“I know what you mean, but I just can’t kill like that. Not in cold blood.”
“You killed Drew.”
“I had to! He was going to kill Jess! It was something I had to do!”
“Yes, and now they’re threatening our people. We don’t know what they’re about to do to them. We have to save them, but to do that, we have to do whatever it takes to save them.”
“I know that.”
Steven picks up his backpack, “It’s now or never Lisa. What’s it going to be?”
─
The two men walked along the street and searched the nearby drugstore that was across the street from the community. Steven held his knife close to his chest as he peeked around the building for any sight of the men. Lisa pressed her body against Steven’s back, gripping his arm as she held her knife in her other hand.
“Do you see them?” Lisa whispered.
“No, they must still be in the store.”
“Are you sure they’re going to come here?”
“I’m not one-hundred percent sure, but yeah.”
“Well that’s reassuring.” Lisa scoffed sarcastically.
“Yeah, well-”
The sound of zombies alerted Steven and Lisa to hide in the nearest building, which was another store. Steven ran up to the door and yanked on the handle, but he noticed the doors were tied together with a chain. Lisa nervously looked around for the zombies, but Steven decided to run around the building for another way in. Before Lisa lost sight of the street, she glanced at a Runner approaching with a small horde.
“Steven, there’s a small horde coming.”
“Ok, think Steven. Think.”
Steven saw another door near the corner of the building, but the door was blocked by random debris of chairs, trash, and a large dumpster.
“Help me move this.”
Steven began moving items away from the door while Lisa helped, but the zombies began to appear in their sight. Lisa saw the Runner look at them and began running towards them, but Lisa grabbed a chair and waited for the runner to come closer. Before it got too close, Lisa threw the chair at the runner, hitting its upper body and knocking it to the ground. Lisa gave the Runner no time to recover before stepping on its chest and stabbing it in its head. More walkers began to show, but Steven barely got any debris out of the way.
“Lisa, come help me.” Steven struggled as he tried pushing the dumpster out of the way.
Lisa put her knife away and tried helping Steven move the dumpster, but suddenly the zombies turned their attention away from them and chased after something behind them. Lisa continued to help Steven, but she became distracted by the sounds she was hearing on the street. The zombies were screeching, but slowly the noise began to disappear. Then she heard bodies collapsing.
“Steven, they’re here!” she whispered.
They managed to push the dumpster out of the way, but still left a small gap when Steven opened the door. He pushed himself backwards and made Lisa slide in the store first before going in after her. Lisa kept her head low and pulled out her knife while Steven tried to get inside, but one of the men grabbed him and pulled him back.
“Get off of me!” Steven yelled.
“Steven!” Lisa yelled from inside.
The man wrapped his arms around Steven trying to hold him down, but Steven kept resisting; kicking his legs and trying to reach for his knife. The other man walked up to him, but he was stopped.
“There’s a girl in the store. Get her.” The man ordered.
Lisa tried to come back outside to help Steven, but the other man stepped in front of her and tried to grab her. Lisa cut the man’s hand and listened to him yell as he snatched his hand back. Lisa stood up and ran inside the store while the man tried opening the door wider. Steven continued to try and break free, but the man grunted and threw Steven to the ground. Steven managed to grab the knife from his pocket and stabbed the man in the leg. The man screamed and kicked Steven in the mouth, spewing blood over his face. The man snatched the knife out of his leg and threw it down.
“This will be much easier if you would stop resisting.”
Steven tried to get back up, but the man kicked him on the ground again. Lisa ran through the store trying to find something to help her fight the man, but he had already opened the door and ran for her.
“Just leave us alone.” Lisa screamed.
The man held his bloody hand up, “After what you did, there’s no chance. I have my orders. I intend to follow them through.”
The man grabbed his sledgehammer and creeped up to her. Lisa stepped over a broom and picked it up. The man chuckled and charged after her, but she swung the broom stick as hard as she could. The man swung his sledgehammer and broke her broom, but Lisa threw the broom down and quickly stabbed the man in his shoulder. He angrily yelled, grabbed Lisa by her throat, and threw her into the shelf behind him.
Steven coughed blood onto the ground and stared blankly at it. He heard the sinister chuckle of the man behind him as the footsteps grew closer to him. Steven crawled on his knees and balled up his fists, waiting for the man to make his move.
“Come here boy,” the man said as he grabbed Steven’s arm.
Steven turned around quickly and stabbed the man in his eye with a stick he found next to him. The man screamed and threw himself away from Steven. Steven looked around for his knife, but he noticed the man falling onto the ground. The knife laid next to the man, but he was squirming around too much for Steven to get to it. He quickly ran towards the knife, but the man grabbed Steven’s shirt and pulled him closer. He grabbed his own knife and tried stabbing Steven, but he dodged the swing and grabbed his arm. They both struggled to gain control of the knife, but Steven managed to get his other arm free in time to grab his knife. He stabbed the man in the head and felt his grip get weaker. Steven nervously stood up and limped his way away from the dead man. He exhaled in relief, but suddenly heard Lisa scream and a loud noise inside.
Lisa felt every hard edge of the metal shelf hit her hip and rolled over to the ground. The pain that numbed her back made her incapable of moving as quickly as she wanted to. She looked around for her knife and found it under a box. The man grabbed her ankles and dragged her closer to him.
“Come here you little bitch!”
As he flipped her over, showing his crooked smile and dirty teeth, she let him raise her up to her knees before she brought her knife from behind her and shoved the knife in his genitals. He screamed louder than she’s ever heard a man scream and fell back, holding the wound while Lisa held the bloody knife in her hand. She stood up and watched him shake in pain, but his screaming stopped. He body went into shock and slowly stopped moving. Steven forced the door open and ran inside to see Lisa stand over the man and stab him in the head. She looked up at Steven and flopped down next to the man. He walked over to Lisa and sat next to her.
“This was not how I expected this to happen.” Steven sighed.
“Yeah. I didn’t think I’d ever stab a man in that area.”
Steven looks at the man and flinched, “That must hurt.”
“From his scream, I guess so. Where’s the other man?”
“He’s dead. I’m surprised they couldn’t handle two teens.”
“I’m not complaining.” Lisa chuckled.
Steven laughs and stands up. He extends his hand to Lisa, “Come on. We have more work to do.”
Lisa grabs his hand and pulls herself up, wiping her hands on her leg and walking towards the door. Steven and Lisa grab their bags from the alley, but she stopped and stared at the dead man.
“We should put him in the store. To prevent others from seeing him in this alley.”
“Alright. Grab his legs.” Steven said as he grabbed the man’s hands.
─
Jess stared at the people in the community walk past her, each one glancing at her in disgust. She pulled her head away from the metal bars that surrounded her and the group and looked at everyone.
“Are you all okay?”
“What do you think?” James answered.
“What else is there to say?”
James stood up and walked towards her, “How about talking about a plan? Anything instead of sitting here.”
“What will that do?”
“Prepare us.”
“No, it’ll kill us. We just have to keep calm and wait. Our opportunity will come.”
A man screamed in the distance and Jess and the others looked up to one of the posts that overlooked the community. One of the hostages had a hood over his head with long, worn out clothes on. One of the men held his eye as he laid on the ground as the other men grabbed the hostage and pushed him down the steps and watched him roll on the ground.
“Get the woman!” one of the men yelled.
They ran ahead of the hostage on the ground and reached for a woman. The woman screamed and fought the men back, but they punched her and lifted her body up. She tried to fight, but her weak body gave them full control. Jess stared closely to the woman and gasped in shock when she noticed who she was looking at. The woman glanced at Jess and began to whimper.
“Jess!”
Jess wanted to say many things, but she could only scream her name, “Christine!”
III
BROKEN
The men carried Christine away, but Jess and Faith were just as shocked as everyone else to find her alive. Everyone else watched her disappear within the building, leaving more questions than answers in their thoughts.
“I thought she was dead.” Faith whispered.
“So did I. We searched for her. How did we not know this?”
“We’ve been through too much to remember. Maybe we just overlooked it. Remember, we assumed she had died with the others that were burned alive.”
“Well we have to save her!” Meredith says as she walks to the gate and began yanking on it.
“Meredith!”
“There has to be a way we can save her!”
One of the men came by and hit the cage with his gun, forcing Meredith to step back. As he walked away, Jess sighed and rubbed her forehead,
“The only way for us to do that is to stay put. We break out of here now, unprepared, we could risk everything. We just can’t do anything right now.” Jess explains.
Meredith closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “We have to save her. No telling how long she’s been here.”
“We will. In time. What you just did was not smart though.” Adam reassured the group.
“Well I’m sorry.”
“Be smarter next time.” James murmured.
“Okay, I get it.”
“Do you? Because you didn’t seem to get it when you were yanking on the gate like a dumbass!”
“Seriously? You guys want to do this now?” Jess interrupted.
“She’s going to get us killed.”
“She stopped, which means you have to shut up before we bring them back over here.”
─
Steven looked through the binoculars and saw the community. He saw the guards out front and took note of the sticks that guarded the front gate. He and Lisa were laying under large bushes while Lisa dug a hole big enough to put their bags.
“Okay, this should be the place.” Steven said to Lisa.
“Really, I couldn’t tell.” Lisa scoffed.
“Are you always this sarcastic?”
“Only when necessary.”
“But your people are literally being held hostage by them right now.”
“Our people; and we’ve been through worse.”
“Yeah, but you’ve lost people every time something like this happens.”
Lisa stops for a second and exhales deeply, “We won’t this time.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because this time we’ll be ready, and we won’t let it happen. That’s why we have to stick together.”
“I’m here. Always.”
“Good. So, first we have to figure out how to get in.”
“Well,” Steven smirked as he glanced over to the other side of the community, “there’s no one over there. The east side of the building. Maybe we can find an entrance there.”
“Wait, look!” Lisa pointed to the front of the gate and they both watched as both guards came down from their posts.
“What’s going on?”
“They’re changing shifts maybe?”
“They wouldn’t be that stupid to leave an opening like that would they?”
“Well, it looks like they are.” Lisa smiled.
Steven watched as another pair of men came to the other’s original posts and began looking around. He looked at Lisa and laughed while dropping his face in his arms.
“Wow, they really are that stupid.”
“That’s our opening.” Lisa said.
“Yep. It’s very small, but if we plan it right, it’ll work in our favor.”
“Speaking of which, we might need to start planning that right now.”
“What if the next group doesn’t do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we know that this time they left a gap of time before the next pair came, but what if they don’t do that again?”
“Well then we wait. Monitor their routine. Make sure it pans out and plan accordingly.”
“Alright. Sounds like a plan.”
─
Eve approached the group and smiled at all of them, “You guys look comfy.”
“Fuck you.” James quickly replied.
“Words are all any of you could do or say right now.”
“Then let us out. See what we’re capable of.” Meredith said as she approached the woman.
“Oh, I intend to. In fact, let’s do it now,” the woman said as she signaled her men to surround the cage with guns.
Jess and the others stood together close and stood away from the gate as two men approached and opened it. She merely glanced over to Meredith and James with frustration. Jess knew what she wanted to do at instinct, but the sound of men gripping their guns made her stare directly at Eve with her crooked smile. Men came inside and grabbed Faith by her arm and tried to pull her, but she snatched away and pushed the man away from her.
“Don’t touch me!” she demanded.
“Let them come out!” Eve ordered.
Faith straightened her shirt and walked out of the cage. Eve watched the others follow and waited until they all got out before she stepped forward.
“I want her,” she pointed at Faith, “Prep the others. It’s time for the main event.”
“No!” Jess yelled.
Jess walked near Faith and was intercepted by a man, but Jess slapped him and walked near Faith. The men grabbed Jess’s arms and held her back from the group.
“Can I just say, I really love your determination! It’s really something to admire, especially being a woman!”
“None of this has to happen! Just let us go!” Jess demanded.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“You started this! Just stop it right now! We can all go our separate ways!”
Eve seemed to think about it, but pointed her gun at Jess, “I want her. Now! You can either be alive or dead, but she’s coming with me either way! Are you going to keeping fighting this?”
Faith turned to Jess, “Don’t do this. Just let me go. I’ll be okay.”
“Okay! Okay…”
The men let her go and Jess hugged Faith. She leaned closer to her ear, “We’ll get out of here. I promise.”
“I know.”
One of Eve’s men approached Faith and held his gun, signaling Faith to walk with him. Jess let Faith’s hand slip from her grasp and watched her walk away. Eddy walked up to Jess and stared ahead. Eve simply smiled yet again and put her gun away.
“In order to feel less threatened, you can call me Eve.”
“It won’t matter.” Eddy said.
“Oh, it will. Give it time,” Eve looked at
her men, “Take them there.”
“Get moving!” the man yelled as he pressed his gun to Jess’s back.
They followed the man to the large theater building that stood in the center of the university. People from the community gathered around them and shouted while holding their weapons in the hands, swinging them back and forth. They approached the wooden, hand-made gate guarded by two men with guns as they slowly opened it to a large arena. The stage was surrounded by constructed metal fences that stretched to the ceiling. People were already sitting around screaming and shouting at two men inside of the arena fighting. Jess saw the blood that covered majority of the surface under the men and the many weapons that hung along the fence.
Z Island Series | Book 3 | Survivors of Z Island [Retribution Part 1] Page 5
