Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row Read Free Page B

The man coughed again, waving his hand around his face. Turning to the other figure, he said, “False alarm, dude.”  
    Bryan held the box more tightly against his chest, could feel his heart banging them both like a bongo. With his throat closed, it would have to stay right there inside his chest, beating away.  
    These shadows, these figures, were not his pool friends. Or tennis court friends. They were strangers. His parents and his grandpa had told him never talk to strangers. He closed his eyes tight, reopened them, trying to clear away the bright of day still glowing on his vision. Hoping it was just his imagination. Though he knew better than that.
    Another figure emerged from behind a stack of boxes off to his left. A shorter one. Three of them now.
    “Where the hell he come from?” Another man’s voice.
    “Who cares? He ain’t gonna say nothing. Light that bad boy back up. Puff, puff, give, home skillet.”
    “Yeah,” the second man said. “Right on. Don’t wanna fuck up the rotation.” The two men giggled.
    Bryan’s eyes had started cooperating, focusing. Two men, one woman.
    The woman spoke next. “No, hold up.” She glanced at Bryan, eyed him warily. “Not in front of the kid.”
    Bryan watched one of the men tug a lighter out of his pocket, and light what appeared to be a small twisted piece of paper. He thought it might be a cigarette, like the kind his grandpa smoked, but he’d not seen one quite like this.
    The man puffed smoke, and that funny smell came back. Then, he handed the funny smelling cigarette to the man wearing sunshades. Bryan wondered how the man could see inside the dark warehouse while wearing sunglasses.
    “Mallory.” The woman in pigtails slapped Sunglasses Man on his arm. “I said not in front of the kid.”
    Blowing a cloud of smoke into her face, he smiled and pointed at Bryan with the twisted paper. “Who’s he gonna tell, huh?” He hinged his torso, hand on one knee, and extended the smoking paper to Bryan. “Wanna hit, kid?”
    Bryan could see himself in the man’s glasses. He scrunched his nose.
    The woman slapped the man’s arm again. “Mallory, Jesus, man. He’s just a kid.”
    “Fucking chill, Laura,” the bearded young man said. “We ain’t doing nothing wrong. Just taking a smoke break, that’s all.” He looked straight at Bryan. “Right, kid? You don’t care if we take us a smoke break, do ya?” His eyes had a mean look to them, like he was still fighting to see in the sun. Maybe he needed sunglasses, too.
    Bryan didn’t say anything, didn’t acknowledge them with a nod or a head shake. He simply stood there, his back pressed against the dock door, holding his box tight.
    The woman said, “Shit, TJ. The old man thinks we’re outside watching the place. Ain’t supposed to be nobody out there but us.” She narrowed her eyes at Bryan, then crouched in front of him. “So how’d you get out there, huh, cutie pie?”
    “Yeah,” the bearded man she called TJ said. “How’d you get by us, squirt?” He took the cigarette back from the man with sunglasses—Mallory—and sucked in smoke, making the end of the paper glow red, and held his breath. He never took his mean eyes off Bryan.
    Bryan’s lips thinned. He didn’t want to talk to these people. He wanted to get David’s present to him, prove to Doctor Holliday that he could be trusted with his very important— critical— delivery. And he wanted to make David happy, like Santa made people happy. He decided these people weren’t on Santa’s good list, that they were definitely on the naughty one. Maybe that’s why they were in the warehouse, trying to find their own box.
    TJ coughed out a big breath of smoke, waved away the cloud. “He ain’t talking.” Another cough. “Probably a mute. Retarded or some shit. Hell, he’s only got one shoe.”
    Laura stood like she’d been crouching on a spring, spun, and slapped TJ hard enough to ruffle the whiskers on his cheek. Finger in