Bad Bitch

Chapter 4

The River's Fork Inn is a deceptively fancy name for a run-down dive at the fork in River Road. There's no river, just a fucking fork in the road. The dirty white painted stucco is peeling in several places, revealing previous shades of baby shit yellow, mold green, and vomit pink. Black iron railings along the breezeway and around the pool are supposed to give it that "Mediterranean flair," but it just makes the place look like a run-down mental institution. Their giant electric sign is missing most of its bulbs, and the flickering neon "vacancy" is down to two letters, "V" and "Y."

The office door was dead-bolted, and it took a solid minute of pounding to get the manager to peek over the counter and finally let us in.

In a twist of pure, dumb luck, he was packing two military issue Beretta M9s with 6 full magazines and a Remington double barrel with a modified choke and about 30 shells. I felt a lot better about our mission with a little firepower under our belts.

He might have been a raging ammosexual, but he was pissing his pants by the time we got there. "I talked to your guy on the phone a few minutes ago. I thought they were sending a recovery team?" He looked doubtfully at my sparkly pink sweats and combat boots, and obvious lack of munitions.

"Yeah, they're tied up at the food court, so you got us. Just... give us a run-down of the situation."

"Well, I shut down the elevator, like SSG. Hill asked, then I locked the doors to the stairs and barricaded all the exits. I was calling the other floors to tell them to get the hell out of here when you showed up. The guests say there are some really weird noises coming from the top floor..."

He put the guns on the counter and slid down the wall into a heap on the floor, shaking like a leaf. His spoke through his hands, covering his face.

"I can't deal with this. I'm a glorified guest clerk, not a security guard. We don't even have a security guard. Like we needed security in this godforsaken dump."

I snatched up an M9 and handed the shotgun to Tamsyn, then pushed the other M9 and one magazine with 15 rounds back across the counter. I looked at his name tag. "Okay, Derek. We can do this. Tamsyn and I will check out the stairs, and I just want you on point here in the office. If you see anything weird hit the ground running, shoot it in the head for me, okay? You got a girlfriend, Derek?"

He nodded.

"She work upstairs, by any chance?"

He shook his head.

I sighed with relief. Though he was shaking with fright, he still hadn't left his post, and I was glad to know we wouldn't have to lock poor Derek up and destroy him when he 'flipped out.'

I dumped out the bag of cat food and filled it with magazines, then slung it over my shoulder. Tamsyn stuffed her pockets with shells, and we left the office to scout the perimeter.

Tamsyn spoke her first words since leaving the hooker's apartment. "So why'd you leave the other M9 behind with Derek?"

I pointed at the shotgun. "Because you need two hands for that. And I need this." I said, holding up my trusty pink zombie head launcher. "Because if I run out of ammo, I'm still a Bad Bitch!"

Tamsyn rolled her eyes and grunted, then led the way around back.

A quick circuit of the building showed no sign of anything breaching the barricades, and guests were loading their sedans and SUVs, headed away as fast as their wheels would carry them. For a minute, I freaked out. What if some of them slept with the people upstairs? But then I calmed down a little, I remembered people don't eat where they shit. In other words, the upstairs guests weren't there to sleep, they were there to fuck. The downstairs guests were there to sleep. You don't need a room for that when the escorts have their own upstairs, no extra charge.

As we stalked up the back stairwell, we could hear screaming and pounding on the door.

"Hey! Is anybody out there? What the FUCK! Let me the fuck OUTTA here! These crazy bitches are trying to KILL ME!!!"

I cringed. I had no idea who the guy was, shouting to be let out, but he was zombie chow if we didn't get him out that door.

"We're here, dude, but I need you to answer a couple of questions!"

"WHATTHEFUCK!!!" Whatever you want! Just PLEASE fucking hurry!"

Okay then. Since our objective was to get the list, we needed ingress into the zombie penthouse eventually. A little intelligence wouldn't hurt.

"Who are you?"

"Jesus Mary and Joseph, I'm dying here!"

"Okay then, Jesus. What are you doing in the hooker high-rise?"

"Ay, Dios Mio! For Chrissake, my name is Branda, and these are MY hookers!" Only today they're suddenly FUBAR, tearing up the place yelling "SOLDIER" and running around like homicidal maniacs! Now lemme OUT!"

"Calm down, Branda. Did you sleep with any of these girls in the last two days?

"NO! I never touch the merchandise, honey, just the clients! It's bad for business!"

"So how did you get away?"

"I got a chair under the door in the hallway, honey, but it's breaking! Let me the FUCK OUT!"

I made eye contact with Tamsyn and she nodded. I raised the bar and she covered me with the shotgun while I slammed open the door and hauled Branda out by his... um her? Fancy gold satin robe.

Branda was a knockout. Glossy ebony mane, perfect bronze complexion, silicone tits and endless legs topped by coltish thighs. And a massive adam's apple. Her baritone erased all doubt.

"Holy shit." She was breathless and sweating through her perfect glamor makeup. "Jesus, I thought I was a goner. I was just sitting there getting the deposit ready and BAM, Tonja slams out of the back bedroom with her wig all catywumpus yelling 'SOLDIER' and runs slam into the divider between the kitchen and the sitting room. She was winded, but not for very long. Then Alison comes screaming out of the bathroom, and I just took off!"

"How many of them are in there? Do you know?"

"Alison and Tonja were on the video feed last night in the Rumba Room, everybody else slept in, I think. That makes six, total. I got into the hallway and there were three more were already outside their rooms, just banging into each other and the walls, so I barricaded myself in the entryway, just as that fucking pussy, DEREK locked me in!"

I patted her shoulder. "Well, you got out okay. Shake it off."

She looked at me in horror.

Tamsyn sighed. "Is there any chance you have a list of clients for the last three days in that robe?"

Branda smirked and flashed us exactly what she had under the robe. Nothing. Nada. Just the equipment God blessed her with at birth and two phenomenal upgrades from a very good plastic surgeon, by the looks of it. Her voice dripped with venom and sarcasm. "Sorry, honey. That's in the log book in the apartment," she motioned to the door, "but you're welcome to go back in there and get it!"

I cursed and swung Bad Bitch at the reinforced steel door. "Fuck! That's exactly what we have to do. Everybody those birds fucked after coming home from that stupid death party is infected with the same shit."

Branda quickly turned ten shades of green.

I helped her sit down on the top step. "What's wrong? Are you gonna be sick?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Ten of my girls got called out to the Mayor's mansion yesterday for a private VIP party. City council members, judges, the sherriff, the district attorney, the chairman of the school board. You name it. Nearly every duly elected shitbag in Santa Juanita was supposed to be there."