The Dead Years Series Box Set

by Jeff Olah

Megan slid down to her knees and attempted to look past Blake to focus on Randy, although she was denied that option as Blake finished his diatribe. “So, that’s all the time I have allotted for explanations tonight. I need to move on… Elizabeth, it’s time to say goodbye to Jack.”

  At the center of the transparent maze, Jack moved to the door between the two rooms. It appeared that twice as many Feeders had moved in his direction and now stood only inches away. Frantically searching for something to get a hold of, he clawed at the handleless door as it began its ascent out of the ground below.

  230

  Time began to slow as Jack ran through his options. He’d never been good at hand to hand combat and much preferred to battle from a distance, although today his rifle couldn’t have been further away. Pushing into the clear Plexiglas door, he knew he was losing. His hands slid easily through the mess left behind by the former victims of this room as the beasts on the other side of the door became incensed.

  He spoke to himself. “I can’t let her see this happen. I have to find a way out of this.” Eyeing the room to his left, he quickly counted the number of Feeders and calculated his odds of somehow fighting them off empty handed.

  He had less time than things he needed to say. Avoiding Blake, he turned back to the women and spoke specifically to his wife, although knowing she wouldn’t actually hear his words. “Elizabeth, I love you.” And as the door finalized its ascent, Jack continued. “I will see you again; that is my promise.”

  Jack turned and moved quickly to the center of the room. Taking in a deep breath, he could feel his heart beating in his neck. The familiar stench of rotting flesh from the adjoining room filled the small space as the first Feeder pulled itself through the opening. Readying himself as he assumed others had done in this very spot, Jack’s focus was tested as the events playing out two rooms away begged for his attention.

  As the translucent door holding back more than a dozen ravenous Feeders locked into place, Blake turned to his men. “Let four of them in and then close the door.”

  His words ran into a road block as Randy pushed away from his chair, shoving Sean into the corner and wrapping his right hand around Blake’s throat. Before the others had a chance to react, Randy used his other hand to reach for the device Blake had just dropped, although he pulled back nothing but air.

  As it cascaded to the floor, one of the men went for Randy and the other for the handheld remote. Randy released Blake and in twisting left caught the second man with a clean uppercut that sent him spinning back through the doorway. Taking a half step away, he kicked the door shut and evened the odds within the confined space.

  As Sean began to stand, Blake regained control of the device and kicked him back into the corner. Randy leapt over a downed chair going for the first guard as Blake moved in at the same moment.

  With Sean still recovering, Randy chose to go for the bigger target. Lowering his center of gravity, he lunged at the man that was attempting to protect Blake and collided with the much heavier man’s midsection. Both went to the floor, and as Randy slid on top and reached back to deliver the first blow, a slight pinch in the back of his neck cried for attention.

  Sean’s voice appeared to flicker in and out as Blake stepped away. Randy lowered his arm as his right shoulder and arm began to catch fire. His movements were disjointed and even turning to look at his own body was an exercise in futility.

  Blake’s face came into view as he cupped Randy’s chin and in pushing him backward off the guard, he began to laugh. Holding the syringe out in front of Randy’s face and shaking his head, he said. “I know your kind. All brawn and no brains, I’m surprised you’ve survived this long on just your animal instincts. I must admit, I’m impressed that you and your people are still here, even if it’s only for my amusement. I thought people like you died off in the first few months of the infection. Oh well, now you know your place. I just wish I could have kept you around a while longer. You would have been fun to put through the gauntlet. But sadly, I must keep my word and I’m sure Tobias is already pacing the streets just waiting for his prize.”

  Removing a second syringe from his coat, Blake maintained eye contact with Randy, who was now struggling just to keep his eyes open. “Just so you know, this isn’t personal. In another life, I may have even wanted you to join my little group. Although, due to extenuating circumstances, I don’t think we’re going to make that happen.”

  Pulling Sean up by his collar, Blake waited for his guard to get him under control before ramming the needle into the boy’s neck and sending the mysterious sedative coursing into his system. Surprised by how fast the drug took effect in Sean, Blake chuckled as he watched him fall face-first into Randy.

  “Okay,” Blake said. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

  Back to his device, Blake turned on the combination overhead mic and speaker in the room holding the women captive. “I realize you all have a lot to be concerned with at the moment, although as you’re watching Jack fight the last battle of his life, please say goodbye to these two.” His last comment was used more as a torturous provocation than anything else. He appeared to enjoy their agony as he waited for their cries to fill the room.

  Blake punched in another sequence and turned from the window as the women melted into one another. Speaking into the device, he barked orders to his men as he walked out of the room. “Get these two into the van, strapped down and ready to go. They’ll be awake again within the hour and I want to have them at Goodwin’s front door before then. I know how much that old man likes to surprise people.”

  The guard from the lobby stood and met Blake at the front doors. “Old man?”

  “Not you buddy, you’re older, but you’re not old. You were the first man here and you’ll definitely be the last. Are we all gassed up and ready to go?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But what?”

  “These people, they don’t seem like… like all that bad. I don’t understand why we need to do this. Couldn’t we try to help?”

  “Do you remember what happened the last time we tried to help someone. I’ll remind you, we lost six people. They killed your sister and every other female in that alley. If I hadn’t come along, they would have killed you too. We don’t trust anyone.”

  “So this is payback? That’s what you have been doing to the ones we find out there; it’s all about revenge?”

  “Call it what you want, I’m okay with who I am.”

  “Who are you?”

  Blake ignored the last question. Instead, he started for the office on the opposite end of the lobby. “Just get back to the desk and keep your eye on the yard. And make sure they get them into the van ASAP.”

  Past the desk and crossing the lobby, he turned back to see one of his men rushing in through the front doors.

  “Yes?” Blake said.

  “Uhh.”

  “Spit it out, we’re on a schedule.”

  “I think we may have a problem out back.”

  231

  He walked from the garage to the double doors of the building more times than he could count over the last thirty minutes. Rain had just started to fall and as the minutes turned to hours, Tobias was less than hopeful that he would get the opportunity he was waiting for.

  Goodwin had retired to his makeshift suite on the top floor of the building that his group now called home. Adjacent to the animal shelter they also occupied, this area of town was distressed long before the infection took hold. He instructed Tobias to only wake him when his package arrived. If there were no sign of Blake or his men by morning, Tobias would be free to track down Mason and his family and do as he pleased.

  While the thought of deciding the fate of Mason and the rest of his group had its appeal, Tobias still wanted to get to her. There was something he needed from her, something he feared, although he had yet to put his finger on what that was.

  He pled with Blake to send her along in the van, and after much back and forth, Tobi
as finally agreed to take Randy in her place. For reasons unclear to him, Blake refused to send any of the women. He offered up four men, but only three were necessary to complete their demented transaction.

  Mason was sent for obvious reasons and would be turned over to Goodwin upon arrival. The instructions were to wheel the injured man into the third floor conference room, along with the others and allow Marcus Goodwin to show Mason why leaving him to die on the side of that valley road was his final mistake.

  When Tobias was denied access to Eleanor and more importantly Megan, he asked for the next best thing. He wanted the man whose child she carried. In his own demented mind, he would have something she loved and wanted to destroy it. Taking her brother would add another layer to the pain he could inflict without actually coming face to face with her. He also wanted to get his hands on the boy who killed at least one of his men.

  Under the overhang at the edge of the garage, he looked back in time to see Cory standing behind the glass doors holding out the phone. Tobias ran the short distance through the rain, opened the doors, and stepped inside.

  “It’s Blake,” Cory said. “He’s ready.”

  Tobias took the phone from Cory. “How soon can you be here… I need them brought right up to the front… Okay, five minutes.”

  Tobias ended the call and handed the phone back to Cory. “Once I’m finished here tonight, I’m going after Blake. I don’t care what happens to the rest of his crew, but I am going to kill him. You can bet on that.”

  Dragging the two bodies out of the building and up to the rear of the van proved more of a chore than either man expected. Randy was first. They were charged with blindfolding and gagging Mason, pulling both Randy and Sean into the van, and then securing them to their individual chairs.

  Before even beginning to unlock the van doors, the first of Blake’s men “wrenched his back” and disappeared into the building to have one of the others switch with him. As his replacement sauntered outside, he found the second man with Sean hanging off of his left shoulder, struggling to lay him in the van. “Relax, I’m coming.”

  They worked quickly in the darkened rear cabin to assure that each of the multiple zip ties were properly placed and secured. Each taking an arm and a leg, they moved in silence and were only vaguely annoyed as Mason drained what vocal energy was left in his weakened diaphragm in an attempt to rouse his overly sedated friends.

  Loading Randy proved to be twice the task as his younger counterpart. Given that he outweighed the boy by a good forty to fifty pounds, getting him into the chair would have been at least an inconvenience on their best day. The problem came as they slid him down into the chair and Randy’s body began to spasm.

  First his arms and legs stiffened as if he had a full-body cramp and then as they accounted for that, Randy began to flail wildly, his arms connecting with a few errant blows before he finally went limp once again.

  Twenty minutes later and their job complete, they removed the dirty rags from Mason’s eyes and mouth, relocked the van’s rear doors and marched back into the building.

  With the last shards of light leaving the rear cargo area, Mason again fought to acclimate to the area he shared with his friends. The zip ties biting into his ankle had for the moment caused his right leg to drift off to sleep. This effectively removed the pain he assured himself was caused as he careened down the stairs earlier in the day.

  After what seemed to be more than an hour sitting in the dark and waiting for his friends to awaken, voices in the distance told him that it was time. The men on their way to the van knew he was conscious and although the blindfold and gag had been removed, he chose to keep his voice contained to the rear of the van. “Randy… Sean?”

  Nothing

  A bit above a whisper now, “Randy.”

  Again nothing, and given the fact that the moon sat at its highest point in the sky, illumination completely escaped the thin breeches in between the rear doors, giving the illusion that Mason was still alone.

  This time more for himself although still holding out hope, Mason pushed on. “Let’s go guys; we don’t have time for this.”

  He backtracked in his mind, attempting to find his place and then moved back along the timeline to each of the major events of the evening. As the voices grew closer, he determined that he’d been out between one and two hours. Although there was no telling how long his friends had been unconscious before leaving the building and being tossed into the van, he assumed they were nearing the end of their unwelcomed slumber. But did it actually matter? Mason was unsure.

  The two voices trailed off as they grew closer to the rear of the van. Mason held his breath and closed his eyes. He listened for what seemed like minutes before taking another breath and nearly gagging as one of his two friends began silently fighting their restraints.

  Whispering yet again, Mason said, “Randy buddy it’s me, Mason. We’re in the back of a van that belongs to Mitchell Blake. I don’t know what he wants but we need to—”

  A few coughs. More pulling against the restraints and then a voice, “Mason, it’s me… Sean, Randy’s here too. What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know Sean, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out?”

  “How long have we been out?”

  To Mason, time was a bit of an anomaly at the moment. His mind attempted to put the pieces of what he remembered into their proper order, although with large gaps in the sequence, each new detail further confused him. “More than an hour, I think. I’m assuming it’s close to midnight by now.”

  As Sean fought for a position that was somewhat less torturous, the fire at the base of his neck swelled. His painful cry for mercy was cut short as two quick strikes against the rear door announced Mitchell Blake’s approach.

  “All loaded up and ready to go.”

  Silence for another four seconds and then quick moving footfalls preceding the voice Mason remembered just before blacking out. “That boy Jack has some fight in him after all. He’s survived two rounds without too much damage.”

  “What’s next?” asked one of the men.

  Blake again, this time with a slow deliberate tone, as if he knew they were listening. “The pregnant one, Megan, when we get back I’m shoving her in there too. It’ll be the first time we’ve put two into the gauntlet at the same time. After that, I’m getting some sleep.”

  232

  The voices were there and then they fell off. They were at the rear of the van and then at the side nearest Mason. Next to the rear again as one of the men leaned into the doors and then farther off back toward the building. After what felt like another twenty minutes had passed, they were on the move again and the last place he was able to coordinate their voices with their footfalls was at the driver’s side door.

  They spoke in hushed tones, although with just enough volume for him to make out every third or fourth word. Mason was having trouble putting the pieces together, although he was able to pull in enough to know where they were being taken.

  Sean had gone silent with the news that his sister was being prepped for something called the gauntlet, although Mason needed more information than what he had. “Sean, they aren’t going to hurt her while Blake is here with us. I need you to tell me what you know. We can still help her; there is time.”

  He didn’t speak, although from two feet away Mason could feel the tears rolling down the boy’s face.

  “She needs you, Sean. You have to pull it together.”

  As Blake and his men climbed into the cab and fired up the engine, Randy had begun to stir. Mumbling something incoherent as he fought against his restraints, the van pulled out of the lot and paused at the corner of Sixth Street.

  With Randy gradually becoming aware of his surroundings, there came two quick thuds on the wall between the two cabins. “You all sit tight. Just a short trip to the other side of town and we’ll wrap this up.” It was Blake.

  As the van’s position changed and streaks of moonlight again
illuminated his surroundings, Mason quickly scanned the area and mentally cataloged the raw materials used to imprison him and his friends. Oversized black and red zip ties were used to strap their wrists and ankles to the horizontal framing and were pulled back to leave no room for lateral movement. The commercial grade padlocks securing the three chairs to opposite sides of the van completed the restraint system and assured that the entire space moved as one unit.

  The rear cabin was as simple as it was effective, a mobile jail cell that could be broken down and set back up in a matter of minutes. Blake seemed intelligent enough; although in the few minutes Mason spent in his presence, the young man didn’t necessarily give off the vibe of a handyman. This may have been his idea, although Mason was sure it was built at the hands of someone else, someone less cultured and most likely someone less arrogant.

  Mason prayed he was right and that whoever actually pieced this thing together made at least one mistake, cut one corner, left off one essential piece. The unit he sat upon had no noticeable weakness and although every fiber of his scarred body cried out in agony, he knew their suffering was only going to get worse.

  Slumping down into his chair, Mason clenched his jaw, closed his eyes and again drew in the three remaining fingers of his left hand. Twisting back and to the right, he pulled at the zip tie binding his wrist and held his breath.

  Putting his weight behind him, the sensation was initially mild. Mason leaned further back, his head a half inch from the van wall, which allowed his left arm to take on the full weight of his body. That’s when it came.

  Like a coiled snake waiting to strike, the pain shot through his arm all at once. Streaking along his destroyed left hand, through his elbow, into his shoulder, and slamming into his chest, Mason coughed as he tried to breathe. “That was stupid.”