warn him, I’ll shoot your girlfriend, understand?”

Trey sighed and nodded. He was growing sick of all the threats every time Sonny wanted him to do something. He considered trying to warn Jorge or somehow telling him to slip him Mancini’s handgun. Alternative scenarios raced through his mind as he slowly made his way towards the VW driver’s door.

Jorge watched in the car’s mirrors as
Trey approached. His body language seemed tense and his facial expression looked stressed and uneasy. Jorge knew Trey wouldn’t exactly be ecstatic that Mancini had departed but he didn’t seem as though he was relieved to have just narrowly escaped a sticky situation with his life either.

“What’s up?” Jorge asked Trey
when he drew alongside the driver’s side window.

“Uh, we need to talk about what we’re going to do next,” Trey muttered. He glanced back to Sonny, which tipped off Jorge something was wrong.

“Okay, we’ll talk right here.”

“I’m finding it difficult to talk through a window, Jorge,” Trey said. “Why don’t you step out here and we can talk in the fresh air, man?”

Jorge realized he wasn’t going to get his hands on the money by staying put inside the car.
He didn’t fully trust Trey, though and he certainly didn’t like the look of the guy standing in front of the Thunderbird.

“
All right,” Jorge sighed. “Step back away from the door, will you? Give me some damn room here.”

Trey
took a few backward paces. Jorge slipped the handgun into the front of his waistband, where he could easily reach it. Then he slowly opened the car door and hauled himself out of the seat. He leaned against the side of the VW, facing Trey.

“So, what you got in mind?” He didn’t want to talk about the money in front of the new guy.

Sonny’s hand hovered over the butt of his Beretta. He was pondering at what point to announce his future intentions for the party. The guy in the VW didn’t seem like just a hitchhiker, the way he talked to Trey.

Trey glanced cautiously at Sonny. Jorge noticed the look and went to draw the Heckler and Koch from the front of his waistband. Sonny’s fingers gripped the Beretta handle and he whipped the firearm out from around his back.
Trey took another couple of backwards steps, out of the firing line.

Chapter Forty-Two

As Mancini lay on the ground inside the garage, he saw several dozen figures swarm into the workshop. The gasoline from the Jerry can flooded the floor and ran towards the reception area. He reached into his pocket and took out his Zippo lighter, flicked open the lid and ran the flint wheel along his leg. The lighter sparked and produced a flame. Mancini brushed the naked flame by the gasoline puddle, setting it ablaze. Most of the infected were caught in the flaming gasoline patch and screamed as their clothes caught fire. The animated bodies flapped around in the flames, their attack temporarily halted. Black smoke billowed towards the garage roof and now Mancini had inadvertently caused himself another problem. He replaced his lighter in his pocket and scrambled towards the pickup truck. More infected clawed their way through the smashed front door and headed straight for the workshop.        

Mancini slammed the Dodge pickup truck door shut and rammed the transmission into reverse.
Somehow, he had to break out of the garage. He didn’t have time to open the sliding doors so he dumped his foot hard on the gas and hoped the truck bed was strong enough to break through the heavy wooden panels.

Flames licked around the Dodge’s tires as Mancini twisted in his seat and headed for the sliding doors. Burning infected figures leapt at the vehicle, trying to throw
themselves onto the cab roof.

The burning gasoline reached the racking and other flammable materials sizzled and also caught fire, causing a bright fireball, which sent the garage into a raging inferno
around the interior walls.

Mancini felt the heat increasing inside the cab. The transmission whined in protest as
the truck gathered speed in reverse gear. He realized he’d probably only get one chance at breaking through the doors. If he failed, he’d either burn to death or be eaten alive. He didn’t have any grand desire to endure any of those options.

Two burning figures leapt from the gulf of the flames and landed inside the pickup bed. Mancini couldn’t do anything about the situation, he had to keep going.

The rear end of the truck slammed into the sliding door’s wooden panels. Mancini heard a thunderous shattering and creaking sound as metal collided at speed with wood. The two flaming figures were hurled out of the truck bed and onto the blackening concrete with the force of the impact. The Dodge’s speed slowed almost to a standstill while Mancini was thrown around the cab. The whole vehicle jolted to the right side but the tires regained a grip and drove the truck further backward.

The rear window in the cab shattered, showering the back of Mancini’s head and neck with small chips of glass.
He caught the scent of fresh, early evening air and risked a quick glance through the cab windshield. The smoke cleared slightly and Mancini saw the sliding door in tatters in front of the pickup truck and half the wooden panels were smashed and broken. He was out of the garage and positioned at an angle in the main street but dull thuds reverberated around the cab, which indicated he was surrounded by numerous infected.

The passenger window shattered and several sets of bloody hands reached inside the cab.
Mancini yelled in a combination of triumph and self motivation. He slammed the gear shift into
drive
and thumped his foot down on the gas pedal. The truck lurched forward and Mancini had a tough job steering in a loop, away from the burning garage. Smoke and flames roared from the gap he’d recently created in the sliding door and burning figures moved at speed out onto the street.

The steering didn’t feel right and pulled to the right as Mancini accelerated away from the burning building. He was concerned with the amount of bodies still clinging to the vehicle on the passenger side and he glanced in his rear view mirror to check the truck bed. A lone figure of a young infected woman rocked around, crawling her way towards the back of the cab. Around thirty more contaminated ghouls gave chase behind the truck, running down the street at speed.

Mancini waited until he’d put a few yards distance between the truck and the chasing pack then stamped his foot on the brake. The Dodge jerked to a halt, causing the hangers on to tumble onto the dusty road alongside the pickup. Their bodies rolled through the sand but within a fraction of a second they were scrambling to their feet.

Mancini heard a loud clanging noise as the woman inside the truck bed slammed head first into one of the support bars. He quickly turned his head and saw the woman had ceased moving. She lay face down on the metallic bed with blood pooling around her head. Stomping on the gas pedal once again, Mancini decided to deal with her body once he was clear of the town.

The lack of fuel in the gas tank was a major concern. He’d have to stop as soon as possible, which would also slow him down in his pursuit of Jorge and Trey. Jorge wouldn’t take flight and go totally under the radar as long as Trey kept hold of the money. Mancini had to catch them up before they split. As for the guy who’d fired at him, Mancini wasn’t sure how he fitted into the scenario but knew he’d have to be extremely wary. He wondered how the whole state of affairs was going to pan out and couldn’t even begin to imagine how perilous the return journey back to LA was going to be. Even if they made it to La Paz and resolved the situation, they were still going to have to endure traveling back through the infected towns and road stops.

A loud explosion echoed through the streets as Mancini sped through the town’s outer limits. He turned his head and saw a huge fireball loom into the darkening sky above the town.
Mancini assumed the flammable material inside the garage had caused the explosion and hoped the blast had wiped out the majority of the town’s infected population. At least, that particular scenario would give him one less thing to worry about.

Jorge first aimed his Heckler and Koch handgun at Trey then switched his direction when he saw the guy in front of the Thunderbird pointed his own firearm at the same target. Both armed men flashed expressions of confusion for a spit second, before they re-aimed their respective firearms at each other.

Jorge flashed Trey a concerned glance. “What the fuck is going on, Trey? I thought you were going to pull your piece on me. Who the hell is this guy?”

“Hold your horses there. I might ask you the same thing, Sparky,” Sonny shouted. “The kid told me you were just some damn hitchhiker. I figured on you and him were some kind of team.” The scenario hadn’t gone as Sonny had planned. He figured Trey and Jorge would have hatched some plot against him.

Jorge
snickered. “You don’t know a damn thing, do you?”

The conversation was immediately halted when a booming fireball erupted into the sky, a couple of miles behind them.

Chapter Forty-Three