Hungry Independents (Book 2) (17 page)

“Hello, Billy,” Mark said. “We need to
talk.”

Billy’s eyes darted back and forth like he
wanted to bolt and needed to figure out which direction to start
running. Then his gaze settled on Jimmy for a moment. Billy’s mouth
dropped open and he retreated from the door, moving into the
shadowy interior.

Mark and Catherine shared a look with one
another. Catherine glanced back at Jimmy with a puzzled frown that
he found troubling.

“May we come in?” Mark asked.

“Sure,” Billy said without enthusiasm.

Mark opened the screen door that screeched in
protest. Catherine walked in and Jimmy panicked, trying to rush up
the porch and through the door before Mark, but Mark stepped in his
way and Jimmy drifted to a stop before he passed through his old
friend. The screen door banged shut, leaving Jimmy outside. Mark
left the front door open so Jimmy decided to hang out on the porch
and listen in.

“Kind of dark, isn’t it, Billy?”

“I like it that way.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to open the curtains
so I don’t trip over anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What is that smell?” Mark asked, pushing the
curtains aside. “I think you got something rotting away in
here.”

“It came with the house. We haven’t been able
to find where it’s coming from.”

Jimmy stared in through the screen door. The
open curtains brought needed sunlight into the sparse living room
of Billy’s house. The little boy sat on a battered sofa with his
hands tucked between his knees and his head down. The sun’s rays
snuck past the dusty streaks in the window to rest on Billy.
Catherine stood just inside the door and Jimmy couldn’t see
anything of Mark except for his large shadow on the wall like some
looming judge invading Billy’s privacy.

“Billy, did you throw a rock at Raven?” Mark
asked.

The boy sat perfectly still. “Yes.”

“Why would you do something like that? That’s
not like you.”

He shrugged.

“What’s going on, Billy? Are you the one
telling Dylan that Jimmy died because of something Scout did?”

Billy lifted his head and looked at the door
where Jimmy waited to hear the answer. He looked right at Jimmy and
then dropped his head again. Something about the lack of color in
Billy’s eyes was disturbing.

Catherine turned her head and spotted Jimmy
on the other side of the screen door. Then she took two quick steps
at Billy. “You see him, don’t you?”

Billy didn’t move. He didn’t say a word.

Mark’s shadow on the wall shrank until Jimmy
saw Mark’s broad back come up behind Catherine. “See who,
Catherine? Who did Billy see? What’s going on?”

Catherine ignored him. Everything about her
had tensed. She stood an inch taller and her tone grew harsh.
Catherine was worried. That made Jimmy nervous as hell.

“Billy, look at me.”

Slowly, Billy lifted his gaze and met
Catherine’s. She sucked in a breath at the same time Jimmy
simulated the same action. Billy’s eyes were white orbs. He curled
back his lips in a smile and his teeth had changed into little
points, like a farm cat.

“What the…?”

“Mark, watch out!”

Billy sprang to his feet, grabbing Catherine
by the arm and yanking her behind him with inhuman force. She flew
headfirst over the sofa into the wall with a loud wham and dropped
onto the cushions.

Mark balled his fists, ready to pummel some
sense into the little kid.

Jimmy moved through the screen right as Billy
swiped Mark across the chest. Mark’s agonized scream rang out in
the small living room. He stumbled away from Billy with stripes of
red blood spotting through his torn orange T-shirt.

Billy pressed Mark with a flurry of razor
clawed swipes, backing the bigger boy into the wall. Mark held his
hands out to protect himself. Billy worked his way closer and
buried his teeth into Mark’s hip. Again Mark screamed and hammered
down on top of Billy’s back. The little boy fell, but just as
quickly pushed back up. Mark scrambled around the wall to
escape.

His mouth dripping with Mark’s blood, Billy
stalked after him, licking his lips like he wanted more.

“Billy!” Jimmy said.

The boy turned, and Mark disappeared into the
hallway. The tiny monster gazed at Jimmy with cloudy eyes and
cocked his head. “Why are you here? You’re not supposed to be here
anymore.”

“What are you doing, Billy?”

“I’m about to have dinner.”

“Who are you?”

“I was Billy.” His awful smile spread wider,
showing off the red maw. “The plague was the start. Now there will
be famine and those of us who deserve to live will eat the fattened
cattle of this world, and none are fatter than the inhabitants
here.” Billy stepped closer to Jimmy. “I’m told we have you to
thank for that.”

Jimmy floated back a step and Billy chuckled,
cold and unconcerned. Mark made a retching sound from the back of
the house.

“Ah, my roommate has been discovered. Too bad
Preston’s flesh has already turned. At least now I have fresh meat
to satisfy my hunger.”

Billy returned to the sofa and looked down on
the unconscious Catherine. A red bruise covered her forehead that
would be purple by morning if she was still alive. Her chest rose
with a breath and Jimmy felt grateful for a brief moment.

“I guess I should rip her throat out before
she wakes up.” Billy almost looked sad when he said it. “Otherwise
she might get the upper hand since I don’t have any more surprises
left. I really wanted to take my time with this one. Well, that’s
the way little saints crumble.”

Jimmy reached out. His hand slowly passed
into Billy’s shoulder with a cold shock so intense that Jimmy
thought he was back among the living again.

Billy arched his body and jumped away from
Jimmy’s touch. He stared in horror. “What did you do to me?”

Mark charged into the room with a baseball
bat and swung for the fences. The aluminum ripped across Jimmy’s
chest, sending his ethereal body into motion. Billy ducked the
swing and came up with one of his own, catching Mark on the back of
his rotation. Mark screamed and kept spinning, but missed him for
the second strike. Billy clawed Mark again and then shoved the
unbalanced kid in the back. Mark sprawled on the floor and the bat
flew out of his grip. Billy pounced on top of him.

Without another thought, Jimmy dropped into
Billy. It was like sinking into a frozen pond after breaking
through the ice. The uninviting experience left him numb and
shivering.

Jimmy blinked and found himself staring down
through Billy’s eyes at the back of Mark’s neck. He tasted the warm
saltiness of Mark’s blood in his mouth. His stomach rolled and he
threw up, emptying the contents on the worn carpet in the living
room. He tried not to think about the ingredients as the room began
to spin faster and faster.

Mark bucked him off, throwing Jimmy face
first into the floor. His nose burst in bright sparkles of pain. He
hoped Mark wouldn’t smash the baseball bat into his skull as his
thoughts switched off and his mind blanked out.

Tommy the Cannibal Perv watched them on their
way out of Cozad. He stood at the edge of town, waving goodbye
while the kids in the school bus shut their windows and buried
themselves below the seats. Hunter stopped his motorbike a safe
distance away and shot Tommy a good double-dose of middle fingers
before revving his engine and speeding after the yellow bus.

The ride back to Independents was slow.
Hunter led the way on his bike as the stationary sun hung in the
sky. He felt sorry for the poor kids riding in that bouncing metal
can because the roads they would follow were buckled in stretches
or pocked with potholes. Buses weren’t designed for off-roading,
and whenever Hunter traveled too far ahead he would stop and watch
the kids being jostled like dried beans in a maraca. He tried to
find a smooth path for Henry to follow, but every once in a while
they just had to suffer or be stuck. No one wanted to be stuck when
nighttime arrived.

Hunter tried to outride the stench of horror
covering him as he sped across the land. His mind kept playing the
scenes from the fight in the jail. The lamp’s light going out. The
sounds of cannibals moving in for the kill. The smell of the white
gas on the floor. The knife stabbing into a little kid and the
flick of his Zippo. Heat from the bright orange fire, and the
screams that followed.

There was no other way to put it. Hunter just
murdered a bunch of kids. No matter how twisted they had become,
Hunter killed them. Now he was going to have to live with that.

Part of him wanted to return to Cozad and
take care of Tommy once and for all, but his first priority was
these kids in the bouncing yellow bus. They required a good meal
and a decent night’s rest in a warm bed without the nightmares of
cannibal children gazing through their windows. Hunter gripped his
handlebar tighter. He would deliver those kids to safety, and then
he would return and finish Tommy.

He slowed to another stop and waited for the
bus to close the gap. A couple miles farther and they would be near
a clean water source he often used. The afternoon sun brought down
bright, stifling heat. Even with the bus windows open, the kids had
to be melting in there. The air conditioning was inoperable.
Brandon had been lucky just to turn over the engine.

Behind the lumbering bus, a dark cloud of
smoke rose into the sky. Hunter’s fire was probably burning all of
Cozad to the ground. He felt two ways about that. First, it
reminded him of the horrible events and second, at least the tragic
evidence of Cozad’s previous inhabitants would be destroyed along
with his part in it.

Normally Hunter would have headed southeast
by now, but the bus wouldn’t make his usual route, so following
I-80 was the best option. They refueled the bus at one of the
gigantic truck stops that dotted the interstate. The founders of
Independents may not have considered the availability of gasoline
when they chose to settle in Nebraska, but they lucked out because
of all the truck stops. They hadn’t even touched the reserves left
in this state, not to mention the farmers who kept their own supply
tucked away to operate their tractors and combines.

Hunter led them off the interstate to the
pond near a farmhouse and barn. All the kids unloaded from the bus,
carrying their water bottles or plastic jugs to refill them along
the shore. Hunter tapped drops of iodine in every bottle and, after
a good shake to kill lingering parasites, they gulped their water
down and the process was repeated.

A silver tail splashed upon the surface, and
excitement rippled through everyone in a wave of pointing fingers
and shouts. Quickly Hunter retrieved his fishing supplies out of
his backpack and huddled the group together.

“I’ve got four hooks, so I need four of you
to cut some branches for fishing poles. You can use the saw on my
army knife. Make sure the branch is green inside so the pole will
bend a little without snapping.”

Four kids took off at a trot toward a stand
of trees on the other side of the pond.

“I need a couple more of you to find some
bait.” He noticed a boy quivering with untapped energy. He handed
the kid his small plastic spade. “See if you can dig us up some
worms.”

The boy glowed. “Where should I dig?”

Hunter smiled and pointed down. “Start at
your feet and work outwards.”

Two girls wearing identical pink shirts
stepped up expectantly. “What can we do?” they asked, as if they
shared a brain.

“Do you guys know how to catch
grasshoppers?”

Their eyes lit up. “We sure do.”

“Good! Catch a lot of them, okay?”

They sprinted for the high grass and the hunt
was on.

“The rest of you guys gather wood and build a
fire.” Hunter handed Brandon his Zippo. A brief image of the last
time it was struck threatened to destroy his rising spirits, but he
swallowed it down. “Make sure I get this back.”

Brandon nodded and led another group of wood
gatherers toward the trees as the first four returned with their
fishing poles. Hunter helped string up their lines with hooks and a
sinker. He broke up one of the extra sticks to use for bobbers.

“I found one! I found one!” the boy with the
shovel hollered, pulling a fat wiggling earthworm out of a
hole.

Hunter received the slimy invertebrate.
“Great job! Keep digging.”

The boy dropped where he stood and made
another hole.

Hunter pinched off a segment of the worm and
handed it to one of the girls. She gave the piece of worm a puzzled
look.

“Just run the hook through the middle of the
worm.”

She made a yucky face, but did a good job
hooking the worm. Hunter dumped the other half of the worm in one
of the boys’s hands and the two baited hooks plunked and settled
into the water. The boy and the girl watched the floating sticks
intently for bobbing action.

One of the two girls ran over with a couple
grasshoppers. The agitated bugs stirred in Hunter’s grip. He told
the girl to catch more and she scampered off after her hunting
buddy, who was still busy in the field.

Hunter showed the other boy and girl how to
hook the hoppers, and then four lines were in the water. Nervous
chatter rose on the bank, but Hunter shushed them all.

“We have to be quiet or we’ll scare the fish
away.”

Everyone looked at him and nodded in
agreement.

When the first stick bobbed under the water,
the boy holding the line almost dropped his fishing pole. He
quickly regrouped and hauled the fighting crappie to shore. All the
Cozad kids huddled around the flopping silver-green fish like it
was a miracle from Heaven.