“I haven’t cut you yet.”
Lindsey panics. She knows the edge will sting. The anticipation of the cut frightens her more than the blood it will draw. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll do whatever you say. Please let me go.”
He draws the cold steel over her flesh. Bits of thin hair flake away. “You’ll be my masterpiece.”
Even if I succumb to his sick desires, he will still kill me. It gets him off—the torture. She struggles against the cuffs, but his hand presses her against the table.
“This is what I desire.”
Lindsey scuffles.
Kade slides a hand up to caress her left shoulder. It gives her a tingle because it is the touch of a gentle lover. For a second, she enjoys the hint of tenderness. Had the cold metal not cut into her wrists and ankles, she would relish the soft touch with such power behind it. Instead, she mentally searches for an escape. It will mean killing her attacker. It won’t be a problem on her conscience.
“Such soft, supple skin with a nice muscular build. I like a woman who takes care of herself.” He palpates the muscles attached to the scapula. “Bet you thought working out, toning, would allow you to defeat any man.”
Any thought of his power over her being attractive dissipates as the rough, dry lips snag against her skin.
“You excite me.”
His groin grows against her rump as his weight hangs on her.
The steel punctures her epidermis. It sinks through the skin to her deltoid muscle. Warm, gooey wet coats her back. Her breath quickens. A low rumble of “Oh!” escapes, almost with a tone of pleasure, until she bites down on her lip. Don’t give him the satisfaction. She recalls a moment from a lecture at Quantico, a chapter on profiling serial killers and how, for some, it was the screaming that stimulated them.
The hurt releases her teeth from her lip. A cat-in-heat howl escapes. Had she been able to hold it in, he might not become physically aroused.
He slashes the knife against her. He slaps the exposed skin, leaving behind red handprints.
The knife twists deeper.
Lindsey ceases her struggle, but not the screams.
Lindsey’s dream scream carries into a waking terror of sweat and tears. Her mind won’t release the trauma of her assault by the eldest Bowlin brother. She would guess the Agency would have her on leave until she recovered, but no PTSD specialist exists anymore. No one to help her recover but herself. Robbed of any revenge, it will hinder her recovery.
Reaching for her canteen parked next to the .22 pistol, her body aches. Not moving hurts, sleeping hurts and the first stretch after she does sleep cramps muscles she never worked in the gym. Reaching down between her legs, hoping she only peed herself, she pulls her fingers out and clicks her flashlight on. The crimson tips hide the rotten soot stains covering her arms.
I’m bleeding again.
Too soon to be menstrual. Too frequent to be from penetration damage from Kade’s constant assaults. Fucker could have left me with an STD. It’s close enough to bright red not to be an internal bleed. I’d like to find a doctor. They can’t all be walking corpses.
Strike two—got to move, girl. Your night terrors lasted for God knows how long, and predators sniff out a bleeding animal miles away.
She fishes through her knapsack.
“Fuck.”
She unwraps the last pad. Should be able to find more in a quick search of a house. Not the old farm houses. Those still smell of old lady. People scavenge for food and ammo and not feminine hygiene products.
Lindsey curls back into a fetal ball. She spent weeks in the position, and it leaves her comfortable on the cold linoleum floor. The bathroom door was the easiest to secure for a safe night’s sleep.
She contemplates her travel plan. Mary instructed me to head south, but south is a death sentence. South of Rolla is nothing but large areas of trees and no major cities to gather supplies. It does mean a lack of undead, but I need equipment. First a map.
I should go back to the farm. Kade’s dead, so no revenge. Fort Leonard Wood was destroyed, and from what conversations I picked up, the military base was demolished because the government’s gone.
She breaks from her fetal comfort and pulls on her shoes. It takes seven tries to get her shaky fingers to twist, giving them rabbit ears. I need sugar. She fishes out the protein bar and takes a bite. Regretting the second chomp, she chews the bite thirty times. I planned to make the bar last. One bite, one meal, twice a day. She crumbles the wrapper over the bar and tucks it away in her pack.
Lindsey considers how her team never received any follow-up information after the virus spread. Report to the FEMA station and wait. No communication. Which means even if I find a working GPS, there has been no one to adjust the satellite’s orbit for ten months, and other tracking systems won’t function correctly. Her brain won’t allow her to return to sleep. No idea what time it is, but it is pitch dark outside. Night is night again. Without electricity, the world basks in darkness. I had no idea how much ambient light was in the world before the end.
The end.
Maybe I’d have been better off if Kade killed me. Her gashes throb. Without proper cleaning and medical dressing, I’ve no way of starving out any infections.
I’m a trained FBI agent. I have skills. She secures her pack. None of which are in wilderness survival. Hell, I’m in Missouri. I should be able to find some hillbilly to help me.
Long term. You always thought long term, girl. Set a goal—immediate ones. Living until tomorrow night is long term. Pads, water and a loaded gun. Plenty of farms to get all three.
Might be able to return to sleep if I flesh out a real plan. Avoiding Kade’s group is key, so north is out for a while. Maybe south. Then west. Nothing was reported about Springfield having the infected.
I’ll need a paper map. A highway south of here goes all the way to Springfield. I don’t remember which one. A map. I’ll head toward the city. It seems the least worst idea. Maybe I’ll find some decent people along the way. Keep my wounds clean.
Lindsey drops her gear bag on the creek bank. She struggles to lift her shirt over her head, keeping her movements slow to prevent any of her wounds from opening and limit her discomfort. She drops the clothes in a pile. The water sends gooseflesh up her legs. She slips the bar of soap from a plastic bag.
She lathers up her calf along the scratches. Then she works the soot staining her arms. She wishes she could rid herself of the ash that was once her coworkers’. Mary forced me—made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I gave up valuable supplies to escape. If I died, no one would ever get the benefit of food, water and gas. Even if it was the wrong group of survivors to turn them over to, it bought my life. I’ll use each breath now to help people and keep them away from the Bowlin farm. Those barbarians won’t ration the goods. They’ll burn through it before they use it to harm anyone innocent.
She works the lather onto her arm. She needs the gray skin reminder of her own ignorance as to what was going on in the world gone. I should’ve done something before Kade even arrived at the FEMA farm. With more wounds to care for, she ceases rubbing her forearm raw. Some of the gray washes away, but most remains as a strange, horrific tattoo.
Spreading out a towel on the bank, she allows her body to air dry. Lindsey peels off the bandage and loops an ACE wrap around her to protect the wound on her back. She secures it as tight as possible to protect the knife hole now being allowed to properly heal.
Her feet have swollen, so she must replace the shoes. Instead of lacing them, she eats a whole protein bar. As she chews, she considers the dead person’s house she stole from. A woman young enough to need pads.
I wonder about surviving autumn. Lindsey refocuses on her current needs. Too long term, girl.
Recruited in college into a government agency designated to assist people during a disaster. It’s what I always said my life goal was in job interviews—to help people. The job offered chances for travel and to help people. People who needed it. After
a tornado, people needed help. And I was there. Didn’t any of those good deeds earn me a reprieve now?
Lindsey makes another pass through the house she spent the night in. It had been picked over. So close to the road, I’m not surprised, but it was getting late, and I was tired. Bet it took me all day to hike five miles.
So weak. Weak from the beatings and the cuts. Maybe even the lack of nutrition for the past few weeks.
She collapses into the stiff high-back chair in the living room. Who knew I ate so well when only three FEMA agents had years’ worth of stores on a farm with a hidden supply depo.
Recalling her mandate to provide support for any agents investigating the outbreak in the area, only the outbreak spread faster than any encountered before. It wasn’t even the disease’s swiftness, it was the fact it reanimated the carriers after death.
The last message…no sane person would believe the last government communications—reanimated corpses. It took one of my team being bit. He contracted a fever and died. He bit the second member before anyone had any idea. A third. Hell.
Her knife wound burns. Itches. Burns. Itching means it’s healing. I need the mobility to swing the tire iron. The .22 was dry and no bullets in the house. Who has a gun and no bullets?
She exits the house, following the single lane blacktop turned gravel road. I hope the homes further off the main road weren’t picked clean of supplies. Her unsecured laces clack against the warming road surface.
Halfway across the yard, the far side of the house fills Lindsey’s view. Five undead mill around the grass—lost. Even when they get a whiff of her, they stagger around—drunk. Stumbling over their feet with no equilibrium.
She evaluates her tactical plan. Spread out far enough apart she should have no issue dispatching the undead singularly.
Lindsey sinks the metal rod into the closest undead. It stumbles back, but not dead. She has lost her power from lack of food. Her swift attack turns into a lengthy bludgeoning, giving the other four undead a chance to advance.
She slaps the next one with the tire iron. It’s mandible cracks and hangs suspended by tendons turned elastic. The jaw bobs and flails as its guttural snarls turn to a wheezing hack.
She pushes the creature. It tumbles to the grass, giving her a clean shot at the third. It paws at her. The second impact to the arm shatters the bone. It takes her four blows to beat in the skull enough to damage the brain and kill the creature.
I’m so weak.
Weak means dead. Only the strong survive in this new world.
I marched away from the FEMA farm as if I were a goddess. I had to, or I’d never escape. I need medical care, protein and a safe place to recover. None of which I’ll earn unless I find the energy to kill three more undead. Pray, girl, there are no more in the house.
She spears the fourth through the eye—mistake.
The beveled end of the tire iron sticks in the bone. The creature collapses dead but takes her defense with it.
She moves toward the porch and snags a flower pot of some once living plant. Chucking the clay vessel as hard as she’s capable, it shatters against the undead. It glances at the smashing noise occurring at its feet. Lindsey flings another pot. It splits open the monster’s face. She drives the next pot against the skull. It causes the creature to fall into a convulsive flop before it ceases movement.
She puts a foot in the chest of the undead impaled with her tire iron. Her foot sinks into the goopy flesh. She uses both hands to grip the metal and jerk it free. She clubs the fallen undead to make sure it’s lifeless before facing the final creature.
Climbing the steps to the porch, she reaches for the front door handle. Before she grips the knob, Lindsey shifts to the front window.
Inside, a headless man rests in his recliner, shotgun at his feet and his brains staining the wall.
God. Please let there be a full box of shells. I need the shotgun. She reaches for the doorknob again, preparing for the intolerable death smell trapped inside.
Locked.
She whacks the window with the bend of the tire iron, slipping her hand inside to reach the lock. Rotten meat smell wafts through the hole. Please let it mean no one has scavenged the house.
She drops the tire iron, recovering the shotgun. She racks a fresh shell into the chamber. Needs oil. It takes all her strength to hold the weapon in her arms. She leans against the porch wall by the door. The blast disintegrates the head of the final undead. If the mule-kick recoil of the rifle didn’t dislocate her shoulder, swelling argued different.
That’s going to leave a mark. She wonders how long before the contusion manifests. My online profile said “athletic build.” She rubs the tender spot where her arm connects to her torso. Won’t be able to update it to “broken and beaten.”
Fuck you. You’re anything but beaten.
My mental state is crazy. I’m arguing with myself.
This self is all you got to keeping you going. Now what do you see in the yard?
Two of the vectors were women, maybe they lived here. Maybe one of them had a stash of pads.
She places the weapon inside the door before securing the front door.
Hunger propels her over a search of the bathroom.
Jackpot.
Take inventory. A cabinet full of canned goods. Two boxes of shotgun shells. A shotgun. And the daughter’s room has a lock on the door, and the window is high enough no one outside can reach in.
Sleep without worry. I need a full night without an attack. If I reach REM sleep without dreaming of Kade...
Somehow raw chicken noodle soup should be nasty, but it tastes better than any medium-well steak she ever enjoyed. Lindsey lays on the bed, shotgun pointed at the locked door. I hate you, Kade. I need to restore the control he stole from me. Empowerment? How? No revenge on the dead.
As Lindsey drifts toward sleep, her mind considers…
Validation.
I need a purpose in life. Surviving’s not enough. I need a reason to survive.
I’ve got to have PTSD. I’m not going to get any justice from the legal system or monetary compensation. No recognition for surviving.
Suck it up, girl, and go on. The only justice you get is by living. Find a group of survivors and survive. Protect them so no one like Kade ever does that to anyone again. The undead should bring humanity together. A common enemy should build unity.
I’ll become a protector. No one will harm anyone under my care.
As her eyelids close, she thinks, Tomorrow, I work my way west. Find a map and offer to assist anyone who needs it.
“YOU STILL COLD?” Combeth asks, flipping the temperature knob to the widest red on the control board.
“Better, but I do need out of these wet clothes.”
“I’ll get you to the farm once the sally port’s secure. We can’t abandon our posts.” Combeth pulls next to the semi parked on the dam behind the tanks. The makeshift barricade held. “For what it’s worth, your plan was crazy. Glad it worked, because it was the only card we had to play.”
Sanchez smiles. Before she reminds him of her offer, he slides from the truck and closes the door to hold in the warmth. She slips off her sports bra and wrings as much water out of the material as possible. As she struggles to put it back on, she notes how her normal caramel skin tone has turned blue.
Combeth climbs onto the tank.
A few staggering undead remain outside Acheron. They mill around the hillside; most stagger toward the roaring river water only to be blocked by rock and a metal fence.
“Your girl did good,” Jada says.
“I’m trying to keep her from becoming hypothermic.”
“Then we should strip down and hug her. Allow our natural body heat to warm her naturally,” Jada says.
“I like your plan, but I have priority orders to secure the sally port.” Combeth waves.
Wade acknowledges the signal.
“We ready to close the gate?”
“We’re out of wat
er. This trick won’t work again until the reservoir refills,” Jada says. “We should be able to hold the fence now. All the noise should have brought any stragglers.”
“Agreed.” Combeth hops down. He pops a biter.
Wade scales down the side of the cargo trailer.
Jada follows suit and leaps from the tank. She fires.
An undead falls.
Wade unties the gate, allowing him to swing it closed.
Zeke joins them. Got to recover. Got to impress this woman. He smiles at Jada. She gives him an obligatory nod. He marches down the hill.
Dozens of undead not swept away by the water mill along the bank. He pops a few biters confused between approaching the roaring water or the thunder booms of Barretta reports.
Combeth pops undead through the chain-link. “Leave the tanks until we have this entry point secure and all these vectors disposed of.”
“Where do we burn?”
“Outside. Away from the water. But we don’t have the crew for that.” Combeth climbs over the tank.
Sanchez leans against the guard rail of the dam, glancing at the lake. “When you report to Wanikiya, they should send teams to patrol the lake edge. The water level has dropped, exposing God knows what.”
He grabs a blanket from the semi cab, wrapping it over the other blanket covering her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“When you report. He put you in charge.” Combeth takes her right hand and places her necklace into her palm.
“We’re both Privates,” she says.
“You don’t listen to me. I told you to remain in the heat. Wanikiya charged you with this mission, and I sure as hell ain’t taking responsibility for letting in a few thousand undead.”
“I don’t think it was that many. If another wave arrives, the gate guards should be able to handle it.” She hooks the clasp on her necklace and scrolls the chain so it is at the back of her neck. “It was my plan, and I’ll accept the consequences of my decision.”
“I’ll testify at your court-martial. It was a brilliant plan. And you know it was the only way to save the gate.” He loads his pistol clips with loose rounds.
No Room In Hell (Book 3): Aftershocks Page 11
