by M. E. Betts
"No," she said, shaking her head as she twisted around to momentarily exchange glances with Daphne. "She's just young, and she's still kind of shell-shocked by everything that's happened."
The blonde nodded. "I guess I can understand that," he said. "I figure we must all feel that way from time to time." He really thinks he seems human, Shari thought, amused. "So about your friends...the longer we talk, the longer God knows what's happening to them."
Shari sighed heavily. "You're right. I guess we really have nothing to lose. Follow us." She rode Eva back into the woods, riding close to full-speed, the sadists following behind her. She narrowed her eyes into thin slits once they were all behind her. Idiots, she thought. I can't believe they're stupid enough to think we're that stupid. She glanced to her left, where Kandi rode silently beside her. They exchanged quick glances, eyes full of vengeance, then focused their gazes ahead, where the deathtraps lay in wait. Shari thought of Fauna, and supposed she wouldn't approve of Shari hunting down human beings with the intention of killing them. On the other hand, Fauna had often professed her belief in helping her fellow human beings. The people these sadists were hunting hadn't done anything wrong, and they didn't deserve to be slaughtered simply for trying to survive. The sadists themselves, on the other hand, were asking for it, in Shari's humble opinion. It was the age-old dilemma of whether or not it was okay to kill killers to protect the innocent. In Shari and Daphne's view of things, it was more than okay. It was downright necessary for someone to step up and do it. She figured that, even if she did suffer some kind of punishment for it in the next life, it was worth it to save the lives and well-being of innocents. It was worth it to save women and girls, like Adrian's daughter, from being enslaved and passed around for the sake of the sadists' sexual gratification. It was worth it to keep young children alive, or keep them from being orphaned when their parents are slain senselessly. Sorry if this would have offended you, Fauna, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let these maniacs make the world any worse than it already is. It's time for a new chapter in the saga of humankind. It's time to build something lasting, something made with honor and integrity, from the ashes of our fallen civilization. Shari pictured a world where survivors could gang up against this minority of sadists, where they could put their foot down and let them know that their inhumanity would not be tolerated. They needed to know that there was no place for them in the new world.
I guess this is probably about the time where Adrian is gonna notice that his daughter isn't here.
"Probably," Kandi said, "but I'm sure it'll only enrage him all the more."
Yeah, Shari thought, I'm sure he'll blast them all to hell now...now that he doesn't have to worry about his little girl getting caught in the crossfire.
"Speaking of which," Kandi replied, smiling, "let's make sure we don't get caught in the crossfire! I'd hate for us to inadvertently suffer the wrath of a man whose daughter is unaccounted for after having served the function of a pincushion for these monsters." Shari grimaced in distaste.
Shari could faintly make out the spike nets up ahead, hoping she could only perceive them because she knew where to look, and that the men were none the wiser. She carefully navigated Eva through the narrow space between the nets, hoping none of the men behind her were observant enough to notice. She held her breath, waiting to hear calamity ensue behind her. She counted in her head...One, two, three, four.... She heard a muted sound as the net entangled the first ATV. She stopped and looked back, watching as an expression of puzzlement briefly overtook the one-eyed blonde's features, then quickly dissolved into one of seething anger. She watched as the man was rear-ended by the ATV directly behind him, and five more ATVs and one dirtbike drove over the other nets to either side of him. The rest of the sadists behind them attempted to slow down, but it was too late. They had been riding bumper-to-bumper while doing about thirty-five miles per hour, and the result was a pile-up involving seventeen of the eighteen vehicles. Shari did a quick head-count, taking note of the three sadists at the front of the pile-up who appeared to be dead, having been ejected from their vehicles and subsequently run over. She saw one lying lifelessly, eyes wide, his skull cracked open like an eggshell. Another had flown into a tree, mangling his rib cage and face. Shari winced as she saw his flattened, disfigured features, nose pushed into his skull. The third was simply sprawled lifelessly over the steering wheel of his ATV, arms dangling. Five more seemed to have sustained severe injuries, including the blonde ring-leader. He dismounted his ATV, stumbling in Shari and Daphne's direction as he clutched his abdomen. There was no visible wound, but Shari could vaguely glimpse a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth.
"Ha!" Kandi gloated. "Arsehole probably ruptured some organs. Go ahead, walk around, force yourself to bleed out all the more quickly!" She cackled, clearly enjoying the harm the sadists had sustained. And there's still more where that came from, Shari thought, grinning. She saw that the blonde was now bleeding from his eye sockets, and the pupil of the remaining eye was dilated. "Ooh, and brain damage, to boot!" Kandi cried. "You know, I'd say he's done for!"
"Get those bitches!" he thundered, raising his arm to point at Shari and Daphne. Shari guessed that raising his voice had been a bit too much for his traumatized, compromised body and brain, because immediately upon finishing his sentence, his eye fluttered heavenward and he crumpled to the ground.
"Well," Kandi said, "let's hope that ruins their morale, at least a little, to see their leader slip away."
Maybe a little, Shari thought, but not much. Let's remember, they're sadists. They're self-absorbed to the max. They're all their own bottom line. Of the eighteen sadists, fourteen remained, including ten who were relatively unmaimed. The four who had suffered non-lethal injuries had afflictions ranging from broken bones to what appeared to be head trauma. A couple had the same dilated pupils in one eye that she had seen on the blonde. One was lacking in mobility, having suffered a complex break in his right leg. It was bent at a cartoonish angle, like the pictures she had seen of soccer injuries, except that it appeared to be snapped in half in at least two places. There was also one who had managed to avoid the spike traps, riding in her direction, closing in on her. He's the one to contend with, Shari thought. She rode on, carefully guiding Eva between the piles of yellow black walnut leaves marking the punji pits. She glanced behind her, pleased to see that the men who were now on foot were closing the distance between where the spike nets had been and where the punji sticks patiently waited to impale them. All fourteen of the men were shooting in Shari's direction, but she was pleased to see that none of them were very good at hitting a moving target. She also noted that none of them had a particularly formidable weapon. She hoped that the one on the ATV would drive into the trap. He would mostly likely avoid the punjis themselves, but at least it would ruin the one functioning vehicle the sadists had left. She looked back, seeing that he was lucky enough to drive between the traps. She glanced back at Daphne and opened her mouth to speak, intending to tell her to go ahead and drive a spike into the brain of the man pursuing them...but she realized that Daphne was way ahead of her. Shari watched, mesmerized, as the spike sailed through the air and plunged effortlessly through the man's eye and out the back of his skull. The man twitched for a moment, a stunned look on his face, and slumped backward onto the trunk of his ATV as it slowed down. It slid gently into a tree after it had come to a near-stop, then sat idling as the man stared with dead eyes up at the clear, blue morning sky.
Kandi let out a loud, joyous whoop. "It's amazing how easily that thing goes through a head when the prick's driving forty miles per hour in the opposing direction. He just helped the physics right along, didn't he?" She cackled again, throwing her head back, her blonde ringlets jostling as she convulsed with laughter. "Thirteen left, then! Let's get on with it!" Gunfire pierced the air all around them as the remaining sadists continued firing.
We'll get on with it after we see how many succumb to the punjis, Sha
ri thought. She turned to look behind her, and watched as one man fell into a trap. He howled in pain, impaled in both legs. He struggled in vain to lift himself from the pit, unable to free either leg. A second man tumbled into a pit in the next instant, then a third and fourth. The remaining nine men had time to react and avoid the traps, ignoring the pleading shrieks and whimpers from their fallen comrades.
"You can't leave me in here, man!" sobbed one man who managed to break his legs upon his fall into the pit, and had then been skewered through his pelvis with a punji. He was stuffed buttocks-first into the pit, his mangled legs folded at the knee and pressed into his chest. He clawed desperately at the pantleg of a luckier sadist as he leapt over the pit.
"Thanks for pointing out that pit to me!" he said to his rectally-impaled mate, a note of sarcastic cruelty in his voice.
Shari heard a familiar, muted sound...Adrian issuing two grenades from the treetop. Her head spun around to look behind her. Seven of the nine sadists left were moving in a rather tight cluster, hugging the treeline to avoid the pits, and the grenade landed in the middle of the cluster. Shari winced as the first grenade detonated, then the second, producing a patch of hellfire roughly fifty feet wide. For a moment, she couldn't see what was going on within the flames and black smoke clouds. Adrian had taken out a couple trees and countless saplings along with the sadists. I think the second grenade was overkill, she thought, smirking.
"Yes, a bit much," Kandi agreed, her eyes lit up. "I love it!"
There were now two sadists left, mouths agape as they witnessed the carnage unfolding, having been lucky enough to choose the opposite side of the clearing to avoid the punji pits. Shari glanced up toward the treetop, noting that Adrian was raising the launcher again to finish them off.
"Adrian, no!" she shouted. We need at least one of them alive, she thought.
"Not to mention the fact that those two twats are a waste of a grenade," Kandi added.
Adrian sneered, and reluctantly lowered the grenade launcher, producing Shari's sniper rifle instead. He sniped one of the men, then lowered his rifle and descended the tree as Shari and Daphne aimed their weapons at the one remaining sadist, who had tossed his gun to the ground. Adrian stormed his way over to the properly petrified young man as he stood with his arms raised in defeat, his terrified face shining with perspiration. Adrian spit on the corpse of the sadist he'd shot in the head, then grabbed the surviving one by his belt and the neck of his shirt, throwing him into the nearest tree. Shari's eyes widened, impressed. The little douchebag's skinny and all, but still...that takes strength. The sadist clutched around his ribcage, gasping. He seemed to struggle for air, and Shari worried that he may have suffered a collapsed lung. Fuck, Adrian--how do you expect him to talk now?
Adrian crouched down casually next to the man, who was sprawled on the ground, trying to be still, tears streaming down his face. "So," he said, "how many other towns full of survivors did you animals lay waste to?" The sadist whimpered, shaking his head. Adrian nodded, his expression one of phony sympathy. "Oh, does it hurt to talk? Does it? What about--" He took out a pocket knife, unfolded the blade, and dragged it sensuously along the sadist's face and throat. "What about some more where that came from? Hmm? I can make your death very slow if you don't wanna talk. Now, that's time I'd rather spend looking for my daughter. So what's it gonna be? You wanna open your mouth, start talking?" He flipped the man over onto his front side. "Or should I find a nice, dark hole for my blade?"
The sadist's eyes shot wide open. "No, no!" he gasped. He struggled to turn back over onto his back. "I didn't rape your daughter," he uttered with difficulty. "Only the leader did...the one with one eye. I don't fuck kids." He stared Adrian down, panting and wincing.
"Well, it's good to know you don't fuck kids," Adrian sneered. "It honestly is. But you apparently won't hesitate to kill them, or anyone else, for that matter." The sadist continued staring Adrian in the eyes. "So tell me...how many other towns did you guys annhilate?"
"I don't know," the sadist said, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't really counting."
Adrian laughed, glancing back at Shari and Daphne. "He wasn't counting!" He turned back to the sadist. "Well, guess what, asshole? There's something I did keep count of. You know what that is?" The sadist was silent, staring at Adrian defiantly, coldly. Adrian flipped the sadist back over, yanking his jeans down and jamming the knife between his buttocks.
"Noooo! Ohhhgggod, no--ahgodd, no!" The sadist's protests began as shrieks, then quickly died down to a whimper when Adrian stopped short of gouging his rectum. He rolled the man over onto his back again.
Good thing he stopped, Shari thought. He needs at least one lung to talk, and a shank up the butt tends to make a person scream.
"You know what it is that I kept count of?" Adrian asked again, panting with disgust...disgust for the sadist, and disgust for what he himself was doing. "Thirty-nine. That's the number of people in my settlement that you animals killed. Twenty-two men. Twelve women. And five children. Thirty-nine people." He paused, squeezing his eyes shut. "Thirty-nine...unless my daughter's already gone." His voice cracked. "Unless Celia makes forty." He turned his face to the sky and let out a loud, convulsing sob before he continued. "And you haven't been counting how many other towns you fuckers have been through, punishing people for doing nothing other than trying to survive in a world gone to shit. Now, there's only one thing you can do before you die to redeem yourself, even a little. And so I ask you...." He turned the sadist back over onto his belly. "Where is my daughter?"
The sadist had given up on struggling or panicking. He lay still, his shallow breathing causing his chest to move almost imperceptibly. "We traded her," he whispered under his breath. "We traded her to another gang. We traded her for guns and ammo. I think they were headed north. That's all I know." He turned his head and lifted it slightly to look directly into Adrian's eyes. "Now put a bullet in my head, you stupid cocksucker."
Daphne lunged forward, plunging her titanium talon into the back of the sadist's skull. She yanked the blade free, turning to look at Shari and Adrian as she stood. "Nineteen down," she muttered.
The morning air was rapidly warming as Shari and her two companions rode east down the highway. It had turned out that they had been right to worry that the sadists would drag undead along with them. By the time they had looted the bodies, packed up, and headed to the road, there was a sizeable herd of undead coming south down the road, about 100 yards away. They had ridden south to avoid the zombies, then detoured east at the first available opportunity. They reached a stretch of open farmland. Daphne slowed her ATV and stopped.
"I think we're safe here for a minute," she said. "So what do we do now?"
Adrian spoke up. "I don't know about you two, but I'm going to find my daughter. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to join me in that wild goose chase. To be honest, I'm grateful for what you've already done."
Shari gazed northward absent-mindedly. "Yeah, I think it's time I try to make it to my parents' house," she said. "That was my game plan until I heard about your plight on the radio." She looked at Daphne. "We figured we'd postpone our plans a little to avoid those sadists making it to another settlement. But now that we've taken care of them, I guess we should be on our way. And besides, you can drive a lot faster if you don't have Eva and me keeping you under thirty miles an hour most of the time."
Adrian nodded. "You go on ahead...look out for your own, and I'll do the same. I can't thank you two enough for what you've done. I was lucky to have run into good folks like you."
"I'm sure you'll run into more," Shari said. "And spread the word to other survivors. It's us survivors against the sadists just as much as it's us against the undead...maybe even more so. If all the good people gang up against all the bad ones, the sadists won't stand a chance. But it's really going to take a committed alliance. Zero tolerance for evil."
Adrian donned his sunglasses, starting his motorcycle back up. "Shit...you don't hav
e to tell me." He nodded toward Shari and Daphne. "I want to thank you two again. You both take care. Maybe I'll see you around, if you're ever in the area again."
Shari nodded. She and Daphne waved as he drove off.
"So Daphne," Shari said as they got ready to continue down the highway, "have you ever been to Carbondale?"
Daphne shook her head, starting her ATV. "No, why?"
"They have a coffee shop there, they sell some of the best iced mochas around." She grinned. "Maybe we'll stop if we have time."
Daphne smiled, rolling her eyes. "Sure, why not?" She turned to face the open road and started east, Shari following behind her.
Kandi rode beside Shari, facing her as she sat sidesaddle. "Well, princess...I've got to hand it to you, you've come a long way."
Shari rode eastward, her eyes straight ahead toward the ascending morning sun. And still a ways to go.
