This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope

by James D. Dean

  “I hope you are happy with your choice,” he said, his own annoyance breaking through his fake calm. “I learned a lot about you from our little chat today. I promise you, things will not be as pleasant from now on.”

  Chapter 33

  True to his word, that afternoon three steaming trays appeared. The aroma of grilled cheese and tomato soup wafted through the air as he stopped the food cart in front of my cell.

  Bobby entered my cell with a contemptuous look on his face. I returned his scorn with an innocent shoulder shrug and a mocking grin. Larry was still nowhere to be seen, and I had to piss off at least one person that day. I did have a personal quota to maintain after all.

  As he neared the smell of our hot meal was suddenly overcome by a stench that was both familiar and foreign. Not quite anything I could remember experiencing before directly, but a stink that was more like a fading memory. I crinkled my nose at the unpleasant odor as Bobby closed the gap between us and set the tray down on the small wooden TV tray.

  He scowled at me before leaving my less than comfortable abode, but not before he slammed the door hard enough to shake the bars all the way through the concrete they were bolted to.

  “I guess the bitch gets to eat,” he said as he unlocked Jeff and Tanya’s cell. “It would be a real shame if I accidentally dropped it on the floor,” he sneered.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I said, sitting up to uncover the lid from my plate. “Ole Jakey made me a promise that she would eat again. You wouldn’t want me to tell your boss you made a liar out of him, now would you?”

  He stopped in his tracks and turned to look back at me as sudden trepidation flashed across his face. With a deep breath and while mumbling words that need not be repeated, he composed himself and continued to set the couple’s food gingerly on the small table.

  “I want her to eat,” he sneered. “I want her good and strong so she can put up a good fight when it’s my turn with her!”

  Jeff sat straight up, his eyes narrowing and his teeth clenched as he watched the man leer over his wife. Bobby licked his lips as he pulled her sheet down to uncover her rail thin body. Jeff shook as he tried to keep himself from losing control and beating the man to a soupy mess on the floor.

  “She’s got nothing to worry about,” I said before Jeff could do anything that might get him or Tanya killed. “I hear that shit you pump into your veins shrinks your dick every time you use. From all the track marks on your arm I think we’re going to have to change your name to Millimeter Peter.”

  “Fuck you!” he snapped, charging out of the cell and slamming into the steel bars of mine. “Why don’t you get your punk ass up and say that to my face!”

  “Be happy to,” I said, smiling back at him before taking a bite out of the poor excuse for a grilled cheese. “Open the gate.”

  “Your gimp ass can barely stand,” he shot back, turning to lock Jeff’s cell. “You couldn’t do shit to me even if I did let you out.”

  “You know,” I started as I chewed the dry rye bread. I took a drink from my water glass before setting it down before turning my attention back to the wannabe hard ass staring me down from the other side of the bars. “I knew someone like you once.”

  “Yeah?” he asked sarcastically. “He kick your ass and bang your wife?”

  “Not quite,” I answered, taking a spoonful of the most vile soup every created. I hate tomato soup in case you didn’t remember. “He crossed me, and he paid.”

  “Oh,” he teased. “I bet he did, Mr. Tough Guy.”

  “He’s literally half the man he used to be,” I hissed with as much maliciousness as I could manage. “You can meet him if you want. There’s a stone silo with plenty of room where you two can hang out together.”

  “Whatever, old man,” he said dismissively. “You ain’t ever getting out of here. I’m gonna cut you up one day, you just wait.”

  “If you say so…Peter,” I needled him before biting into my sandwich again. “Oh and take a shower man, you smell like the sun dried ass of a road killed skunk.”

  “Oh, you wait,” he said before grabbing his cart and shoving it down the hall. The resounding clack of the lock engaging told me the little shit stain had finally decided to end the conversation and slink back into whatever drug den he called home.

  I looked back across the hall to find Jeff already at Tanya’s bedside, holding a small piece of grilled cheese to her lips. She bit down hungrily, swallowing and diving back at the piece so fast I would have been surprised if she stopped to take a breath.

  “Easy,” I warned. “Eat slowly and let your stomach accept the food. You don’t want to eat too fast. Trust me, I learned that one the hard way.”

  “Thank you, Daniel,” Jeff said, lifting a glass of apple juice to Tanya’s lips. She sipped slowly, her face becoming flush as she savored her first meal in who knew how long.

  “It’s just Dan,” I said, finishing off the nasty soup in a few gulps and washing it down with water before the flavor could contaminate my taste buds. “A few aunts and uncles call me Daniel, and only because they know it bugs me.”

  “So being a smart-ass runs in your family then?” he asked.

  “A bit of nature and nurture,” I replied. “I have a natural talent, but my family helped me to hone the skill.”

  “Please be careful, Dan,” Tanya rasped, her voice shaking. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked as I finished my sandwich.

  “Two weeks after everything started,” Jeff replied.

  “Back when there were eight of us,” Tanya added.

  “How’d you get here?” I asked.

  “A couple days before it happened, we went to this ranch in Mauston with our friends Will and Karla.”

  “A ranch?” I interrupted. “In Wisconsin?”

  “We wanted to do something different,” Jeff replied. “Tanya found this sort of dude ranch, and we all went as a group.”

  “Hmm,” I pondered. “Not sure how I would feel about racking the boys on a horse saddle when it’s cold enough to freeze my eyelids shut. I mean I like being outdoors and all, but I tend to stay indoors when it’s cold enough to piss icicles.”

  “It’s not bad,” Tanya rasped. “Midnight sleigh rides out to a huge bonfire. Skiing, sledding, all the hot apple cider you can drink to keep warm. And at night the bar opens—“

  “Stop right there,” I said. “If there’s beer, I’d be happy.”

  “Well,” Jeff continued. “We were all gathered at the bar and having a good time when Will got a text from home. All of us thought it was a joke until the music stopped and the bartender turned on the news. I don’t think anyone believed it at first. Everyone in the room started arguing over whether it was a huge prank or not.”

  “We stopped arguing when the news went out and the emergency alert system kicked in,” Tanya added.

  “I never saw any of the news,” I said, finishing off the last of my lunch. “I slept through it all until the cold woke me up.”

  “You slept through it?!” Jeff gasped. “Were you in the country or something?”

  “Nope,” I replied, leaning back on my cot. “Just outside of Chicago.”

  “How the hell—” he started.

  “Hey,” I interrupted. “I’m a heavy sleeper. At least I was before all this,” I added, twirling my finger around the room. “Being on an all you can eat menu for the living impaired makes one a tad jumpy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jeff nodded with an eye roll.

  “So did you guys leave that night?” I prodded.

  “No,” Jeff replied. “There was a list of safe zones scrolling across the screen, and almost everyone left for one of those. Tanya and Karla pushed us to stay where we were. I wasn’t sure where to go, and Will wanted to head to the rescue station at the local high school, but the girls made a good argument against leaving. We were in the middle of nowhere and away from most people. We had food and wate
r, and we would probably be safer away from people.”

  “Smart move,” I said. “We did the same. My brother and I used to talk about this. Kind of like a what if game. We always said his farm would be our rally point. So after a rooftop header into my neighbors yard and a quick dive into a shed with a weak roof, we hit the road. It was all I could think to do. We hid in a barn for a night, I brained a cow with my hammer, then we—”

  “Wait,” Jeff interrupted. “Brained a cow with a hammer?”

  “Long story,” I replied with a chuckle. “Needless to say, there’s a cow out there that probably has a hit out on me.”

  “I want to hear about that one,” Tanya said, forcing a laugh. Though she was looking slightly better, the time she spent sitting up wore on her. She trembled as she held her stomach with her undamaged hand.

  “Maybe later,” I replied. “Stomach ache?”

  “It hurts a little, but I’ll be okay.”

  “Do you want to sleep?” Jeff asked, stroking her long wavy hair.

  “No,” she answered. “I’ve slept too much. I want to eat a little more and rest a bit.”

  “Whatever helps you get better,” Jeff said, his features softening as he smiled at her.

  “How long did you stay at the ranch?” I asked, leaning my back against the cold block wall.

  “Only a few days,” Jeff replied. “Things were okay at first. There was enough food for twenty people to last for weeks. It was the four of us, the staff, and a few other guests, there was probably about twelve of us overall.”

  “I sense a but in there somewhere,” I said.

  “A big one,” he said. “About the fourth day, the owner showed up with his wife and kids. I don’t know where they were at before, but I got this impression they were out of town for the holidays and it took them a few days to get back. He started waving his gun around and screaming at everyone for eating all his food. He kicked us all out, including his employees.”

  “There’s no reasoning with assholes,” I mused. “The apocalypse only added a big dose of extra strength douche baggery to the problem. Now you get four times the asshole for the same low price.”

  “Gayle tried to reason with him,” Jeff said, his voice low and tinged with sadness. “She made a lot of sense, saying we could share the workload, turn the ranch into a safe haven if we worked at it. He shot her before she could finish speaking. We thought he was actually giving the idea some thought, but he just turned around and shot her dead.”

  “That’s why we chose to stay out of sight,” I said. I decided against the retelling of my own near death experience due to random flying lead. “Too many assholes with too many weapons, and not enough good people to keep the assholes in check.”

  “Case in point,” Tanya said, tipping her head down the dark hallway. She lay back on the cot, wrapping her arms around her stomach.

  “We left right then and there,” Jeff started again. “The guy didn’t even let us get our luggage. He said it was payment for stealing his stuff.”

  “Guy sounds like a real winner,” I said sarcastically. “Real Man of the Year material.”

  “No kidding,” he said. “So the four of us hit the road, with four more following us. I really have no idea why they chose to stick with us.”

  “Familiarity,” I said. “The world came to an end, and you guys rode it out together. We ended up adopting two more kids on our way to the farm, and they became like family.”

  “I guess,” he said. “It’s as good an explanation as any.”

  “Half-assed ideas are kind of a specialty of mine,” I quipped. “Where’d you end up?”

  “You wouldn’t believe us,” Tanya said with a slight chuckle.

  “Try me,” I said.

  “A cemetery,” Jeff said.

  “That seems…counterintuitive,” I said.

  “Not really,” Jeff replied as he moved from Tanya’s cot to sit in his fold up chair. “The news said bodies that had been embalmed wouldn’t get up, so none of them were going to come up out of the ground. We found a place that had a big stone fence wrapped around it, had a huge iron gate too. It even had a funeral home and a caretakers house on the property.”

  “Any corpses that forgot how to stay dead in there?”

  “Two in the funeral home, and a couple wandering in the cemetery,” Tanya said. Her hand lifted to her mouth to stifle a yawn, and for the first time I saw the nub of her pinky finger, bright pink and very swollen.

  “You need to sleep,” I said. “You’re malnourished and you’ve lost blood. Your body needs time to recover. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’m fine,” she said through another yawn. Jeff and I stayed silent for a few minutes until her breathing deepened, becoming slow and rhythmic as she fell into a deep sleep.

  Jeff made his way to his feet, lifting his simple folding chair and tiptoeing closer to his bars. He set the chair down and returned to his own cot, taking a sheet from it and laying it atop his wife’s sleeping form. Trying to do his impression of a six foot tall ninja, he quietly moved back to his chair and took a seat.

  “She’s not usually this quiet,” he whispered. Even with the generator running in the background, his whisper echoed through the mostly empty cells.

  “She was starved,” I said. “She’s weak, it’s understandable.”

  “It’s not just that,” he sighed, a dismal look spreading across his features. “We survived in that cemetery until Larry and another man found our cars on the road and came in after us. They caught us in our sleep.”

  “There were eight of you, right?” I asked.

  “Didn’t matter,” he replied. “They came in with guns and put us on our knees. Becca head butted Larry in the balls, and he slit her throat. Jimmy charged at him and got a bullet in his forehead for it.”

  “Damn,” I said.

  “We stopped fighting after that. Larry said his boss wanted to meet us, and they put bags over our heads. I get this needle in my neck, and suddenly I’m waking up here. Tammy and Kai in the cell next to yours, Will and Karla where you are now.”

  Jeff looked over at his wife for a time, watching her toss and turn in her sleep. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He was distant, as if the memories he wanted to share with me were both too terrifying to recite, and too much to keep pent up.

  “Professor came in to greet us, acting like he was a close friend, like he had no malicious intent toward us at all. But then he started asking questions, weird ones, you know? It was like he was probing for our deepest secrets. He started asking what we were afraid of, and not the obvious stuff like the living dead. He wanted to know everything about what terrified us.”

  “What did you tell him?” I asked

  “Not much,” he replied. “We were defiant initially. I mean he kidnapped us, and no amount of friendly gestures would make us forget that. But somehow he learned more about us in that first conversation than we could’ve imagined. I don’t know if he read our body language or what, but he worked it all out in his head.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What could he possibly do with that?”

  “It’s like he lives on it,” Jeff said, looking back to me. “I don’t know what it is, but he gets off on watching us suffer. Not on the physical pain, but emotional. His biggest thrill is when we’re scared. He just sits and watches when his people are doing things to us, like a pedo perv standing outside a school fence at recess.”

  “What has he done?” I asked, my heart rate steadily increasing as our conversation continued.

  “Tammy was the first,” he went on. “He figured out Kai’s biggest fear was losing his wife. That afternoon, Larry came back and dragged Kai into your cell. He stripped Tammy down to nothing, and tied each arm over her head and hung her from the bars. He took a scalpel and made a little incision, right under her armpit. Then he walked out.”

  “Wait, he left?” I asked.

  “For about an hour. She hung there, bleeding just a little bit. But
when he came back, he made another puncture and left again. Every hour, he made another tiny incision, just enough to make her bleed a little more.”

  He stopped, biting his quivering lip as his eyes shone with moisture. He turned his attention to his wife again, balling his fists until his knuckles whitened.

  “After the fourth puncture, Kai realized what was happening. Up to that point he was just pissed that someone was hurting Tammy. He kept promising her that things would be okay and they would get through this. When he started to beg, Professor showed up. He sat in that chair watching Kai beg for her life. But every hour they’d cut her again. When it got too dark to see, it all stopped. They left her hanging in the cell all night. We were left in the dark listening to her cries get weaker. As soon as the sun came up, it started again. Professor sat in the chair, feeding on Kai’s pain and not giving a shit about Tammy’s.”

  “Shit,” I exhaled.

  “But Larry, he loved hurting her,” Jeff continued. “He looked like he wanted to skip down the hall singing every time he got to cut her. It took three days for her to die.”

  “Goddamn,” I said under my breath. “What happened to Kai?”

  “They finally let him go to her. He was completely destroyed. Professor stayed in the chair just checking his watch. Kai was so upset he didn’t feel Tammy come back. She bit right through the artery. He was dead a couple seconds later.”

  “That’s just fucked up,” I gasped.

  “Things got weird after that.”

  “How can it get worse?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Not worse,” he replied. “Weird. Larry and Professor walked out and left Kai and Tammy where they were. When Kai came back a couple of men walked in. No idea who they were, but one of them looked real slow. I mean porch light is on but no one’s home kind of slow. The other guy looked as normal as someone can these days, but they both smelled strange. Not like bad body odor or anything, more like a mix of skunk and hot tar.”

  “Interesting combination. I think I smelled something kind of like that on Bobby too, but it could have been his brand of unwashed stink.”