“If you say so,” he said. “But they walked right up to those zombies…uhh, Tammy and Kai. They were growling at us, but they ignored those two. When the men took them by the arms, they actually went docile. They were like tame kittens when they were led out of the room.”
“Bullshit!” I snapped louder than I’d intended. I held my breath and waited to see if Tanya would rouse. After about a minute, I felt safe to continue. “You’re telling me that Jakey discovered zom-be-gone?!”
“Discovered what?!”
“Zom-be-gone! Zombie repellant. Come on, keep up.”
“I don’t know what it was, but I’ve seen those things get handled by living people,” Jeff paused, taking a deep breath. “Twice,” he said sadly.
“Will and Karla?” I asked.
“We were left alone for days,” he said, his voice trembling. “That’s what he does. He messes with your head, then gives you a long time to think about it.”
“That’s why he was noticeably scarce after—” I started, nodding at the pinky finger still taped to my bars.
“Yeah,” Jeff exhaled sadly, casting his eyes to the floor before continuing. “He saw how protective Will was of his wife. And he knew Tanya’s weakness is how much she cares for people in general. Professor used Karla to hurt both of them. About a week later, he came in and sat in his chair without saying anything. He waved his hand, and eight men came walking in. Half of them had that same absent minded look to them, but they all had that weird smell. Two of them held Will back while they dragged Karla out into the hall. They put her on the floor and…they—”
Jeff broke down. His tears flowed freely despite his attempts to rapidly palm the moisture away. He cast a worried look at Tanya, his shoulders shaking as grief racked his body.
“Fifteen years we’ve been friends, and there was nothing we could do. They did…things to her, taking turns over and over. They beat her and cut her, it was like watching savage dogs fight over a kill. That bastard got up from that chair and came up to our cell with that big goofy grin of his and asked if we were enjoying the show!”
“I’d have knocked his teeth out!” I said, anger churning my stomach until I felt like I couldn’t hold down my lunch any longer.
“Tanya tried,” he replied through clenched teeth. “He hates being touched. She reached out and grabbed his suit jacket, and he suddenly looked like a raving lunatic. He started screaming at her, turning around and punching his own men. They just took it! Every one of them could have taken him, but they just let him punch them. He pulled a knife from under his jacket and slit Karla’s throat, then jammed it right into Will’s heart and just walked out. As soon as our friends came back, the men marched them out, just like before. Then Professor came back in. I could tell he was seething. He looked right at Tanya and told her she would pay for defiling him with her filth, and I would face my worst fears.”
“Which are?”
“Watching Tanya suffer and not being able to do anything to stop it. He cut off her food and only gave her enough to just barely keep her alive. He said he’d kill her if I didn’t eat everything I was given. She was in so much pain and I had to stuff my face right in front of her. I was so damn selfish.”
“There’s nothing you could do,” I said trying to dissuade his guilt. “She’s alive because you did as you were told.”
“You don’t think I’ve told myself that!” he growled. “This little break of ours won’t last. He’s going to figure you out too, and once he’s pulled every bit of satisfaction he can out of you—”
Jeff stopped, getting up from his chair and taking a seat on Tanya’s cot. Twirling several strands of her reddish brown hair between his fingers, he palmed the tears from his eyes with his free hand.
“Once he does, we’re all going to die.”
Chapter 34
We spoke very little after Jeff sat with his wife. Her suffering was over for the time being, and he was finally able to look her in the eyes without guilt.
Truthfully I needed a break to mull over Jeff’s story. Up until that point, I really had no idea of the type of depravity I was dealing with. Sure, Larry was a certified lunatic and a supreme douche nozzle. And Bobby…well let’s just say that thanks to the apocalypse, he could finally say his overall intelligence was finally considered average.
Professor was different. There was a cold intelligence behind him, but his motivation was still a mystery to me. Jeff said it was simply about getting off on other’s fears, but it couldn’t have been that simple.
Could it?
I spent the rest of the afternoon working my situation out in my head. Getting away from my current nightmare was a no go. Despite the fact that my mobility had improved somewhat, I still had weeks of recovery to look forward to. Standing upright still brought intense waves of dizziness, which forced me to hold on to something and wait until the world stopped spinning before I could move.
To add to my screwy brain, I was still discovering new adventures in pain with every lungful of air. The broken rib bones continued to rub against each other whenever I inhaled. When I pushed it beyond where I knew I should, the pop of bone and the searing pain rocketing through my chest could bring me to my knees.
That was if falling to my knees was possible without vomit inducing pain. It took great effort to even walk across my cell. The one knee I had spent the better part of the apocalypse using as my own personal crash test dummy had swollen up to monumental proportions, and the other was not far behind. With every step I could feel a grinding in the joint I was sure God had not intended.
So, long story short. I was going nowhere.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the dinner cart emerged from the magic hallway, pushed along by yet another new face. She was dirty and slightly underfed, but otherwise the teen didn’t look any more worse off than any other survivor I had seen. Not that there was a huge list of them, and most of the survivors I’d met had tried to kill me in one fashion or another.
She turned her piercing green eyes at me, brushing her fiery red curls away from her face. She scanned my cell as if expecting to see my stockpile of nuclear weapons hiding under my bed.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for,” I said bluntly. “But if I had a weapon I certainly wouldn’t still be sitting in here.”
“I didn’t ask, now did I?” she returned sharply with a thick Irish accent. “So stop leering at me before I have to get one of the other men here to show you some manners.”
“Leering?!” I said incredulously. “What are you? Fourteen? Fifteen?”
“I’m seventeen!” she snapped angrily.
“Yeah,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “That makes it better. Look kid, the last time I leered at someone your age I was still living with my mother and trying to build up the nerve to ask Rebecca to the prom. She said no in case you’re wondering.”
“I’m not a kid, and I don’t care about any Rebecca,” she hissed. Reaching behind her back, she pulled a small .38 revolver from the waist of her black jeans, waving it rather uncomfortably in my direction. “Now, if you want to eat, you stay in your cot. Get up if you want to get shot.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said condescendingly. “I’ll behave.”
She huffed as she stuffed her revolver in the front of her pants. Like all the others, she unlocked my cell door and walked in carrying the small folding table.
The smell hit me shortly after crossing the threshold into my cell. It was the same stench I had encountered with Bobby, but this time the odor was far more pronounced, and though I couldn’t place where I had encountered it before, the smell was definitely familiar. I was about to lift the sheet to cover my nose when something else drew my attention.
“Is everyone here an IV user?” I asked, staring at the multitude of track marks on her arm.
“I don’t use that shite,” she snapped, glaring at me as if readying to slap the stupid out of me.
“Those marks say otherwise,” I said, no
dding toward her arm. “Is that how he keeps you in line? He lets you shoot up all you want as long as you do what he says?”
A bright flash exploded in front of my eyes as the world suddenly went into a tailspin. A sharp sting spread across my cheek as her calloused hand knocked my head sideways. Streaks of black shot across my vision as I was suddenly enveloped with disorienting dizziness.
“I said,” she started through clenched teeth. “I don’t use that shite! He protects me so I do what I need to! I don’t have to explain anything else, especially to you!”
She stormed out of my cell, carelessly snatching my dinner from the cart. Marching over to my table, she slammed the tray down, sending the chrome dish cover crashing to the floor.
My head continued to spin as waves of nausea churned my stomach until the bile began to rise in my throat. I could no longer hold it back. Vomit spewed from my mouth in giant heaves. My rib cage screamed in violent protest as every muscle in my body tensed, sending what was left of the grilled cheese and tomato soup to the floor. Tomato soup is worse coming up, in case you were wondering.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” she said, closing the door to Jeff and Tanya’s cell. “You better eat too. We don’t have enough food for you people to waste!”
I sealed my eyes to wait for the dizziness to pass as the rush of vomiting subsided. I heard the girl storm down the hall, spewing words that would have earned me a smack from Abby. Her litany of cursing ended abruptly with a slam of the door and the clack of the lock.
“Always making friends, huh?” Tanya said. Though I didn’t want to open my eyes yet, I could hear the smile in her voice.
“It’s a curse,” I replied, squeezing my palms to my temples to quell the thunder in my head. “I guess she doesn’t like me.”
“What makes you say that?” Jeff laughed. “You okay?”
“Head keeps spinning,” I said, my stomach starting to roil once more. “Ever since I woke up from that drug induced coma he put me in.”
“Concussion maybe,” Tanya said. “Or maybe your inner ear is screwed up. That could be a problem.”
“You a doctor?” I asked, swallowing to try to stop another puke session.
“No,” she said. “I studied neurosciences though. I wanted to research brain disorders, but after a few months I just couldn’t stay interested.”
“I was traveling with a nurse for a while,” I said. “She was good. She kept me alive after I was shot.”
“You were shot?!” Tanya gasped.
“When I first got to the farm,” I answered. “Some people attacked us in our sleep the night before. We got away, but they followed us. They shot me, but they got the worst of it. Chris, my brother, is retired Army and he’s very territorial about his property.”
“Where is your group now?” Jeff asked with a tinge of hope in his voice. “Do you think they are looking for you?”
“I—” I started, but caught myself before saying any more. When I first started speaking about Abby, Professor showed up almost immediately to grill me for every tidbit of information he could think of. It suddenly dawned on me that since this place still had electricity, it was not beyond the realm of possibilities that he was listening in. I did not see cameras or anything that could resemble a microphone, but that didn’t mean much in the day and age of micro-electronics.
“No,” I lied. “He’s dead.”
I felt bad for the lie, especially after Jeff sunk back into his chair after I snuffed out his tiny spark of hope. But I couldn’t risk letting Professor know there were others out there with me. I sure as shit did not want him to find out about Katie. I would endure any torture that man could dish out if it meant she would be safe. I would not have that crazy freak use my daughter against me. If something happened to her because of something I said or did, there would be nothing left of me.
I just simply couldn’t risk it.
Not another word passed between us that day. Jeff helped his wife eat her plate of spaghetti before diving into his own. It took about a half hour before I could stomach my food, but eventually I finished it off. Dessert that night consisted of my nightly pill cocktail and a glass of room temperature water.
I turned away as I heard the door open, laying on my cot and facing the wall. Whoever the man was that came to my cell repeated the same mantra as everyone else, don’t move while he was in there…yadda yadda yadda.
As he stepped into my room to remove the remains of my dinner he slipped in my puke and tumbled to the floor. He swore loudly as he tried to stand, only to find himself falling back to the floor. Normally I would have laughed and made a smart-ass comment, but I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more of the mindless minions. So I lay where I was, staring at the block wall and thinking about my family until he was finally able to get to his feet and escape the cell.
Someone else entered my cell not more than a few minutes later. The sweet scent of pine cleanser wafted to my nose as some type of bladed tool scraped across the concrete floor. I guessed that whoever was in the room had drawn the short straw and had to clean up after Professor’s pet. He swore at me and slammed the cell door on his way out…which seemed to be the norm whenever anyone had the pleasure of visiting me.
Ghosts of the past and present haunted my thoughts as I stared into the flaking paint of my wall, tracing the chips with my eyes as my mind wandered off. I found myself wishing the pills I was forced to take were poisoned. I would slip off into whatever death had in store for me, safe in the knowledge that I would never betray Katie to this madness. She would stay safe wherever my brother took her. Eventually I would fade away from her memory, knowing me only from stories told by family and friends who would care for her.
The sunlight faded away, the glum darkness of another wintery evening settling outside. The two bare bulbs that provided the slivers of light in our cells flickered on for an hour before they too were snuffed out.
I couldn’t hide from the images playing through my mind. I thought back to Katie’s first day of preschool. She was fearless when she walked into the classroom, her pigtails bouncing and pale pink dress flowing as she skipped away from us. She couldn’t have been more than three feet into the room before she made her first school friend.
Abby smiled and waved, but the joy and heartbreak mingling inside her was evident in her eyes. We turned away from her colorfully decorated classroom and started our tearful walk back to our cars. We kissed each other goodbye and drove off, each filled with sadness as we came to grips with the fact that our Katie was growing up.
I wiped away the moisture in my eyes as I allowed myself to remember more of our lives together. Because the cost of daycare was somewhere between are you kidding me? and just bend over and take it, we were forced to work opposite shifts, with Abby working during the day. I almost never slept, and when I did it was only for an hour here and there.
It was worth it.
Katie and I spent time together that most dads could only dream about. When she wasn’t in preschool, we would spend hours at the playground. I’d hop on a swing and set her in my lap as she cheered and laughed, begging me to go higher. She’d pull me to the slide where I would wait at the bottom and catch her as she came down, tossing her up in the air as her tiny laugh filled me with indescribable happiness.
In the later part of the afternoon, Katie would “help” with dinner, handing me various items that had no business in anything that a human being would consume. I would show her what was edible and what wasn’t, and she would run off to find every food item in the pantry that wasn’t nailed down. We cooked dinner together before we’d head off to my tiny warehouse office.
Abby would show up shortly after, and we would sit in the empty cafeteria eating whatever concoction Katie and I had come up with that day on our meager income. After we’d finished Abby would join me in my work shop where Katie would watch her fill of PBS cartoons on my computer while Abby and I would talk about our day. They would eventually leave
for home, and I would be left alone in the huge warehouse to complete the day’s work orders.
I’d work until four in the morning before clocking out and making the hour long drive home. I’d find Katie sleeping in mommy’s bed, cuddled up against Abby’s resting form. I would kiss them both on the forehead before heading downstairs to catch a couple hours of sleep before starting the routine all over again.
It was the toughest time in my life, and I wouldn’t have given it up for all the yak’s milk in Tibet.
The reality of my predicament weighed down on me like an Abrams tank parked on my chest. I would likely never see my little girl again. The girl who’d brought so much happiness to my life, the only one who’d kept me from completely cracking after Abby was killed. The soul crushing grief drove me to near insanity. I thought about how abandoned she must have felt, sitting with Chris and Anna, maybe cuddling in Rosa or Lexi’s arms wondering why her daddy broke his promise to always be there for her.
I wouldn’t be able to watch her grow up, to protect her from the evils of men and monsters as she grew from my little girl into a teenager. I wouldn’t be the man who would hold her and wipe away her tears at night when she cried for her mom. I’d miss the opportunity to scare the ever loving shit out of the first boy who she showed any interest in.
For the briefest of moments, I hated Chris. I hated him for being there for Katie when I couldn’t. I despised him and Anna for taking my place, for getting to live the life with Katie that was rightfully mine. I hated him...because I wanted to.
My heart fell to a depth I did not think was possible when I realized what I was doing…what I had done to Chris. I’d pushed him away when he was trying to help me cope with Abby’s death. I went as far as to blame him for her death, and accuse him of using my family for his own gain when all he’d ever tried to do was try to help and protect us. He’d watched over me after I was shot, even killing the man who shot me.
For that, I pulled my gun at him.
I nearly choked on my building sobs when I realized how much I had hurt my brother. He was the only one that I knew without a shadow of a doubt was still alive in a world overshadowed by death and misery. I’d never have the chance to let him know how truly sorry I was for everything I had said and done.
This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope Page 34
