Free The Damned by William Ollie Page A

rest of ‘em scattered the fuck outa Dodge, except the sorry bunch that stayed with us.” Dub took another toke, handed the joint to Teddy, and said, “What do you think happened, bro? How do you think you got outa that cell?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You ever read the Bible?”
    “ Fuck no. Not since I was a kid, anyways.”
    “You’ve heard of The Rapture though, right? That someday the righteous would be called up to Heaven? Or some kinda shit like that. Hell, I ain’t read much of the good book myself. But I do recognize what’s going on. What the hell else could it be? I saw Bernie-the-accountant blink out like some kinda crazy science fiction flick—right in front of my eyes. Just like—” Dub snapped his fingers. “—that, he was gone. One second he was here, then he wasn’t. Just like—”
    “That. Yeah, you told me before.”
    “I know I told you before. I’m telling you now ‘cause I want you to understand: we’re at the ground floor of this shit. If we act now, act boldly, we’ll come out on top. We’ll rule this area—hell, there’s no telling how far we can go if we come out of this with enough people behind us.”
    “Dub… Bro. We’ve got like a hundred and fifty dudes, and half of them are stragglers we’ve picked up. Hell, most of our hard core brothers are morons like the four who got themselves killed this afternoon. And you want to take on an army? What’dya think, we can just throw some kinda conscription on the Q’s? Give those fuckers some artillery and force ‘em to man up against an organized militia? You gonna lead ‘em into battle? ‘Cause I sure as hell ain’t.”
    “ We will, bro. You and me.”
    “You’ve been smokin’ too much of that shit, you think I’m gonna—”
    “Teddy, how far we go back, man?”
    “A long damn way.”
    “Have I ever steered you wrong?”
    Teddy wanted to say, ‘What’re you, kidding me? You steered my ass straight onto death row’. But he didn’t say anything. He just took another drink of beer and stared off into the distance, at the open window on the far side of the room.
    “Look. Teddy. I need you with me. ‘Cause if you aren’t with me…” It was a threat, a thinly-veiled ultimatum that hung in the air a moment before Teddy answered it: “ With you? Dude, I always have been, haven’t I?”
    “True enough, bro. True enough.” Dub took another drink of beer, the bottle half empty now as he sat it on the table. “Just leave it to me. I’ve got it all worked out. You and me giving the orders, Bert and Ernie and the boys carrying them out. We’ll be the leaders. They’ll be the generals leading our troops into battle, keeping the Q’s in line—the ones who don’t join us, that is. I imagine most will when they see how we treat the ones who don’t.”
    Teddy hit the joint a couple of times, dropped the spent roach to floor and ground it against the tile. “Dude, you got any word on the scouts?”
    “Nothing.”
    “They should’ve been back by now.”
    “If they’re coming back. Who knows, maybe they decided to keep going, get the hell out and see what’s at the end of the line. What do you think?”
    Teddy shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe we should send somebody after them.”
    “I’ll think about it,” Dub said. “In the meantime, we’ve gotta see the old man tonight.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Yep. That business I was talking about? Carlicci wants another load of girls. We’ll run some up there and check him out, stock up on some of that killer flake of his.”
    “Where does he get all that shit?”
    “You kiddin’? Probably has a team of chemists grinding it out in his basement or something.”
    “Chained to the wall in his basement.”
    Chuckling, Dub said, “No doubt.” He finished off his beer and set the empty bottle on the table. “You can bet your ass that old man’s playing all the angles— all the angles.”
    “Probably sittin’ up there in that fortress of his trying to