“Fuck you, Macleod,” Ahmed spat.
“Oh yes, fuck me, right?”
Ahmed inched and inched away from Macleod while he continued his tirade.
Macleod caught on. “Now where are you going? I was just getting to the fun part.”
The room echoed Sadie’s voice. “Stop, Macleod!”
Macleod bent down, grabbing Ahmed by the angle and dragging him back in front of him. She ran at Macleod, reaching out with chained arms for him. He laughed and grabbed her by the throat. “Oh, ain’t that sweet. You can help me hold him down while I remove his man parts or whatever fleshy patch is down there. I suspect he ain’t packing much on account of how nice and quiet he is.” He forced her down on top of Ahmed’s chest, pinning them both with one of his knees. He tugged at Ahmed’s belt with a free hand. “Let’s see.”
Ahmed’s hand grasped for anything. His own blood stuck gravel to his palms. His fingernails scratched the rocky floor until they felt something. They wrapped eagerly around a sizable rock.
The rock was grainy and rough in his hand like a sandpaper-covered baseball, but it didn’t matter at all to him. He swung his arm as hard as he could into the side of Macleod’s head.
Macleod toppled off them, falling to his behind. He sat staring for a moment, wondering what happened. “Feisty.” Dazed, he shook his head.
Ahmed kicked as he pushed himself upright on one leg. Macleod tried to stand and fell back to the seated position, his eyes filled with stars. Ahmed hobbled for the corner. He’d seen it when he walked in and knew it instantly as his own. He hefted the wooden bat. Tan wood, dents and chips taken out of it. Red gore stained the grain of the wood. Macleod managed to regain his unsteady feet.
Ahmed twirled the bat in circles, feeling its perfectly weighted balance in his hands. “Batter up.”
Macleod slurred his words. “You wait a minute.” He leveled his knife at Sadie. “You, young lady, will get yours later after I take care of Humid.” He gripped the handle and charged Ahmed. “Rarrrr!”
Spreading his feet just over shoulder width apart, the gravel gave beneath his back foot before it came to a standstill. His front leg held almost no weight. He tensed as Macleod neared but let his hips be free and loose. Macleod’s jab was slow and he missed, staggering by Ahmed. The bat snapped around as Ahmed twisted his hips to generate more power behind the swing. It caught Macleod on the spine and he screamed, dropping to his hands and knees.
“You don’t have the balls,” Macleod spit. “My men will be back from dealing with the rednecks soon enough. You’re all dead. You’re dead. She’s dead. Dead.”
Ahmed zeroed in on the side of Macleod’s skull touching it with his bat. “That’s where you’re wrong. Smashing your head in is no different than hitting a baseball. In fact, it’s easier. More like batting practice with the machine on slow pitch.” Ahmed circled Macleod. “You know what’s funny? My father always told me that baseball was a waste of time.” His voice morphed into his father’s, “‘You’ll never do anything learning a silly sport.’ But you know what?”
“Wha?” Blood dribbled from Macleod’s mouth in red saliva stretched stalactites. He tried to push himself off the ground, but his legs refused to obey.
“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty great too.” Ahmed chuckled. “Baseball and love are all you need.” The bat whipped around in a blur of man and wood. It was a swing for the fences, not a lead-off single, but a full swing taking every ounce of his body. The thirty-three inch, thirty-one ounce piece of wood was a violent extension of his arms.
It wasn’t the perfect swing, much lower than in a game, but a man’s head is roughly three times larger than a baseball. So much more surface to aim for. At this point, with all his at bats throughout his life, he couldn’t miss even if his calf was a bloody mess, especially with the game on the line.
Thwack! The smack was stomach-churning and sounded as if he’d hit a watermelon in the place of this man. Macleod’s eye popped out of his shattered cheekbone. Brain and bone revealed themselves in clumps of pink and white, now exposed to the world. Macleod’s hands and feet gave out and he landed in a pool of his own fluids. Ahmed felt glorious. He’d hit a grand slam with the game on the line.
“That felt good,” Ahmed said to Macleod’s corpse. “Like a grand slam.”
If Macleod wasn’t dead, he would be soon enough. He wiped blood and gore from the bat and searched Macleod’s pockets for the key to Sadie’s chains. He unlocked Sadie’s cuffs, and she wrapped her arms around him. He felt more than love from her at this moment. They were two pieces being reunified into one.
“Let’s make a run for home.”
STEELE
Camp Forge, IA
Even as the black smoke defiled the sky, the whiteness of winter engulfed the darkness with a heavy snowstorm. Steele hid in the shadows as two men walked toward the center of his base.
“Psst.”
The Chosen man turned his way and squinted. Steele swung his tomahawk hard into the side of his head. The blade bit deep, wedging itself in his skull. Larry and Gregor cut the other man down with knives, covering his mouth as he tried to scream. Their blades worked vengefully fast as they pierced him over and over. Some may have thought it was murder as murder is unauthorized and unlawful. This was killing, an authorized extinguishing of enemy combatants. They dragged the bodies into the shadows of a cabin.
Steele’s crowd of men and women weaved the pathways in the murkiness of the storm. His paltry force was all that hadn’t been captured that early Christmas morning.
In the place where Steele had been married the day before sat hundreds of prisoners around the flagpole. Men, women, and children were huddled in a terrified mass. The flag whipped in the wind, almost obscured by the falling snow.
The pastor’s followers stood around them in a circle. Elevated above all sat the pastor and War Child in chairs behind the charred ruins of John’s old desk that had been pulled from the rubble of the farmhouse. They overlooked their new constituents with the ownership of a slave master.
A pile of bodies grew next to the prisoners as the War Machines and Chosen tossed the dead into a giant heap.
Like he was getting to go speak at the pulpit, the pastor stood. “It’s time to feed the flames of our Lord with the unclean souls of the unbelievers. Their warriors will die, but the others will have a choice. Stay and live among us in safety or join the others in the cleansing.” He nodded to a group of men and they doused the pile of dead with gasoline. A great jagged blaze engulfed the lifeless, rising thirty feet then leaping to fifty feet in the air.
The pastor called out to them from his pulpit of death. “Feel the warmth of our savior.” He turned to the biker president. “Behold the man that will protect us and deliver us from harm.”
War Child joined the pastor. “Today was a necessary evil of the world we live in. It needed to be done to ensure our survival. We need your cooperation, and everything will be fine.”
Steele leaned out from behind his cabin and took aim.
“No,” a female said behind him.
He lowered his weapon. “Hurry.”
Margie took his place, aiming her hunting rifle. She zeroed in through her optic eye, focusing. It wasn’t a new optic but an older simple one, nothing fancy, probably handed down through generations of hunters. She adjusted her sight alignment a fraction of an inch higher than normal to accommodate the distance.
Steele spoke to the men and women at his back. “Get ready.” Her finger depressed the trigger bit by bit.
“For Tony,” she whispered. The trigger clicked, and her gun banged sending waves of boom over the crowd. People screamed and ducked low. War Child flinched and fell backward, toppling over his chair. He crawled for cover on his elbows.
The pastor stood, his eyes blazing in the flames. “Traitors!”
Steele’s men charged into the open, running quick on the other men. The numbers ceased to matter with s
urprise. Steele ran around the smoldering wreckage of the farmhouse. The smell of burning bodies stung his nose, but he continued turning left and right as he gunned down the Chosen with impunity. The prisoners scattered in all directions in panic. People shrieked, scrambling for cover anywhere, turning the scene into one of utter chaos. It was almost impossible to tell anyone apart.
Sprinting, Steele circled around the edge of the farmhouse. He popped out near the pastor’s makeshift desk pulpit. A piece of wood filled his vision and struck him across the nose. Crack! His head snapped back and he staggered. A man grabbed at his long gun, wrestling for control, knowing control meant life or death.
Steele’s vision was disoriented, and he front kicked the man away from him. The man kept hold of his gun, and it went end over end into a drift, the weight driving it towards the ground.
The man barrel-rolled to the side and clambered to all fours. He stood, lifting his wooden flail into the air. His handsome face sneered at Steele, and he wiped his wavy blond hair away from his eyes. “God wills it!”
More gunfire kicked off from the other side of the compound. That would be Red Clare attacking. Steele ran his hand along the top of his belt searching for his secondary weapon. Snow kicked up as Matthew ran for Steele, swinging his flail over his head like a helicopter. Steele’s hand found his tomahawk. There was no time. The feet between them disappeared as the man sprinted.
The tomahawk emerged in the air as a shield. The head of the light ax knocked the flail, sending it swinging away from his face. He followed through with a crossover strike into Matthew’s nose.
The blond man staggered and whipped his weapon back around, striking Steele’s ribs. He felt a stinging crack and couldn’t tell through the pain whether it was the wood breaking or the bones in his body.
“Fuck!”
Matthew wiped his nose, rubbing the blood between his fingers. He blew red snot from his nostrils and raised his flail high over his head. The wooden handle swung in circles over his head. He rushed Steele with wild rage in his eyes. “For the Chosen!”
Steele held his tomahawk close, the rear point touching his chest. His legs were tense with a bend in his knees. Matthew charged, barreling forward in fury. As he got within a few feet, Steele lunged toward him, keeping his hawk close, shrinking the distance rather than stretching it apart.
He caught Matthew’s arm as it swung downward, pulling it into his body. Almost instantly, he brought his hawk slashing across Matthew’s chest and in quick succession made short cleaving strikes. One along the left side of his neck, and using the hook of his tomahawk, he sliced into the right side. Matthew’s eyes widened, but Steele continued his deadly work with systematic extreme violence. Taking the blade of his hawk, he used it to force Matthew’s arm past Steele’s body. The flail disappeared into fresh powder. The Chosen lieutenant stumbled a foot and fell knee first into the snowy ground, holding the jagged remains of his throat.
For the first time in seconds, Steele remembered to breathe. Matthew tipped over on his side in a gurgling pool of his own blood. Steele walked forward, leaving Matthew to bleed out. The man didn’t deserve anything better.
His ribcage bellowed in pain as he walked. Gunfire roared between the groups. He stopped as another man stepped in front of him.
He had long greasy black hair and a partially grown spotty beard. Luke.
“I’ll make it quick if you step aside.” Steele twirled his tomahawk, deciding where to strike first.
Everything about Luke was dirty down to the bloody dinged knife in his hand. He licked his lips and grinned, showing his scummy yellow teeth. “You know I was there when she died.”
“Who?” Steele grunted. In his gut he knew already, and it made his muscles tense with angry blood.
“Your mother.”
“Fuck you.”
He circled Steele, waving the knife around as he paced. “She screamed and screamed.” His voice grew mocking. “Oh, help me. Save me!” He stopped to watch Steele’s reaction. “You’ll scream when we put you in the fire. They all scream. Every last one.” He stopped for a moment, tapping the blade on his forehead. “That’s after I take my souvenir from your flesh. What do you think? An ear. A finger.” He narrowed an eye. “Those won’t do. I’ll take your scalp. The whole ugly puckered thing. And I’ll make that whore of yours watch.” He turned his head to the side. “You know, maybe I’ll take hers too. That’d be sweet. His and hers scalps.”
Steele’s vision settled into the red. He bounded forward and Luke tensed as he ran. Bringing the hawk down in an overhead cleaving strike, Luke parried his attack and sliced Steele’s forearm. Then Luke swung long across Steele’s chest. His blade bit Steele’s flesh, cutting through clothes and skin alike. Steele retreated backward, ignoring the warm blood dribbling down his torso. Caution. He knows how to use that blade.
Steele spun his hawk in his hand and circled the vile man.
“You know who else screamed?” Eyebrows lifted on his skull. “Your girlfriend Tess when we got her.” He laughed harsh notes. “We had her so drugged she didn’t even know she carried a fucking bomb or what we did to her.” He snorted more laughter, edging closer to Steele. “It was beautiful to watch.” Increasing in volume, his voice turned into a shout. “God’s glory.” Maniacal laughter erupted from his throat.
Luke inched closer and tried for a slash along Steele’s gut. Steele sprawled backward and hooked Luke’s elbow, helping him on by. With a quick strike, he brought the tomahawk down into his enemy’s Achilles tendon, and with a sickening slap, into his spine.
The Chosen disciple collapsed in the snow. He swung wildly with his knife, searching for flesh to split. Steele ripped his tomahawk out of his back, and it was Luke’s turn to scream. In a flash of metal, he slammed the small axe into the man’s knife hand and severed it from his body. The hand lay with its fingers curled around the hilt, gradually melting into the whiteness. Bittersweet liquid spurted from the stump, steaming the fresh powder.
Luke breathed hard into the cold ground. “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my hand.” He sucked in frantic air.
Steele turned away.
“Kill me!” He laughed then cried. “Kill me!”
Steele continued his march to the pulpit desk, ignoring Luke’s pleas for mercy. Mercy was the last thing on his mind.
Gunfire blared from the gate, sounding like trumpets of angels. The pastor stood tall at his pulpit. His eyes darted fearfully toward the sounds of resistance as more armed men and women entered the compound. Iowans. Slow to the fight, but here for the win.
“You,” Steele said. Every breath felt like fire in his lungs.
The pastor’s mouth shook at the corners. “My disciples. My boys. You have martyred them straight to heaven.”
“I sent them to hell, where they belong.”
The pastor pointed at Steele. “Kill him, Peter.”
Peter stepped near the pastor, training his AK-47 on him. Steele never thought he’d be getting gunned down by an AK in America. Perhaps abroad when he worked with the Division, but never here.
“Father.” Peter’s face twisted with indecision.
“Come, Peter.” Steele gestured at the man with his light ax. “I believe we have some unfinished business.”
The pastor’s finger wavered over Steele’s form in condemnation. “Kill him. He’s the antichrist in his truest form.”
Peter pressed the wood-stock to his shoulder and aimed at Steele, but his eyes were undecided. He didn’t hold the resolute violence in his belly. He lacked the will.
“It’s over. War Child is dead. Luke is dead. Matthew is dead. I have appealed to your reason time and time again, yet you still fall under this evil man’s spell. The battle isn’t between us. Our battle is against them.” The tomahawk wavered as it incriminated the infected on the other side of the river. “Yet we kill each other for what? So your master can have power over everyone? What do you think Colonel Kinnick is going to do here when he find
s his base taken over? He’s going to order the destruction of it all, and we will have lost the true battle.”
Peter continued to train his aim at Steele.
He waved him off. “Ah, fuck it. Do what you have to do.”
Squinting an eye, Peter focused his aim.
The blood ran down Steele’s arm and into his hand, the glue sticking his palm to his grip. The growing blizzard continued to blanket everything in a cold white.
The pastor hissed, “Finish this, Peter.” He faced his most loyal disciple. “You are my rock. Do God’s will and kill this man.”
Wind blew flurries swirling about their faces. Cold men eyeballed one another, waiting for the end. And Peter blinked. His posture visibly relaxed as if the fight had gone from him. His eyes told a different story than violence.
Steele’s fast twitch muscles were fatigued and worn yet still stiff in the freezing air. He swung his arm back, letting his front foot step forward. He whipped the tomahawk behind his ear and heaved. The haft of his hawk grazed his sticky fingers as he released the weapon.
The light melee weapon flew end over end, cutting through flurries with ferocity. The handle flipped around, chased by the head turning over, and led the way blade first until the momentum drove the other end of the tomahawk sailing. It rotated like this in the fog of close combat that always flowed slower in the fighter’s eye. The tomahawk head sunk into the center of the pastor’s chest with a thud.
Peter lowered his rifle. His mouth opened in shock. His inaction killed his master as much as Steele. The pastor stood tall for a moment before realization registered on his face. The handle quivered, embedded in his chest.
Long slender fingers ran down the shaft of the weapon as if it were a curious growth appearing out of the pastor’s body. He stared at Steele, finally blinking. His gaunt face frowned in pain. His hands gripped the end of the tomahawk, and after a few pulls, tugged it free. Blood replaced the blade. He tossed the hawk on the ground in front of him and pointed at Steele.
The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding Page 38
