Read Online Well Fed - 05 by Keith C. Blackmore - Free Book Online Page B

held at the ready.
    “It’s him.”
    “Who’s ‘him’?” Gus wanted to know, pressing himself against the wall.
    “Fuckin’ Donald.”
    The sudden mundaneness of the name befuddled Gus’s bullet train of thought.
    “Who?”
    “Gus, shut that shit trap you call a mouth for a second, willya?”
    The archer sidestepped toward the fireplace on the living room’s far side, grinning mask upturned in their direction, studying them merrily. He retrieved a fistful of arrows from his back, nocking one and managing the others between his fingers of his string hand.
    “Well, shit,” Talbert grated. “You better be able to run.”
    “Yeah, why?”
    “Good, ’cause he’s gonna machine-gun us, and I’m not fuckin’ carryin’ your saggy ass.”
    “Wha––”
    “ C’mon! ”
    Talbert bolted for the far end of the carpeted walkway, toward a doorway. Gus froze for a second before rising and following, running, sneaking quick peeks at the ghostly figure of Donald below. The archer wasn’t moving at all.
    But he was aiming.
    Then the arrows flew.
    A section of the railing splintered from the impact of the first barbed head.
    Another arrow ricocheted off Gus’s helmet, bouncing him off the wall. He crashed to the floor.
    A third snake sizzled between two posts and struck him like a pickaxe.
    “C’mon!” Talbert yelled at him.
    Gus pulled himself up, feeling like a fly ripping its own wings off, and staggered forward to the doorway, where a crouched Talbert waved him home.
    “Run, y’chickenshit, run! Everything you got! C’mon! ”
    Three more arrows sizzled through the railing, pummeling Gus’s frame and hindering him like a wounded elephant. The shafts bounced off and hit the wall, raining onto the carpet. Bent over, on hands and feet with his ass up, Gus staggered to the door.
    The last foot, Talbert reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him out of harm’s way.
    Gus fell onto a queen-sized bed while Talbert slammed the door behind and propped a chair up under the knob. Gus groaned, feeling as if he’d just been pulled out from under a stampede. Every movement hurt.
    “All right,” Talbert said. “If that cocksucker decides to climb up after your ass, he’s gotta come through that door. And if he does, I’ll split his fuckin’ head open and giggle all the while.”
    Gus saw Talbert brandished Matt Miller’s machete. The bedroom, rustic with ergonomically matching furniture and eye-pleasing earth colors, spun for a second.
    “You okay?”
    The question coming from Talbert surprised him, but his helmet hid it. “Feel like corn kernels… in a flattened piece of shit.”
    Talbert chuckled darkly. “You’re a poet, bro.”
    Gus let that one go, seeing how the dickhead had saved his ass and all.
    “That coat,” Talbert nodded, indicating Gus’s. “Must be puncture proof. Same shit as Kevlar vests.”
    “Yeah? So why do parts of me feel like I’ve been run over by a truck?”
    “Said it was puncture proof. The arrows probably still leave a bruise or two.”
    Great. Gus’s head fell between his shoulders.
    “All right,” Talbert went on. “You just lie there for a bit and listen. Okay? I’ll fill you in on what happened these last couple of days.”
    “We safe here?”
    “Yeah, we’re safe. They don’t let the zombies onto the second floor.”
    “Huh?”
    Talbert smiled, a crooked ribbon of snow. “You heard me right. Congrats. You made it out of the arena in one piece. Minus your balls, of course. Not like you had a set anyway.”
    At that crack, Gus pulled his annoyed self to a sitting position.
    “All right, listen to this,” Talbert cautioned. “You’ll need to know.”
    And he started talking.
    Talbert and his lads had pulled up in front of the mansion, wide-eyed, weaponized, and eager to explore. The front door was wide open and not a gimp in sight, so they immediately went to work going through rooms. The place was just as they imagined, luxurious to the point