by Randy Henson
DEVIL GIRL: BOX SET
(The Somnopolis Saga: Parts 1-5)
By Randy Henson
Copyright Randy Henson 2013
Contents
DEVIL GIRL: INFECTED
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DEVIL GIRL: BEWITCHED
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DEVIL GIRL: FORGOTTEN
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
DEVIL GIRL: BLAZED
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
DEVIL GIRL: WANTED
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
DEVIL GIRL: INFECTED
(The Somnopolis Saga: Part One)
By Randy Henson
Copyright Randy Henson 2013
CHAPTER ONE
I woke up to the smell of bad breath. It wasn’t my own. My brother’s, maybe? No, I had helped Jack brush his teeth before we went to sleep. Then I felt someone trying to unbuckle my belt as they tugged at my jeans. Definitely not Jack. All of this ran through my brain during the split second it took for me to open my eyes.
My eyes shot open to find another pair of eyes, crazed eyes, glaring down at me. Below the eyes I found a sneer, chapped lips pulled back to reveal browned and blackened nubs that were once teeth and were now the source of the foul stench that washed over my face.
I reached up and grabbed my assailant by the ears and jammed my thumbs into his crazed eyes. The man let go of my belt and yelped as he grabbed my wrists. I pulled him down on top of me and started to roll. We rolled over three times before I let go of his right ear, jerked my wrist out of his grasp, and went for the knife I kept holstered on my right hip.
Pain shot up my left arm as my assailant twisted my other wrist. I managed to clear my knife from its holster and bury it into his left leg about six inches above the knee. He released my wrist and howled.
I pulled my knife out of my attacker’s leg and jumped to my feet, adrenaline jetting through my bloodstream as I took in the scene before me. About thirty feet away were two other men I didn’t recognize, one of them large and the other scrawny. The large one looked to be about thirty years old and was built like a linebacker, around six-six and two hundred and fifty pounds. The scrawny one was about ten years younger, around my age, and looked scared.
My knife was now dripping blood and it shook in my hand as the adrenaline coursed through me. I drew my attention away from the man on the ground, now busy whimpering and clutching his leg, as I backed up toward a tree while keeping him in my peripheral.
I focused all of my attention on the linebacker who had a knife twice the size of mine and was holding it to my brother’s throat, Jack’s ponytail clutched in his other fist. Jack’s eyes were wide with confusion and fear as he moaned and struggled against the larger man’s grip.
The giant holding my brother laughed and said, “I told you to be careful.”
“The little whore cut me!” my attacker screamed.
“I told you to knock her out first,” the linebacker said.
“They don’t struggle when you knock them out,” the wounded one said.
The linebacker guffawed and said, “She struggling enough for you now?”
“Go to hell,” the man on the ground whimpered.
“Don’t worry. She’s going to play nice now. Aren’t you?” the man with the knife said as he shifted his gaze from his wounded companion to me.
“Let him go,” I said.
“Or what?”
“We don’t want any trouble,” I said.
The big man laughed and said, “Neither do we. If you give us any more, I’ll cut the retard’s throat. Now drop the knife.”
I had to calm down. If I lost my temper, Jack was dead. But calling Jack a retard made me even angrier than I already was. Calling him a retard wasn’t right. Seven billion people were now infected. They deserved our help, not our ridicule.
“Okay,” I said as I held up my left palm and lowered the knife in my right hand a few inches. I bent my knees as I backed up closer to the tree, hoping like hell that I looked like I was surrendering.
“I said drop it.”
I backed up a few more steps and got on my knees as I lowered my knife and tossed it to the side, hoping to draw the big man’s attention away from my left hand as I buried it into a pile of leaves that rested at the trunk of the tree.
“Now beg me not to kill him.”
I pulled my gun belt from the pile of leaves and pulled one of my pistols from its holster. I pointed it in the direction of the big man and my brother.
“Oh, no,” the man on the ground almost whispered.
“She’s got a gun!” the scrawny one yelled as he looked from me to the big man and back to me again.
“Shut up. I can see that,” the big man said as he pulled higher on Jack’s ponytail and crouched, using my brother as a shield.
“Pretty please,” I said. “Let him go.”
“I told you to play nice. This isn’t playing nice,” the big man said.
“Who’s playing?” I asked.
“You’re not about to shoot anybody. You are going to get this retard killed if you don’t drop the gun,” the big man said.
“If he dies, you die. Now drop the knife and let him go,” I said.
“Is that gun even loaded?” the big man asked.
“It’s loaded. And where are your guns? I’ve never met a group of rapists that wasn’t packing,” I said.
“He took them,” t
he scrawny one squeaked.
“Who took them?” I asked.
“Shut up,” the big man said as he glanced over at the scrawny one.
The scrawny man’s eyes danced between me and the big man. He was obviously scared to death.
“I asked you a question. I’m the one with the gun,” I said to the scrawny man as I cocked my pistol.
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell us his name,” the scrawny man said.
“I said shut up. She’s not going to shoot anyone. The gun probably isn’t even loaded. Why would she keep a loaded gun around a retard?”
“I swear, if you call him a retard again I will shoot you,” I said.
“Not without hitting the retard first.”
I glared at the big man and said, “Don’t make any sudden movements, okay? I just want to make a point.”
“What? What point?” the big man asked.
I swung the pistol and pointed it at the whimpering man on the ground. He was rocking side to side clutching his left leg.
Then I squeezed the trigger.
The pistol bucked in my fist. The bullet tore through my attacker’s chest and out his back, the man dead before he slammed backward onto the ground. I immediately swung my pistol back toward the big man
The scrawny man screamed. Then he turned and ran away.
I contemplated shooting him in the back as he fled, but somehow that didn’t seem right. Not that there was much use for right or wrong anymore. Ten months ago right and wrong had been chucked straight out the world’s window. Right and wrong had become almost irrelevant over night. Life wasn’t about right or wrong anymore. Kill or be killed: that’s what life was now about.
“I guess it is loaded,” the big man said.
I started taking slow steps toward the big man and my brother as I kept my gun level. My adrenaline had started to dissipate and my arm wasn’t shaking anymore.
The big man jerked backward on Jack’s ponytail, making Jack cry out. The man brought the knife closer to my brother’s throat and I could see a drop of blood drip from Jack’s throat and bead up on the knife’s blade.
“Don’t you take one more step!” the man yelled.
I stopped.
“Let him go and you can follow your little friend. Don’t, and you can die right here, right now,” I said.
“How do I know you won’t shoot me as soon as I let the retard go?”
“I didn’t shoot your friend, did I?”
I could see the wheels in his mind spin as he peered at me over my brother’s right shoulder.
“Lower your gun and I’ll let him go.”
I lowered my gun a few inches and shifted it away from the man and my brother.
“That’s as low as it’s getting. Now take off,” I said.
The man hesitated for a moment and then shoved my brother.
My brother stumbled a few steps, regained his balance, and ran crying into the woods.
The big man turned on his heels and took off in the direction his scrawny friend had fled. He managed to take half a dozen steps before I shifted my gun and fired. The man dropped his knife and his hands reached back and grabbed his left butt cheek as he fell to the ground screaming.
I holstered the pistol and swung the gun belt around my waist as the man clutched his ass and scooted away from me on his knees, the side of his head sliding along the earth as he stared over his left shoulder at me.
“You swore you wouldn’t shoot me,” the man sobbed as his knees continued to pump, his head sliding away from me and plowing up dead leaves.
“No I didn’t. I swore I’d shoot you if you called my brother a retard again,” I said as I fastened the gun belt, adjusting it low on my hips so the right holster wouldn’t obstruct the knife sheath clipped to my belt.
I turned and walked over to where I had tossed my Bowie knife. I knelt, picked it up, and wiped the blood off the blade and onto a patch of grass that was poking up through a layer of dead leaves. Once it was fairly clean I stood and sheathed it. Then I walked over to my bedroll, picked up my backpack, and ran into the woods after my brother.
CHAPTER TWO
Orin Clarke peered through the rifle’s scope and contemplated pulling the trigger. He finally decided it wasn’t worth the bullet, and he lowered his rifle. The girl had done enough damage. The big man wasn’t going to be a problem anymore. Neither were the others. The girl had seen to that.
Orin slung the rifle onto his back where it dangled from the strap wrapped under his left arm and over his right shoulder. He then stood up, brushed leaves off the front of his brown flannel shirt, and made his way down the slope toward the small campsite.
As he slid down the slope, Orin noticed that dawn had begun to break. The birds began to chirp as they greeted the sun, chaos erupting up in the tree world above his head. The tree world was a free world, he thought. A world free of the misery he now found in his own world.
Orin slid down the last of the slope and walked into the campsite. He walked over to the dying campfire and kicked dirt over the last remaining embers.
The big man sniveled as he rocked back and forth on his side, patting his butt with his left hand. He continuously bent and straightened his knees, as if he was unable to decide if the pain in his left butt cheek was lesser or greater when he lay prone as opposed to fetal.
The man jerked and spun on his side as he heard Orin kick dirt. The big man shrieked as the spinning motion shot pain up his spine.
“You,” the big man accused as he stared up at Orin.
“Yes, me,” Orin admitted.
“You got to help me. I’ve been shot.”
“I can see that.”
“This is your fault. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken our guns.”
“As much as I’d like to take responsibility for this, I’m too big a man to steal credit from a girl,” Orin said.
“What? You saw it?”
Orin motioned over his shoulder with a jerk of his head and said, “From up there on the ridge. Nice scope, by the way.”
“You bastard. You just stood there and watched her shoot us?”
“Well, I’ll admit I laughed some, too.”
“Why didn’t you do something?” the big man asked.
“It didn’t look like she needed my help.”
The big man gritted his teeth and said, “You better hope we don’t meet again.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll kill you,” the big man snarled.
Orin stood there and stared down at the big man for a moment before he said, “I don’t think so.” He then swung his rifle around to his front and lifted it to his shoulder.
“No! Wait!” the big man screamed as Orin aimed the rifle.
Then Orin fired and scattered the big man’s brains across some of the dead leaves that blanketed the forest’s floor.
The big man had convinced Orin, after all. He had been worth the bullet.
Orin slung the rifle back over his shoulder and let the heated muzzle warm the back of his neck as he walked over to the bedrolls the kids had left behind. He knelt and rolled each one up. He then stood with a bedroll under each arm and headed into the woods in the same direction the boy and girl had gone.
CHAPTER THREE
I ran for a little while, and then I stopped and listened. I ran a little further, then I stopped and listened some more. The sun was rising now and I scanned the area for signs my brother may have left behind, a shoeprint, a broken twig, or a drop of blood.
I hoped I didn’t find any blood. I seriously doubted my brother could have run this far if he was bleeding that badly, strong though he was.
I heard a rustling up ahead and a little to my right. I headed in that direction. I ran a bit further, then stopped again and listened. All I could hear was my own heavy breathing, so I held my breath. Then all I could hear was the thumping of my heart as it beat against my chest.
Then I heard a loud pop from somewhere behind me. Was th
at a gunshot?
Then I heard more rustling up ahead and I took off running again.
I ran until I was out of the woods and I found myself on the edge of a large field. I could see my brother halfway across the field, running toward more woods. I clenched my jaw and took off after him. I wanted to reach him before he made it into the woods. But, man, could my brother run.
A year ago I had been a chubby Goth girl. My idea of exercise had been walking to Baskin Robbins for a double scoop of pistachio. I had always been overweight, what my mother had called ‘fluffy’ and others who were also kind called ‘pleasantly plump’. Those who were unkind called me ‘chunky’ or worse. Now I was lean and sported a six-pack. I hadn’t even known I had a six-pack tucked away under there.
And to think, all the time and money people have wasted over the years on diets and the latest exercise craze when all along all they really needed was an Apocalypse-sized plague induced hiking trip.
I was one of the lucky few who were immune to The Plague. My brother and about seven billion others had not been so lucky. Other immune people I had met tended to call it The Virus. I preferred to call it The Plague because it reminded me of better days, chubby Goth girl ice-cream licking days when I dressed in all black and read Albert Camus. Back then I had found Camus to be a bit of a nihilist. Now I’d call him an optimist.
I pumped my legs and was amazed to find myself gaining on my brother. I was only twenty feet behind him when he entered the forest. Pine needles soon whipped my face and arms as I squinted and continued to chase my brother.
I was now ten feet behind him and I slowed my pace, my backpack thumping me in the back. My breathing slowed as my brother slowed. We were now jogging through the forest instead of running.
I had learned several months ago not to grab or tackle my brother when he ran off like this. He was almost three years younger than me but twice my size, and he could end up hurting me really badly without meaning to. The best thing for me to do was to keep pace with him until he wore himself out. He may have had the strength, but I now had the stamina.
We jogged through the forest for what seemed like forever, but I didn’t mind. The further we jogged, the more distance we put between ourselves and The Compound in Atlanta. We were jogging slow enough now that I could slip off my backpack, which is what I did, unzipping it and pulling out a water bottle.
