Must be a window in the basement somewhere, Emmett thought.
The watch on his wrist showed it was almost noon. When the girls had awakened, he informed them of what was going on and promised he would get them out. He still didn’t have a plan besides rushing the priest when he came back, but he had to try something. No one had come after they had taken the man away to sacrifice him, but he’d heard the man’s screams minutes later as he was eaten alive. His biggest worry was that they wouldn’t come back until tonight and they would incapacitate him before he could try anything. Without knowing how skilled the priest was at keeping prisoners, it would be hard to tell how prepared he’d be.
“I can’t believe this is how I go out,” Ana said, breaking the silence that had lasted the morning.
“It isn’t going to end this way, not while I’m still breathing,” Emmett said.
“Do you even know what happened? How did we get here?” Alexis asked.
“My best guess is the food must have been drugged. I don’t know who in the town is involved, but there are two others besides the priest for sure.”
“Could be the whole town,” Ana said.
“Could be, but Levi… If he’s involved, he had me fooled,” Emmett said.
“I liked him too, but I don’t know,” Ana said. “Some of the nicest people are cold-hearted. Father had this one guy, cold-blooded killer, but he was the nicest man I’ve ever met. I called him Uncle Zeke. Great guy, but he could kill with the best of them.”
“What exactly did your father do?” Emmett asked.
She paused and then shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, I just have a habit of keeping it secret. He was a businessman… only of the illegal kind. Ran a big family business.”
“So, a mobster?” Alexis asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Interesting. So that’s where you learned to shoot. And those two men with you were your bodyguards?” Emmett asked.
“Yes and yes. They went everywhere with me, although they were more like big brothers. I miss them.”
“I’m sorry,” Alexis said. “What was your part in the mob?”
“Father had no sons, and, as such, he was mentoring me to take his place, which didn’t sit well with the crew, but he had strict rules, and if he heard anyone talking bad about me, they ended up six feet under.”
“I’ve known a lot of people in my life but never the head of a Russian mob,” Emmett said.
Ana smiled, “Well, you do now.”
“Let me guess,” Alexis said, “your full name isn’t Ana, is it?”
“Anastasia Romanovski, but that’s too cliché, so I go by Ana.”
“Definitely a mobster name,” Alexis said, smiling.
“So what’d you do, Emmett?”
“I was in the Marines. After I retired I went into the private security business for a while.”
“That makes sense. What about the truck? It looks like you were prepared for this, or do you just like overkill.”
He chuckled, and then sighed, figuring it wouldn’t hurt anyone now. He looked at his daughter.
“I didn’t tell you the whole truth that night in the truck. I didn’t want your mother to hear it all,” Emmett said.
“That’s okay. I could tell you hadn’t told us everything. You may find it shocking, Dad, but I can read you pretty well,” Alexis said, smiling.
“Is that so?”
“Yes it is, Daddy,” she said with a wink.
Emmett burst out laughing. “You figured that out, did you?”
“Years ago, but I didn’t want to ruin your gruff façade.”
He laughed. Damn, she’s good.
“Okay, I’m completely lost,” Ana said, looking between the two.
“Long story,” Emmett said. “But to answer your question, I worked private security for the company LifeWork for a year. In that time I saw… experimentation with a new drug they were developing. It was supposed to cure everything, which I, of course, thought was crap. When they tested the drug on rats, it would kill the rats. Problem was, they wouldn’t stay dead. Then one day they tested it on a person… I confronted the owner of the company who denied everything, so I quit the next day and started prepping. I tried to get an investigation started but it never went anywhere. I knew no one would believe me anyway, but I made sure I was prepared, just in case.”
“It’s a good thing Mom never knew. It would have destroyed her.”
Ana looked confused. “Why?”
“LifeWork was owned by Albert Hashen, my ex-wife’s father.”
“Oh, she didn’t know?”
“No,” Emmett said, leaning against the wall. “She never knew.”
~~~
The afternoon passed with excruciating slowness. Emmett tried breaking through the door and walls, tried digging out, and even tried going through the ceiling, but the room was sturdily built and he could still feel the effects of the drugs in his system. He wasn’t at his full strength. Even if he had been, he wouldn’t have been able to break out.
All too soon, darkness began to engulf the room.
“Get ready. If anyone comes through that door, we’ll rush them,” he told the girls. “Better to die fighting than at the hands of the infected.”
They nodded.
After a few hours they heard something above them and two people could be heard coming down the stairs. He looked at each of the girls and they moved to the front of the room with him in the lead. He would go through first and kill whatever was beyond that door with his bare hands.
13
Sacrifice
Tuesday, post-outbreak day four
The town was small, with a main street running down the middle. The thing that impressed the brothers was the wall built around the whole thing. They even had working gates with a watchtower and everything. They’d counted twenty-six people down there, with eight guards on duty at all times—four at the front gate, one in the tower, one at the church, and two at the back gate, all armed with rifles, and they looked like they knew how to use them. The brothers lay on a tree-covered hill a few hundred yards to the south. It didn’t give them a perfect view of the whole town, but they could see the main street and all the guard posts.
They’d pulled off the road after reading the sign: Safe-Haven. They hadn’t believed it, so they climbed the hill with their ARs and Connor’s rifle. They’d also each brought a set of night vision goggles. It had been their best find in the Red X’s supply room. Well, besides the explosives still in the truck.
As the sunset painted the town orange and yellow, they continued to lay there.
“They look normal,” James said, peering through his binoculars.
“They do… but let’s give it a few more hours. Then we’ll go down.”
“Sounds good. Let’s see what the night brings.”
~~~
The door to the room opened and Emmett lunged at the man standing there. He made it halfway before he was hit with a Taser and fell to the ground, convulsing, electricity coursing through his body.
“No need for that. Your time will come,” Father Ahaz said, standing behind the big man with the Taser. As Emmett convulsed on the floor, he realized he recognized the big man from the Dining Hall.
“Take the brunette,” Father Ahaz said, pointing. “Alexis, wasn’t it?”
The big man moved into the room and Emmett growled. He wanted to scream but his body wouldn’t allow him. Ana lunged for the big man, but he swatted her aside. She hit the wall with enough force to knock her unconscious, and she crumpled to the floor. The big man continued to Alexis. She tried to fight back but his grip was tight and he put her in a choke hold until she started to blackout. He dragged her out of the room and the priest tied her hands behind her back then put a chain around her neck with a leash attached to it. She blinked the blackness from the edges of her vision, taking hurried deep breaths.
“There, now you look the part. Did you know your sins are like chains
, dragging you down to hell? No? You will shortly.” He pushed her forward with a command, “Walk.”
She looked back at her father, lying on the ground, unable to move, and tears began to form in her eyes.
“I love you, Dad,” she said, trying to keep the primal fear out of her voice.
Emmett’s mind raced. How he could get to her if he couldn’t move? There had to be something he could do.
“Oh, and Emmett,” Father Ahaz said, glancing back at him. “Listen for the screams. It’ll mean your daughter is paying the price for her sins.”
The big man shut the door and the last thing he saw was his daughter being led to slaughter at the hands of a madman. He tried to move, tried to scream, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. He laid there, tears streaming down his face. How could this happen? To come so far only to have his daughter ripped away from him now. It wasn’t right.
As control of his muscles returned to him, he sat up and began to pound on the door.
Damn that man!
As he sat in the cell, he heard a voice filter down from above and he renewed his pounding. Either the door would break or his fist would. He couldn’t make out the words but he knew that voice. It was Father Ahaz.
~~~
It was drawing close to midnight before the brothers noticed anything unusual. As if by some unspoken signal, people began to stream out of their houses, gathering in front of the local church. The church stood in the center of town, east of the road, and on the front lawn was a strange, fenced-in area. It looked to be a new addition as the lawn was tore up inside the fence. People gathered around the front of the church like they were waiting for something.
“This is odd,” Connor said as he looked through the ten-power scope of his .308 rifle.
“Yeah, it is. Maybe this little town isn’t so sleepy after all. Keep your eyes—wait—are those zombies?”
They were bringing zombies out on leashes and putting them into the fenced-in area on the lawn. They set loose six zombies inside the fence, and then closed the gate. The zombies pressed against the fence, trying to get at the people on the other side, but the fence held.
“What the hell?” Connor said.
“I have no idea…”
James’s sentence trailed off as the door to the church opened and a man all in black with a white collar stepped out. The priest was not alone; he was leading a woman with brunette hair by a chain. Her hands were behind her back and it looked like her face was wet. Was she crying?
A voice rose from the town and the brothers could barely make it out.
“My flock, it’s time to appease God by sacrificing this sinful woman to cleanse our sins.” It was the priest talking.
“Oh, sh—”
“He’s going to do it,” Connor said, cutting James off. Connor swung his crosshairs onto the priest.
James knelt there for a second, looking in horror at the scene before them, then made a decision.
“Screw it! Cover me. I’m going in. Get that priest down.”
“Roger that. I’ll take him once you get in. Watch your back, brother.”
They shared a look and then James burst into action. He grabbed the NVGs from the ground, leaving the daypack and his binoculars. He put the NVGs on his head and pulled them down, heading toward where he had seen a conveniently placed tree that he thought he could use to climb over the wall. He made it to the wall limping only slightly and climbed the tree, hearing the priest continue to preach. He couldn’t make out the words, but there was something about hell, condemnation, and being cleansed by the blood of sinners. Crazy son of a…
He got over the wall and slipped behind a house on the other side of the street from the church. He could see through a gap between the houses to the street beyond. The guards had even gathered in the circle. In fact, the whole town was there. He crouched down and slowly made his way between the houses toward the main street, flipping his NVGs onto the top of his head. With the lights illuminating the street so well, he wouldn’t need them.
“We must appease God and sacrifice her to the demons he has sent to test our faith!”
The priest sounded like he was getting to the end of his speech. James aimed at the man and got a front-row seat as the priest’s head exploded. The sound of the gunshot arrived a moment later and everyone just stood there in shock as the priest fell forward and rolled down the steps of the church. The captive girl acted first. She shoved aside the big man standing by her and darted inside. Then all hell broke loose.
The big man moved next, turning and heading after the woman. He fell as James’s bullet took him in the back. The rest of the gathering broke into chaos, with people screaming and running for cover. He swung onto the next armed man, who was turning in the direction of his brother outside the wall. He went down as a .223 bullet ripped through his chest and James noticed another armed man go down in the crowd. The armed men returned fire, shooting wildly into the night in the direction of Connor—they didn’t realize there was a wolf in their midst yet.
Whether all these people were bad, or only the priest, was irrelevant. If they were willing to sit by and let innocence people die, then they deserved what they got. Like this guy. He gets a bullet to the neck and he deserves it. Four to go, he thought as he noticed another man fall to the ground, clenching his chest.
“Get to your houses and stay inside!” a man shouted to the crowd.
James briefly looked at him, but he was unarmed, so he went looking for his next target. He spotted an armed man crouched behind a street light and shot him in the head. He heard another gunshot but didn’t see the man fall. He knew his brother hadn’t missed, however, because he’d heard the sound of the bullet hitting the body. It made a very distinct whack sound.
By this time, most of the crowd had dissipated except for the two armed men who were left, and they had taken cover on the side of the church. Those remaining men had realized there were two shooters and were hiding from both of them. James turned and went behind the building to his left and down a few houses to get a different angle on the men. He came up in a different gap between the houses and saw one man hiding on the side of the church. He crouched, aiming at his chest, and let his bullet fly. The man fell against the church wall, leaving a red stain against the white-painted wood. The last man broke from cover and tried to make it inside the church. He made it to the top of the steps before a .308 bullet tore a hole through him.
James noticed two men emerging from a house, a shotgun and revolver in their hands. He aimed at them, noticing the one looked like the father and the other the son. He shot the man with the shotgun—the father—in the stomach. He fell to the ground and his son grabbed him and began pulling him back towards the house. Good, that should keep the rest of them inside. He went back over to where he had climbed over the wall just as his brother dropped down next to him, tossing him the daypack. He shrugged the pack on and went to his brother.
“I’ll make a break for the church. She went in there,” James said.
“I’ll cover you,” Connor said, AR in his hands and his .308 slung on his back.
James took off across the street and burst into the church. It was empty, so he turned around and motioned for his brother to follow him over. His brother ran through next to him and James shut the doors, locking them. That would at least slow them down if they came after them.
“Let’s find her and get the hell out of here, and quick,” Connor said looking around at the church.
It was a large-roomed church with two rows of pews and a podium up front. There was only one room off to the side in the back—probably the dead priest’s office. He nodded to Connor and they began in that direction, scanning for any enemies inside. They made it to the door and posted up outside like they always did. James opened the door and his brother went in.
“There are stairs leading down,” Connor said as he came around the corner. “I hear voices. Best prepare for more.”
~~~
Emmett check
ed on Ana. She was alive but unconscious, with a bloody spot on the back of her head. Laying her in a more natural position, he went at the door with crazed determination. Trying to break it down with his shoulder had proven useless. Kicking it had yielded the same result, so he sat there pounding on it with his bloody fists once again. He could hear the priest talking, but he tried to shut the noise out, not wanting to hear his daughter being eaten alive. When the gunshot ended the priest’s speech, hope soared in him.
Seconds later it sounded like a war was going on outside and then he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. He crouched by the door, ready to fight to his last. Instead, he was greeted by a voice he hadn’t expected to hear ever again.
“Dad, it’s me,” Alexis said outside the door.
“Alexis honey, are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, a quiver in her voice.
“Can you get us out?”
“I’m trying, but I need to get my hands untied first.”
“What is going on out there?”
“I don’t know, but someone shot the priest and I ran inside.”
He leaned against the wall. His daughter was alive, but for how long? The chances that the people shooting were here to help were very slim. They probably wanted the town for themselves, and they were going to take it, one way or another.
There was a lull in the gunfire.
“We’d better prepare for the worst. Are you free, honey?”
“Almost,” she said. He could hear her rustling around outside the door.
He heard a thump above, a pause, and then a gunshot from farther away. So there were at least two of them, but it was probably a group of four or more to take on the whole town. He waited for a while but heard nothing else.
“Hurry, sweetie.”
“There, got it!”
She opened the door and he crushed her in a hug that drove the air from her lungs. For a moment, in her father’s arms, it was like it used to be before the world fell apart.
The Brother's Creed (Book 1): Outbreak Page 13
