Off the Wagon (Users #2) (7 page)

“And we can’t have your minions just going around shooting people in front of a crowded bus stop full of people, now can we? That brings unwanted attention.” Frank pulled a knife from a sheath he wore under his jacket. The tattooed man’s eyes went wide at the sight of the blade.

“Listen Frank, I-I’m sorry,” the tattooed man stammered. “I didn’t know.”

“That’s precisely the problem,” Frank said. “None of you seem to know exactly what the fuck is going on inside your own organizations.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s entirely true,” a weaselly looking man in a jet black leather jacket said.

“Did I ask for your fucking opinion?” Frank asked pointing a finger in the man’s direction. “You may not know what’s going on, but I make it my business to know exactly what the fuck is going on at all times.”

With no sign of what was coming, Frank stabbed the tattooed man in the chest once, twice, and a third time just for good measure.

“You make this mistake again…it will be at your own peril, and you will wind up like your friend here.” Frank wiped the blood from his knife off on the shirt of the tattooed man’s shoulder before putting it back in its sheath.

Blood gurgled from the tattooed man’s mouth and dripped onto the floor, almost getting on Frank’s designer shoes.

“Ack!” Frank stepped back to pull his foot out of the way.

“Would you do something with him already.” Frank instructed one of his henchmen, who had been standing silently in the corner of the room, to get rid of the dying man as if he were already a corpse.

“I want to know who is snooping around in my business,” Frank instructed to those remaining. “Now get out there and find him.”

“How?” the weaselly man asked.

“Get creative.” Frank turned on his heels and promptly exited the room, leaving his underlings to contemplate the situation and how they would go about finding the User who had been meddling in their business.

Chapter 8

“I want to go with you this time,” Barber said the following night as Carter got ready to head out again. The television was off for a change and Barber hadn’t even so much as looked at his video game console all day.

“You know I can’t let you do that,” Carter said.

He had made a promise to Walt and Carter meant to keep it. The old man scared him, more than a little bit.

“I know I messed up, but I’m clean now.”

Barber was back in true form, Carter could clearly see that, but it still wasn’t enough to convince him that bringing Barber out with him was a good idea. Carter tried not to imagine the epic ass whooping that Walt would give him if the old man caught Barber out fighting crime with him again.

“I can’t risk you getting hurt again. You’re just a kid. There will be plenty of time for you to go out there and make a difference... when you have a little more maturity and sobriety under your belt” Carter grabbed his duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“I’m not just a kid. I can help.” Barber shot Carter a look like he was about to start begging.

Carter looked around the still mostly empty room, the stacks of full boxes that stood in the same place they had set them the day they moved in, and realized that they hadn’t made the place much of a home yet. Had he exerted more of a deliberate effort to make the place a little homier, perhaps Barber wouldn’t be so eager to leave all the time.

Carter let out a heavy sigh. “Look, this guy selling the drugs, the big man, he’s a User. I don’t know what kind, which makes the situation all the more dangerous. He’s gotta be stopped.”

“Then we’ll do it together.” Barber was on the edge of his seat as if he was ready to jump up at any moment.

“There’s no way and that’s the end of it,” Carter said, his tone a little harsher than he had intended.

“Quit leaving me here alone,” Barber pleaded. “You’re gone all night, then you sleep all day, I hardly see you except when you’re walking out the door.”

Barber’s words hit Carter like a ton of bricks. The kid didn’t want to go fight crime with him, Barber just wanted to spend time with him. He was lonely, and Carter had been completely ignoring him again.

Carter ran a hand over the stubble that covered his head.

“Listen, I’ve got one more lead to follow up on tonight,” Carter said. “But tomorrow we’ll go to a meeting down at the Elk’s Club, see everybody, and then go out to a movie or something.”

Barber huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, turning to face the opposite direction.

“I gotta go. I’ll see you later,” Carter said.

With that, he turned and headed for the door. Once out in the hall, he leaned up against the wall to steady himself before heading out for the night. He was making his best attempt to handle Barber with kid gloves. He hoped it would buy him a little more time to complete his current crusade.

*****

Carter hid in the shadow of an awning across the street from a seemingly empty warehouse, but there was plenty of action going down this night. A white van had pulled up shortly after he arrived and there were now dozens of men loading the van full of what looked to be, by the need for a ramp, heavy suit cases. They rolled the suit cases in one by one, up the ramp, and into the back of the van. Where a single man in the back of the van stacked them neatly into piles. This wasn’t someone’s laundry they were taking such care with.

Carter had to be in the right place. Seattle was a thriving city. Abandoned warehouses downtown were few and far between. He thought to just burst out right at that moment and ambush them, but there were too many of the goons loading the van and lord only knows how many more inside the building. No, he had to wait until the van pulled away, where he could get the driver alone. He found it peculiar that for all the activity taking place outside the building, that he couldn’t actually see anyone inside the building.

Finally, the last of the suit cases were loaded into the back of the van. A man got in the driver’s seat, and a second hopped in on the passenger side. Two was a bit harder to deal with than one, but he would manage. One of the loaders slammed the van’s rear double doors shut, and slapped the back of the van three times, letting the driver know they were good to go.

The van pulled away, and Carter couldn’t wait for the men who had loaded the van to go back inside. He stayed to the shadows, creeping his way through the alley, and he slipped past the goons just as the van was turning the corner. Carter darted across the alley and out into the street in the direction of the van, but as he turned the corner, the van had already passed the light on the corner and was well on its way toward the viaduct.

Carter didn’t want to risk people seeing him, but he couldn’t let the van get away. He slipped off his shoes, not bothering with the dirt stained socks, and let the fire from his feet torch right through the thin fabric covering them. He was lifted off the ground, straight up at first, but he used the fire from the palms of his hands to change direction toward the speeding van. He felt like fucking Ironman as he turned a sharp corner, cutting off the fire from his feet and hands to make an abrupt stop, then bursting forward as he twisted in midair and let the flames erupt from his hands and feet once again.

“Wooh!” Carter shouted as he skimmed across the tops of the cars in traffic below him. He passed under the viaduct and out onto the street running parallel to the waterfront to get right up behind the van, but for some reason the van was heading out of the city. Carter hung back for a minute and let the van get to the edge of town before he shot forward, hovered over the van, and cut off the jets, landing hard on the van’s roof.

“What the fuck was that?” A voice from inside the van yelled.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you stick your head out the window and find out?” A second more gruff voice said.

Carter didn’t wait for them to find out what was on the roof. He dropped down to his belly and slid across the roof to the driver side. With one solid fiery punch, Carter shattered the driver side window. The broken glass showered the driver in shards and cut his face like tiny razors. The van swerved, and Carter had to hang on for dear life as he was thrown from side to side. The driver slammed on the brakes, and Carter nearly went sailing off the roof, but he managed to hang on until the last second. As the van came to an abrupt stop, Carter tumbled head first down the windshield and off the hood.

“Holy shit!” The passenger said as Carter jumped back to his feet, dusted himself off, and approached the van head on.

The lights from the van blinded him and he had to shield his eyes with one hand raised to his face.

“Get out of the van now!” Carter yelled.

Neither the passenger or the driver moved, so Carter thought he would give them a hand. He reached in through the broken driver side window with both hands, grabbed the man by the hair, and pulled him right out through the open portal.

“What’s in the back of your van?” Carter asked. “And where’s it going?”

Carter still had a firm hold on the man’s hair. The door on the passenger side clicked as the door handle was pulled and the door swung open.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Carter dragged the driver, who tripped and fell, by his greasy hair toward the passenger side of the van and the man screamed in pain.

The man who was no longer in the passenger seat turned to run, but Carter fired a warning shot. The fireball sailed right over the man’s head and off into the distance, stopping him in his tracks.

“Okay, okay; don’t shoot,” the man said, not fully understanding who he was dealing with.

“Turn around,” Carter said.

The man raised his hands and turned around slowly.

“You look like you’ve done this before,” Carter said.

“The keys are in the ignition. Just take the van and go.”

“This isn’t a robbery,” Carter said.

“Then what is it?” the driver, still on the ground, growled.

Carter let go of his hair finally.

“Get up and open up the back of the van,” Carter said.

The driver, a heavy set man with thick wrinkles on his forehead, rose to his feet and joined his companion.

“Both of you stay where I can see you.”

The pair made a slow shuffle to the back of the van with Carter following right behind them.

“Now open the doors,” Carter said as they reach the rear of the van. “Slowly.”

The pair, one on each door, pulled on the handles, and slowly crept the doors wide to each side. They stood there not moving, blocking Carter’s view.

“Now move out of the way,” Carter said.

“You asked for it,” one of them said.

Carter wasn’t really sure which, and at that moment he didn’t care, he had more pressing matters at hand. A third man, carrying a shotgun, popped up out of the back of the van, and he had the barrel pointed right in Carter’s face.

“Well, looks like I got the right van,” Carter said.

Chapter 9

Carter froze. He knew without a doubt, he was fucked. He had been in sticky situations before, but this time he was wide open with a shotgun in his face. Even if he managed to get a fireball shot off, the shotgun used a scattergun approach, and he was bound to get hit by at least some of the bee-bees. Worse still he was outnumbered three to one.

“You so much as move and I’ll paint the road red with your brains,” the man with the shotgun said as he stepped down out of the van.

The man with the gun was little, barely five foot. It was always the little ones you had to worry about. They had an ax to grind, and this one wanted to grind it right on Carter’s face.

“What do we do?” the driver asked.

“You let me take care of him. You’re hired to drive, that’s all.”

“You’re not going to kill him are you?” the third man asked.

“What’s the matter? You’re a drug smuggler with a conscious all of a sudden,” the man with the shotgun teased. “You, over to the side of the road.”

He pointed with the barrel of the gun toward a dark thicket of trees and underbrush sprouting up right next to the side of the road. Carter did as he was told. He had little choice in the matter. He was going to die, and there was no fighting it this time. He had failed. He would not stop the Pow from infecting his city, and worse still, he would not be there to take Barber to the meeting tomorrow, or the week after, or the week after that.

“Get down on your knees,” the man said.

Carter dropped down on his knees next to a large fern bush. The fern’s sprouting swords were taller than he was when on his knees.

“Kiss your ass goodbye.”

“You first.” A voice Carter recognized well whispered from the darkness.

Barber burst up, out from behind the fern, spikes leading the way.

“What the-” Was all the man with the shotgun was able to get out before Barber’s spikes drove into the man’s chest, tearing through skin, bone, and flesh.

The gun fell from the man’s hands as he brought them up instinctively in a feeble attempt to defend himself. Blood filled the man’s mouth and throat before he could cry out to his companions. A sickening gurgle, as the man choked on his own blood, was the last noise that he would ever make.