Page 66 of Code Violation

Nero had never heard Rufus use a tone like that before and based on Forrest’s expression, Nero guessed that he hadn’t either.

Nodding, Forrest said, “Damn, Nero, you did a number on yourself. We’re going to have to head back.”

“I don’t know what happened. I tripped and next thing I knew...” Nero stared down at his leg ruefully.

“Don’t go overboard with the drama,” Rufus said quietly. “Just get the hell off the mountain. I’ll meet you at the pub. One hour. Do. Not. Argue.”

“Let’s get back to town,” Forrest said, offering Nero a hand. “There’s no point in making your injury worse. Can you put any weight on it at all?”

Nero let Forrest help him to his feet. “A little, but I won’t be running any marathons for a while.” As if he ever ran marathons.

TWENTY-THREE

Forrest - Sunday

Once he and Nero reached the trailhead, they stopped pretending Nero was injured and broke into a jog. They’d been silent until then, only the sound of Nero’s occasional fake groans breaking the quiet. The groans would’ve been funny if Forrest hadn’t been so freaked out. The lack of waking bird chirps was disturbing. The forest creatures knew something was out there.

Rufus had warned them. He’d been hiding from someone, and Forrest had an idea he knew who it was.

“Fucking fuck a duck,” Forrest hissed as they kept up the pace through the still quiet streets of Cooper Springs. He resisted mentioning his parents out loud, as if uttering their names would raise ghosts like the famous scene in The Mummy. The entire city would be contaminated with zombie-inducing spore, and he and Nero would be the only ones left.

No one appeared to be out and about yet. Rain and mist didn’t keep Cooper Springs citizens inside their homes, but unless you were a fisherman or coffee stand owner, there was no reason to be outside this early in the morning.

“I guess we’ll find out in less than half an hour. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rufus beat us back down,” Nero said with a calm Forrest did not feel.

“Right, that.”

They were half a block away. He picked up the pace, knowing Nero would be close behind.

As he had just a few days earlier, after his most recent nightmare, Forrest hammered on the door of the Steam Donkey. They didn’t have to wait long. Magnus opened the door almost immediately; he must have been downstairs waiting for them.

“Where’s Pops?” he demanded looking past Forrest and Nero for Rufus.

“He said he’d meet us here in an hour. That was”—Nero looked at his watch—“about forty-five minutes ago.”

“Alright, alright. Get inside already.” Magnus shooed them past him, then shut and locked the door.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah,” said Forrest, “and not the crap you serve the hoi polloi either. I need high-test good stuff.”

“I second that,” said Nero.

“He didn’t tell you anything?” Magnus asked, walking behind the bar and toward the kitchen.

“No time to chat. He was lurking under some bushes and didn’t want us sticking around.”

He didn’t know about Nero, but Forrest was covered with a gross mix of sweaty, sticky fear that was making him clammy underneath his clothing. He unzipped his coat and hung it on the back of a chair, then chose to sit at a table instead of the bar. As shaky as he was, he was afraid he’d fall off a barstool. Nero took off his coat too and sat down next to him.

They settled in, not speaking, just staring across the table at each other. Adrenaline whooshed through Forrest’s veins, making him feel lightheaded. Over the ringing in his ears, he heard Magnus clattering around in the kitchen as if this was a perfectly normal morning—the clink of him getting down ceramic mugs, the hiss of his personal-sized espresso machine. The soothing sounds that helped Forrest calm himself.

“Here,” Magnus said a few minutes later, plunking down three Americanos on the table. Then he sat down with them. “Tell me everything.”

Nero wrapped his hands around the mug, hunkering over it protectively—a coffee gargoyle. Forrest laughed but it sounded odd even to his ears.

“There’s not much to tell,” Forrest said. “I didn’t see him at first. He stopped Nero and told him to fake an injury or something. Right, Nero?” Nero nodded, lifting his coffee to sip the hot beverage. The man was braver than Forrest, who was going to wait just a bit longer for it to cool down. “He said he’d meet us here in an hour.”

A scuffle and bang alerted them to someone’s presence at the back of the building. Hopefully, it was Rufus and not whoever he was hiding from. Magnus was just rising to his feet when a grimy but very much alive Rufus emerged from the hallway.

---