Queen Of Blood

CHAPTER TWELVE

The axe handle felt good in his hands. The muscles in his arms ached from the strain of his physical exertions, but it was a good ache. Chad was a man used to cool, air-conditioned offices and the soft comforts of a home in the suburbs. Physical labor in the so-called great outdoors had occurred only on rare occasions over the course of his thirty-four years on the planet. His thrice-weekly workouts had been confined to hip gyms filled with other trendy and pretty young professionals. Trim and toned bluebloods clad in fashionable workout outfits, iPods affixed to their bronzed biceps as they power-walked on treadmills that hummed with quiet efficiency. And always there had been the relaxing sauna afterward, not strictly necessary but an enjoyable reward for forty-five minutes worth of light maintenance working out.

Chad swung the axe and watched with satisfaction as the blade chopped the log cleanly in half down the middle. He added the halves to the steadily growing cord of firewood before propping another log atop the big stump he was using for a chopping block. The screen door screeched open and flapped shut behind him. He turned and saw Allyson emerge from the rear of the building Jack Paradise referred to as the “mess hall.” She came bearing two brown bottles of beer, one of which Chad accepted with a grateful nod. They were enjoying an unseasonably warm patch of fall weather here in the mountain country of east Tennessee, and the dripping bottle of beer looked like the nectar of the gods as the glass reflected the shining afternoon sun.

He gulped Budweiser and looked at Allyson. Clad in cutoff denim shorts and a dirty white blouse tied off at her sleek midriff, she bore little resemblance to the trendy suburbanite she’d been a month ago. Chad felt a stir of lust as he looked at her long and slender legs. Then, as was nearly always the case lately, he thought of the sheer number of people—men and women—who had been between those legs during Allyson’s time in the adult film industry and his ardor waned. They’d had sex exactly once during their month at the compound, a brief and awkward coupling that easily ranked among the most unsatisfying encounters of Chad’s life. They hadn’t talked about it much, but it was obvious Chad had developed a mental block in the aftermath of Allyson’s tawdry revelations.

She noticed his scrutiny of her body and smiled. “Got something on your mind, Chad?”

Chad frowned and looked away. A huge red ant crawled across the dry ground at his feet. “Not really.”

Allyson moved closer, sidling up against him to whisper in his ear: “Is there anything you ever wanted to do to a woman but didn’t have the guts to ask?” Her breath was hot against his ear. Her soft lips brushed the lobe and sent a pleasant tingle through his body. “Anything you want, you can have. Anything.”

The tip of her tongue flicked lightly against his ear, and Chad’s cock twitched as she moved a soft palm over his bare, sweat-covered torso. These physical ministrations were exquisitely pleasurable. The heat of her body and the feel of her silken flesh against his made his heart pound. Allyson was so very skilled at making a man feel good. Too good, maybe.

Chad pushed away from her and said, “Maybe later,” the words emerging as a halfhearted mumble. “Got work to do.”

He set the bottle down and raised the axe again. Allyson watched him in silence as he split several more logs. Then she departed without a word. Chad kept working as he listened to the sound of her retreating footsteps, not stopping until he heard the screen door flap shut again. When he was sure she was gone, Chad slammed the axe blade into the old stump and pic ked up the beer bottle. He retrieved his flannel shirt, pulled it on, and left it hanging unbuttoned. Then he walked away from the mess hall and moved across the sloping, green grounds of the compound toward the little cluster of cabins where most of the inhabitants of “Camp Whiskey” had their quarters.

Men attired in green camos patrolled the wooded perimeter of the compound, some out in the open, others lurking behind the line of tall trees. They carried machine guns and had walkie-talkies clipped to their belts. These were serious, stern-faced men. Many of them were former U.S. military. Recruited and commanded by Jack Paradise, they were the compound’s main line of defense against the enemy Jim seemed so certain would come for them one day.

He approached the door of the nearest and largest cabin and the armed—and heavily armored—guard stationed there stepped aside to allow him entry, acknowledging his exalted status at Camp Whiskey with a single, terse nod.

Chad remained a hero to the other survivors of Below. They all remembered well the instrumental role he’d played in the House of Blood revolt. Which was fine. But the deference with which they treated him made him uncomfortable.

This was the only place he ever felt truly at ease anymore.

So Chad knocked on the wooden door once and loudly announced himself. Then he opened the door and stepped inside. It was dark inside, the windows covered with a heavy dark canvas material. The only illumination was courtesy of the glow from a red bulb in a wrought iron floor lamp and a handful of flickering candles. Little wisps of smoke were visible around the heads of the people seated at the table in the center of the room. Chad smelled cannabis, tobacco, and bourbon. Soft sitar music emanated from the tinny speakers of a small boombox propped atop a crate containing rifles.

Jim acknowledged his arrival with a lazy wave. “Chad. Join us.”

Chad nodded and approached the table, pulling out a wicker chair opposite Jim. “I see you’re deep into the day’s meditations.” He settled into the creaky chair and set his beer bottle on the dusty wooden table.“Uncovering any new universal truths today?”

Jim’s eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, but a lazy smile slowly formed at the corners of his mouth. “What we’re doing, Chad, is engaging in the ancient ritual known as getting fucked up beyond all recognition.

You should join us.”

Jack Paradise lifted a glass containing two fingers of brown liquid and chuckled before taking a drink. “Jim’s getting fucked up. Me, I always indulge at a slow maintenance level.” He stared at the glass cupped between his large hands. His eyes had a haunted look. “After all, the shit could hit the fan at any time.”

Jack was seated next to Jim on the opposite side of the table. Directly opposite Jack was Wanda Lewis, formerly known as “Wicked Wanda” during her time Below. Wanda’s dark hair was drawn back in a ponytail. She wore form-fitting dark clothes. A thin brown cigarette smoldered between two fingers of her right hand. She looked at Chad with a soft, druggy smile and said, “And I wouldn’t exactly say I’m fucked up, but I ain’t quite sober either.” She laughed and leaned back in her chair, bringing her hand to her mouth to puff at the brown cigarette. “Could be me and ‘fucked up’ will be having a rendezvous sometime in the near future.”

Chad noticed a simple plastic bong at the center of the table. It was the sort of thing a frat boy might buy for fifteen bucks at a campus head shop. Next to it was a .45 automatic, a clip for the .45, and an open box of ammunition. As Chad watched, Jim picked up the empty clip and fed bullets into it. He did this slowly and with much deliberation, clearly determined to perform this task with precision despite his high level of inebriation. Then he flipped the safety on and set the gun back on the table.

Jim removed his sunglasses and tucked them in his shirt’s front pocket. He leaned across the table and regarded Chad with eyes that were bloodshot but somber. “So what’s on your mind, friend?”

Chad picked up the Budweiser bottle and twir led the long neck slowly between his fingers without taking a drink. “Things are still weird between Allyson and me. I don’t know what to do about it. And I keep wondering whether bringing her to this place was the right thing to do. Maybe I was wrong about that. A girl like Allyson was made for life in the city. I can sense her getting restless already.”

Jim’s expression grew more intent even as he reached for the bong. “You need to have a serious talk with that girl, Chad, regardless of whether things are ‘weird’ between you.”

Chad leaned back in his chair and let the Bud bottle hang by his side. “Yeah, I know, okay?” He watched Jim fire up the bong and wondered whether a hit or two of the potent weed might improve his mood.

He was reaching for the bong when Wanda said, “Maybe I should have a talk with her.” She shrugged when Chad showed her a puzzled look. “Hey, why not? She might feel more comfortable talking this shit out with a woman.”

Jim passed the bong to Chad and said, “I agree. Let Wanda talk to her. Open up some new channels of communication and see what happens.”

Chad accepted the bong. He put the lighter to the bowl, covered the carb with a fingertip, and inhaled a lungful of smoke. He held the smoke inside for a full twenty seconds before blowing a white stream at the ceiling. A few moments later he felt some of the tension go out of his body. He did a few more hits and felt even better. At some fuzzy point the sitar music gave way to the Velvet Underground. Chad was aware of laughter, but his sense of the ongoing conversation became garbled and disjointed. He hardly noticed when Wanda stood up from the table and left the cabin.

Allyson’s fingers were starting to cramp from all the hours she’d spent chopping vegetables for Camp Whiskey’s cooking crew. A big feast was in the works for the evening and all day long the mess hall’s kitchen had been a bustle of activity. But now it was late in the afternoon and the other women she’d been working with had knocked off for a final break before the last big pre-dinner push. They hadn’t invited her to join them outside, which was typical of the way she’d been shunned from the beginning. Though Chad denied it, she suspected the thinly disguised ill will toward her was a result of Jim’s lingering distrust of her.

Allyson’s life prior to arriving at Camp Whiskey had not been an easy one, but she was pretty and personable and so had always managed to find a way to fit in wherever she went. This ostracism was something new. Being surrounded by people who would barely talk to her or look at her was worse by far than merely being alone. It hurt her in a fundamental way that she’d never truly experienced before. And, of course, they all knew of her past in the porn industry. Someone—

Jim, she thought, her blood boiling.

—had decided to share this bit of information with his inner circle. And the juicy tidbit had filtered down through the grapevine until everyone knew about it. Chad’s apparent unwillingness to stand up for her made it worse. It was almost as frustrating as her several failed attempts at seducing him. He didn’t seem at all interested in her physically anymore, and Allyson was beginning to feel it was pointless to keep trying.

Thinking about it caused her to grit her teeth and start chopping the carrots faster. She wielded the gleaming blade in her hand with a swift efficiency. Something about the task made her recall how easily the axe blade had punched through the flesh of the men sent to retrieve Chad and Jim. She imagined the blade in her hand pressed to Jim’s throat. Saw his eyes go wide as she eased the sharp wedge of steel into his flesh and drew blood, his pleas for mercy going unanswered as she made him pay dearly for the humiliation she’d suffered. But the fantasy brought no real satisfaction. Her wounded pride aside, she ached to fit in and be accepted. Ached to have Chad like and respect her again.

She didn’t realize her eyes had filled with tears until she heard the sound of boot heels on the kitchen floor. She wiped her eyes with the back of a hand and looked up to see Wanda Lewis entering the kitchen from the mess hall. The woman was tall and slender, and possessed of a striking prettiness that made Allyson want to touch her. Which was just odd. Allyson had performed sexual acts with women before, but never outside the context of porn films. Hetero was her default orientation and she was happy with it, so it was a strange thing to feel that little tingle of arousal every time she saw Wanda’s face.

There was a small, enigmatic smile teasing the corners of the woman’s mouth as she approached Allyson and placed a hand on her arm. “Come for a walk with me, Allyson. I’d like to talk with you about some things.”

Allyson looked into the taller woman’s luminous green eyes and felt something melt inside her. Maybe Wanda had approached her as a peacemaker. Perhaps she’d even been sent by Jim for that very purpose. The prospect of being accepted at last by the inner circle made her heart skip a beat. She felt like crying again, but she managed to keep the tears at bay. She dared not get her hopes up too soon.

She let go of the knife and wiped her hands on the dirty apron tied about her waist. “Okay.” She untied the apron and tossed it over the back of a chair. “I’m about sick of this women’s work bullshit anyway.”

Wanda smiled again and moved toward the screen door at the rear of the kitchen. Allyson followed her outside and noted at once the mixture of disdain and curiosity playing across the faces of her co-workers. Most of them puffed at cigarettes and pretended not to notice her, but one man, a soldier who’d moved away from the nearby woods to talk to the gathered women, looked her in the eye for a moment. A flicker of some unreadable emotion passed over his face and disappeared.

Allyson hurried to catch up to Wanda, whose long strides had nearly carried her to the edge of the woods in the time Allyson had paused to study the soldier’s expression. She stepped through the line of trees and put an extra spring in her step as she glimpsed Wanda’s back in intermittent flashes through the maze of trees. They were moving along a winding, ill-defined path. She moved quickly along lengths of bare ground, then had to take her time negotiating areas covered with thick bramble and blocked by low-hanging branches.

She was nearly out of breath by the time she emerged into a small clearing. Wanda was standing in the center of the clearing with her back turned. She moved closer to the other woman and said, “It’s…kind of…nice out here.” She laughed once, a sound rendered brittle by her live-wire nerves. “If you’re into the whole back-to-nature thing, I mean. I’m not, really, but I’m trying to get used to it.”

Wanda laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Allyson.”

She turned around and Allyson gasped at the sight of the gun pointed at her chest. Her knees went weak and her stomach did a slow roll. “Wh-what…is this?”

Wanda moved closer. “Get on your knees, Allyson.”

Allyson knew she should turn and run. A mad dash back into the woods was her only chance of escape. But the sight of that looming gun barrel was so intimidating. The strength drained from her legs and she dropped to her knees. Wanda’s smile broadened as she approached Allyson and placed the warm gun barrel against the center of her forehead.

She laughed at the sight of tears spilling down Allyson’s cheeks. “Poor little thing. Did you really think I brought you here for some heart-to-heart, girl-to-girl talk?”

Allyson was shaking uncontrollably by now. The steel biting into her flesh felt like the cold finger of God, the Almighty laying His judgment down on her. She’d done a lot of bad things in the past and now the time of reckoning had come.

Wanda pressed the gun harder against Allyson’s forehead, making her look up into her leering face. “I’ve been assigned by my Mistress to act as your executioner. You shouldn’t never have fucked us over, bitch.”

Allyson’s eyes blinked in confusion. “Wh…?”

Wanda’s forefinger began to exert pressure on the 9mm’s trigger. Allyson knew she was an instant away from dying. She should be praying to God for forgiveness in hopes that He might show her some mercy once she crossed to the other side. But instinct sent her mind scrambling to make sense of w hat Wanda had said.

It almost seemed as if…

BLAM!

Allyson screamed as the shot rang out, the blast echoing in the clearing as Wanda toppled backward and fell hard to the ground. Allyson remained frozen for a moment, unable at first to comprehend that she was still alive and that the person who’d meant to kill her had been struck down. Then she gasped as she heard heavy footsteps moving past her toward the fallen woman.

The soldier she’d glimpsed outside the mess hall knelt next to the woman he’d shot and felt for a pulse. Then he showed Allyson a grim expression and said, “She’s dead.”

Allyson nodded.

Then the world went fuzzy and she fell into unconsciousness.