Smith didn’t for one second think the creature was “dead.” He’d seen ghouls “survive” worse things than decapitation. So he wasn’t at all surprised when the decapitated body attempted to pick itself up. Blood continued to squirt out of the stump on its right hand as it groped the ground, searching for some way to push itself upright.
Smith opened the door and stepped through, dragging Blake with him. “Come on, let’s go. Let’s go.”
She couldn’t look away from the headless ghoul as it somehow got back up onto its legs—only to fall back down…
…before scrambling to get up again.
“Jesus,” Blake half-whispered and half-gasped.
You’ve never seen that before? Smith wanted to ask her. He had. A lot of times—and a hundred more grotesque things to boot.
“It’s still alive,” Blake was saying.
“No, it’s not,” Smith said.
“I mean, it’s not dead, yet.”
“And it won’t be, unless we hit it with something silver. Right now, this is good enough. Come on.”
Smith slammed the door shut so she wouldn’t have to see more of the gruesome—but in so many other ways, fascinating—sight. He grabbed the chains off the ground and slipped them through the door’s handle and snapped the padlock into place. He wasn’t sure how long it would take the ghoul to get back on its feet or if it would even know in which direction to chase them, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“You did good back there,” he said.
“Thanks,” Blake said. Even in the moonlight, he could tell her face had paled noticeably. It helped that her skin was so fair.
“You going to be okay?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Give it a second. Just breathe in and out. In and out.”
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Blake said, even as she wiped at the thick sludge dripping from her cheeks and chin and forehead.
Smith took her by the shoulders. He had some of the stuff on his own clothes and, he was sure of it, parts of his face, but the smell and contact of ghoul blood was, at least for now, temporarily taking a backseat to the danger he was in.
Now that he wasn’t fighting for his life against a ghoul, Smith could hear the gunshots again. Not that they had stopped while he was in the shack with the creature, but he had forgotten all about them until now.
“Blake, breathe,” Smith said. “You’ll be all right. Just breathe.”
She did—or tried—even as she gazed back at him. She had amazingly deep blue eyes, and Smith thought, God, she’s captivating. Even covered in ghoul blood, this is probably the most beautiful woman—
Blake made a gurgling sound just before she threw up all over his boots.
Smith tried to jump back, but it was too late.
“Oh God, oh God, I’m sorry,” Blake said as she bent over at the waist, the smell of vomit in the air, having replaced the—
Stink of human sweat.
Smith spun around as they came out of the shadows.
Two large men this time—or maybe they just looked large because of what they were wearing: long black dusters and dark half masks—with rifles.
He had no idea how long they’d been there, but it was apparently long enough for one of them to chuckle and a familiar voice to say, “Looky what’s going on here!”
Smith focused on the speaker.
Travis, the redhead from Hobson’s posse, squirrely eyes sparkling in the moonlight.
Sonofa…
The man grinned at him. “Hey, tough guy.”
Before Smith could do or say anything, the one next to Travis struck Smith in the gut with the butt of a rifle. Smith doubled over, but that only presented a better target for the same buttstock, which crashed into the side of his head.
He flopped to the ground and would have eaten a mouthful of whatever was down there if he hadn’t managed to stick both hands out just in time. But that, again, only left him wide open for—
Something hit him in the temple, about the same spot—maybe even the same spot—as the bullet graze underneath the bandages from earlier, and Smith stopped fighting.
He heard a voice that sounded like Blake’s say, “Clarence?”
Travis, replying, “Miss me?”
Then Smith didn’t hear anything anymore, because he’d lost consciousness for the third time that day.
Fourteen
He opened his eyes while suffering from the monster of all hangovers. Instead of a drumline banging away inside his head this time, there were two of them. Maybe three, but it was a little difficult to discern the exact number when every inch of his skull was vibrating, threatening to come apart at any second.
Any second.
Any second now!
He was surprised it didn’t hurt the first time he woke up, but apparently all of that was being saved up for now. With interest.
A lot of interest.
A hell of a lot of interest.
“You okay? You don’t look okay. In fact, you look far from okay. Like, really, really far.”
That about sums it up.
Blake was sitting next to him, close enough that he could still smell the lingering vomit on her lips, not to mention on the boots he was still wearing. He decided to focus on the crisp blue of her eyes instead; they were very radiant despite the lack of light inside the room.
He glanced around him. They were in some kind of jail cell.
No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t “some kind” of jail cell, but an actual jail cell. There was concrete walls on three sides and iron bars to his left, with a locked gate door. A hallway beyond that, just as poorly lit as the room he was sitting in.
Smith raised himself up from the bench, Blake’s warm hands keeping him from falling right back down, which he was very much in danger of doing, because Goddammit, his head was pounding like crazy.
“Relax, just relax,” Blake was saying, in that soft and comfortable voice people used on an injured person. Which, Smith guessed, he qualified as.
He leaned back against the wall, the hard and cold concrete behind him making for an unpleasant headrest. Blake was leaning in close, and it took him a while to realize she was getting a good look at his temple. The same spot where he’d been struck by a bullet, then later the buttstock of a rifle.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“In a jail cell,” Blake said.
“I get that. But where?”
“Gaffney.”
“We’re in Gaffney?”
“Yes.”
“How did we end up in Gaffney?”
“They brought us here. Clarence and his pals.”
“Who’s Clarence?”
“The redhead.”
“I thought his name was Travis.”
“It is.”
“But you just called him Clarence.”
“His full name is Travis Clarence. I call him Clarence because he hates it.”
“Two first names?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a little greedy.”
“That’s Clarence in a nutshell.”
So he’d been attacked and brought back to Gaffney by Travis and his buddy, who Smith hadn’t gotten a very good look at. Smith wasn’t so much concern about the how—he assumed it took place during the attack on Mandy’s people—and the when was irrelevant. What mattered was now what?
“You’re bleeding again,” Blake was saying. She was kneeling on the bench to get a better look at his wound and had removed his bandages. She seemed to know what she was doing; or, at least, she wasn’t shying away from it.
“Bad?” he asked.
“No, not too bad. I can stop the bleeding.” She unzipped her jacket and pulled it off. “I need you to close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I’m gonna take off my bra and use it to stop the bleeding. But first I need to take off my shirt, and I don’t want you to see my tits.”
“I can just turn my head—”<
br />
“Close your eyes, mister.”
Smith smiled. Her ability to still be embarrassed about any potential nudity while they were in Gaffney, locked inside what appeared to be a genuine jail cell, made him slightly amused.
He closed his eyes. “All right.”
He heard her taking off her shirt, then her bra, before feeling soft materials pressing against the side of his head.
“Okay,” Blake said.
He reopened his eyes and tried to look over at her, hovering slightly next to him on the bench. “How’s it look, doc?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ll live. For now, anyway.”
“‘For now?’ What does that mean?”
“I know why they brought me back here, but I don’t know what they want with you. I’m guessing it’s not for the same thing they want with me.”
“What do they want with you?”
“Gee, what do you think, Mr. John Smith?”
He stared at her, trying to figure out what she was trying to get at. Maybe it was the throbbing in his head or the massive amounts of pain he was fighting through, but Smith had difficulty getting any clarity.
She must have seen the confusion on his face, because she said, “I’m a girl, and you’re a guy. Get it?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” she said, and went back to paying extra attention to his wound.
He could see the strap of her bra dangling off the corner of his eyes, but not much else. That should have been embarrassing, but it wasn’t. At least, not when he considered everything that had happened to him so far. There were no windows inside the cell, so he had no idea if it was even still night outside, though he thought it was. If surviving The Purge and the ghoul-infested years since had done anything to him, it had honed his ability to judge the hour of day to the hour by just feel alone.
And right now, it felt like night outside their walls. Maybe past midnight. So, a few hours, give or take, since the events at the junkyard.
Smith looked toward the iron bars. “What happened at the junkyard during the attack?”
“Clarence and Stephens, the other guy, must have sneaked in from the back while the others were attacking the front. They took us out the same way. Me on my feet, and you on your back.”
Smith tried to picture his unconscious body being dragged across the junkyard.
Great. More humiliation.
This day will never end.
“You told me you used to live here,” Smith said.
She nodded. “Me, and a few others. We sort of stumbled across the place. It seemed like a nice town at first.”
“What happened?”
“The Judge…”
Again, the Judge.
Who the hell was this Judge person?
“What about the Judge?” he asked Blake.
“He had rules,” Blake said.
“What kind of rules?”
“The kind that favors only a small group of people in town. Namely, anyone with a penis. Everyone else was shit out of luck. Like me. Like the other girls who ran away with me. Gramps, Mandy…”
“They were here, too?”
Blake sat down on the bench next to him, but not before adjusting the bra around his head to make sure it didn’t come loose. He didn’t want to think about how silly he looked, but the fabric of her underwear was a lot better than the, by now, bloodied bandages he’d been using all day.
“Almost everyone who was at our place are originally from Gaffney,” Blake said. “Mandy led the exodus about seven months ago. Until now, we’ve had something of a truce with the Judge.”
“How far is the junkyard from here?”
“About ten miles.”
“Ten miles? That’s it?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You escaped, but you continued to stay within ten miles of Gaffney?”
“So?”
He looked over at her. “Ten miles, Blake. Why wouldn’t you guys keep running and never look back? Why just put ten miles between you and Gaffney if this place is the hellhole you keep saying it is? Why not a hundred miles? Or another state, for that matter?”
“Some of us have family and friends here,” Blake said.
“In Gaffney?”
She nodded. “Friends, families, sisters, and wives. We can’t just abandon them. We got out, but they haven’t yet.”
“You’re telling me they’re being held captive here?”
“Some of them.”
“What does that mean?”
“Not everyone understands how evil the Judge and his men are. Some of them are still here voluntarily; others don’t have any choice.”
“That’s why you, Mandy, and the others haven’t run across the country yet.”
She nodded. “We’re not leaving until we free everyone.”
“And how’s that working out?” Smith was going to ask, when he heard hands clapping and looked toward the bars as a figure stepped out from behind a block of cement wall and into the open.
Travis, his red hair easily visible in the shadowy hallway beyond their cell. He was clapping and grinning, looking as punchable now as he’d been when Smith first saw him.
“Stop it, you guys are gonna get me all choked up,” Travis said as he walked up to the bars and leaned against them.
He was still wearing the same black clothes and duster he’d worn during the attack on the junkyard. There were no signs of his partner, Stephens, or anyone else in the hallway, but for all Smith knew, they could be hiding just like Travis had until now.
Smith remained where he sat, looking back at the man. He wanted desperately to run over and grab a hold of Travis’s short hair and pound his ugly face into the bars, but he didn’t have the strength to do that. Besides, he didn’t think the guy would just let him, either; and maybe that’s what he wanted: An excuse to draw his holstered sidearm.
“That’s a nice look,” Travis said, grinning at him. “What do you call that? Bra-band? Bra-Gauze? Bra-something else?”
“Go fuck yourself, Clarence,” Blake said.
Travis turned to look at her. “Now that’s not nice. You used to be so nice to me before.”
“That’s before I figured out you were a piece of shit. You and everyone that licks the Judge’s boots for his table scraps.”
“You call them table scraps, but I call them nice, juicy three-course meals.”
“You can call them whatever you want; you’re still a piece of shit.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Travis’s face. He had been playing off Blake’s comments as if he were above them, but watching his face closely, Smith knew differently. Blake’s cutting remarks were very much having an effect on the man.
“What were you doing, hiding back there all this time like a cockroach?” Blake asked.
“Someone had to keep an eye on you two,” Travis said. “Don’t flatter yourself. I drew the short straw.”
“Yeah, I bet you did.”
“Why did you bring us back here?” Smith asked the man.
“She belongs here,” Travis said, nodding at Blake. “She just doesn’t realize it yet. But she will.”
“When hell freezes over,” Blake said.
Travis shivered dramatically. “Maybe soon, toots. Maybe soon.” Then, turning back to Smith, “As for you, Mr. Tough Guy, that’s for the Judge to decide.”
Again with the Judge.
Who the hell is this Judge?
“You have to answer for those three you killed two nights ago,” Travis continued.
Two nights ago? Smith thought, before realizing Travis was talking about Peoples and his partners.
“You know what happened to them,” Smith said.
“We know what you told us,” Travis said. “That was until we did a little more investigating. Turns out, it might not be a clean kill after all.” He shrugged. “But that’s not for me to decide.”
“Let me guess: The Judge?”
“That’s right.”
“
What’s he talking about?” Blake asked Smith, almost whispering the question. “Is he talking about Lucky?”
“No,” Smith said. “Three murdering rapists that I killed two nights ago. They had it coming.”
“Still clinging to that story, huh?” Travis said.
“The truth is the truth.”
“We’ll see about that,” Travis said, stepping back from the cell bars. “You’re going on trial tomorrow for those three killings, Mr. Tough Guy. You best get your defense ready, ’cause if you’re found guilty…” Travis ran his forefinger across his own throat before sticking out his tongue.
“So do I get a lawyer?” Smith asked.
The redhead shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe if you ask nicely. Very, very nicely.”
The man turned around and walked off, whistling as he went, and Smith thought, One of these days, Travis. One of these days, I’m going to punch you in the face…
…then maybe shoot you in the head out of spite.
Fifteen
Smith was able to stand up and explore his prison. His second prison in as many days. Jesus Christ, it had been a terrible couple of days for sure. The last time he had it this bad was when he’d been shot and was laid up for a while. Before that, he’d almost gotten eaten by a cannibal and her two children.
But at least this time he wasn’t fastened to a pole like an animal. No, he was only jailed like one; fortunately he could walk around and get blood flowing through his limbs as he tried to shake off the growing headache. He forgot about how dumb he must look with Blake’s bra around his head and was just glad he wasn’t bleeding to death.
He was getting a better look at their prison, not that there was a lot to see. Three concrete walls, a ceiling, and a floor. Bars on one side, and when he pressed against them and tried to look up the hallway, he couldn’t see very much. There might have been one or more cells farther up the dark corridor, but he couldn’t see them from where he was.
If they were in Gaffney—and he had no reasons to believe otherwise—then the town was being incredibly quiet outside. According to Blake, Travis and the other man, Stephens, had delivered them back to the Gaffney lines before the group broke off their attack and returned home. She hadn’t known much beyond that because they had blindfolded her before putting her on a horse. Smith had gotten on a horse too, but on his stomach like a roasting pig. Another embarrassing moment he was glad he didn’t remember.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 24
