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“Wouldn’t trust you as far as I could kick you,” Wayne said.
“I hear that. But I give my word. And my word’s something you can count on. I won’t twist it.”
Wayne studied Calhoun, thought: Well, there wasn’t anything to lose. He’d just watch his ass.
“All right,” Wayne said. “Give me your word you’ll work with me on getting us out of this mess, and when we’re good and free, and you say your word has gone far enough, we can settle up.”
“Deal,” Calhoun said, and offered his hand. Wayne looked at it. “This seals it,” Calhoun said.
Wayne took Calhoun’s hand and they shook.
7
Moments later the door unlocked and a smiling monk with hair the color and texture of mold fuzz came in with Brother Fred, who still had his pump shotgun. There were two dead folks with them. A man and a woman. They wore torn clothes and the mouse-ear hats. Neither looked long dead or smelled particularly bad. Actually, the monks smelled worse.
Using the barrel of the shotgun, Brother Fred poked them down the hall to a room with metal tables and medical instruments.
Brother Lazarus was on the far side of one of the tables. He was smiling. His nose looked especially cancerous this morning. A white pustule the size of a thumb tip had taken up residence on the left side of his snout, and it looked like a pearl onion in a turd.
Nearby stood a nun. She was short with good, if skinny, legs, and she wore the same outfit as the nun on the bus. It looked more girlish on her, perhaps because she was thin and small-breasted. She had a nice face, and eyes that were all pupil. Wisps of blond hair crawled out around the edges of her headgear. She looked pale and weak, as if wearied to the bone. There was a birthmark on her right cheek that looked like a distant view of a small bird in flight.
“Good morning,” Brother Lazarus said. “I hope you gentlemen slept well.”
“What’s this about work?” Wayne said.
“Work?” Brother Lazarus said.
“I described it to them that way,” Brother Fred said. “Perhaps an impulsive description.”
“I’ll say,” Brother Lazarus said. “No work here, gentlemen. You have my word on that. We do all the work. Lie on these tables and we’ll take a sampling of your blood.”
“Why?” Wayne said.
“Science,” Brother Lazarus said. “I intend to find a cure for this germ that makes the dead come back to life, and to do that, I need living human beings to study. Sounds kind of mad scientist, doesn’t it? But I assure you, you’ve nothing to lose but a few drops of blood. Well, maybe more than a few drops, but nothing serious.”
“Use your own goddamn blood
,” Calhoun said.
“We do. But we’re always looking for fresh specimens. Little here, little there. And if you don’t do it, we’ll kill you.”
Calhoun spun and hit Brother Fred on the nose. It was a solid punch and Brother Fred hit the floor on his butt, but he hung onto the shotgun and pointed it up at Calhoun. “Go on,” he said, his nose streaming blood. “Try that again.”
Wayne flexed to help, but hesitated. He could kick Brother Fred in the head from where he was, but that might not keep him from shooting Calhoun, and there would go the extra reward money. And besides, he’d given his word to the bastard that they’d try to help each other survive until they got out of this.
The other monk clasped his hands and swung them into the side of Calhoun’s head, knocking him down. Brother Fred got up, and while Calhoun was trying to rise, he hit him with the stock of the shotgun in the back of the head, hit him so hard it drove Calhoun’s forehead into the floor. Calhoun rolled over on his side and lay there, his eyes fluttering like moth wings.
“Brother Fred, you must learn to turn the other cheek,” Brother Lazarus said. “Now put this sack of shit on the table.”
Brother Fred checked Wayne to see if he looked like trouble. Wayne put his hands in his pockets and smiled.
Brother Fred called the two dead folks over and had them put Calhoun on the table. Brother Lazarus strapped him down.
The nun brought a tray of needles, syringes, cotton and bottles over, put it down on the table next to Calhoun’s head. Brother Lazarus rolled up Calhoun’s sleeve and fixed up a needle and stuck it in Calhoun’s arm, drew it full of blood. He stuck the needle through the rubber top of one of the bottles and shot the blood into that.
He looked at Wayne and said, “I hope you’ll be less trouble.”
“Do I get some orange juice and a little cracker afterwards?” Wayne said.
