“Yes, they were all buried in the mine.”
“Oh, God. Oh, no. That’s horrible. Oh my God . . . first Mary . . . then Ralph, Sam, and now this. This is so bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t take this. I can’t—” Jeffery broke out in tears.
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Cain preached.
“No . . . no . . . no purpose to this.” Jeffery stood with his eyes closed and shook his head in defiance.
Cain continued, “A time to be born,” Cain paused, and then called out, “Jeffery!”
Jeffery looked up as his name was called only to see a .45 staring in his face.
“And a time to die.” The hammer of the .45 slammed against the firing pin sending a 230 grain bullet into Jeffery’s skull at eight hundred thirty feet a second. All the sorrow and all the despair Jeffery had endured suddenly vanished.
Cain pulled a bullet out of his pocket and reloaded the clip. He, the mule, and Jackson made their way down the highway back to the barn.
*
No one was out and about when Cain arrived, except for one of the boys playing alone by the generator. Jackson trotted over to him, and the two immediately engaged in a game of chase. Cain casually led the mule to the front of the barn and stopped. He didn’t hear movement and couldn’t tell which of the cabins Sam and the others were in.
Cain stroked the mule on back of the neck and scratched him behind the ears. The mule seemed to enjoy it. He then unholstered a .45, placed it to the mule’s head, and pulled the trigger. The mule let out a bray, staggered sideways and fell dead to the ground.
Cain’s plan continued when Bill came running out one of the cabins, confirming Sam’s and the others location. Bill’s gun was out and ready to fire. He lowered it when he saw it was Cain.
“Cain! What happened? Why’d you shoot the mule?”
“Mule broke a leg. I had to do the right thing.” Cain gazed in sadness at the dead mule with the .45 still in his hand.
“Broke a leg? How?” Bill hurried over to the mule and stooped down to examine the animal.
Cain put the gun to the back of Bill’s head and fired. Bill fell face forward into his own blood and brains that splattered over the mule’s belly.
Cain turned. Bill’s wife, Linda, and Buddy’s wife, Cheryl, watched it all from the doorway of a cabin. Both froze in shock having witnessed Bill’s cold and calloused murder.
Cain moved forward and shot Linda in the chest sending her backward and knocking Cheryl to the floor. He entered the room and put a bullet in Cheryl’s forehead as she struggled to get up.
His mission would soon be completed. Sam lied unmoving in bed. He was either dead or close to it. Emily was the only other adult left. The children crowded together in a corner. Emily stood with her arms outstretched over them.
“Cain . . . .” Tears rolled down Emily’s face. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
Cain paused and closed his eyes. “The Lord has sent me to right the wrongs that he has done to his people.” He opened his eyes and gazed directly into Emily’s. “Thus I must utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
Cain holstered his .45 and transferred the bat from his left hand to his right. He took two quick steps toward Emily and swung the bat around, catching her just behind the jaw and the back of her head. Her head buckled from the blow. A sickening crunch went out. She was knocked away from the children, whose piercing screams rose to near deafening.
Cain raised his bat and slammed it down. Again, and again, and again. Skulls cracked and brains splattered. Little Cindy would never have to worry that her father didn’t come home.
Arm bones shattered in futile attempts to block the crashing bat. Becky and Sammy no longer had to worry about their father surviving his bullet wound.
Blood and gore colored the wall behind them.
Rod and Nancy had been parentless for only a few minutes. The shock of seeing their mother killed before their eyes would soon fade into darkness.
The screams stopped. Only the dull thuds of the bat pounding and the rapid breaths of the good doctor remained.
“You see, God. I’m the strong one. I know how to fix everything.” Cain panted. “I have sent them to you. They’re yours now. Why don’t you put them up in one of those mansions by that street of gold?” Cain bashed the bodies until all the twitching had stopped. He didn’t want the little children to suffer a slow death.
Exhausted and bloodied, he went over by Sam and picked up a rag and dipped it in a pan of water. Sam was barely breathing.
Cain wiped his face and his hands until all the blood was gone. He dipped the rag back in the pan and cleaned his bat. The wood had a few more dents in it now.
He then reached in his pocket and pulled out a folding knife. Cain whispered in Sam’s ear, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed” And then he meticulously sliced thought Sam’s throat, cutting the jugular veins on both sides. “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
The blood of life pumped out Sam’s neck and pooled around his head. Cain left the room and the barn. “Let the dead bury their dead.”
The boy playing with Jackson hid behind the generator. Cain made a slow walk toward him, his hand outstretched, and a smile on his face.
“Come, little child. Come. Don’t be afraid,” his voice reassuring. The boy ducked his head behind the generator out of view. “Now, now. It’s okay. Everything is going to be all right.”
The boy’s name was Edward. He was the son of Buddy and Cheryl. The poor little guy didn’t even know his parents were dead.
Edward hesitantly stepped into view with his gaze fixed to the ground.
“Now, that’s a good boy! Let me come and see about you,” Cain said while smiling.
“Where . . . where is everyone? What happened in there?” Edward’s voice was soft and unsure.
Cain knelt before him and brushed the hair away from Edward’s bright blue eyes. “Everything’s fine.” Cain then placed his hands of the boy’s shoulders, enlarging the smile on his face. “Everyone has gone to a special place. All the adults are there. All the kids too. Even your mother and father, and they are all waiting for you.”
His two hands went to the boy’s throat. He squeezed with all the might his bitter soul could muster.
“You won’t have to worry about growing up without a father now. You won’t be without a man’s influence in your life.” Cain’s face burned red as his anger built.
Edward’s eyes bulged. His mouth opened as if to cry out but could make no sound.
“No one to take me fishing. No one to take me hunting. Or to a ball game. Or just to hang out with like the other kids at the park.” White foam formed on Cain’s lips.
Edward’s face turned from red, to purple, to blue.
“No. Just a mother that sat on top of me twenty four hours a day. Undermining me. Criticizing me. Sodomizing me when I failed God!” Cain eyes crossed in maddening rage.
Edward could no longer stand. Cain found himself shaking a limp body. Poor little Edward had long suffocated to death.
Cain tossed Edward aside, and wiped the tears and snot off his face with his hands.
“It is finished!” Cain cried to the heavens. He then yelled another scripture that erupted in his mind. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Cain paused as he considered the scripture, and laughed to himself, and at God.
“Two thousand years ago you had a plan. It was a glorious plan. Billions of people put their faith in it. You sent your firstborn to be a propitiation for the remission of sins. Well, I thank you for that. But the world is not ending like the Book said it would.” Cain paused as another scripture flashed in his mind.
‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
of God.’
Cain spoke again, “Yes, it’s becoming so much clearer now. Now I know why the burden of righting your wrongs was on me. I am your son. I am representing you on Earth now. It’s my responsibility to rewrite the end! The times have changed. The message has changed. I have been sent here to usher in the new Kingdom of God!”
Cain stood and stretched out both arms from his sides, tilted his head to the sky and yelled, “Greater love hath no man than this, to kill all of those who are left to suffer!”
The words echoed back with only the winds and the rustling leaves as an answer. The final age was upon the Earth. Cain had made himself the new savior of mankind.
Jackson stepped to his side and pawed him on his thigh. Cain stroked his faithful companion’s head, and said with a gentle voice, “Let’s go, Jackson. There are many wrongs for us to make right.”
If there had been one ounce of sanity in Cain before, it certainly was gone forever now.
The two walked down the limestone road and back onto the highway, guided by the spirit that led them there.
The End
From Severed PRESS
Alien microbes mutate with the DNA of the dead, reanimating corpses to life. A cop, Rico, and a junkie streetwalker, Angie, barely escape the onslaught of zombies. As they head for sanctuary, a jealous pimp seeks revenge, and Angie’s drug addiction, become a greater threat than the undead.
From Severed PRESS
INTRODUCTION BY JOE MCKINNEY
“Scioneaux and Hatchell double-down on the horror and thrills in this gritty, action-packed zombie thriller. This one has real bite." – Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of Rot & Ruin and Dead of night.
"Scioneaux and Hatchell give you a fast-paced narrative full of oozing bodies and narrow escapes and poignant ruminations on the fragility of a man’s body and the resiliency of his character" – Joe Mckinney, Bram Stoker award winning author of Flesh Eaters and Inheritance.
From Severed PRESS
««««« Rated “The Perfect Read” by The Bookie Monster!
“SLIPWAY GREY is just as lovably cheesy and sleazy as you’d expect from its wonderful serial killer + giant shark premise. It’s goofy, gory fun!” -- Jeff Strand, author of WOLF HUNT
The Last Savior Page 3
