This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope

by James D. Dean

  Since the day I had orchestrated the death of the biker in that body shop, I feared becoming something that Abby would have despised. After she died, I only felt normal when I was bashing in the skulls of the dead, or meting out some type of vengeance on creatures that crossed me, living or dead.

  I’d come close to drawing my gun on Rosa, and did pull my pistol on my brother. Chris called it that day when he warned me of the darkness he saw growing behind my eyes. Through my rage, I knew he spoke a truth that I did not want to hear.

  I was becoming exactly the man that Abby begged me not to be. I let the world take my humanity from me. I was lost.

  I needed to get out of there. I needed to find myself again, and I needed my family to help me do it. No matter what I had to do, I would find them again and do whatever it took to win back their trust.

  But first, I needed out of that damned cell…and Larry was going to help make that happen.

  **********

  Hours passed in silence, the persistent hum of the generator blessedly absent for the first time since I awoke months ago in that cell. A rumble of thunder in the distance broke through the songbirds outside, flashes of blue lit up the little bit of sky visible through my pathetically small window.

  The smell of rain from the oncoming storm filled the small room, mixing with the savory scent of chicken frying somewhere in whatever building I had resided in for months. My stomach grumbled as the odor of fresh cooked meat tickled my nostrils.

  Neither of my companions had spoken a word to me, instead keeping their conversations to themselves in low whispers. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk anyway, since the effects of the drug was still playing havoc with my hearing. From time to time I still caught the random strobe of light or flash of motion from something that was not there.

  Donald came into my cell with another of the Mensa members in the Professor’s menagerie of forced servitude. They dragged the corpse out of my cell, leaving a trail of detritus behind. As soon as they returned, they went to work cleaning up the pulped remains of its head on the floor, picking shards of skull and teeth from the concrete and dumping it all into a plastic bucket.

  Soon they too were gone, leaving behind a greasy stain and a trail of crimson on the floor to remember them by. I sat in silence on the horribly uncomfortable cot, leaning against the cool block wall as the first drops of rain slapped against the outside of the prison.

  I heard the heavily laden cart before the door even opened, its worn wheels squeaking as it crossed the threshold into the hallway. The smell of hot fried chicken grew stronger as the cart approached, my stomach growling as it anticipated the upcoming feast.

  Bobby appeared behind the cart, looking none too happy about his current assignment. He glared at me from underneath his baseball cap, mumbling something to himself.

  He opened the other cell first, setting up their meager lunch of oatmeal and canned oranges on the small wooden table. Closing the door behind him, he made his way to mine.

  “You have something for me?” I mocked as he opened the door.

  “Fuck you,” he snapped. “His highness requested chicken, so eat it!”

  “You didn’t eat any of it, did you? I bet ole’ Jakey would be really upset if you did.”

  “I didn’t touch your precious chicken, ass wipe. I hope you choke on it!” he snapped.

  “What’s wrong, Bobby? You all pissed that Proffy made you serve me instead of going on the fuel run?”

  “Nah,” he laughed. “That shit’s for the dummies and the unlucky asshole that drives them around.”

  “Well, you may leave,” I said, waving him off.

  “I can’t wait till he makes you bleed,” he seethed.

  “Stick around,” I said, leveling my stare at him. “There’ll be plenty of blood.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled. “Yours.” With a smug grin, he left me to my lunch, the cart smashing into the door on the way out. He swore at the thing before I heard the slam and the lock click shut.

  Lifting the lid from my plate revealed an impressive pile of golden brown chicken, the breaded crust glistening with hot grease. The mouthwatering smell was, in a word, incredible.

  Picking the nearest breast up from the plate, I bit into it like a starving zombie at a brain factory. The perfectly seasoned crust crunched as my teeth tore into it, digging past the salt laden skin and into the moist tender flesh. The meat pulled away from the bone, hot juices dribbling down my chin as I savored every bite. I chased it down with cool water before setting the slice of deliciousness aside.

  I sifted through the pile of hot breaded goodness until I found what I was looking for. Three drumsticks lay on the table in front of me, the bulging mass of meat begging to be devoured. Now why there were three drumsticks, I couldn’t tell you. I looked over the pieces and found every piece of a full sized bird. Last time I checked, a single chicken only had two legs, so unless this was the fastest chicken on record, someone in the kitchen had enjoyed a fried lunch of their own.

  Anyway…I tore into the drumstick, ripping the flesh away in mere seconds leaving mostly bone exposed. I proceeded to do the same to the second leg, devouring the meat in a couple bites.

  “You’re going to have one hell of a case of heartburn if you keep eating it like that,” Jeff warned, dipping his spoon into his meager bowl of oatmeal.

  “I’m not eating for enjoyment,” I whispered. “Though, it is hard not too, this is some of the best damn chicken I’ve ever had!”

  “What are you up to?” Tanya asked, cocking her head to the side.

  “Shh,” I put my finger to my lips. She raised an eyebrow at me, shook her head and went back to her own bowl.

  Lifting the mattress up from the cot, I slammed one of the bones down hard against the metal frame, splitting the bone in two useless pieces.

  “Shit!” I cursed myself while dropping the fragments to the plate. I tried again with the other bone, this time aiming my strike at the top of the bone. With a satisfying snap, the joint broke off, leaving a sharpened end on one side.

  Picking up the first piece of chicken I had started on, I lay back in the cot and picked the breast clean of the deliciously tender meat. Drinking down the full glass of water, I sat back against the wall, tucking the bone under my sheet and waited.

  Almost a full hour went by before the lock turned again. I sat up, readying myself as Larry strode down the hall. Without a word, he entered my cell, snatching a cool thigh from the plate and ripping into it with his stained teeth, grease dribbling from his lips and getting caught in his matted beard.

  “You wanted me,” he spat, sending pieces of half chewed chicken into my face. “Here I am, cleaning up your mess!”

  “That’s mine,” I said, nodding at the chicken in his hand.

  Raising the chicken to his mouth, he slowly bit into it again, tearing a huge piece of meat away and chewing with smug satisfaction as he looked down at me. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the chicken onto my lap.

  “Whatcha gonna do about it?” he forced through the mouthful of meat.

  My left hand moved from under the sheet, the sharp bone suddenly exposed to his view. His eyes turned to the bone, and then back to me.

  “You dumb mother fucker,” he laughed. “You gonna to stab me with a goddamn chicken bone?!”

  “No,” I hissed. “I’m going to stab you with this!”

  His attention drawn to the weapon in my left hand, he took no notice of the jagged shard of bone I had snapped from Will’s skull that was now hurtling toward his exposed flank. His eyes widened in shock as the sharp pointed bone pierced through his shirt and dug deeply into his soft flesh, lodging firmly underneath his ribs. Dark blood poured from the wound, coating my hand in the warm fluid.

  His eyes went wild, hand shooting to the Glock strapped to his side. I launched from the cot and drove my shoulder into his chest. He stumbled backward, head striking the bars with a hollow thud. Eyes fluttering as if on the brink of unconsci
ousness, he continued to reach for the gun.

  Leaping on him, I drove his head backward into the bars again, this time sending him slumping to the floor with a grunt. He lay still, snorting as he drew air into his lungs.

  Thunder crashed outside as the Glock…my Glock…slipped from his holster and into my hand once more. A comforting stillness washed over me as the familiar weight of the weapon came to rest in my palm. A bright blue flash of lightning caught the words I had scrawled into the slide so many months ago.

  ABANDON ALL HOPE

  I looked down at the unconscious form laying at my feet, murder burning deep in my heart. There was no one in the world that could stop me if I chose to end the assholes life then and there. There was no way for me to tell if the wound I had inflicted on him was mortal or not, but the volume of blood he was losing led me to believe that he was not long for this world.

  No. Not yet, I thought, looking up at Tanya and Jeff who stared back at me with stark terror in their eyes. I brought my finger to my lips to silence them for the moment. Jeff’s nods in agreement were so slight I almost missed them.

  Calmly I made my way to the cot that had served as my bed for so long, tearing three strips of cloth from the sheets. I balled one up, and walked over to Larry and shoved it into his mouth, taking the second strip and wrapping it around his head to complete the gag.

  By the time I had finished binding his hands with the last strip of cloth, Larry’s eyes fluttered open. It took almost a full minute before his brain started running on all cylinders, and by that time he had already processed what was happening to him.

  I dropped down to his level, his eyes full of anger and defiance. He tried to mumble something, but even if there was a sound that could punch through the gag, I really didn’t want to hear it.

  “Let me recount a conversation we recently had,” I said through heavy breaths. He froze, eyes tracking the barrel of my Glock as I set it on his temple, dragging it down his face as the weapon gently caressed his cheek. “I told you this was my gun. You said ‘it’s mine now’. Do you remember that? Do you remember what I said to you?”

  His eyes turned to mine, filled with anger. If there was an ounce of fear in his body, he never showed it. The pistol muzzle slammed into his forehead, his head bouncing off the bars as I pressed the weapon hard against his skull.

  “Until it isn’t!” I hissed. “Get up!”

  He didn’t move. Like a kid throwing a temper tantrum, he sat still, crossing his legs in protest.

  “I said get up!” I roared, grabbing the shard of skull protruding from his side. With a twist, I pushed it upward. A muffled scream erupted from under the gag, his agony barely audible through the cloth. Releasing the bone, I grabbed his arm and hoisted him to his feet.

  “What are you doing?!” Tanya snapped, finally breaking out of her stunned silence. “You know he has cameras in here!”

  “Listen,” I said. “You hear the generator? No generator, no power. No power—”

  “No cameras!” Jeff finished my thought for me.

  “Exactly,” I said, shoving Larry out my cell door. Holding him by his collar, I stopped the second my feet crossed the cell threshold.

  The world suddenly seemed so much larger. On my left, the hallway ended with a drab brick wall, the plush chair that Professor favored sitting against it. The hallway off to my right only went about twenty feet before ending at a simple gray door. A thick steel door handle sat waist high, inset with a small hole that I imagined was designed for a special key. It would be the door that led out of that hell.

  It was a door that led to the Professor.

  With a powerful shove, I slammed Larry against the bars of my neighbor’s cell, my Glock firmly planted at the base of his skull.

  “Keys are on his belt,” I said to whichever of the two would listen. “Grab them, I’m not letting go of this asshole until he’s either locked up or dead!”

  “Got it!” Jeff said, moving quickly toward us.

  “No!” Tanya snarled through bared teeth. “I’ll get them.”

  Jeff looked as if he planned to argue the point, but was quickly shot down with a piercing glare from his wife. He raised his hands in surrender as he backed away.

  Smart man.

  Tanya calmly walked over to the bars, a smile spreading across her face. She stood in front of Larry, casting a seductive smile at him. Grasping the bars, she winked at him and slowly let herself down until she was on her knees in front of him.

  I looked over at Jeff with a raised eyebrow. He returned the glance shrugging his shoulders, his face registering the same look of confusion I knew I wore.

  “Umm,” I stammered. “The keys aren’t down there.”

  “Something else is though,” she said, her tone as seductive as the eyes she was now casting upwards toward Larry.

  With a quick zip, his fly opened. She looked up at me and winked as her hand slipped into his pants.

  Larry groaned, his body suddenly relaxing in my grasp. I stood in shock, trying to rationalize what I was witnessing when his body tensed again. A scream emanated from behind his gag as Tanya’s eyes narrowed, her smile growing dark and sinister.

  Jeff looked on in horror, and I could only imagine what he bore witness to. Larry’s screams grew in pitch, every muscle tensing as he struggled to back away from whatever she was doing to him.

  I pinned him harder against the bars. Whatever it was she was doing, he deserved it…and probably much more.

  With a sudden jerk his head flew backward, nearly cracking me in the forehead in the process. He went limp, his eyes rolling up behind his lids. Unable to hold his full body weight, I let his unmoving form fall to the ground.

  Tanya sat where she was, her right hand soaked in bright red blood. Her grin never waned, a look of deep satisfaction on her face.

  “I’ve heard people joke about it, but didn’t really know if it was true or not,” she said, making her way to her feet. She turned away and walked to the sink, turning on the water and allowing the blood to flow from her hands.

  “If what was true or not?” I asked, dumbfounded and slightly terrified of the woman.

  “They actually do pop,” she said over her shoulder.

  “That is fucking horrifying,” I said, looking over to Jeff. “Good luck, man.”

  Surprisingly, Larry was not dead. In his position, I would probably beg for death. I almost felt bad for the guy. I mean, yeah he was a psycho prick and deserved to die and all, but goddamn! That is definitely not the way I want to check out of this world.

  Fairly certain the man would not be going anywhere in the near future, I left him where he lay and snatched the keys from his belt before unlocking Jeff and Tanya’s cell. The two bolted out the door as soon as the barred cage entrance slid open.

  As soon as we were in arms reach, we embraced each other in a group hug that was very long overdue. We had survived hell together, and I knew deep within that I would never had lived as long as I had without the support of my new friends.

  “Drag him inside,” I said once we stepped away from our therapeutic hugging session.

  “Leave him there,” Jeff snapped.

  “I want to be sure if he wakes up before someone finds him, he won’t be going far,” I said. “Not that I expect him to anymore, but better to be sure.”

  Nodding in agreement, they each took a limb and with me pulling his legs we dragged him inside my old cell. No sooner had we let him fall to the floor, we heard the door unlock.

  “Larry!” Bobby shouted. “Where are you, dammit?!”

  I put my finger to my lips, waving the two behind me. The footsteps grew louder as the man approached, sighing in frustration as he neared.

  “Come on, Larry!” he continued his ranting. “You taking a shit back here or what? We got work to d—”

  “Hello, Bobby,” I said, interrupting his rant with a .40 caliber Glock leveled at his head from inside my former cell.

  He spun on his heels, hi
s hand darting to the pistol he kept tucked behind his back.

  “You wanna die, Bobby?” I snapped, narrowing my eyes and slipping my finger into the trigger guard. “I don’t need much of a reason to kill you, do I?”

  “Larry’s gonna kill your ass when he gets back!” he snarled.

  “You mean the nutless wonder here?” I asked, waving my hand across his prone body. “Call it a hunch, but I don’t think he’s going to care.”

  Jeff moved with purpose from the cell, ripping the pistol from Bobby’s waist and tucking it into his pocket. He patted the man down, removing a hunting knife and a set of keys similar to Larry’s.

  “You guys are fucked!” Bobby raged. “He’s going to come back here and fu—”

  The punch came from nowhere, Jeff’s fist landed across the man’s cheekbone with lightning speed. His head snapped to the side, body following as the force of the blow send him pirouetting to the floor. His face bounced off the concrete with a wet thud. Bobby groaned and tried to bring his hands underneath him.

  “What was that you said you were going to do to my wife!?” he snapped “You little shit!” Jeff’s boot struck home across the man’s head with a hollow thud. With a snort, Bobby fell silent.

  Without a word, Jeff single handedly dragged Bobby into the cell next to Larry the Eunuch. We stepped out into the hall, this time the cell door slamming shut with us on the outside.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jeff said, his anger clearly not sated.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” I said, marching ahead of the two toward the door. I wanted to be out of the prison first. I had several scores to settle, and I needed to be sure I did not miss a single opportunity.

  As we neared the end of the hall, I could see a small reinforced window set in the center of the large steel door. Pressing myself against the wall, I leaned over to peer out into whatever lay on the other side. To be honest, at that moment I was expecting for my head to pop out in time to get blasted down by a firing squad of the Professor’s goons.

  The room was empty.

  I motioned to the other two to stay close, and I moved to the door. After a few tries with several keys, I finally found the one that opened up our freedom.