by Black, D. S.
Cap walked up to her and grabbed her by the chin. “What's your name?” he asked.
The blonde girl hesitated; then said, “Tasha.”
Jane saw strength in her eyes, but also morbid fear. Tasha was naked and helpless. If she'd been with the people out in the trees, then she was used to surviving and living life her way—probably since the start of the Fever. Mary Jane didn't think she could be much older than twenty-one.
“Well, Tash. Okona, whoever the fuck that is, is not coming to save you. You see, you and” (he pointed at Mary Jane and Tammy), “your girlfriends here now belong to The Militia. All things under the stars and the sun belong to The Militia, including these.” He cupped her breasts with his ragged hands. His hand then went between her legs; Tasha screamed. “I see you still have the Old World mentality. That's OK, though. I'm going to break all feminist bullshit right here and now!” He slapped her hard across the face.
“Let her go, boys!” They did and Cap pounced on her, throwing her on the tent's tarp floor. She fought but he outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.
As he raped her, tears poured down her face; her humanity degraded with each thrust of Cap's hips. He stopped with her before he reached orgasm and stood up. “Take her out gents! You and the rest have some fun with her. Just don't bruise her up too much, OK?” His erection was enormous, like an angry one-eyed throbbing beast. The men took Tasha out and her screams soon filled the early evening.
Cap took Tammy next, and then Mary Jane was bent over the army bunk. She allowed herself to be taken. She tried her best to ignore the pain; to take herself somewhere else, but mind over matter is easier said than done. She cried and screamed as Tammy and Tasha screamed outside of the tent. She knew the men would have her out there as well. She'd been lucky up to this point. Since the Fever came, she'd avoided this fate; hidden from the madness for the first month, and then found Duras and the City of God.
Those days were over. She now belonged to The Militia, at least for the time being.
As the night wore on, and her body was raped and raped again; she thought of her dead sister, thought of her father, thought of her of mother dying of cancer, and wished she'd been the one to die on that hospital bed; a dark cancerous cyst no doubt better than being in the arms of The Militia.
3
When it was over, the stars hung high in the sky. Camp 3 was surrounded by trees, but there was a clearing right above the encampment, like the opening of a stadium top. Mary Jane and Tasha dressed under the watchful eyes of the Militia, then they were given food and water. They were bound up with hemp ropes. Tammy was with what looked like a medic; she was withdrawn. She looked like shriveled death.
“She's not going to survive,” Tasha said.
“She might not,” Mary Jane responded.
Tammy had been ripped very badly deep inside and was bleeding internally. The medic looked up after examining her and shook his head in response to Cap’s glaring eyes. Mary Jane winced as Cap took a long blade from his belt, pushed the medic out of the way and jammed it into Tammy’s eye, entering her skull, finally ending the woman's suffering.
Tasha laid her food on the ground and started crying.
“Don't,” Mary Jane said. “You have to eat, if you expect to survive.”
“What's it matter? Why the hell is this happening?”
Although Mary Jane hurt inside (both body and mind) she felt a strange serenity, and a strong desire to see her and Tasha through this. “Don't ask why. Everybody who finds themselves in times like these wonder why. It’s not for us to know. We must find the strength to push through. No matter what. They can take our bodies, but they can't take our minds. Not unless we let them.” Mary Jane reached over with her bound hands and pulled Tasha up. “Eat, Tasha.”
Tasha looked into her eyes with a sad broken stare, but she did start eating again; a little at a time, then seemed to get her appetite back. For the most part, they were left alone the rest of the night. Guards kept an eye on them but didn't touch them. No one bothered to tell them that Tammy was dead; Mary Jane figured they assumed they saw it and knew it, and the emotional state of The Militia's captive women could hardly be said to be a top priority. Feed em and clothe em—that’s the best they could hope for.
After Tasha finished eating, she started crying again. Mary Jane pulled her over to her and laid her head in her lap. She brushed Tasha's hair softly. “Shhhhh. Rest sweet girl. Everything's OK. We're survivors. That means being tough in the face of extreme pain, extreme brutality. The road is dark ahead, but darkness gives way to light every time. We'll get through this. I promise.”
“Courage then? Finding courage in this hell?”
“Courage can be found in the darkest of places, Tasha. Humans have been at war with each other since the earliest days of our existence. This isn't much different. We are at war.”
“Prisoners of war.”
“Sure! We are I suppose. My father fought in Vietnam. He knew a man, a good friend of his. This man was taken prisoner by the Viet Cong. The things they did to him...really no worse and no better than what is happening to us, but even while kept in a rat infested hole in the ground. Even when they tossed the body parts of his friends into the hole to taunt him—he held on to courage and hope. He saw the light even while he was in a dark hole. And so must we.”
Tasha didn't say anything back; her sobs slowed and soon she fell asleep. Mary Jane stayed awake a while longer. She laid on her side and cradled Tasha in a spoon. She turned her head and stared up. The Big Dipper was there, along with the Little Dipper. Worlds away. Somewhere in the universe peace existed, everlasting and eternal. Mary Jane smiled at the thought. She thought about alien civilizations, peaceful creatures living in abundance and ecological harmony. Out there, parsecs away; she thought pain didn't exist, at least not human pain. Out there they didn't hurt each other; they'd reached a state of consciousness that didn't need to have power over other creatures to feel certain about life.
The sound of a Militia soldier taking a piss nearby broke up her fantasy. She closed her eyes and held Tasha against her. At some point, Mary Jane fell into a troubled sleep.
4
The next day Mary Jane was awakened by a boot kicking her in the rear. She jumped up, forgetting that her legs were bound, tripped over the hemp rope and fell face first into the dirt. The soldiers erupted in laughter. Two men grabbed her by both arms and hauled her up. Another two did the same to Tasha.
Cap came walking up, “Good morning gals. Sleep well I hope? No? Well, not to worry. You won’t do any walking today, at least not much. I'm sending you to Columbia with a small escort. You'll travel in style.”
They were allowed to relieve their bladders, though they had to do it in sight of the entire camp. Men laughed and stared with their druggy wide eyes, clearly turned on by the sight of two women pissing. Mary Jane felt like vomiting but held it back with great effort.
They were led over to a fold out table and given a breakfast of oatmeal and water. Neither Mary or Tasha spoke, but they did eat. After they ate, they were taken out of the camp's entrance and put in the back of a Humvee. Not a commercial Hummer; it was an Army issue with desert camouflage painting and no enclosing body. A fifty-caliber machine gun was mounted in the middle. For a split-second, Mary Jane thought about grabbing it with her bound hands and trying to spray the men around her; of course, she knew that would be futile. For one thing, she wouldn't be able to cock the gun for firing; nor would she be able to kill enough of them before they could kill her.
It was early, the sun only rising an hour ago. A thick mist lay on the ground and wrapped around the trees. The air was still cool, though she had no doubt that would be short lived. Tasha looked like she was in pain but trying to hide it. Mary understood; she too was in pain. A gang rape is no silly matter, but she didn't see any fresh blood on Tasha's pants and had none on her own, only dried blood. They'd both bled after and during the torturous sexual abuse, but it looked like the
y were going to weather this without bleeding out; thank God for small miracles.
Two men got into the Hummer and started the engine. Cap came over and said, “I want to thank you girls on behalf of all my men. We enjoyed your company last night. Just make sure you give the boys in Columbia the same willingness, and you might be okay.” He smiled at them and then patted the Hummer hard, and stepped away.
5
The way back to Columbia was not hard on Mary Jane's escorts. After they left Route Six, they went down many different dirt roads; some freshly cut by The Militia, others had been there for quite some time. The sun was bright in the blue sky, and the day grew hot quickly; though traveling down the numerous winding dirt roads offered some protection from the heat. Many were like long dirt tunnels. The boughs of the trees created a natural roof. The leaves were bright green, full of summer life. The Hummer didn't have a top, so the wind blew against Mary and Tasha, offering at least a little comfort against the dark memories of the night before. At one point, they saw a deer darting across the road in a blurry brown fury. Birds sat in the trees minding their own concerns, not in the least bit worried about the world of humans. No zombies were around, at least that they could see. The thought of trying to dive out of the Hummer and make a dash for it crossed Mary's mind once or twice, but the odds of her getting away were close to zero; she was still tied up; she'd probably just break some bones and they'd catch her anyway, then her problems would be doubled. She let the idea slide back to wherever it came. The escorts didn't say anything to them. The two men seemed in high spirits. Occasionally the one riding shotgun would hold out some of the White Mist on the end of his buck knife for the driver to snort.
At some point, they crossed over a short stretch of blacktop, and reached another woods road. Mary and Tasha had no way of knowing, but they were currently running parallel to I-20; the woods road they were on was cut to avoid Dead Zone Green.
Mary Jane saw one of the green-blue barrier’s in the woods, a blur of strange light hidden in the trees; she sped by it so quickly that she didn't have time to consider what it might be. She was after all, trying to keep up her hopes that rescue would somehow find them, but even with cool wind keeping the heat off her face, she felt hot inside and quite worried.
That was only a small encampment they'd just been to. Columbia was supposed to be a major Militia base. How many men would rape them this time? What other horrible things might befall her and her new friend? And once there, would there be any hope at all of rescue? In that moment, it took all her will not to cry; but she forced herself to hold back the waterworks because she now felt a deep responsibility to Tasha. It’s true that she didn't know her before this mess. In fact, the girl had been with Okona; hence was her enemy not long ago, but Mary's sister was dead and she now felt a strong urge to protect this younger girl. At least protect her the best she could; there are some things in the New World that no one can protect anyone from once the trap has been set, such as the brutality of the men who lived at the Columbia base. Mary wanted to protect Tasha's sanity and kindle her courage and hope. She remembered a historical account she'd once read. It was about survivors of Nazi war camps. She couldn't remember all the details, but she recalled that the POWs who survived kept their wits about them, maintained their humanity in the face of dreadful and inhuman treatment. They were the only ones who had stood a chance of survival. She could only hope she would be able to keep her and Tasha from meeting the fate many who are held in captivity often meet.
Kid Chaos
Kid Chaos’s real name was Larry Colbert. Just plain ole Little Larry was what his mother had called him, and he absolutely hated it. He stared into a closet. A stack of plastic explosives sat in a box labeled SHITS HERE. The box was closed and sealed with duct tape.
Larry never liked Order. Order was the opposite of his true love: Chaos!
The thought of screaming kids, dead wives and husbands, and the absolute carnage—and you guessed it—the fucking Chaos!
Bring the Chaos Larry! Bring the motherfuckin Chaos, boi!
Before the Fever, he had driven a lowered 2013 Honda Civic Hatchback. His skin pale white, his daddy’s bank account enormous. Before the dead started walking and ruined Little Larry’s grand plans of death and destruction, his plan had been to set off his suicide vest filled with homemade explosives at the sold-out Gamecock versus Clemson college football game.
He wanted to liberate himself (and as many people as he could take with him) from the evils of order, laws, parents; grandparents, hierarchy. Larry was his own Republic. The Republic of Chaos. He wanted Mayhem wrapped in the blood and guts of avid football fans—the dumbest people on earth according to Larry. People like his mom, whose whole life revolved around colleges she never attended. And even if people did attend, they still had no reason to idolize the barbarian gladiators as though they were walking, talking gods; and most of them were niggers, goddamn, NIGGERS! Neither of his parents were outright racists, but he sure the hell was. And although the irony made him sick, he still allowed himself to masturbate about one of those gargantuan niggers plowing him hard from behind. He’d finish rubbing off and then stumble to the bathroom like a drunk and puke his guts up.
“Niggers! Niggers! Goddamn niggers!” He’d echo into the toilet bowl with lots of spittle.
The fact that he listened to mostly black rappers didn’t bother him the way dreaming about huge black cocks bothered him. He allowed himself that much contradiction inside his warped perception of reality. Larry tried remembering when he first started hating black faces. Maybe it was… yeah… that was probably the day……he was a boy in elementary school. Second grade, if memory serves him. He remembered the smell of those fat greasy nigger bitches as they pushed him around the play yard, calling him Honky and Cracker. Then the nigger boys joined in and pushed him around some more. Larry wondered if that’s why he thinks about those big black boys cornholing him like a bitch in prison. The power of the arms just shoving him around like a little white plaything. His tears meaningless to their hate-filled faces. The whites of their eyes shining out from dark heads, their white teeth smiling and laughing at his pleads. The nigger girls grabbing his hair and jerking him around like a toy—
Larry snapped back from his mental detour and look back down at his explosives. He was in the basement. His parent’s home had large solar panels on the roof, and a battery backup generator at the side of the house.
And, now that Larry was the only living occupant of the house, powering his five computers with large 25-inch monitors wasn’t a problem, if he kept an eye on the power output.
Before the Fever, he had thought about shaving his head bald and playing the role of an evil and racist Lex Luther, but scratched the idea after he worried the media goons would say he was a skinhead NAZI. Nazis wanted Order. Larry wanted mother fuckin CHAOS!
Anarchy, if you will? Not the anarchy the wannabe intellectuals talk about. Not the Joseph Proudhon nonsense where free institutions create a network of ORDER. Oh, hell no! Larry wanted dead bodies, starving kids, and hungry old men. Larry only wanted one institution—the Institute of Chaos and Death. Larry wanted to be the Trigger that set it all in motion. He had wanted to bring the free institutions of Man down and bring back the natural order of things. Like Tool once said (this was back in his Metal days) learn to swim.
Maybe that wasn’t so apt for a landlocked shit hole like Columbia, South Carolina; but it got the basic message across. Little Larry was gonna teach the latte drinking sluts, the legal smeagles, the skinny jeans, the iPods, the androids, the Vampire Diaries, the Twilights, the little Hobbit holes and fire breathing dragons, the Harry Potters… Oh yes… Little fucking Larry was gonna rip the thin veneer of their delusional reality straight to shreds and expose them all to a little CHAOS.
“Larry, you are so cute! Larry, you are so smart!” Mommy always said, but Mommy don’t know the half of it, does she? Oh no! Nope! No, sir! Larry was going places and that place was straig
ht to fucking pieces, taking thousands of dumbfounded dip shits with him, ain’t that right Tool? Armageddon was the flavor of his day, his ice cream and his dreams, both waking and sleeping.
But in this Armageddon, dipshit Liz Tyler wasn’t gonna kiss her man remotely, cause her lips gonna be peeled back from the hot flames of Kid Chaos’s plastic explosives. Ben Fag Boy Affleck wasn’t gonna save the world. The Ben Affleck’s of the world were gonna smolder in the ruins after Larry blasted em straight to hell.
Not that Larry believed in hell. He knew better, of course. No God to pray to, no God to stop him either. Only Larry, Larry with his 150 IQ. Larry with his Anarchists Cook Book (which he only had to use for fast reference, he could’ve figured it out without it). Larry with his drunken whore of a mother’s credit cards… God Larry. That certainly had a ring to it, don’t cha think?
He was going to teach them with a bang heard around the world. He had figured he could kill at least twenty thousand people, if the stadium collapsed in on itself like he’d planned. Maybe not the whole stadium, but all he’d needed was a large portion to come crashing down on the idiots; the initial blast didn’t turn into hot molten pools of skin, bones, guts and brains.
The Cocks stadium (oh jeez, don’t think about black cocks again, please not again) was in pleasantly old-fashioned yet wonderfully modern Columbia, South Carolina. It was huge and would be filled to capacity—eighty thousand plus.
Then the Fever turned the world upside down, and the dead took over Larry’s plan. He liked that most folks were dead, but he had really looked forward to killing them himself.
Killing people that were already dead seemed like a waste of good explosive.
He’d dreamed he was gonna put the September eleventh attack to shame. Those sand niggers were morons any damn way. They believed they were gonna go to a heaven and get served by scantily clad virgins for all eternity. Jeeezus Christ in a fucking goddamn basket—what idiots! Larry knew better. He knew he’d see only a blast of great white light then, oh glory day, then nothing but perpetual, never ending darkness. No more waking up to jack off to black cock porn, no more shame, no more idiot parents, no more dead head society! Just darkness and the world left behind in utter and beautifully sexy CHAOS!
