Read Online The Slab by Jeffrey J. Mariotte - Free Book Online

That would give her a head start back out of the gunnery area.
    After another couple of minutes she saw a head come into view, and then the rest of the body. She was already leaving her hiding place among the rocks, though, because she recognized him as soon as his long yellow dreadlocks appeared. His broad, simple features were arranged in a strange smile, like a kid who thinks he’s putting something over on Mom. His tie-dyed shirt was about the farthest thing from camouflage a human could choose to wear.
    Mick Beachum.
    Who was supposed to be, at that moment, setting up a command center in a motel in Salton Estates or Niland.
    “The fuck are you doing here, Mick?” she demanded loudly.
    He stopped in his tracks, startled for a moment, and the oddly juvenile grin vanished. Mick was a big man with long, gangly arms and legs, ending in huge hands and feet. His face was almost totally without guile, every thought or emotion etching itself there with utter transparency. Penny wouldn’t have described him as handsome, but there was an innocent, puppyish quality to him that she supposed some people might find kind of endearing.
    If only, she thought, he could keep his mouth shut. And make some better decisions. And learn to take no for an answer.
    “Looking for you,” he said. “I followed your trail. You didn’t exactly hide it.”
    “I didn’t realize I needed to. No one’s going to know where I came into the range except you.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
    “Which still doesn’t answer the real question,” she reminded him. “Why did you follow me?”
    “I got to thinking,” he began. Anytime that happened, trouble wasn’t far behind, she knew from long experience. “I realized that I didn’t need to be in a motel.” He shrugged his shoulders, hefting his backpack. “Everything I need is in here. We can have a mobile command center, right out here, and I can be around to help out if you need it.”
    “If I’d needed help we’d have planned for that from the beginnin’,” Penny said. When she was upset or anxious, the Southern accent she had otherwise squashed after the Gulf War crept back into her voice. Her “I’d” became “Ah’d,” she dropped ending sounds, even the rhythm changed to one with more of a musical lilt. Just now, she was plenty upset. One thing about puppies—you could talk to them and talk to them, but that didn’t mean they learned until you rubbed their noses in it and gave them a swat. “What if there’s an emergency? You’re supposed to be someplace central so y’all can cover all of us if somethin’ happens.”
    “I’m only an hour from the van, if I hustle,” he said, trying his hardest to be reassuring but not quite pulling it off. “And here, I’m closer to you and to Dieter.”
    “But without wheels. And on the wrong side of the line. You’d best go back.”
    “I just hauled all this crap in here, Penny.” His tone edged dangerously close to whining. He seemed to realize it, and dialed back the drama a couple of notches. “I thought you’d be glad. It seemed like a really good idea to me.”
    “Yeah,” Penny sighed. “The thing about a plan, though, is that it’s best to stick to it unless there’s an overwhelmingly good reason to change it. ‘Because I felt like it’ doesn’t count.”
    “Look, I can go back, Penny, if you want.” Mick looked up at the sky and Penny followed his gaze. The sun perched above the hills to the west, ready to slide behind them. It would be dark before he made it halfway.
    “No, don’t try to do it tonight,” Penny finally said. “Crash here, then tomorrow morning you can help me set up before you go back.”
    His face broke into that big, goofy smile, revealing an array of uneven teeth. “Okay,” he said. “Anyway, the view here is a lot better than…well, anywhere else.”
    She chose to ignore the comment, tossing him an icy glance but nothing else. He was, in his own awkward way, trying to