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

by Won, Mark

  Neil interjected, “Wait a minute, Edmund, Cyril there was none too shy when it came to gunning down a dozen ‘sick people’ when they looked like a threat. So what’s the difference?”

  Doc Saxon replied, “Cyril hadn’t gone out with the intention of hurting anyone. He was just out hunting small game when he came upon you, and had to make a life or death decision. He killed a lot of people to save you. People who might one day have been cured. I don’t think I could have made that decision.”

  That’s when I finally understood what the doc was talking about. He was delusional. I’d seen it plenty of times before when I was locked up in the loony bin (that was all just a big misunderstanding). Sometimes crazy people get weird notions about what’s real and what’s fantasy, and the way they cope is to make stuff up.

  I shifted my swords around to a more comfortable position while I contemplated how to address the doc’s madness. It seemed curable. Maybe all he needed was a cold splash of reality. I’d have to give it some thought.

  In the meantime I decided to temporize, “And it was mostly lucky for us that Cyril came along when he did! I’d like to make a toast to his good health!” I always like toasts. It’s fun the way the glasses clink together. The way Neil went through with it looked like he was just about biting his tongue in half.

  Mr. Reese came out of the house then and reported that Keisha was looking better, her fever had broken, and she had woke up and asked for a drink of water. We all cheered. I cast a glance at Cyril and saw him looking like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

  Then the conversation turned to what we should do in the future. I kinda liked the spot where we were at. The only problem was that I didn’t think our new landlord had much use for what he perceived to be our murderous ways. Only one way to find out.

  I asked the doc, “Do you mind if we stay here until Keisha gets well, Doc?”

  “I’m not a doctor, son, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I know it’s a harsh world out there now, and I couldn’t just let you go. But no more killing unless it’s an absolute necessity, is that clear?”

  “Absolutely. I understand. And thank you.” I wasn’t exactly lying. I did understand him, I just wasn’t going to follow his wishes. Besides, it’s always necessary to kill zombies. Fun, too.

  After the meal we all helped clean up. Rob seemed to especially like helping the doc’s daughter, Marjorie. Eavesdropping and spying on his bungling attempts at fraternization made for an amusing evening. I thought it was vastly humorous the way my presence inconvenienced Rob’s best efforts. I think Marjorie thought it was pretty funny, too.

  Eventually I enticed Laurie, Jason, and Thomas into a board game that the doc had lying around. Jason was so worried about Keisha that I don’t think he really got into the game. It was all about moving pieces around a calendar, trying to make the most of paydays. Even though I lost we all had fun. Playing that game made me feel like we had all the time in the world.

  After we’d been run out of our previous camp at Valley Lake we’d lost all of our tents, so it was back to everyone sleeping in their cars. The doc’s house was big but nowhere near big enough for all of us. Tracer and I stayed in Mr. Moon’s RV like always.

  Come morning, Jaxon had a job for every able bodied man, including me. I think especially me. We were to go round up all the brainless zombies that Cyril had shot and bury them. All I could think was that it was a phenomenal waste of time, but I kept the peace and did what I was told.

  Neil sidled up to me during that chore and asked me, “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” I could tell Neil was turning a bit sour.

  I tried to calm him down, “Don’t sweat it. This is just a day’s work. I wasn’t complaining yesterday when I got a belly full of beef. We still got all those leftovers, too. Anyway, don’t worry, I got a plan.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “We’re going to teach the doc how mistaken he is in as gentle and sympathetic way as I know how. It might take a few days, so let’s not rush things.”

  Neil seemed pleased by my notion, especially that part about me being sympathetic. He was almost laughing to himself. I didn’t get the joke (but I rarely do).

  Our self appointed supervisor, Jaxon, was coming over to hear what we were talking about so I told Neil, “I don’t see why not. Hey, Jaxon, after this do you think we could get some of us together to clear out the rest of the goodies in Lawville. Since all the zom...er...sick people are all dead there anyway?”

  He didn’t look too thrilled by the idea but told us he’d ask the doc (he called the doc by his first name, though). I hoped we didn’t end up having to bury the whole town, that would take forever. Maybe the doc would just let us turn the townie zombies into a giant bonfire.

  By the time we broke for lunch (more beef) Keisha was feeling much better. It seemed a sure thing that she was on the road to recovery. Jaxon had forgotten to ask the doc about us going to town, but I was okay with that. I wanted to do some scouting around.

  It took me the rest of the day to check out the whole farm. Not exactly a giant cattle ranch but not bad. About a hundred acres for grazing with a fence around. There was a long thin copse of trees by the road which ran by the property. Across the road and all around the property was nothing but woods, except for a part of the woods by the stream we’d crossed earlier. That turned into a swamp for a few hundred yards. It’s really important the know the terrain. Not as important as knowing your enemy, and not nearly as important as knowing yourself, but still very important.

  Anyway, it was a fun chore. Lots of space. I was back in time for supper (still more beef), and that night I slept like a baby.

  The next morning we got to help feed the cattle, which seemed fair since one of them had been feeding us. I thought they all just ate grass and was surprised when Jaxon showed us a bunch of bags of grain set aside just for them. I got to learn how to get cattle out of a big cattle barn and how to get them back in. Mostly it had to do with the cattle already knowing the drill. I found it all very educational, and some day soon I hoped to return the favor.

  The day after that I began looking through the various buildings to see what other neat stuff the doc had just laying around. I found an endless supply of farming tools, some of which looked like they came from the turn of the previous century. There were all kinds of things which could be turned into weapons. He even had some big two handed hammers with pointy heads. They looked perfect for head smashing. There were trucks and a van in the garage with a work bench and some power tools. I found the building where the cattle were killed and gutted (I was not looking forward to having to clean that, ever). Then I came to the zombie shed. Jackpot. Finally, the doc’s madness made sense.

  The building was painted a faint red and was suffering from long neglect. Some of the boards were rotted through, but enough were holding the structure together to keep the zombies from breaking out. The roof was made of tin, or some other metal, and the only window was located high up, in what I presumed was a loft area. The floor of the zombie shed was resting on ancient stones which had probably been serving the same purpose for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. The whole thing measured about twenty feet by ten.

  Tracer had been cautious of the building every time we’d passed by (He knows better than to get too excited by every building with a zombie in it), but when he saw me walking straight for the zombie shed he put the breaks on and gave me a clear heads up (with his tail, of course). When I got closer I could begin to smell them. They made no noise so I had to figure that they were country zombies (not always true, but often). I tried giving the chain on the door a tug just to hear it rattle. The response from inside was a low wheezy death rattle (definitely typical of country zombies).

  Enough of the boards were loosely fit so that I was able to peek inside. What I saw was about fifteen zombies, all bunched up together and chained to each other and to big spikes driven through the floor. I
looked under the shed, into the space between the floorboards and the ground, and saw that the spikes went straight through and into the earth. It looked like someone was trying to crucify the planet.

  Normally, I would have opened the door and killed them all (obviously none of them were either ghouls or ogres), but the situation was so abnormal I decided to ask around first and see if I could learn anything.

  Jaxon was a bit standoffish and likely to impose on my time, so I went in search of Cyril, my favorite skinny man with a Tommy gun. I found him keeping an eye on some cattle that had wandered over to the fence.

  I came up behind him quietly and said in my best Darth Vader voice, “Howdy, Cyril. I find your lack of vigilance disturbing.” I’m really proud of that one.

  He jumped about a foot, just about leaving his skin behind. I had to laugh. Well, I didn’t have too, but I did.

  After landing he exclaimed, “You scared the Hell out of me.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” I replied. “So, where did you get that Tommy gun from, anyway?”

  He looked down at the weapon in question. It was a fine piece, and one he was never without. If the doc would let him he’d probably have his Tommy gun with him at the table.

  What he said was, “It came back from World War Two with my great grandpa and got passed down the family line to me.”

  “Is that the only gun on the whole farm?” Because of the high level of zombies per capita in the world it didn’t seem like an unusually intrusive question.

  “Oh no. Edmund has several hunting rifles and shotguns.”

  That seemed strange to me so I asked, “Won’t he let you use them?”

  “I don’t see why he’d have a problem with it,” Cyril answered while wearing a confused expression. “Why do you ask?”

  “I heard the doc say that the first time we saw you, you were out hunting. A Thompson .45 seems like a real odd choice to go hunting with. Either too much gun, or too little. Not much in the range department either.”

  He looked embarrassed for an instant before replying. “It works real well against the zombies, though. Sometimes I go out ‘hunting’ just as an excuse to keep their numbers down. As long as I come back with a couple of squirrels no one’s the wiser.”

  A .45 would really blast the heck out of a squirrel. I gave him a look which expressed my incredulity. “You bring back the shattered remains of what could have been dinner, and ‘no one’s the wiser?’ How does that work?”

  “I tell people that I have a real attachment to this gun,” he patted his firearm, “and they believe me because it’s been in the family for so long. It helps that I have a couple thousand bullets for it. I can always say I’m saving the .30 caliber, 12 gauge, and .22 ammunition for if we really need it. Edmund only has a box or less for each of those.”

  “So, how come you got so much ammunition?” That stuff wasn’t cheap.

  He explained, “My great grandpa didn’t see much point in just bringing back the gun, so he brought back a giant duffel bag full of bullets, too.”

  “Your ancestor sounds like a freaking genius. But, wait a minute, that war was, like, seventy-five or a hundred and fifty years ago. The rounds still work?”

  “I haven’t had one misfire yet.” Bullets are so cool. It’s like their immortal. Well, at least until they make something else dead.

  I tried circling back to some kind of point, “I’m guessing that you don’t share the doc’s opinion about the undead being sick folks?”

  “No I don’t, but don’t tell him, okay? He’s a good man. His wife and son became ‘infected’ when this all happened, but he and his daughters managed to escape. Then he took a dog catcher’s rig and put both his wife and his son in an outbuilding.”

  I asked, “Is that the shed with all the zombies in it? Because there were a lot more than two zombies inside.”

  He looked a little surprised, so I pointed at Tracer and explained, “My dog can sniff out zombies, remember?”

  He said, “Our cattle fence isn’t the best at holding them back. If I can’t shoot them before they get too close then we have to snare them and haul them back to the outbuilding.”

  I had to know, “Where did the doc get all the dog catcher’s poles from?”

  “He’s a handy guy, he made them.”

  Chapter 17

  With Norm holding one pole and Steven holding another they had a wriggling, writhing zombie held between them. Dawn had just broke and we were waiting outside the front door to the farm house for our chief host to appear. Neil was hanging back with a shotgun just in case things got ugly, but I had high hopes everything would work out. What I had planned was just a little wake up call with Doc Saxon’s dead wife.

  With the sun just over the horizon the doc came out onto his porch, took one look at my little show, and turned a little green. That’s when I took Bob out and started shooting holes through the former Mrs. Saxon’s torso. I intentionally kept the grouping poor so as to violate every major organ. I know that seems a little pointless but I was trying to make a point (strange how that works out).

  Then I went over to the still struggling zombie and jammed Polly straight through her neck, piercing her spine (as well as her throat and probably a few other things). Naturally, the zombie didn’t even flinch. From the zombie’s point of view (if I may use that expression) it was an average day.

  Turning around, I walked over to the doc and said, “So there you have it, doc. If she were sick she’d be dead. It’s not sick, its not even alive. You probably think I’m super mean for doing this, but you’re wrong. This little lesson is what will eventually save your life. Your wife died months ago and you’ve been keeping the thing that killed her around, basically, for old times sake. We’re going to put it back in the zombie shed now, so that when you’re ready to kill it you can. You should go back inside and grieve now, I got this.”

  The doc looked like he wanted to say something but then the tears came gushing out of him. I took him by the arm and helped him back inside and into bed. The poor man had a lot of paradigm shifting to do. On my way back through the kitchen I encountered Mr. and Mrs. Reese.

  She said, “Was that really necessary?! He saved Keisha’s life!”

  “Well, I don’t know if it was necessary, but it was the right thing to do. Would you rather I let a good man walk around being stupid?”

  Mr. Reese said, “What if he wants revenge? We still need him to look after Keisha.” Ah, the real point.

  I said, “Don’t even worry about it. A man as sensitive as the doc would never take it out on some innocent kid. At worst, he’ll shoot me. And, for the sake of Doc’s sanity, I’m willing to take that risk.”

  Mrs. Reese responded with the usual nonsense, “You’re insane!” I find people use that phrase as if it were somehow synonymous with balderdash or poppycock. Very strange. And, in my case, untrue.

  To contradict Mrs. Reese’s misunderstanding, I pulled out a small folded piece of paper, which I always carry in my breast pocket (over my heart), and handed it to her.

  The both of them looked a little afraid at first, but once she saw no harmful intent she opened it up and began to read. Her husband asked, “What is it?”

  I informed them both, “I’m not insane, and that’s the paper to prove it. You can keep that copy, I have others.” Then I turned and left, confident that I had won that argument. That paper has helped me win a lot of similar arguments over the years, that’s why I always keep extra copies handy. Sometimes I even leave one with a supply cache just to make it more personal.

  Once outside we hauled the stinker back to the zombie shed, and put it back in chains. The padlocks used to hold the zombies were of such low quality that it was actually faster to pick the locks using a shim than it would have been to use a key.

  Both Jeanie and Jaxon were both real nervous for the rest of the day but I could tell they weren’t the type to do anything either brave or stupid (or both). Cyril worried me for a bit, I could t
ell he was upset by how I’d treated the doc, and he was a bit of a thinker. The kind of man who might go out and do something he knows his boss and friend wouldn’t like, just to keep him safe. That kind of loyalty, combined with intelligence and discontent, can be dangerous. After a while he went in to visit with the doc.

  Schooling Doc Saxon had everyone else talking. Sheriff Slim and his wife were both upset, they thought that I had overstepped my bounds. Melissa had a furtive look, like she was expecting us to be attacked at any second. Neil was way too pleased with himself. He seemed to think we were sharing some kind of special joke, or something. That was not a healthy attitude so I took him aside.

  “Hey Neil, who did you loose?” I asked.

  His face fell back into its standard morose state, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Neither do I. But, can you imagine how Doc Saxon feels right now? Not good, that’s how. We just did him a favor, that’s all. He desperately needed to learn a lesson, so we taught him. I’d like to think that I’d have done the same for anyone. I should thank you for helping with that, but keep your unbridled joy at another’s suffering under wraps, okay? It’s not cool.” That shut him up.

  Gina, Jack, Samantha and the rest were worried that the doc, Cyril and Jaxon would attack us with a Tommy gun. Mr. Reese asked me, “What will we do?”

  I had to tell him (and everyone else), “Don’t even worry about it, we’ll be fine. Nobody’s going to attack us.” The truth was I was keeping an eye open for just such an eventuality. If I gave everybody that warning, though, a murderous firefight would become a near certainty, and all my good work would have been undone. ‘Managing people is a lot like herding cats’, Uncle always used to say, and he was so right.

  For supper we had to fend for ourselves. That was no problem because I knew where the freezers were. Every now and again the doc would slaughter one of his own cattle and need someplace to store all the meat. That’s why he had three freezers in the basement. For a minute it reminded me of that cannibal farmhouse I’d been at a while back (you can bet I checked out the steaks real good).