Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [97]
“I’ll go,” Riot said. “I’ll be the nigger keepin’ an eye on this asshole.” He grabbed Andre by the front of his battered coat.
“It’ll be me,” Dog Meat said, “Riot, Peanut, Robbie, Tish, and Omar.”
Peanut had been hoping he wouldn’t be picked, but he was the one who used that workout equipment they’d taken from one of the hotels the most, so Dog Meat’d probably have him carrying the food back. That was cool. Long as they didn’t find more zees.
“One thing, motherfucker,” Dog Meat said to Andre.
“What?” Andre asked, sounding scared.
“You join up, you be takin’ a shower, you feel me? Don’t want no stink in our house.”
Andre grinned. “Shit, I don’t even ’member what that feels like, but I bet it’ll be fine.”
“Let’s go.”
Peanut was throwing cans into garbage bags when he heard the voice say, “Drop it, asshole.”
Andre had been on the up-and-up. The deli was way the fuck over in West Baltimore, but it really was the fucking motherlode. Riot was bitching that it smelled like pussy, but nobody else gave a shit. There was enough food in here to last ’em at least another six months, especially what was in the basement.
But then he heard that voice.
Omar and Tish were outside, keepin’ an eye out for zees and stray junkies, but that voice didn’t belong to neither one’a them.
“Fuck you, bitch!” That was Omar.
A whole mess’a gunshots came after that. Peanut dropped his garbage bag, which made a lotta noise when it hit the floor, and took out his MAC-10. Everyone else took out their pieces, too, aimin’ ’em at the door—except for Riot, who put his Beretta at Andre’s temple.
“The fuck?” Dog Meat asked.
“Uh, Dog Meat?” Riot sounded all funky when he said that.
Peanut turned around to see that somebody had a gun at the back of Riot’s neck. After a second, he recognized the motherfucker.
Dog Meat said, “Jasper, what the fuck? Thought we was—”
“We ain’t shit, asshole,” Jasper said with a big-ass grin on his face. “Drop your fuckin’ weapons.”
“I’d do it,” said another voice. Peanut turned back to see that it was some white bitch. She had two guns out. “Those two fuckers out front didn’t, and they’re just as dead as the other two fuckers I shot the other day.”
Dog Meat said, “You’re the bitch in the Prius?”
She smiled. “The very bitch. You guys are fucking idiots—and also the luckiest assholes on the face of the planet. But your luck just ran out.”
Riot tried to raise his Beretta. “Fuck yo—”
Jasper splattered Riot’s brains all over the refrigerator door and Andre. Andre didn’t move.
Peanut dropped his MAC-10 on the floor.
Nobody else was that smart.
Bullets flew all over. It was the loudest fucking thing Peanut had ever heard. He closed his eyes and covered his ears.
After a few seconds, it was over. Peanut had been shot a few times, back in the day, and he remembered what it felt like, so he knew he ain’t been shot this time.
He decided to open his eyes.
Jasper and the white bitch were standing there, their gun muzzles all smoking. Andre was, too, but he didn’t have no gun. Riot, Dog Meat, and Robbie was dead on the floor.
The white bitch repeated herself. “You guys are fucking idiots.”
“Shit,” Peanut said. “What just happened?”
“You lost, Peanut,” Jasper said.
“How many are left?” the white bitch asked.
“What?” Peanut was still kinda dazed.
“Don’t make me ask twice, asswipe, how many of you are left?”
“They—they was fifteen. You killed Motown and Cowboy, and Yolanda got bit by a zee, and now these five, so—”
“Seven.” The white bitch lowered her guns. “Son of a holy bitch, there were only fifteen of you? Over a hundred people out here, and you couldn’t summon the will to share what you have. Jasper tells me you have food, medical supplies—”
Peanut couldn’t believe that that was what this was about. “That shit’s ours, bitch! The fuck we got to be sharin’ it for?”
“Because there aren’t that many people left. The zees are taking over, and the only way the human race is gonna survive is if they work together. A friend of mine is part of a big convoy—got like thirty, forty people. They’re