Cannibal Corpse, M/C

In the beams of the flashlights, dust motes swam like pillow down, drifting and floating. And it was the dust itself that guided them. Certain corridors had an undisturbed layer of it and others had trails pounded through it.

More rumbling from below.

A couple of them shook the fortress.

“John…” Apache Dan started to say.

“I know, man. Just a few more minutes and we’re out.”

They came to yet another corridor and by then they were so mixed up and turned around that Slaughter had to wonder if they’d ever find their way back out even if they did locate Isley. The corridor had been well-trod, judging from the dust. It had possibilities. Unfortunately, it was almost as long as a city block.

“All right,” he said, feeling hope fading in him. “We check the rooms and then we’re out.”

“You take this side, I’ll take the other.”

Slaughter didn’t like separating, but what choice was there? Time was a factor now and they had to move it and get it done. He checked three rooms, coughing on the dust he stirred up. Three more. A fourth. Then a fifth. Then—

He threw open the door and was looking into an empty room except it wasn’t empty because there were three people in there: two women and a man he recognized: Brightman. They were tied to a bench. One of the women was clearly dead.

He blinked again and again because he really thought he was seeing things. He panned the light over them.

“Jesus Christ, you finally made it,” Brightman said.

“I told you I would.” Slaughter set his shotgun aside and lit a cigarette. “What’re you doing here?”

Brightman stared at him with shining eyes set in a grimy face. “The Red Hand. They attacked the base and overran us. They took me as…as a bargaining chip, I suppose. Now cut me loose.”

“Not so fast. Where’s Isley?”

“She’s sitting next to me. Now cut me loose.”

Slaughter ignored him. Just as in their first meeting, he got a bad feeling from this guy. He turned to the door and shouted out into the corridor: “Apache! Down here!”

Then he went back into the room. “They brought you here?”

“Yes…then those bikers, they took over the place and slaughtered the Red Hand. Now cut—”

“How come they didn’t take you into the cave?”

“What cave?”

Slaughter didn’t push that. He let Brightman talk. Apparently, after Cannibal Corpse stormed the place, Brightman and Isley and the other woman—who apparently had been some sort of assistant to Isley and was now quite dead—were shuttered away up here. They hadn’t eaten in days. They were starving. Dehydrated. Isley was dying.

“Now can we shitcan the questions, Slaughter, and get me loose?”

Slaughter blew out smoke. “Way I’m figuring it, I don’t need you. I just need the woman.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Brightman asked him. “You need me. She’s dying. She’ll do you no good. If I can get on a radio I can have your brother’s sentence commuted and I can get a chopper in here to get us out. But we have to move. We really have to move because I’m pretty sure this place is going to be leveled by an airstrike and I’m surprised it hasn’t been already.”

“I want my brother freed.”

“Cut me loose and get me to a radio and it’s done.”

That’s when Isley lifted her head up. In the flashlight beam, her face was yellow, jaundiced-looking. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. “Your brother is dead,” she said in a perfectly lucid voice.

“She’s out of her fucking head!” Brightman insisted. “Now cut me loose before this goddamn place gets bombed!”

But Slaughter wasn’t about to do that. Red Eye was dead? Dead? Is that what she said? Is that really what she just fucking said? He swallowed and then swallowed again. He pulled off his cigarette and tried to keep his cool.

“How do you know that?” he asked her.

“Slaughter! She’s out of her head! Please, goddammit, cut me loose!”

But Slaughter ignored him. He focused on the woman. She put her eyes on him and he didn’t like them at all because they reminded him of the eyes of the woman at the Red Hand encampment that had been shooting worm juice.

“Your brother’s name was Perry. People called him Red Eye,” she said in her gravelly voice. “Brightman told you if you got me out of here, your brother would be freed but your brother was already dead and he knew it.”

Slaughter looked at Brightman now.

But Brightman shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Slaughter, she’s got a worm in her. You can’t believe what she’s saying. C’mon, just cut me loose and I’ll get your brother freed. You have to trust me.”