Tori went to Tyler’s apartment and knocked on the door. In a matter of seconds she heard the sounds of movement inside the apartment. Then she heard a chain lock being unfastened, then a bolt lock.
The door opened. “Yes?” Tyler asked, peeking through a small crack.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking a lot about how you guys trust the perimeter security so much. I may finally be comfortable enough to put my weapons in the vault.”
The comment took a lot for Tori to say. She wasn’t a trusting person since the Flip and hadn’t been that much more comfortable trusting people even before the Flip. She had a deep revelation that if America was going to rebound from what it had been through with the government’s betrayal of the people, the United Nations invasion, and the pandemic, then it would have to begin on a personal level, not just for her, but for each American.
“That’s great news, Tori,” Tyler said. “I’d say don’t feel like you have to jump in over your head, but you’ve already been a part of so much here. I think you’re ready for this.”
She didn’t respond to that. She just gave him a half smile and escorted herself to the armory.
The armory was a pole barn with only one entrance. It had no windows, which made sneaking into it an impossibility. The only way in and out was through the heavy main door. It had a small four-by-ten-inch square sliding peephole installed in it that could only be opened from the inside. This enabled the interior guard to look outside before opening the door.
Tori knocked on the door and the peephole slid open.
“Hey, Tori, what’s up?” the man asked.
“I’ll be storing my weapons now,” she said in an uncertain voice.
The man working the armory had received a phone call from Tyler, advising him that Tori was on her way. They had operable landlines in some areas; they only needed moderate power to operate them. The old phone company was being operated by a local militia group that kept the generators running for a moderate fee.
When Tori had said what she needed to, he could hear a tinge of uncertainty in her voice. In truth, she was rethinking her idea, but the sounds of the large metal door opening up to her pushed those doubts to the back of her mind. She couldn’t go back on her word now, not if she wanted them to trust her like she was trusting them.
The door opened and Tori walked in. The man secured the door behind her and escorted her to the pistol rack.
“If you want to give me your pistol, I’ll tag it and set it here with the rest of the community’s weapons,” he said.
She took a second to look around the room. Most of the weapons were tagged with small white labels, twisted into position on each weapon by a tiny metal wire.
She took the pistol from her back and paused for a moment. She then pushed the magazine release button and dropped the nearly empty magazine from the pistol’s grip. She canted the pistol sideways, pointed it in a safe direction, and pulled the slide to the rear, ejecting the .45-caliber bullet that she had in the chamber. She slowly and gently laid Bubba down on the countertop.
“Make sure you write Tori Cunningham in bold letters,” she said.
“I’ll take care of it,” he assured her.
Before she left, she handed over her rifle. She then turned around and walked out.
The man picked up the rotary phone and dialed Tyler. “She just made the drop,” he said, then hung up the phone.
The rest of that day went as any other did. Tori reported to the guard shack to take a look at that week’s guard duty assignments. Tori was assigned to the night shift in the back southeast perimeter this particular evening, but had no further assignments after that. It was unusual to only have one assignment for the week, but she shrugged it off as an oversight. Since she was going to be up all night, she decided to go to bed early so that she could stay awake through the night.
2245 Hours
Night shift came early for Tori; she barely slept that evening. Had she known in advance that she was going to work the midnight shift, she would have scheduled herself a different routine for that day.
Tori was walking towards the armory, where the guards were required to check out their duty weapons. She had a routine of being fifteen minutes early because early was on time and on time was late to Tori. That was just the way she was wired. The Marine Corps instilled certain things into her that she could not undo.
On her way to the armory, she took her usual trek. Nothing was out of the ordinary except for one of the comments made by one of the other night-shift guards.
“Have a good night, Tori,” he said as he met her on the walk. She didn’t reply to the man. He had never spoken to her before except for the late night card games when he was fully liquored up with courage. She simply looked at him and locked eyes with him as he walked by. He had a weird smirk on his face. When she had turned back forward, she had no time to dodge the impact of the hard metallic shovel that caught her across the face. There was a deep sting, a hollow-sounding tong sound; then she passed out.
When Tori woke up, she was in her own bed. She jumped up and realized it was late morning. She had a painful migraine, which caused her to grope her head. She realized that the previous night’s experience wasn’t a bad dream; it had really happened. The way she remembered it was that she was on her way to guard duty on the midnight shift and that she was attacked and knocked out. Her face was tender and hard to touch without flinching. She walked to the washroom and looked into the mirror. On her way to the washroom, she could tell that she had been sexually assaulted. She was tender in her female parts, and the fact that her pants weren’t properly fastened was another hint.
The mirror revealed a much-bruised face and forehead. She walked back to the bed and sat down on it. It was her time to rethink this whole situation.
Tori didn’t want to leave the apartment that day. She felt that if she didn’t, things could get much worse for her. Instead, she had an internal dialogue going on with herself and justified pretending that nothing had happened by acting normal and carrying on about her business. She didn’t bother with reporting to the guard shack. She knew by now that it was all a setup.
They gave me one last duty to take me by surprise. They knew I wouldn’t make it to my post and probably had a replacement set up for me already. They didn’t give me any more duties because they didn’t want me to possess any guns after they had their way with me. They knew I would kill them, she thought. The quiet woman at the washboard came to her recollection. Patsy—I need to talk to Patsy, she thought.
Acting afraid and timid wasn’t in Tori’s nature. She was a realist and understood perfectly that she was outnumbered and definitely outgunned.
Tori bided her time and waited another day before she left her apartment. She was free to walk to and fro as she pleased, as long as it was within the community. She wasn’t allowed to go on resource patrol or to handle anything related to guns. Her captors knew she was unarmed, but they also knew she was dangerous. She noticed that the men were now roaming around the community with guns on their hips. The whole thing was a ruse to get Tori to turn in her weapons.
Every third day, at 11:00 p.m., a group of unarmed men would enter her apartment and she would resist them. Each day they left her with reminders bruised into her skin.
Daily, she would venture outside and watch as the resource patrols left the community. One of the men was on her Harley routinely. She knew the man’s name. It was Brad number two. He was with the men that found Tori and allegedly saved her from certain death. What she didn’t know at the time was that the men that saved her were saving her from one death and introducing to Tori another kind of death—self pride. The men tried taking it from her every third day, but each day she would fight back. This went on for nearly a month. She was patient, more patient than they knew. They didn’t know about Tori’s malevolence. It was her capacity for great violence that drove her desire to be a Marine, and it was going to be that same tenacity that would drive her survival instin
cts.
Patsy was sitting in front of her apartment, washing clothes. It wasn’t until Tori took a closer look that she saw it was all men’s clothing. There wasn’t a single feminine clothing article except a glimpse Tori got of a small girl’s skirt. When Patsy saw she was being watched, she tucked it away into the bottom of the wash trough.
“Patsy, isn’t it?” Tori asked as she took a knee next to her.
The lady went back to washing the clothes. She stopped scrubbing for a moment to look back at Tori. It was clear that she was examining her bruises. She was covered in them. Her face, neck, arms, wrists, knuckles—everything.
“You mustn’t talk to me,” Patsy whispered.
“I’m not afraid.”
“I am,” Patsy responded, then went back to scrubbing.
Tori reached down into the water and pulled out everything. The wet clothes fell onto the ground like a pot of soaked noodles. There, lying in the tangled mess of wet clothes, was a little girl’s skirt.
“Where is she?” Tori asked.
“Please stop, she’s my daughter.”
Tori was filled with rage. She stood up so fast that she almost became dizzy.
“Where is she?” Tori asked again.
“She’s with Tyler, but it’s pointless. He’ll kill us both and her agony will live on without me.”
Tori knew the situation was grim. She had a great deal of apathy for pain and punishment where it was due, but this was a little girl that Tori didn’t even know was in the community. She put her apathy away and traded it for empathy.
“You listen to me, Patsy—we’re going to get your girl back,” she said, but the woman was crying and picking the clothes up off the ground and replacing them into the water trough as though she couldn’t hear her words.
“Are you so jaded that you’ve accepted this as her fate?” Tori said.
The woman stopped scrubbing, then looked up at Tori.
“My dear, you, me, and my little girl are the only females in this community. We are a precious resource that they will fight to keep under submission. You are young, fresh, and attractive. The sooner you stop resisting and accept this as the norm, the happier you will be.”
Tori was taken aback by the comment. “You’re weak, Patsy,” Tori said. Not trusting the woman, Tori lied to her and said, “But I get what you’re saying. I don’t want to hurt your little girl. I’ll stay out of it.”
Tori started to walk away, but then turned back. “I’m just curious, what is her name?”
“You’ve already spoken it once,” she answered, then went back to scrubbing.
Tori rehashed the dialogue. “Jade? Is it Jade?”
The woman didn’t answer and Tori walked away.
On schedule, the three men entered Tori’s apartment.
“What’s for dinner, Tori?” one of the men asked. The sound of boiling water and the smell of hot oatmeal filled the place. The door locked behind the third man.
“Come on. You do this hide-and-seek game every time,” the second man said.
The lighting was dim; candles lit the apartment.
“Nice touch, Tori. I’m glad to see you’re at least taking baby steps,” the third man said as the room flickered under candlelight.
The sound of a loud tong came, followed by a thud sound from behind the men. The first two men turned around to see Tori running with a shovel past them. The third man was out on the floor. They reached to grab her, but she was quick and slender. She had the edge for speed and dexterity. She maneuvered past them and made it to the kitchen, where she grabbed the pot of boiling hot oatmeal and threw it into the face of the first man. He yelled and grabbed his face, ducking out of the way for the second man to lunge at Tori. By then, she had regained her balance and thrust the sharp edge of the shovel into the second man’s throat. His windpipe was severed and he dropped to the ground, trying to secure his airway with both of his hands.
Tori walked up to the man that was rubbing his face and hit him as hard as she could with the back of the shovel. He went limp and Tori turned around to finish off the second man. She thrust the shovel into the side of his neck and opened his jugular vein. She slipped and fell on the arterial spray, but picked herself up. She walked over to the other two unconscious men and did the same to each of them.
She patted down each of the men and found keys to their homes. They had no weapons on them, as they were most likely secured in their apartments or in the armory. Moments later, Tori was sneaking out of her apartment and letting herself into her violators’ apartments. She found a Kimber 1911. It was shiny like Bubba, but it wasn’t her pistol. Being a woman of strong principles, she felt an absolute desire to get her own pistol back, but first there was a mission she had to complete.
Midnight
Tyler was fast asleep with an eleven-year-old girl in his bed. His arm was over her, as if he were trying to maintain his control over her whereabouts. The girl was also fast asleep. She was facing away from Tyler with her face towards the wall. Behind him, standing at the edge of the bed, stood Tori with a stainless steel Kimber 1911 9mm pistol dangling at her side. On the nightstand next to his bed was a similar pistol. She took it and tucked it away in her back.
For the next few moments, Tori calculated the risks of shooting him in his sleep and escaping the community on foot against the cost of saving the girl’s life. She reasoned that the girl’s innocence had already been stolen from her, but Tori was a woman of principles. Scruples didn’t govern her in such a sense that they dominated her will to survive. Tori was willing to sacrifice her own life to save what was left of the girl’s. She didn’t know if there was any hope in that; all she knew was that there was no hope if she didn’t try.
Tori grabbed a couch cushion and pressed it over Tyler’s face. It startled him and he awakened, but it wasn’t in time to stop the 9mm from entering his skull and putting an end to his short struggle.
The little girl sprang up after being awakened at the sound of the gunshot. Tori silenced her by saying, “It’s okay. My name’s Tori, and I’m here to take you back to your mom.”
The little girl climbed over Tyler’s dead body and Tori grabbed her hand. The two of them walked outside into the cool night air. There were several men standing outside, but none of them stopped her. They were looking past Tori at the heads of the three men Tori had left on the front porch of Tyler’s place before she had entered the unlocked window.
Tori delivered the girl to Patsy and said, “Take your girl and get out of here. This is no life for either of you.”
Tori went back into Tyler’s house and reported to the armory not long after. She knocked on the door like she always had, and the peephole slid open. When the armorer saw Tyler’s face, he opened the large metal door. He was shocked to see Tori holding a gun to his face with her right hand. With her left, she dropped Tyler’s head.
“Surprise,” she said, and shot the armorer.
“I’ll take these … and that … and that, some of that, and definitely that,” she said out loud as she swiped his keys and collected Bubba, her Remington, plenty of ammunition, and an M4 carbine. She figured nobody was going to stop her if they hadn’t already. She used the armorer’s keys to lock up the armory, and the last anybody saw of Tori was when she headed away towards Brad number two’s house.
LEFT FOR DEAD
Day 1
A sharp pain pierced Tori’s side, causing her to reel in pain. The sudden movement caused more pain. Her temperature was high enough to kill her; if not for a high threshold for pain, the agony might have killed her, too. A couple deep gasps for air and Tori passed out again.
Rushing in from the other room, a lady in her seventies heard the cry and came bustling along the hardwood floor to the stranger’s bedside. The young lady in the bed couldn’t have been any older than thirty, she would often think as she nurtured her. She used the back of her sensitive hands to feel the young woman’s face and forehead. “You’re burning up, child,” she s
aid aloud, as if having a one-way conversation. She took a damp washcloth and dipped it in a bedside pan of water to freshen the wetness. She squeezed the excess water out to the best of her ability. Her hands were arthritic and lacked the strength she once had in her youth.
“Well, this will do,” she said as she patted the young lady’s face. “Ah, to be young again,” she said. A lonely monologue was just what the lady needed to help her feel like she wasn’t so alone. Having a stranger in her bed was a new experience for the elderly woman. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill situation for her. It was unique and required a tender touch.
The woman took the damp washcloth and dipped it back into the water one more time. She wrung out the water and neatly folded the moist cloth into a perfect rectangular shape fit for the woman’s sweaty forehead. The elderly woman then walked over to her rocking chair and sat down. Her breathing was shallow and labored. It was the run from the kitchen to the bed. There were no doctors or hospitals to care for the elderly lady. Life insurance, health insurance, hospitals—they were all things of the past. There was no one to care for her and no one to treat her ailments. She was diagnosed years earlier with a sickness that the growing government refused to tend to any further. Nationalized healthcare had run its course, and it crashed when the economy crashed. For the elderly woman, each move required labored breathing. That meant fast movement could be fatal for her.
Built onto her back porch, she had a greenhouse that provided for her. It required her attention on a daily basis and gave her a hobby that she enjoyed. She loved caring for things, anything that had life to it: plants, animals, people—she was a nurturer, plain and simple. So when she found Tori in her backyard with a gunshot wound to her chest, it gave her new purpose.
1 Day Earlier
Kathleen was gently rocking in her hand-carved wooden chair. Her husband, then boyfriend, had made it for her in the 1980s. They were both in their twenties when they met at a Sonic restaurant. Kathleen came rolling out on her roller skates and smiled at a cool-looking man in shades. He had brown hair and was driving a booger green Ford Pinto. It wasn’t his ride that impressed Kathleen, it was his personality. Yeah, he looked cool in them shades, but he smiled back at her and they hit it off that day; his name was Benjamin. They married in 1988 in a Baptist church. He was a Christian and went to church every service. Kathleen loved that about him, so much so, that she went with him every service.
Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) Page 9
