Chapter Nineteen

Richard was on a new mission. The island, the communication blackout and Brenner’s seizure of his spies were all shuffled to the bottom of the deck. Douglas Parnell reached the top of his shit list. He faced the scumbag right now in a special section of the PAM Complex he called his private room. Douglas stood against the wall only in his underwear, cowering in place, shivering in the cold, his eyes wide as a frightened child’s, his mouth trembling to conceive words to validate the sparing of his life.

“Don’t bother speaking to me. You’re as good as dead.”

He was three steps from the mouth of the beast. The machine was called the Demolisher. The Demolisher was as long as a semirig and had the appearance of an industrial-size dishwasher. The mouth was curtained off by rubber flaps, and inside lay double-sided saw blades that churned and spun, ready to downgrade any object into pulp. Once cut up, the pieces were hermetically sealed together and sucked into a tube and shot down to the sublevel for the zombies to feast on.

“You know damn well why you’re here. I talked to Addey. She said you offered her drugs for sex. When she turned your sorry ass down, you threw her into the pit. How many poor victims have you done this to? What you’ve done is beyond acceptable.”

Douglas blathered his defense on his knees. “It’s not what you think. Yes, I asked her to have sex with me. I asked. I then offered her drugs. What’s so bad? I didn’t shove her down the slide. She fell. It happens all the time. It was an accident—an accident!”

“That’s not what Addey said. You’re a liar!”

“No—no, no, no.” He waved his hands. “Yes, I pressured her to have sex with me. But a lot of these bitches consider it a favor. Addey didn’t, so I panicked. I yelled at her. Big deal, right? Why do you care about her? She’s just another worker with a nice pair. She’s nobody.”

Richard picked up a metal rod, what was used to shove the dead bodies into the blades. He squeezed the cold steel in his hands. He needed Addey. She could hold her own, and he needed an ally as much as a friend in his present circumstances, especially after his spies had gone missing and were probably dead. She was currently in the med wing recuperating. She would recuperate rather nicely, he was reassured by the med staff.

“Nothing pisses me off more than abuse of power. I always knew you were up to some scheming, slimy shit, but I couldn’t prove it. I’ve investigated you. Fourteen women you’ve thrown into the pit. I had witnesses. Testimonies. But Brenner wouldn’t do anything. No; Brenner was protecting you because he didn’t want everybody lashing out at their shift managers. He wanted order against the chaos. But I’m doing this behind his back. This is between you and me.”

The sniveling man closed his eyes. Then he pissed himself, the fluid running down his legs and staining the front of his boxer briefs. “Oh God…please don’t…I’m so sorry.” He wept, putting his hands together to beg. “Okay, okay—I threw her down the slide. That bitch wasn’t afraid of me. I had to show her—to show everybody else I was in charge. I did it, and I admit I was wrong. I was wrong!”

“You just wanted to get your dick wet. And you did many times. I hope it was worth it.”

“Brenner will have your ass for this. You’re abusing your power. You will be the one punished next, you fucking asshole.”

“The way things have been going, I won’t have a job soon anyway. If I die, I die knowing there’s one less asshole raping women. Who knows what else you’ve committed behind closed doors?”

Douglas’s eyes were ice cold. He was sorry he was going to die, but he was lacking in remorse for his wrongdoings. “Then what are you going to do with me? Shove me into the blades?” His lips were trembling. “Why can’t you shoot me instead? It’d be faster.”

“Your punishment must fit the crime. You forced the poor women down the chute to be eaten alive. Fourteen times over. Think about it. A quick bullet to the head doesn’t match the way your tortured those poor girls.”

“Are you going to send me down the chute to be eaten alive? Tell me, you son of a bitch! How are you going to kill me? You’re playing games with me. Chicken-shit bastard. You won’t kill me. You don’t have it in you. You direct people, you run this shit hole, but you don’t put your back into the work. You’re not one of us.”

Douglas was wrong.

He had spent his teenage years on the sublevel and his early twenties catering to vampires on the third floor, preparing entrees created from dead and living human beings. He’d served his time, and he understood the difference between doing your job and murder, even in these special circumstances.

What Douglas had committed was an atrocity.

“No, I will kill you.”

Douglas’s grin wriggled. “You won’t do it. You don’t have it in you. Go back to your desk job.”

Without any more pomp and circumstance, he rendered the steel bar over Douglas’s skull. A metallic konk and wong sound delivered the man into unconsciousness.

He picked his limp body up and dragged him toward the machine.

He whispered, “The zombies will have their meal all the same.”