The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 64

Digger and Motor herded Mal and Negan into the hotel, guiding them with slaps and kicks. Preacher Jack walked behind them, humming to himself. Mal was sure it wasn't a hymn.

They entered the main lobby, which was piled high with crates of goods scavenged from local towns. Sturdy shelves had been erected on every inch of wall space, and these were crammed with canned goods, sacks of grain, jars of spices, and bottles of everything from extra-virgin olive oil to Kentucky whiskey. One wall had a rack of guns running from floor to ceiling: shotguns, rifles, automatic weapons, rocket launchers, and every kind of handgun. And there were barrels filled with bayonets, machetes, swords, spears, axes, and clubs. Against one wall were six crates labeled C4. Mal swallowed.

There were enough weapons to start a war... or to reclaim the wastelands from the living dead. Mal saw Negan staring longingly at the collection.

Digger noticed and slapped the back of his head. "Don't even think about it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," He said under his breath.

Mal ground her teeth and swore thy she would make these men pay for ever hurting Negan.

They pushed Mal and Negan through the hotel and up several sets of stairs until they stood in the doorway of a dusty attic. The room was empty except for cobwebs.

"Make yourselves comfy," said Motor Hammer as he shoved them into the room. "Call room service if you want anything, lovebirds." The men were laughing as they slammed the door shut and locked it.

Mal pressed her ear to the door and listened until she couldn't hear their footfalls on the steps anymore. Then she tried the door handled. It jiggled, but the lock was tough and the door was too solid to kick open. With a sigh of resignation she turned to Negan.

"We'll get out of this," he promised.

She looked dazed and small in the dusty light. "How? Negan- they're going to put us in the Infected pits!"

"I know... but we're fighters. We're smart and strong, remember?"

Mal snorted, but shook her head.

They looked around. The room was completely empty. Bare floor, bare walls with cracked plaster that had crumbled in places to reveal the thin wooden bones of the walls, a light fixture that hasn't worked in fifteen years hanging from the ceiling, and a cracked window that looked out into the horse corral.

"Okay," Negan said, "so we're not big on shitload supplies." But when he looked at Mal, she was smiling. "What?"

She told him. Then he was smiling too.

-:-:-:-:-

Tom stood just inside the spill of shadows cast by the tall willows that bordered the old hotel. Anyone standing three feet away would not have seen him. He might have been a ghost, or a layer of the deepening twilight shadows. He was sure that Negan and Mal were being held inside and the RK's as well. After he'd left the dead bounty hunters, he had gone racing back to the way station, found it in ashes, then saw footprints leading toward Wawona. Mal and Negan's shoes, no doubt about it. And Preacher Jack's following them. Tom had raced along the path and only paused a moment when he saw that Preacher Jack's prints veered away from a straight pursuit and took a shortcut toward the hotel.

Tom had found the scene of slaughter by the barn, had read the tale in the scuff marks and knew that Dreaded Skillz and DJ Derby had been with Mal and Negan for a time. But he also saw that the two surfers had turned and gone back into the hills. Their path must have missed Tom's by no more than half a mile.

Now Tom was at KillGames, and now he knew the full horror of things. White Bear had taken over the old hotel and transformed it into a killing ground. There were single Infected pits all around the building, and a cluster of larger ones out back in an enclosure made from a line of trade wagons and a circus tent. There were dozens of guards and hundreds of people- traders and others- so Tom had backed away and now stood watching from the edge of the woods.