Chapter Twenty-Eight

There was one good thing about fear. While it had your full attention, you couldn’t fixate on the pain in your body. Marnie was thankful for small favors.

She wanted Mick to drive into town so she could pick up a newspaper and see what everyone was saying. Did they still suspect that it was wild teens who had murdered Chuck’s, Heidi’s and her families and destroyed their homes? Were the police looking for them, or had they assumed they were dead in a ditch somewhere? Or worse, did they suspect them of turning on their parents?

She doubted anyone would care about Mick’s place. Shit, she doubted many people even knew where the Airstream was located.

Mick said it was too dangerous to take the stolen car anywhere close to Main Street.

All of this was after they had gone to Vent’s house and found it empty. Marnie’s heart broke for him. He’d looked crestfallen. He walked through the house, touching everything as if trying to absorb every fiber into memory. He got a rifle and a handgun and boxes of ammunition. His eyes were glassy with tears as they left.

Now they were pulling up a block from Dredd’s childhood home.

“You think he’s still there?” she asked Mick. “Those pipes didn’t seem very solid.”

“I locked him up on a good one. He hasn’t gone anywhere.”

They went to the back of the house and through the window with the loose board, Mick leading the way just as he had all day and yesterday. So far, it had resulted in Heidi’s death, her parents’, and the death of Marnie’s mother and stepfather. Why were they still in line with the most unstable of their group?

Because we’re in chaos, and Mick thrives in chaos, she thought.

“Whoa, this place smells like mouse shit,” Vent said.

Marnie hadn’t noticed it before, but now that Vent had mentioned it, the smell was nearly overpowering. She hated mice – was scared to death of them. She couldn’t take her eyes off the floor, searching for the nasty critters.

Mick had a flashlight in his pocket that he turned on to chase away a very small portion of the gloom.

“Where’s Dredd?” Chuck said.

“In the basement,” Mick said, going for the basement door.

“Hold on a second,” Vent said. “If I don’t take the edge off, I’m going to lose my freaking mind.” He pulled two fat joints from his pocket. “I grabbed what I had left in my stash. And don’t give me any shit about keeping a clear head,” he said to Chuck.

“As much as I hate to admit when you’re right, you’re right,” Mick said, flashing a look at Chuck.

“Hey, who’s up there?” Dredd shouted.

Mick stomped on the floor several times. “Make him nervous.”

Marnie said, “That’s not cool. You know, we’re the ones that messed up his life. He did what you asked him because he thought it was the right thing to do after what happened to me. There’s no reason to treat him that way.”

“I was just messing around.”

“I’m not. Give me the keys.” She stuck her hand out and waggled her fingers.

“No way. I’ll take off the handcuffs when I think it’s safe.”

“This isn’t your call. I started all this, and I’m going down to uncuff him.”

She and Mick locked eyes, neither blinking.

“Dude, just give her the keys,” Chuck said. “If anything, he’ll be less angry if she’s the one to do it.”

Vent added, “The sooner you do it, the sooner I can light these bad boys up.”

Mick slapped the key into Marnie’s palm. “At least let me come with you.”

“No.”

“Then take Vent or the one-armed bandit here.”

“You guys stay here,” she said with a tone that she knew would have been her mommy voice when her kids acted up. Except she would never have children of her own, even if she somehow survived this day.

Dredd was sitting in a puddle of his own piss. The stench of ammonia assaulted her nose. He looked none too happy. The jarred candle they’d lit before they left was almost burned all the way down.

“Where did you assholes go? You could have at least left me a piss bucket!”

Marnie approached him slowly, as if he were a chained animal, which is exactly how he looked at the moment.

“I’m sorry. We had to do some things. My best friend was murdered by the Melon Heads. So was my family.” When she said it, it sounded as if it were coming from someone else. Being a step removed was the only way to stay sane…for now.

Dredd’s features softened. “Christ. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, so you don’t need to be sorry. I’m going to take your cuffs off. All I ask is that you stay chill. My friends upstairs have guns and they’ll use them.”

Dredd nodded.

It took Marnie a few tries to get the cuffs to unsnap. When they finally did, Dredd threw them across the room and rubbed his wrists. Marnie backed away quickly. “Fucking things hurt.”

“We’re going to attack the Melon Heads today,” she said.

“Hey, it’s your suicide.”

She swallowed hard. “You still might be able to help us.”

“After what you did to me? Are you crazy?”

Marnie thought it over for a moment, and then said, “Yes, I think we are. I think we have to be. Besides, if you help us, you help yourself. I don’t think you can hide down here forever, and from what I can tell, you don’t have the kind of cash you need to pick up and start over someplace else.”

“How the fuck do you know how much dough I have?” he said with a scowl.

“Because if you had more than twenty bucks to your name, you wouldn’t be down here. You’d be in Florida or New Mexico by now.”

That made Dredd grin. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“That’s because people usually don’t look north of my chest. Come on if you want to work with us and get high.”

He followed her up the stairs, complaining about cramps in his arms and legs and that he was starving and thirsty as a dry well. The boys were passing the first joint around, the enclosed room filling with smoke. When Dredd put his hand out to take a hit, Mick pulled it away and said, “Who said you could smoke with us?”

“I did,” Marnie said, making it clear that she was not to be questioned. It was a hard front to put up when she felt as awful, physically and mentally, as she did.

Mick huffed and reluctantly handed it over. Dredd took a drag. “Probably my stuff anyway. You got anything to drink?”

“We forgot to order takeout,” Mick said.

Chuck eyed Dredd’s cuff marks on his wrist. They were raw as chopped meat and raised. “Lucky for you the Melon Heads didn’t come here.”

“Yeah, I feel nothing but lucky,” Dredd said, giving Chuck a major case of side-eye.

“At least you feel something,” Vent said. “That’s more than a lot of people we know can say. If you’re mixed up with these freaks and alive, you’re lucky as hell.”

They finished the first joint and made quick work of the second. Marnie’s head was nice and fuzzy, her body relaxed and free of pain. She thought if she put her head down on the filthy floor, she’d fall asleep like a baby after a bottle and be quite happy.

“Margie says you guys are planning to take the Melon Heads on in their literal neck of the woods,” Dredd said, slapping his thighs to get their attention. Everyone’s eyes looked like red-rimmed mirrors.

“You have to be doing this just to screw with me,” Marnie said. Dredd looked at her as if she were speaking another language.

“So, how do you plan to do it? You got a tank stashed someplace?”

“How many of them are there?” Chuck asked, preempting Mick.

“How the fuck should I know? It’s not like I ever took a census.”

“You’ve been dealing with them for years. You have to have a rough estimate.”

“More than you can handle, I’ll tell you that much. I’ve never seen them all in one place, and it’s kinda hard to tell one from the other. They all look like goddamn mutants.”

“Take a guess.”

Dredd swished his finger in his ear, pulled it out and examined it for a bit. “How does a hundred sound?”

“Fucking terrible,” Vent said.

Mick punched a cabinet door, knocking it off the hinges.

“Sounds like too many,” Chuck said. “You can’t stay hidden that long with that many people. Plus, food would be a problem. When it gets cold, they’d need to light fires. Too many fires equal too much smoke, equals being discovered.”

“You know so damn much, why’d you ask me?”

“Could they keep warm in caves?” Mick asked.

Marnie shivered, remembering when Dredd had told them about the small system of caves where the Melon Heads sometimes hid.

Chuck scratched at his face and paused. “Depends. Some caves, depending on where they lead, can be colder than the weather outside. But I guess it’s a possibility.”

“Then Dredd could be right.”

“I take it you’ve never been in the caves with them?” Marnie asked.

“The only way you get in those caves is as a meal,” Dredd said. “Something I’d like to avoid.”

A loud pop of wood startled them. After a pensive minute, Dredd said, “Just this place rotting. If they were around, they wouldn’t be subtle about it. Even they can figure out no one will hear them this far out.”

“They can figure out a lot more than you think,” Chuck said. “They’re not imbeciles.”

“Even though they look it,” Mick added. He turned to Dredd and asked, “How many guns you got?”

“Two. Not enough for you to go all Ahnold on them. Believe me.”

Chuck said, “Another question. How often do they come out during the day?”

“Not much. They like the night. Daytime, I think it’s just sentries that stay mostly by Dracula Drive. They need a reason to come further into town. Now that you’ve given them one, I’m sure there’s more than usual wandering around.”

“What does their leader look like?” Mick said.

Dredd seemed to pull within himself. “You don’t want to mess with that.”

“Actually,” Marnie said, “we need to mess with all of them.”

“Or take out the alpha male and frighten the rest of them into leaving us be,” Chuck said.

Dredd chuckled with zero humor. “Well, you picked the perfect thing to call him, because that big boy is one alpha motherfucker. He’s taller than the rest, and built like a bricklayer.”

“I noticed that most of them seem to be on the short side,” Chuck said.

“Inbreeding. I never came across the fucker, but Fennerman told me all about him. He’s a few inches north of six foot. Got a chest wide as a wine barrel. And a full head of long, straw-colored hair. If his size doesn’t give him away, you’ll know him by his crooked-set eyes and the huge black moles all over his face and neck. He’s one ugly bastard.”

“You ever deal with him directly?” Mick asked.

“Not a chance. He always hangs back a bit, lets his people have first crack at anything. Guess that’s how he keeps them happy.”

Marnie shivered. “I can’t believe you chose to work with those monsters.”

Dredd used his boot to pry up a floorboard. “You guys still don’t get it. First, they chose me. Not the other way around. And while I was out there as barrier between them and the town, I kept you all safe. It would have gone on that way until I was the old man if I didn’t let my emotions get the best of me and take you all out there.”

The words struck Marnie like an anvil to the chest. Christ, he was right. The Melon Heads had been reduced to a harmless urban legend until they’d arrived at Dredd’s doorstep. How many more lives would the Melon Heads ruin before they stopped them? For a moment, Marnie wondered if they should give themselves to the Melon Heads to atone for their sins. Then she realized she didn’t believe in sins or hell or even heaven. Still, guilt was more powerful than any theology.

“Well, no matter what, we have to go there today, before the sun goes down,” Mick said.

“Why do we have to rush it?” Vent said. “Maybe we need to think things through some more.”

“Dude, by tomorrow morning, your parents will be dead,” Mick said.

Vent got quiet, turning away from them. Marnie was pretty sure he’d never even punched someone before, at least until he’d batted that Melon Head in the skull at Chuck’s house. He was more scared than any of them because of his nature and the fact that he still had something to lose. She reached out for him, but he pulled away.

“You coming with us?” Chuck asked Dredd.

“Not a chance.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mick shouted. “You have skin in this game.”

“Way I see it, if they haven’t come for me yet, I might still be all right with them.”

“They burned your fucking house down.”

“Might have just been a message. They don’t think and act like we do.”

“That we get loud and clear,” Chuck said. “Can we at least have your guns?”

Dredd pondered it, stepping into the pitch-black living room as if he were having a conference with someone. “I’ll give you my pistol. I can’t afford to lose both guns, especially because I don’t think you’re gonna be able to bring them back when you’re done.”

Mick’s face flushed red and he was about to say something when Chuck put a hand to his chest to get him to calm down and said, “Fine. We’ll take it.”

“I don’t know what good it’ll do you. Unless you use it on yourself. Better that than letting them get you. You think it’s gonna happen, take care of your own business. It’ll be quicker, and less painful.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Vent said sheepishly.

“It’s the best advice I can give you.” Dredd went downstairs and came back with a .38 and a handful of bullets that Mick put in his shirt pocket.

The abandoned house was disgusting and this side of creepy, but at this moment, Marnie wanted to cling to it as if it were a beach house in the Caribbean. Mick shoved the board aside so they could clamber out the window.

“You going to wish us luck?” he asked Dredd.

Dredd spit on the floor and wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt. “Yeah. Sure.”

Marnie interpreted it as, yeah, I’m sure you’re all gonna die. It was exactly how she felt.