Jason wiped away a tear with his fist as he growled. He sounded like a wounded animal caught in a trap. After some time, the growl contorted, turning into a wailing moan as more tears came.
The pain of the revelation that Jason had done this to George dug into his gut. He had screwed up. Screwed up worse than ever before.
Besides George, he had made Megan into a miserable mess. Remembering how she looked as she begged him to stay made Jason cringe. She had screamed at Michael, pleaded with him to keep Jason here, safe. She had done it because she cared, right?
Even Jeff stuck his neck out for him. That coldhearted bastard who didn’t seem to care much for anything except beating on stiffs with that baseball bat of his had confronted Michael and Frank.
But it was George who had sacrificed everything.
What have I done?
Jason curled up even tighter. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother back. He had made a mess of things, and he just wanted Momma to be alive again to come get him and take him away from this place.
Jason fell backwards on the bed and lay on his damp pillow. He would try to figure everything out while the men were gone, work out what he could do to make things right again. But for now, he would close his eyes for a few minutes to clear his head. Just a few minutes and then he would figure everything out.
A minute later, he was asleep.
Chapter 13
The Dollar General Store was several hundred yards past the van. The front doors were intact, and there were no splashes of blood or trampled bodies crowding the parking lot.
They had walked past a couple of smaller establishments. One was the combination laundromat-carwash Jeff recalled seeing the day before. As he glanced into the dark, open wash bays, he watched for any movement back in the shadows. There were no windows on the rest of the building, so there was no way to look inside… or for something inside to look out. There were two more buildings between “Scrubbing Bubbles” and the general store. One was a light blue one-story cinderblock and wood structure with a green awning. The other looked like someone’s house rather than a business. There were no placards denoting what the establishments were, and the group dismissed the idea of examining them too closely.
On the other side of the road were two drab brown buildings. A wide gap between the two decrepit shacks showed the field and woods beyond where the RVs were. The pasture was flat and expansive.
Past the general store, a string of telephone poles ran along the side of the road. Several abandoned vehicles with shattered windshields and flat tires were scattered across the asphalt, and one of the combination streetlight-telephone poles had been rammed and lay across the top of a car, creasing its roof.
As they continued moving forward, they saw two more identical brown buildings directly across from the Dollar General. They looked to be in far better shape than the ones they were currently passing.
Each housed several businesses. Jeff glanced at some of the names on the doors and the cracked and shattered picture windows. There was an insurance company, a small hobby shop, a sub restaurant, and what he guessed to be a rather small and cramped tavern.
There was a hazy blur of businesses and houses well beyond the immediate commercial area. Jeff could see some two and three-story office buildings off in the distance. He squinted, looking for movement, but saw none. There were only a few birds on the telephone wires that marched into town and no noise at all.
“Well, it looks pretty good, doesn’t it? No one’s around,” Ray said, his eyes darting everywhere. His hand kept traveling to the pistol stuffed into his khaki pants to reassure himself that it was still there. Jeff idly wondered if the boy pawed his dick as much as that damned gun.
“Shut up back there.” Marcus turned, swinging his shotgun toward the teen. Ray clammed up and stutter-stepped to a stop. He stood nervously, shifting his feet side to side. His face turned red with embarrassment as he stared at the ground to avoid the further wrath of Michael’s henchman. After a few seconds, Marcus looked satisfied and started moving again.
Jeff picked up his pace and moved up next to Marcus so they could speak.
“So what’s the plan?” Jeff kept his voice low, not interested in pissing off the redneck even further.
Marcus stopped and stared at Jeff. There was no anger in his look, but it was clear that he had nothing but contempt for the suburbanite. After a few seconds, he snorted and bent his neck forward. A large brown glob of tobacco juice and mucus plopped onto the pavement a couple of inches from Jeff’s shoe, splattering his leg. Jeff saw the trajectory of the confection, but kept his eyes on Marcus’s face even as the warm gruel seeped into his jeans. A line of spittle ran down Marcus’s beard, but he didn’t bother wiping it off.
“The plan is that you stay the fuck out of my way, hotshot.” With that, Marcus began walking again, leaving Jeff standing alone.
The others moved up to Jeff as he looked on in stunned disbelief at Marcus’s back. He was drifting to the right, toward one of the brown buildings opposite the Dollar General. After a few moments, it became clear which entrance Frank’s buddy was heading for.
“So what do you want us to do?”
Marcus did not stop at Jeff’s inquiry. “Check the general store out or jerk each other off. Either way, I don’t give a shit.”
Jeff stared in amazement at the back of the dirty t-shirt Marcus was wearing as he continued walking. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The headache that had persisted since Fred from the abandoned farmhouse had walloped Jeff was creeping back to the surface. The pain had diminished to a dull throb after he had swallowed nearly an entire bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol over the course of the past couple of days. Now the headache was back at full throttle, ready for an encore.
No one spoke as they watched Marcus move across the street. As one, the teens and George turned to Jeff. Biting down on a scream, he rubbed his eyes wearily. This was going to be up to him.
“Okay, guys, here’s the plan. George and I are going in the store.” Jeff gestured over his shoulder toward the Dollar General. “You two stay outside and stand watch.” He could see the relief on both teens’ faces at the directive. George nodded as he studied the store.
It was a standard rectangular one-story brick building with a swinging glass door but no display windows. Hopefully enough light would pour in from the doorway to get a clear view inside. Jeff was reminded of the drug store he had raided back in Milfield and hoped there wasn’t a storeroom full of dead bodies in this one.
He looked around once more to see if there was any movement. There was none except for Marcus, who had reached the tavern, endearingly named “Hole in the Wall.” He was peering through the broken glass of the front door, about to push his way inside.
Jeff looked back toward Michael and Frank. They were distant specks now, several hundred yards away. The duo still leaned against the van, waiting for the group to return with the supplies the camp needed. Jeff wondered if booze was on their shopping list as he spied Marcus ducking inside the tavern out of the corner of his eye.
Motioning for the others to fall in, Jeff moved into the parking lot of the general store. There was a dumpster on the side of the building, next to a metal door that likely led to a stockroom. The building looked fairly new, and Jeff recalled that the Dollar General in Milfield had been built only a few years before. The two structures looked identical, both with a light brown brick exterior. Jeff squinted at the metal door and dismissed the idea of checking it out. They would go through the glass doors at the front instead.
“Holy crap!”