Beyond Green Fields | Book 6 | Red's Diary [ A Post-Apocalyptic Story] Read online

  Way to make me crash back down to earth… but maybe that was exactly what I’d needed. Come to think of it, yes, she was definitively offering something that I needed much, much more than a pep talk from the only person who was quite possibly even worse about it than Cole.

  “Just stretching my legs,” I offered quite jovially as I leaned against the wall, pretending to be more relaxed than I felt. “Why, got something better in mind?” Did I feel stupid as I raised my brow suggestively? Yes, but it was worth getting a dazzling—and interested—grin back from her.

  “I know just the thing,” Marleen cooed, quickly looking down the corridor behind me. “Why don’t we take this elsewhere? Maybe somewhere where it’s not all broken glass and body parts? I don’t know about you, but after four years of this shit, I’m really missing the comforts we all took for granted back in the day, like making out in the back of a car.”

  “Don’t they have some vehicles stashed down in the garage beyond the hot lab?” I suggested.

  Marleen’s face brightened, giving me a finger-pistol gesture of approval. “See, I knew they let you tag along for a reason. Such a smart cookie you are.”

  That chafed more than it should, but I wasn’t going to let that deter me now. On the contrary. “Why don’t you let me show you what else I’m good for?”

  Chuckling, she went as far as to grab my hand and start tugging me along toward the very back of the complex. “Oh, I still remember. Let’s see if you learned any new tricks in the meantime, shall we?”

  It actually felt good to goof around like that, particularly with the promise of a much less playful activity to look forward to, so I followed her quite willingly. For once, I was in luck, without finding myself accosted by Cole or Hill suddenly stepping out of a control room or other to remind me of my duties, and that now might not have been the time to shack up with an old flame. The others were doing it—why shouldn’t I, too?

  Lighting the way with her flashlight, Marleen traipsed down into the garage and rounded the four cars waiting there, doing some kind of eeny-meeny-miney-moe on them until she selected the car farthest away from the entrance. Since she made for the front passenger side, I slid behind the wheel, briefly marveling at how new and slick the leather wheel felt compared to any other vehicle I’d sat in over the course of the past years.

  I’d barely pushed the seat back as far as it would when Marleen was on me, straddling my lap easily as she squeezed herself between me and the wheel. Smiling seductively, she leaned in and kissed me—sweet, eager, and very willing. Was my heart in it? No, but what else was new? My body, starved of food and other sustenance both, was very much on board, and that was more than enough for me…

  Until I felt the cold barrel of a gun against my temple as Marleen leaned away, her back resting against the wheel as she smiled pleasantly at me. It was the same smile as minutes ago—and it even reached her eyes. Actually, she looked quite gleeful bordering on giddy, making me confused about what conclusions to jump to. The gun was pretty obvious—and come to think of it, what the fuck had she been doing, lurking in the lab corridors? I’d had my excuse, albeit a pathetic one.

  “Yeah, this is not a booty call,” she cheerfully told me. “But maybe you can convince me to spare your life. I’d hate having to drive and do spot-checks all on my own. I’d rather take you with me. You might still come in handy.” She ground her pelvis forward as she said that, rubbing herself against my quickly deflating dick. At least some part of my mind was still working normally.

  “What did you do?”

  I knew it was a stupid question as soon as the words were out but I couldn’t help myself. At the very least, I needed more information to know what to do next. The way my stomach knotted up, I knew that couldn’t be good, but maybe it was still salvageable.

  Just maybe, a small part of me didn’t give a shit either way and was ready to tell her to just pull the trigger.

  Marleen struck a considering pose, as much as that was possible with her still holding the gun to my head. I tried very hard not to tense. Could I have tried wrestling her for the weapon? Not really, since I was very sure she’d pull the trigger before I even got a chance to reach for the gun, and there was no way I could pull my head out of the line of fire, pressed against the headrest as it was.

  “Let’s put it this way. By now, there’s a very good chance that less than half of the surviving people from the assault are still breathing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was closer to zero.”

  Did my heart seize up and do stupid things? Yes, but I was very careful to keep my hands where they had been, wrapped around her lower torso, and not engage in any threatening behavior.

  “How?”

  She cocked her head to the side, almost playfully. “Aren’t you more interested in why?”

  Yes, but I had a certain feeling it all started with the fact that everyone’s favorite new friend Marleen was, in fact, nobody’s friend. I hadn’t questioned the timing of her showing up with Lewis since I’d trusted Zilinsky to be a paranoid bitch about everything, but then I also knew that Marleen was a full-blown psychopath who had been working with the army for years, and something like a small betrayal between friends was definitively not beyond her. Why exactly had nobody asked themselves about her?

  “I have my theories,” I offered. “And I’m sure you’re happy to enlighten me in good time.” Because if I knew one thing about her, it was that she loved to set herself up in the right light.

  Pursing her lips, she gave that some thought but visibly halted when her watch beeped with a pre-set alarm. “Too bad that we are on a schedule, although I’m not stupid enough to go back up there and check how many of them are around, tearing each other apart.” Putting on a bright smile—that still looked incredibly real but I knew was a long shot from it—she raised her not-gun-toting shoulder in a slight shrug. “Let’s put it this way: I may have done what everyone else should have done years ago and killed that annoying cunt that all of you are constantly slobbering over. Oh, don’t even deny it—if you thought you’d had a chance to land with her, you would have made a pass at her.” She paused, thinking. “Why were you lurking in the corridor outside of her lab? Did I miss the part where the two of you actually did hook up when she thought Miller was dead? Never mind. Fact is, she must have bled out completely ten minutes ago, so by now she’s up and hunting for food. If, for whatever reason, I screwed up my timing, any moment now Miller will find her, so very obviously knifed in the back by his best bud Hamilton, and once he makes that connection, over the edge what little’s left of his sanity will go. The rest, as they say, is history. Nobody will suspect her so she’ll have a few easy kills, and he’ll rampage through what’s left of them, probably with Hamilton in tow. I wish I could check the video feeds but I’ve had to disable them to move around freely myself.”

  “Such a shame, really,” I offered, trying for acerbic. I was proud that I almost pulled it off.

  Marleen’s eyes narrowed. “You should not be making fun of me now. I don’t strictly need you. You’re just making life a little more convenient for me.”

  “As you do for me,” I said, forcing my body to relax further. That was easier said than done with a gun pressed to my head, my mind reeling from what she’d just said and the very real fear that kept licking up my spine if she had actually accomplished what she was bragging about. Did I believe it? I believed that she believed she had pulled it off. I had my doubts, simply because if I’d learned one thing over the past years, it was that Bree Lewis was virtually impossible to kill—and considering they’d both survived the slaver camp, the same could be said for Miller and Hamilton.

  “Care to explain?”

  I tried to ease myself into a shrug but when she tapped the gun barrel against my temple, I quickly froze again. The sigh that escaped me wasn’t even part of the act I was slowly pulling together but certainly fit into my plan. “What do you want me to say? Boohoo, I’m so heartbroken that you kille
d the woman who single-handedly is responsible for most of the shit that happened to me since the world ended? Yeah, you’re not wrong with the slobbering-all-over-her part. That’s not exactly a state secret. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t overheard Cole and Hill ribbing me because of it.” She didn’t react, not giving away if that had been what tipped her off or not, but if it meant that awarded me an opportunity…

  And no, I wasn’t going to let her gun me down just like that.

  Time to convince her that, indeed, I was useful.

  “Decker sent you,” I drawled, making it more of a statement than a question. “Which makes sense, since you have tangled with him in the past, and nothing like the apocalypse to let bygones be bygones, right? You’re the perfect infiltrator, showing up at the perfect time. You knew that they were short on people and resources, and you also know that they value their fucking bonds of friendship above all else. Please, give me a break, right?”

  Her smile didn’t waver but her eyes took on a cold glint. “Easy on how much you cozy up to me now.”

  I did my best to look like I meant it when I said, “I honestly don’t give a shit either way. You and me, we’re still alive, right? And in the perfect position to make it out of here still alive. I’ll take it. This has never been my war. At best, it ruined my life. I have zero stakes in this game, and I’m more than ready to accept any bribes you want to offer for my cooperation. My life’s fine, too. We help each other get out of dodge, and that can be it. Just drop me off in walking distance of the next settlement or whatnot, and you’ll never hear or see anything of me ever again. Nobody out there knows who I am, and the few who knew I came here with the others will assume I died with them.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  “I’m already officially out,” I told her. When she waited for an explanation, I was ready to give it. “The army. This whole cloak-and-dagger charade, you name it. Up at a base in Oregon, there’s a folder waiting for me, stating that I’m officially discharged before I went on this mission, if you want to call it that. I came because I thought they were my friends, and that they needed me. Miller barely tolerates me. Hamilton has never given a shit. And Lewis?” I put on a pained grimace. “Yeah, I’d tap that ass, although that very desire has long since made me question my sanity. Did Miller leave the impression on you that he’d suffer his wife to fuck a younger, less screwed-up version of him? You may just be doing me a favor with this, you know?” I added a dramatic pause, trying to decide how far I could push my luck. Considering the circumstances, this was decidedly an all or nothing situation, so I dared go one set further. “On the off-chance that anyone in there is still alive, or the others who didn’t come here rally for a last mad dash, I’m very happy to offer you my services as someone who hasn’t just been hanging around them for a few days but has had years to study them. I’m done with this fucking mess of a war. Set me up in a cozy hideaway and I’m happy to tell you exactly how to get rid of every last one of them.”

  Marleen considered some more but then leaned down, almost as if to kiss me. “There are cable binders in my back pockets. Get two out and fasten one around your left wrist to the steering wheel. I’ll do the right. Don’t think for a second that I’m trusting you… yet. But I’ll give you a chance to prove your worth to me.”

  I didn’t hesitate to follow her instructions to the letter, doing my very best to be cavalier about groping her ass in the way described. There was some awkward shuffling around involved once both my wrists were secured to the steering wheel since she had to reach below the seat and let me scoot it forward somehow so I could actually drive the car.

  “So Decker is actually behind all this?” I asked after we’d managed to jointly start the car and ease it into motion. The tone of wonder in my voice wasn’t even fake.

  Marleen, leaning back in her seat, chuckled softly to herself. “Oh, you’ll see. If you don’t make me kill you before we get there, that is. It’s such a fascinating story, you know?”

  I was sure it was. I also had my doubts about living to see the end of it, but there was nothing I could do about it. One thing was for sure—if Lewis and Miller were still alive, they would come gunning for Decker, and they would need every ounce of help they could get. I had no fucking idea how I could go about lending that help, but with death the only certain alternative, it wasn’t like I had all that many options.

  Marleen was right in one aspect: I would see.

  Part 4

  How did I know that the woman known as Marleen Neeson to most of us was a psychopath? Because that’s how I got to know her, three years before the shit hit the fan.

  I’d always been very upfront about my ambitions. The reason I was hitching an ROTC ride in college to major in psychology had always been to qualify for the PSYOPS track. I’d figured that getting the civilian education might give me an edge over the military academy students since I would stand out—and I could always learn more on the job later. I always thought I was uniquely qualified for the job because the human mind deeply fascinated me, yet I had zero intentions of being anyone’s therapist. Both of my parents weren’t too fond of the connotations of my chosen career path, but I thought my father in particular was holding on to hope that I’d realize that reality was a long shot from my dreams, quickly get bored bossing around soldiers, and end up with a relatively cheap education that left me a lot of options after serving my country to my heart’s content. He must have hoped I’d turn to politics eventually, just like my uncle.

  Because I’d dropped the right hints around the right people, one of my professors eventually approached me, telling me that he had an acquaintance who was working at the FBI and might get me in contact with a real-life psychopath so I might see for myself what might be in store for me, career-wise. Was I excited? Hell, yeah. So when at the agreed-upon time a young woman in a well-cut, conservative suit was waiting for me, screaming “FBI desk jockey” in everything but an ID badge attached to the lapel of her jacket, I presumed she was the acquaintance in question, come to scope me out first and ask a few questions. With her short, slight frame and witty, sparkling eyes, she was looking downright cute—not what I’d assumed an FBI profiler would be like, but what did I know? She was intelligent and very easy to talk to, charming and warm. It took me all of five minutes to like her, and I spent the remainder of the afternoon having world-changing, mind-bending sex with her before she had to return to Quantico or whatnot. I presumed it was said performance that got her dropping in again for a chat and some coffee, usually after but sometimes before engaging in other activities. That went on for about a month before, while getting dressed, she told me she had a new assignment and was leaving for Europe the next day.

  That was the last I’d seen of her until she turned up next to Bree Lewis at the meeting to coordinate the assault on the slaver camp. But it was not the last I’d heard of her… or rather, about her.

  For a while, I’d presumed that engaging in sex with her had somehow failed me for the assessment, which was okay for the time being. Things changed when, a few weeks later, my professor got back in contact with me, asking if I would agree to be a guest lecturer in one of his seminars, sharing my firsthand account of how at least some psychopaths vastly differed from what popular culture made of them.

  Way to make me feel stupid, Professor Dean—and give me the creeps for a full week since I had to admit to myself that I hadn’t had the thread of a suspicion that Marleen was anything but a cute desk jockey happy to engage in a somewhat sordid affair with a nineteen-year-old student for a month.

  You see, it’s relatively easy to spot a sociopath. There’s something fundamentally lacking in their skillset, making then socially incompetent, awkward, and often utterly incapable of reacting to social clues in any relatable way. Even to the untrained eye, they are often easily picked out as not quite neurotypical. The same is true for psychopaths—only that a subset of them is highly intelligent and masterful at making up for what they inna
tely lack by perfectly imitating expected behavior if it suits their game. They might be utterly incapable of feeling emotions, but they could learn to make you think they deeply care about your witty comeback and winning smile. I even found a statement by a psychologist later who said she didn’t trust anyone anymore who was incredibly charming at first meeting them because she had experienced that one too many times with her patients. Not that I expected most psychopaths to ever appear in a psychologist’s office nor believe they’d benefit from therapy—at most those who had a criminal record and a court-mandated appointment with a professional.

  The very idea that nothing about her had sent up red flags, that I’d been potentially extremely vulnerable around a woman who would possess no remorse about killing me, screwed with my mind for quite a while. Rationally, it should have been fear that made me question myself and get extra paranoid, but instead it was a sick kind of fascination that kept me up at night. I would have given a lot to talk to her one more time but didn’t dare bring it up to my professor. I did find out eventually that she wasn’t even working for the FBI but was a freelancer—presumably not doing IT work for them but the kind of “wetwork” that no government agency could know about officially. A little more snooping turned up an army intelligence dossier on her as well but it was so heavily redacted that it was useless. My fascination with her never quite diminished, but with no way of contacting her—and her doing nothing to contact me—it wasn’t an active interest I could keep up.

  Then the world went to shit, and the last thing on my mind was a diminutive woman who, quite possibly, had killed more people than I’d met in my life—or not, since I’d never gotten any clarification about what she actually did. I’d assumed she was an assassin or infiltrator, but nobody had ever verified that to me.