Haven From Hell (Book 3): A Young Man's Game

by Won, Mark

  Tracer and I backed off so I could whisper to Mr. Smith and Avery. I said, “I think it’s best if you,” I indicated Mr. Smith, “go around to the other side of the camp and wait while Avery stays here. I’ll go in and kill them all. Make sure none get away.” I thought it would have been nice to have brought Kim along just then. It’s hard to surround a place with only two people doing the surrounding.

  Mr. Smith looked like he wanted to argue but knew that it wasn’t the time or place. So in I went. Stepping under the fence wasn’t exactly a challenge, and sneaking up on a drugged and sleeping guard hardly deserves mentioning. Once I got a little closer, the aroma wafting off the man became excessive and I realized these archers had the same body odor problem as the cannibals at the farm house. Then it occurred to me that the guard might Change into a bony ghoul if I wasn’t careful. So I split his skull from behind as quietly as I could.

  I moved over to the nearest tent and considered my options. At first I had thought to make a few zombies, sit back, and enjoy the show. But if all these guys turned into those weird bone covered ghouls then my friends would be screwed (pardon my language). I was going to have to kill the whole camp clean, with head shots all around.

  I motioned for Tracer to stay back. He knew the drill. Then I moved into the tent as quickly and quietly as possible. Inside I found a man out cold. Not a hint of awareness about him. So that was easy.

  I decided to try and make a pattern of my method as I went from tent to tent. One man twitched slightly before getting dead and another actually woke up when I came crawling in his tent. Neither made a meaningful sound before dying. I had given up on the idea of taking a prisoner. It seemed too dangerous. Every single tent I breached was full of the overwhelming stench of death.

  While I was moving in on my eighth tent and thirteenth victim. I saw a tent collapse and heard it shredding. I immediately ran behind another tent to try and stay out of sight. I could hear the former occupant quietly moving about, sniffing the night air. I got the impression that I wasn’t dealing with a human threat. My guess was that the drug cocktail had finally killed some unlucky sap and he’d Changed into a monster.

  Once it got closer to my location I reached out and slashed open the tent I was hiding behind. The bone ghoul saw me and attacked. That was too bad, I’d been hoping that it might see the guy in the tent and go for him first. Now that I think back on it, I’m not sure how that would have helped.

  Anyhow, I had both my girls ready for it. Polly stabbed into his chest to pin him while Abby performed a respectable diagonal slash across the top of its head. I’d overestimated the things. They’re not so tough against someone properly armed.

  A guy in the tent I’d slashed sat up through the tear, and I could hear the others getting up, as well. I shouted, “Zombies!” in a fairly deep male voice and then attacked. At the time it didn’t occur to me that none of my victims might even know what the word ‘zombie’ meant.

  There weren’t that many of them left. By the time I’d cloven the skull of the man in front of me and the women he’d been sharing a tent with, there were only four archers left, and they were all pretty groggy. One had a gun. They all had some kind of improvised personal combat weaponry. The whole situation had just moved into the mop up phase when Mr. Smith opened fire and Avery came charging in, over the fence, noisily clanging all the cans as he came.

  The guy with the gun raised it to shoot me, so I mentally called out a pretty little number for the girls and I. A really nice allegro that was just perfect for the situation. I know I said that I always let the girls choose the music, but what I meant was that I always let them choose the music when people aren’t shooting at me. That’s different. Then I get to choose.

  It’s always fun to make panicky people miss me when they’re trying to shoot me. It’s hilarious the way they keep shooting, first one direction, then another. Never at where I will be and always at where I was. Anyhow, I must have made him waste at least five shots before I got close enough to slit his throat. Wouldn’t you know that was when Mr. Smith finally decided to shoot someone? He hit a man right through the heart and down he went, and up he came, right next to the guy I’d chopped dead.

  The two of them were all claws and teeth for about five seconds. They had the speed of ghouls and the strength of normal zombies which made for a real deadly combination. Tracer moved in to try and help me. Fortunately, the monsters still went down when given a solid strike to the head.

  Another one of the enemy was laying off to the side with a gaping head wound, the apparent victim of Avery’s initial charge. The machete had split the skull so badly it looked to have lodged itself in the man’s jawbone. I’d have to explain to Avery that you either hit the guy with enough momentum to slice all the way through or you take it easy and just cut in three or four inches. Otherwise, look what happens, the blade gets stuck!

  Next to the body with the split skull, Avery was rolling around on the ground with another bone ghoul. Judging by the severed human body parts laying in close proximity, it looked like Avery had initially killed the woman by cutting one of her legs out from under her. Then she must have bled out or died from shock or something. How sloppy can you get?

  While Mr. Smith was trying to get under the fence, I ran over and finished off Avery’s opponent. Even without its leg the bony ghoul had managed to cut Avery all over his chest and arms. The only thing that had kept him from getting bitten was the other machete he’d managed to stick in its mouth.

  And that was that. When the last one of them died their abnormal stink died away almost instantly. After the fight my biggest fear had been for Tracer. He’d gotten involved for a second there and had picked up a real nasty slash along his face. He’d live but I’d still have to stitch it. At some point he must have tried to grab a bone ghoul by the ankle and been cut by one of the ghoul’s many sharp protrusions.

  Mr. Smith put a bunch of hydrogen peroxide and bandages on Avery’s cuts while I quickly searched through everything in the camp. I found little of value. A few bullets and some canned goods. We took all the bows and arrows with us, and some of the tents, too.

  I searched through their belongings for personal items which might tell me where they were from. What I got from their wallets and purses was that they were all from the same village, about five miles away, with many of the same streets in common. There were a number of family photos indicating that I’d just killed a bunch of married couples and single men. Some of the photos had kids in them but there had been no children in the archers’ camp. I guessed that, although a tiny section of the village may have been unaffected by the Change, the children had been off at school when the Change had occurred. Just another reason to mistrust the public educational system.

  It did make me wonder at the character of such folks. I also wondered what happened to everyone else from that area of their little town. Did these people kill them and move on? Or, due to some crime, were they driven out, themselves? Or maybe this was all of them, all of the survivors from that place. All things considered, they’d been awful quick to revert to murder when a handshake might have worked better. They kind of reminded me of Mr. Hawk and his daughter. Oh well.

  As I’d predicted, hauling everything back was quite a job, but we managed it. Everyone was glad to see us return safely; Mrs. Smith gave Mr. Smith a big kiss. I managed to sanitize Tracer’s cut and put in a few stitches while Mr. Smith and Avery told the story. By the time they were done I called Mr. Owen over for a chat.

  “Mr. Owen,” I began, “what exactly did you guys eat on your first night here?”

  He seemed pretty uncomfortable by the subject but answered, “Well, it didn’t look particularly human, but I suppose that’s what it was. We had some potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn bread with butter, corn, and what was called ‘chicken pot pie’. But now, of course, we know better. Why do you ask?”

  I told him all about how I could smell the people who’d been cannibals, and how they changed i
nto a new kind of horror, different from zombies, ghouls, and ogres. I also told him how none of my current housemates had that stink. Not even Mr. Hawk or Janet had had that stink.

  I could tell he believed me, which was nice for a change. He also took some comfort from it. That whole thing made me think, too, that maybe I should make an even more special point of not eating people, no matter how evil or stupid they are or how hungry I am. I wouldn’t mind turning into a bone ghoul so much after I died, if it meant that I’d get to kill more bad guys, but it would suck to stink that bad while I was still alive. I wouldn’t even be able to stand myself.

  From then on things went well for us. The first thing I did was go back into the woods and get a bunch of destroying angel. My idea was to plant a bunch of it in the basement and increase the crop, just in case any more extortionists ever showed up. Then I went looking for Blue (my bike). Mr. Smith gave me a ride in the pickup truck. We were careful to avoid zombies as much as possible.

  I suppose that we could have made an effort to get my stuff back much sooner, but back when Mr. Hawk and Janet were alive there had been a lot of confusion and strife. Frankly, I hadn’t trusted anybody to be enough of a team player to help me find it. I was afraid that none of the adults would be willing to take directions from a kid. I imagined that if it took too long, or we just plain couldn’t find where I’d left my bike, they’d be full of even more anxiety and desperation. We couldn’t have that.

  Anyhow, we got my ride back and Kim proved as good as his word. He hooked my shortwave up to the lightning rod on top of the barn and we managed to contact Haven (I could have done it but he looked happy showing off for June). Mark was glad to hear from me and decided to come and pick everyone up. He even made sure to send a cattle trailer, so that was nice.

  I had a real pleasant chat with Dr. Summer and all the rest, too. They were doing fine and everybody was fitting in well. It seemed that Haven place could always use a few more doctors. Dr. Summer was furious that I had lied to her (which was fair). Bruce had made some new friends and Tisha cried when we had to hang up. It made me feel good to talk to them.

  Of course, I had to keep moving. I wasn’t going to Haven just yet. I still had a lot of growing to do. I didn’t want anymore painful goodbyes, neither, so I skipped out that night after leaving a note on the refrigerator.

  I wondered what might lie to the west.

  Chapter 11

  After checking the village where the archers had originated and finding it empty (of living people), I made my happy way across the state border without having to pay any tolls. For me that was just another advantage of the joyous new tax free age I found myself in. Not that I’d ever been old enough to have to actually pay taxes, but you should have heard Uncle complain about them.

  I had a few towns to skirt and a few villages to plunder but nothing worth a mention. Nothing, that is, except I finally found a gun shop with my favorite caliber ammunition in it. What I didn’t take with me I put in a safe place, as is my usual wont. I especially like using refrigerators as storage spaces for food, bullets, medical supplies, or whatever, maybe wrapped in some plastic bags that had been laying around the kitchen. It made me feel like a squirrel the way I’d leave things squirreled away all over. Then I’d stick a note on the fridge so anyone squatting in the house would know who left them some stuff. That way if we ever met later we’d have something in common to talk about.

  Of course, I’d never take everything when looting a gun shop or grocery store, that would be rude. I figured there were always plenty of survivors out there who might need a little help. I made a point of leaving instructions to call that Haven place, too, so folks could get rescued if they got their hands on a good enough radio.

  So it was with a full heart and full ammo magazines when I pedaled my way into a campground along the south side of a two mile long lake. The map said it was ‘Valley Lake’, which made sense because it was between two long hills with woods all around. Just off to the west was Mill State Park, and that was what brought me there in the first place. The prospect of finding people.

  You see, even though I had found a number of people living in towns and cities lately, that wasn’t normal in my experience. Usually the survivors of the Change tended to congregate in lost and forlorn looking places, well away from wherever people used to live. Normally that’s where I’d find them. Usually the people were hungry but working together, just getting by. I liked to drop off a few cans of beans, or whatever, in exchange for information about where they were from and how they’d survived. Maybe I’d give them a few hunting/trapping tips, if I thought they’d listen to a kid, and then let them use my radio. Then I moved on.

  Sometimes, though, the group of survivors I’d encounter would be of a more malignant nature. More the sort that prefer to shoot first and just forget about the questions. Those are the kind I’d get the joy of killing in the name of performing a public service. You see, when it comes to the human race, I’m a total team player.

  In my travels, the more murderous groups tended to be comprised solely of men. I’m not trying to be sexist here, that’s just the way I saw it. Okay, okay, I know there have been plenty of murderous women, too, but not nearly as many as the men. Usually, when strangers start shooting I just kill everybody who’s firing a weapon and sift through the wreckage afterward. Sometimes I’d discover a few innocents held captive for whatever reason, but mostly my assailants don’t like to keep mouths around to feed. Children were a special rarity.

  Even though I’ve found bandit groups more than once, I find it consistently strange that a bunch of mad dog killers, strangers, would find each other after the collapse of society and form a team. One would think that they’d all just kill each other on sight, in keeping with their nature. I guess sometimes like calls to like. It was a mystery I kept meaning to look into.

  So when Tracer warned me of humans up ahead I pulled off the side of the road, hid Blue, and proceeded on foot. As I got closer to the camp I could hear voices. They seemed intent on discussing the weather, former sporting events, and the local fishing. They seemed uncommonly peacable and satisfied. In addition I detected the voices of numerous women and children, which, as I’ve already said, was not to be expected from a band of rampaging killers. I continued to spy on them.

  From their casual conversation I was able to glean that they were from separate towns and villages in the general region, not the sort of survivors who all came from the same area, an area unaffected by the Change. They numbered twenty people or so, including seven women and four kids. A group twice the size of what I was used to.

  I backed off and called out, “Hello, the camp!”

  There was a moment’s silence then several voices at once, “Come on in!” “Howdy!” “Welcome,” and, “Hello!”

  I walked into camp, where I could see everyone had gotten off their lawn chairs, and were moving to surround me with their happy smiling faces. There were also a few more reserved glances cast my way but that was just common prudence.

  They were all curious where I hailed from so I told them I was from Christopherton. They wanted to know what the wider world was like, so we were able to have that conversation, too. I find that it’s always a good idea to get the proper nomenclature established right off the bat when discussing the Changed. Those people mistakenly called zombies ‘the walking dead’ or ‘deads’ for short. I was glad to correct their usage to the more appropriate form, ‘zombies’.

  I saw that they had three cops in their group. Not fake cops, either, but the real deal. Two men and a woman. They were all still wearing their uniforms and badges, which I guess that was okay as long as they still had their guns. While I was being introduced to everyone I noted that there were three families present (or mostly present, anyway), as well as two brothers and two sisters. Most everybody had at least one relative with them, which was nice.

  They survived mostly by fishing, with a little hunting on the side. I asked Sheriff Connor S
lim, the head cop, if everyone had fishing licenses. He said that was ADCNR’s (Alabama Department of Conservation of Natural Resources) department, and that he was just a cop. Everybody laughed (including me). That Sheriff Slim was a funny guy.

  His second in command was a big woman by the name of Melissa. Not so much fat as bulky looking. The kind of woman who actually expects to win at arm wrestling (and not just because some guy is being nice). She always had her pistol out, checking the clip, fiddling with the safety, or cleaning it. Although she maintained a calm exterior, deep down I don’t think she was a very relaxed person.

  And then there was Neil. He had a kind of lost look about him, like he was just about one straw from eating a bullet. Not that anybody else but me would notice. Neil maintained a very professional exterior, radiating trustworthiness.

  I told the sheriff, “I’m going to go back and get my bike now. I’ll be right back.”

  He said, “Why didn’t you just ride it here in the first place?” A question seconded by several others.

  “Because I didn’t know what kind of reception I would receive,” I answered. “If you were all going to try and rob me then I didn’t want my stuff getting shot up.” With that I was off.

  Blue was where I’d left her, so I pedaled her back to camp and turned over all my spare food to Connor. I told him, “This will only last a day or two among so many. You can eat it if you want to, but I’d save it for a rainy day if I were you.”

  With everyone looking on, he thanked me and asked me what other stuff I had in my rickshaw. I let him poke around my things. I got the impression that I was the most entertainment these folks had enjoyed in quite a while.