by I. J. Smith
He heard a noise a crackling noise and turned to see Zoe and Tommy walking towards him.
“You mind if we join you?” Tommy asked.
“Go ahead kid, best view in the house.”
Ryan looked out over the open fields that surrounded the Fort, zombies roamed across the grass, they watched as one slipped and fell into the water. Making all three of them, burst out laughing.
They were ignoring the speech being made by Gabe.
Zoe suddenly asked. “How do you think the others are doing?”
Ryan looked over as Tommy glanced at him. “They’ll find Jack, or Jack will kill everyone and walk in like he always does.” Once again, they all laughed.
Their laughter was suddenly stopped by the sound of screaming.
Ryan jumped up and turned in time to see Eddie tied to a makeshift crane and lowered onto the fire. They could see Bray trying to fight, but was instantly taken down.
“NO!” One of them screamed, as bullets started to fly at them.
“Come on!” Ryan ordered Zoe and Tommy.
Ryan led them down the grass embankment and into the water.
“SWIM!” Zoe shouted.
Tommy struggled but made it across. Ryan was first out on shore, to help pull the others out. Before anything could be said; more bullets started to hit the ground around them. Ryan looked up to see men firing their weapons at them.
Suddenly a rotting corpse grabbed ahold of a wet Zoe. Ryan quickly dragged it to the ground and smashed its head into pieces.
“Come on!” Tommy told them.
All three of them began running from the Fort, weaving in and out of the zombies, who kept reaching out to make them their next meal.
The three of them made it to the far side of the grass, all wet and out of breath.
“What the fuck was that?” Tommy asked. “They were eating Eddie!”
“What are we gonna do?” Tommy kept asking questions, one after the other.
“SHUT UP!” Ryan shouted at him.
Tommy went quiet; Zoe placed her arm around him and looked at Ryan.
“Sorry, I’m sorry buddy.” Ryan said.
The revving of an engine caught their attention, they looked towards the Fort and on the bridge two cars raced out and started to head towards them.
“Run, just keep running!” Ryan told them.
They ran further and further away, across a road and into bushes. They quickly found themselves against a metal fence.
“Shit!” Tommy said.
The headlights of the car started to shine through the bushes.
“Come on,” Zoe told them.
They began climbing the fence; the barbed wire on top shredded the skin from their hands, as they jumped over. Tommy caught his leg in the wire and blood began to pour from the wound. Ryan leaned up and pulled him down, making the cut deeper. Hitting the ground hard, Tommy tried to hold in the pain.
Zoe checked his leg; blood had already soaked the ground. Ryan took off his belt and tied it round Tommy’s leg to stem the bleeding.
Zoe and Ryan each took an arm and carried Tommy across the gravel to a large building. At the door, Ryan forced it open and they went inside. As they closed the door, the light of the cars passed the building.
A group of men, long hair and beards appeared by the fence. Torches shined, moving around the large abandoned recreation center. One light shined past the car park, abandoned vehicles scattered the grounds. Suddenly, the light hit the eyes of a zombie. It started groaning as it dragged its feet along the ground toward the light. As it got closer, they could see it was the dead corpse of a woman, wearing a bikini. She was obviously swimming in the center when the Outbreak started. Her skin was sagging and one of her tits hung out from her bikini top.
“I still would,” one of the men joked.
Laughter became louder. “Matty, even she would turn your ugly ass down!”
Ryan watched from a window as the men walked away and got back into their cars and drove off, back in search of them.
“Ryan, I need some help!” Zoe told him.
Tommy looked white faced; he had already lost so much blood.
“Get me something to use as a bandage, and some water.” Zoe told Ryan.
Ryan ran from the room and along the corridor. He found a small snack bar untouched. He grabbed a bathing suit, bottles of water, and rushed back.
After ripping the bathing suit apart, Ryan made Tommy drink as Zoe tended to the deep gash in Tommy’s leg. Neither of them gave thought to the cuts on their own hands.
Finally, Tommy was resting, his leg bandaged.
Zoe was tending to Ryan’s cut hands. They were both silent.
Zoe broke the silence.
“We should have stood with Jack and Raven.”
“Then we would be dead too,” Ryan told her.
“That has to be better than what we just saw. Jack would have found a way to stop it.” Zoe replied.
“Jack’s not Superman, I saw him break apart, when Elle died. I was there when he cried, felt lost and just felt useless.”
Zoe looked up at Ryan.
She moved in and kissed him softly.
∞
BACK AT THE FORT
Bray was being treated by Rain and Jennifer. “You need time to heal.” Rain told him.
“I’m gonna kill them all!” Bray replied.
Jennifer looked scared.
Rain suddenly slapped him across the face. “You’re outnumbered, you have no weapons, and there are children here. You will do whatever you need to do to protect them.”
Jennifer kneeled by her father and hugged him; he took Rain’s hand and nodded his head in agreement.
Outside Gabe walked around with Brandon.
“Forget about Ryan and the others. I keep hearing murmurs from the kids, about someone called The Reaper and that he will save them.” Gabe said.
Brandon laughed aloud. “The Reaper? Where the fuck do they get these names?”
Gabe stopped. “You should listen more and speak less.” Gabe looked around. “The kids spoke about a man who saved them, a man that killed without mercy. I asked them; is he The Devil? Do you know what one of them replied?” he asked.
Brandon looked at Gabe. “WHAT!”
“A boy, a little boy told me that The Devil is a pussy compared to The Reaper.”
Brandon smiled. “You don’t believe that shit, do you?”
“All stories come from somewhere and if there is a man out there coming for these kids, I wanna look him in the eye and kill him myself.” Gabe said with a smile.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NOT LONG
“If we don’t operate, he will die!” Dr. Banks yelled.
Groves sat behind his desk looking around his office, Dr. Banks stood in front of the desk waiting for a response. Kelly sat by the wall, playing with a knife, trying to balance it on her finger.
“He is never going to talk, we all know that,” Kelly said with a smile.
Groves rubbed his head in frustration. “We don’t have a choice. Do what you have to!”
Kelly laughed out loud. “COWARD!”
Groves waved Dr. Banks away, and watched as he left the room. Kelly walked over to Groves’ desk and was shocked when Groves grabbed her around her throat, and pushed her down onto the table.
“You need to learn to keep your mouth shut!” Groves yelled at her.
Kelly smiled; she had no fear of Groves, whatsoever. She wrapped her legs around him tightly and held him there. “Then teach me,” she told him. Groves struggled, but eventually pulled away. She sat on the table laughing, as Groves stormed out of the office.
Raven was sitting next to Jack; he had been silent for ages. Raven had noticed that his hands were shaking. Anyone who noticed it would think it was fear. She knew it was not fear, but the result of his condition. Jack suddenly started talking.
“Listen, if you get chance. Run! Forget about me and get out, find the others and warn them.” R
aven took his hand and held it tightly in hers. She looked him in the eyes and could see his fear.
“They need you alive. You are strong, and you can fight this.”
Jack frowned for a moment.
“I’m tired of fighting, I’m tired of all this!” He replied.
Before she could answer the door swung open, Dr. Banks walked in followed by two soldiers.
“Jack, it’s time,” he said.
As Jack went to stand, he started to lose his balance, Raven quickly steadied him.
“I’m coming too,” she told everyone.
“No!” Jack said.
“Shut up! You don’t get a vote,” She replied.
Dr. Banks tried to help Jack, but was pushed away. Jack glared at him with hatred, as if he had already forgotten that Steven was now an ally, or maybe he just didn’t trust him anymore.
Raven guided Jack; the two guards were quick to pull their weapons. “Seriously?” Dr. Banks asked.
They walked to the lift and travelled down to another level. As the doors opened, in the distance Groves stood there watching, with Kelly behind him. It was a long hallway, covered in glass walls. Raven held Jack close to her; as they passed the glass walls, a zombie slammed against it. Blood and puss from his rotting flesh covered the glass. Jack suddenly threw himself to the ground.
“NO! NO! NO! PLEASE!” Jack yelled, shouting in fear.
Groves watched as Raven and Dr. Banks helped Jack back to his feet. Groves was shocked; the look of fear in Jack’s eyes was something he had never seen in him before.
“So, he is The Reaper? The one-man-army?” Kelly joked.
Groves glared at her. “You should show some respect, he has earned it!”
Jack was led into a sterile room. He was strapped down onto a table and his head placed in a skull clamp. Dr. Banks and Raven both changed into scrubs and entered the room. The soldiers stood by the door.
“You can leave now!” Dr. Banks told the soldiers.
The tallest of the pair replied, “We are under orders to stay!”
Dr. Banks just shook his head.
As Dr. Banks began to sedate Jack, Raven held Jack’s hand.
“Elle, Elle,” Jack repeated as he drifted away.
Dr. Banks looked over to see a tear roll down Raven’s face. “I am guessing Elle is someone important to him?”
Raven shook her head. “Just get on with it!”
Dr. Banks handed Raven a razor. “You know what to do!”
Raven shaved Jack’s head, and then Dr. Banks scanned him once again. With a black marker, Dr. Banks made an x and began to cut into the skin of Jack’s head. Blood began to pour out. Raven soaked up the blood with the gauze available. Clamping the skin away from the skull, Dr. Banks sprayed the area with sterilizer to reveal the white skull.
Groves stood outside listening to the sound of a drill going through bone.
“What happens if he dies?” Kelly asked Groves.
“Then Oasis will probably kill us too!” He replied.
For hours, Dr. Banks concentrated on his work. A section of Jack’s skull sat in a dish, covered with a dampened towel. Dr. Banks had just found the growth and the bleed. Just when everything looked like it was going well, Jack’s vitals dropped. The machines began to beep erratically. Jack’s body began to seize, the beeps grew faster and faster until only one long pitched noise remained.
The sound of Jack flat lining echoed through the surgical room; it could be heard out in the corridor, where Groves and Kelly waited.
“OH SHIT!” Groves muttered.
Dr. Banks was quick to help Jack, to restart his heart that had stopped. Ripping open Jack’s shirt and placing the paddles of the defibrillator on Jack’s chest, a buzzing noise of the machine powering up when Groves shouted out.
“Raven, Clear!” Dr. Banks shouted as he started the race against time, to save Jack.
∞
The flashing lights confused him; the thousand voices overwhelmed him, until suddenly it stopped. He looked down to see the sand around his black standard-issue army boots. A voice spoke out behind him.
“Dammit Jack, what have you done now?”
Jack turned in confusion to see a familiar face. “Eric?” he asked.
Eric stepped forward in full black army fatigues. “Shit! Been too long, my friend!”
Jack embraced Eric, both men happy to see each other. Suddenly Jack spoke.
“I’m dead!”
Eric held his friend at arm’s length. “You should have died years ago, you’re a crazy bastard.”
Jack looked around the distant desert, only a familiar small rock building stood in the distance.
“Afghanistan!” Jack stated.
“Yeah,” Eric pointed to the building. “I died right over there!”
The look on Jack’s face changed to guilt. “I had no choice!”
Eric smiled and began to walk away.
“So, this heaven?” Jack asked.
Eric stopped and looked back at his friend. “Maybe, maybe not! Maybe I am an angel, or more simply this is just your brain making sense of everything going on around you!”
“I’m not dead?” Jack asked.
“How the fuck would I know? I am just an image of your old friend in your brain!”
As Jack laughed, he felt the world around him change, like a bolt of lightning shooting over his head. Now it was night and he was back in England. He still stood with Eric as they looked at two graves, one large, and one small. Jack looked around and he recognized the school where Elle had died and he buried MacLeod alive.
“You still have that mean streak, Jack!” Eric stated as he kneeled next to MacLeod’s grave. “Burying him alive with food and water to make his agony last. Damn, I love it.”
“I’m not proud of it,” Jack replied.
Eric stood up and faced his friend. He pointed down at the smaller grave.
“What’s in there?” Eric asked.
Jack stood silent, the anger growing on his face. “You know what’s in there!”
“I want to hear it from you; I want to hear you say the words!”
Jack suddenly threw a punch, his fist flying straight through Eric, as if he was a ghost.
Eric laughed. “Holy cow! You’re really trying to pick a fight with your own brain!”
Jack suddenly flinched at the sound of thunder again. This time he was in the cell he shared with Raven.
“Wow! Baby, look at the tits on her!” Eric said with a smile.
Jack looked over to see himself and Raven making love. He was confused; he did not remember this happening.
Eric stood over the bed watching them. “Wow she is beautiful!”
Jack watched and turned to Eric. “I don’t get any of this!”
Eric strolled over to him and placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Listen to me, there is not much time. Jack, you were never meant to be a good man. Good men die, the world is changed by those capable of doing the very worst. You buried one head, do you wanna make it two or three or four?” Jack frowned as a thundering noise grew louder. Eric held his friend. “Look, you know what you have to do; you know what you have to be. Don’t be scared of being what you were born to be.” Eric backed away.
“You are The Reaper!”
“Jack, come on and fight!” Raven screamed.
At that single moment, Jack’s eyes opened, the life support machine began a steady rhythm of beats.
Confused and exhausted Jack uttered a single word, “Reaper,” just as he closed his eyes again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HOLY SHIT
Adam was tired and angry; he was following Craig to the supposed military stash of weapons. For almost a day they had dragged their feet and Adam was beginning to lose patience. The group walked along a dirt road that ran alongside a long-abandoned farm house.
The scenery was beautiful; a true work of art. Only a few zombies roamed the fields around them. It was like an untouche
d Eden. However, every now and then they came across the remains of fallen soldiers and civilians. The smell of half-eaten remains of farm animals covered in millions of flies and maggots would bring tears to everyone’s eyes.
Adam had noticed Kat and Sarah bonding, they always seemed to be in deep conversation. He had noted that Sarah was teaching Kat how to use her swords and how to fight dirty. It bought a smile to his face, thinking that Jack would have been teaching her the same way. He thought about it for a moment and could hear Jack saying ‘DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO WIN!’
The twins, Brian and Brad, seemed to be clinging to Jacob and Paige; they looked like innocent boys who had to grow up fast in this living hell. They bombarded Jacob with questions about Jack and The Reaper. Jacob was his usual, happy self, only too happy to tell them stories of Jack’s blood lust.
Taylor kept looking back at Adam and then whispering to Craig. Adam noticed the pair seemed to be in some sort of disagreement. With time tight to save Jack and Raven, Adam rushed forward to them.
“OK! That’s enough, where the hell are we headed?”
Craig and Taylor swung round, looking at Adam. With a smile, Craig spoke. “We are almost there!”
Adam approached Craig. “Listen to me, my friends are in trouble and we don’t have time for stupid little games.”
Taylor suddenly spoke. “I told you, all they want is the weapons.” Craig looked back at Taylor, in anger.
“SHUT UP!”
Adam looked Craig in the eyes. “When we get our friends back, we will come back for you.”
Craig frowned as Taylor suddenly spoke out. “FUCK YOU!”
The anger in Adam grew to boiling point; he placed his hand on the handle of a knife he had strapped to his belt. Craig noticed and placed his hand on Adam’s chest, stopping him from moving forward.
“We’re dying out here; we can’t survive on our own. We can help you get your friends back; all you need to do is take us with you.” Craig told Adam.
Removing his hand from his knife, Adam looked around before speaking. “Where we are going? It’s not safe here, it’s dangerous. We are only hoping our friends are still alive, if they are, then it will get bloody.”
