All Roads Lead To Terror: Coming of age in a post apocalyptic world (Dreadland Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Schiver

  He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, his head throbbing in response as stars exploded behind his closed eyelids. A groan escaped his lips as he staggered to his feet and took a hesitant step forward, his hands outstretched to catch himself in the dark.

  Am I blind? He wondered as the impenetrable emptiness lay before him. There was no light at all, nothing to see by, and he shuffled forward with his hands stretched out in front of him. Shortly he came to a wall, its surface cool with a pebbly texture. Leaning forward he rested his forehead against the wall, enjoying the coolness. His breath left a spot of condensation and he licked at it greedily as he sought to slake his thirst.

  Muffled shouts came from the other side of the wall, a woman screamed, and realization dawned.

  Maria? What were they doing to her? He worried as the memory poured through his thoughts. She had run away, afraid she was pregnant, he had followed her, and they had been captured.

  The voices came closer, rough men speaking in harsh tones, someone whimpered and there came the sound of flesh striking flesh. Rage washed through him, blotting out the pain at the base of his skull and as the sound of a door opening came from his left he crouched down, ready to leap forward to attack whoever was opening his prison.

  Light outlined the rectangular shape of a door, growing wider, spilling into the darkness that had shrouded him. Blinding him. He put his hands up to protect his eyes as daggers of pain lanced into each. He recognized Maria’s voice as she cried out, felt her stumble against his crouched figure, and he reached out to catch her, his hands coming in contact with bare flesh.

  She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her body close to his, the smell of excrement, blood, and semen rising up from her as the door swung closed.

  “Don’t you worry boy, your turns coming, a couple of the guys are looking forward to busting that young ass of yours.” A harsh voice said just before the light vanished as the door slammed shut. Rough laughter punctuated the comment, drifting away as silence filled the darkness around them.

  “Are you all right?”

  She shivered in his arms, clinging to his neck, and he leaned back to rest against the wall, stretching out his legs so Maria could lie against his body instead of the cold floor.

  “They hurt me,” she whispered, “I think I’m bleeding inside, I’m scared, I don’t want to die.”

  “It’ll be okay,” he said with a soothing voice, one hand caressing her head as he held her around the shoulder with the other. Something hot and wet soaked into his pants where she was sitting, as the smell of excrement and blood grew even stronger.

  Why didn’t I bring my guns? He worried to himself. If he had brought his guns none of this would be happening now. They would have killed their tormentors, or they would have died trying. Other worries arose, piling one atop the other.

  How would the others find them?

  Would they even look?

  Meat might look for them, but what about Window? They’d had their differences. Would Meat be able to handle these people on his own?

  He was getting ahead of himself. If they made it back from Richmond, if they came looking for them, if they were successful. A lot of ifs were slowly piling up against them as a more chilling thought stirred.

  How much longer would Maria be able to hold on? Based on the amount of blood that was even then soaking into his pants, how long would she survive?

  And when she passed? What then? She still had the virus in her, all of them did, and without precautions after her death she’d come after him.

  He shivered in response to the thought, imagining himself trapped in that dark steel room with a zombie that wouldn’t stop trying to eat him until it was dead.

  How would he be able to even hurt her knowing who it was?

  She whimpered in his lap and he pulled her even closer, wrapping both arms around her body as he tried to keep her warm and he waited for what was going to happen next.

  He understood at that moment that the world had become a savage place as those who had survived struggled to live. The world was indeed full of the haves, and the have-nots, and the paradigm had shifted. He and Maria had become the have-nots, held captive by the haves. Their captors had the freedom, they had the guns, and they had the power.

  What their captors said came to him. If they let him out of this place he was going to do everything in his power to destroy them, or die trying.

  It was the only thing he had left to cling to.

  Twenty Three

  Meat knew that smell, its familiarity reminded him of the room in the Widow Winslow’s house, the one filled with shelves that were crammed full of books. It was that unique scent of decay that was present in every library in the world, or had been before the awakening.

  The pages of a book were made of wood pulp that was susceptible to decay. Old books especially were prone to the decay that left the pages brittle enough to fall apart upon ones touch. It was this decay that created the smell known in libraries around the world. Libraries Meat had heard about but had never seen.

  As the others followed him into the building Meat stood and breathed deeply of the scent that surrounded him. Other odors mingled with it, the most prominent were mildew and a charred, burnt, scent that spoke of a long ago fire.

  At the end of a short hallway the room opened into a massive chamber surrounded on all sides by shelves of books whose spines created a patchwork image of various colors. There was enough light to see that there were two levels in the building, the second floor was more like a balcony that ran around along three walls. The front of the building had at one time been all glass, now it was open to he elements, the metal frames that once held the glass nothing more than skeletons.

  In the center of the first floor stood a massive circular desk where the librarians once worked to check out assorted works. Everything was now covered by a thick layer of dust, in one chair the skeletal remains of a librarian, who had obviously died at her post, sat as if she were waiting for a visitor to ask directions or check out their latest finds.

  Unable to control his curiosity Meat ran with wild abandon, his footsteps pounding up the steps to the second level where he raced from one shelf to the next. Taking down a book he held it reverently in his hands before carefully opening the cover. The pages crackled as he opened the book, fluttering in response to an unfelt breeze, the edges flaking away to fall to the floor at his feet. All that remained was the center of the page. Holding itself together briefly before it too crumbled away. The pages behind the first followed suit, creating a small pile at Meat’s feet as disappointment flooded him.

  A soft breeze stirred what remained of the pages in his hands and he looked up at the shattered remnants of the windows that once protected the contents of the library from the elements. It was as if blinders had fallen from his eyes and he saw the library as it really was, not as he had hoped it would be. Meat moved from shelf to shelf, his actions becoming more hurried as he found one after another book had become nothing but dust

  While Meat searched the shelves Window, Billie-Bob, and Gregory used the opportunity to relax as best they could in several of the molded plastic chairs next to the central desk. Billie-Bob kept glancing at the dead librarian leaning against the counter.

  “I wonder what it was like?” Billie-Bob said.

  “What?”

  “Life before all this happened, can you imagine a fast food place on every street corner? Supermarkets full of food.”

  “Is that all you think about? Food?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I think about a lot of things.” Window shrugged, since his confession to Meat he’d found himself wondering what it might have been like had the awakening not happened. He knew about cars, they had a couple at the Bluff that were used to transport workers to the coalfield that supplied the power plant. Then there was the barge they used to transfer the coal downriver.

  The cars ran on the alcohol produced from wood in a contraption they cal
led a gasifier. It heated the wood forcing it to sweat a form of glycol. One of the old timers told him it was the same process the Germans had used to fuel their cars during World War Two, a conflict that to Window was something that happened in ancient history even though it was less than a hundred years since. The barge operated on bio-diesel made from the field grass that was in ample supply

  He knew that some things would never return to normal and for that he was happy. From what he’d heard of the world before the awakening he understood that not everything was as rosy as many wanted to believe. There was crime, overcrowding, and a sinking economy that had sapped the hopes and dreams of many of those who once lived in the area.

  Wild Bill worked in the metal shop at the Bluff, a friend of the family Window had been taken in by, he had taken Window under his wing so to speak and had told him the truth about what it had been like before the awakening. The rampant unemployment, home foreclosures, and bankruptcies that had served to seriously weaken the economy. He called it the loss of the American Dream.

  To his way of thinking the Awakening had been a godsend. It had thinned the population considerably, forcing the survivors to work hard in order to survive in this new reality. Gone were the cell phones and computers that spewed a constant stream of garbage that had taken away man’s desire to survive.

  From the balcony above his head he heard Meat as he moved form rack to rack.

  “He acts like he’s never seen a book before,” Billie-Bob said.

  Window just shrugged as he watched. He knew what Meat was looking for, it was the same thing everybody else sought. Maybe not exactly, but pretty damned close.

  Twenty Four

  Dust, they were all dust. Meat moved to the next rack and pulled down a book, only to have it crumble in his hand. Everything lay at his feet, mankind’s hopes and dreams, his knowledge of the world around him, and the recounting of his past had all turned to dust. It was as if man had never existed, had only been a fanciful dream cooked up by a twisted god who loved a good practical joke.

  “How will we ever learn.” Meat said as he gazed at the pile of crumbled pages at his feet. A soft breeze blew through one of the shattered windows, stirring the pile of dust at his feet and he kicked out at it as he stalked across the balcony towards the stairs that led to the main floor.

  When he’d first looked at it from the forest he had thought the windows were still intact. They hadn’t been and everything inside had been opened to the elements, the heat of the fire having shattered the windows along the west wall. The rest had fallen prey to passing vandals in the past.

  They didn’t deserve this place, none of them did, and with a murderous rage bubbling in the pit of his stomach he reached the bottom of the steps and crossed to where Window and Billie-Bob were sitting.

  “Come on, let’s get ready to go.”

  “But we just got here.” Billie-Bob said.

  “Just do it, Billie-Bob,” Window said, his gaze fixed on Meat’s face, “we’re gonna do it aren’t we?”

  Meat nodded as he gathered up his things. Years ago he’d read a science fiction story about robots called berserkers, and how they had been programmed with a single mindedness focused solely on killing humans. That was how he felt at that moment; cold, emotionless, ready to destroy those that had destroyed the history of the world around them.

  Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. His father’s words whispered in his mind. As he walked across the main lobby towards the front doors he really began to understand what those words meant. Without history to guide them they would make the same mistakes as civilization struggled to rebound from the brink of extinction.

  Shouts came from beyond the door and each of them instinctively faded into the shadows as the sound of running feet came from outside, growing louder as they got closer. A young child darted into the interior of the library, panting and scared, he raced towards the desk at the center of the room, hiding behind it as two older boys cautiously entered the building.

  Meat watched quietly from one side, safely hidden by shadows, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. He saw Window on the other side of the main entrance across from him, his revolver in his hand as the older boys searched through the debris for the child they had been pursuing. The fourth hung back, watching the others.

  “Come out ya little bastard,” one of the older boys said.

  “Yeah, we ain’t gonna hurt ya, we just want to ask ya a couple of questions,” a second older boy said as they cautiously crept around the side of the circular desk the child hid behind.

  “I don’t see em,” the first older child said.

  “He’s in here, shitting himself, I can smell him. Keep looking, if we don’t bring him back Wasta will have our hides,” a third older boy said as he stepped into the library from the bright street. He blinked his eyes several times as they adjusted to the gloomy interior of the library. He turned his head and was looking right at Meat, their eyes locked and Meat saw the spark of recognition in the other’s gaze before it drifted down to the pistol at Meats side.

  The boy was about to say something when Meat brought up his pistol and fired a single shot. It had been a quick snapshot from the hip, but his aim was true and a bloody red spot appeared in the center of the older boys forehead as his head was kicked back by the impact of the round.

  Pandemonium erupted as the two older boys, now trapped in a deadly three-way crossfire, raced around in search of a way to escape. The sound of Window’s .44 hammered against Meat’s eardrums and he saw one of the boys spin around violently, the expanding round nearly taking his shoulder clean off in a spray of blood and bone. The third boy fared no better, trapped between Meat and Gregory his body jerked first one way then the other as intersecting rounds slammed into his body.

  As fast as it began it was over and as the smoke from their weapons drifted above their heads they heard the fourth boy outside fleeing down the street. Grabbing his rifle as he passed through the library, Gregory stepped outside and sighted down his scope. Meat had no idea how far away the boy had gotten, and he watched as Gregory steadied the rifle, before gently caressing the trigger. The rifle bucked in his hands, yet he kept his eye glued to the rubber eyepiece of the telescopic sight, riding the recoil as he lowered the muzzle to fire again if need be. Apparently it wasn’t needed as Gregory lowered his rifle and stood for a moment staring down the street.

  Stepping around the counter they found the older boy who had been wounded by Window. He was sprawled on his back, sweating profusely, his hand clamped over his shoulder as blood spurted from between his fingers. He wore a loincloth similar to the one the child at the barn had been wearing, and his flesh was covered by an array of strange tattoos. When he grimaced they could see that his teeth had been filed down to points.

  “Where are the kids you took from Bremo Bluff?” Meat said as he hunkered down next to the boy.

  “Fuck you,” the boy said.

  Meat slapped him across the face, jogging his head to the side, “I’m about done with the whole lot of you. Where are they?”

  His only response was a snarling glare. Window stepped over and placed the toe of his boot on the boy’s injured shoulder, slowly increasing the pressure as the boy screamed and squirmed beneath them.

  “He ain’t gonna last much longer.” Meat said, noting the darkness of the blood issuing from between the boys fingers. That was arterial blood, and soon he would pass out from loss of blood, dying shortly afterwards as his heart struggled to maintain pressure in a body that had been shattered.

  “I know where they are.” A young voice came from the shadows beneath the receptionist desk.

  “Shut up,” the older boy snarled weakly, his struggles diminishing as his lifeblood pumped from between his finger.

  Billie-Bob approached the dying boy, whispering softly as he knelt down and watched him die. “And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terribl
e teeth and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws.”

  “Please,” the boy whispered weakly, his eyes rolling up into his head, his foot shaking gently before becoming still. Billie-Bob closed his eyelids and retreated into the shadows as he whispered, “they roared their terrible roars, and gnashed their terrible teeth, and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws.”

  “It’s okay, it’s safe now,” Meat said as he coaxed the young boy out of the shadows beneath the receptionist desk.

  He was much younger and looked like he didn’t belong to the tribe or whatever that had kidnapped the children. He wore a torn and dirty pair of pants below a filthy tee shirt that at one time in the distant past, had possibly been white. He didn’t seem to have the rough edges that were common to other survivors. His hair was long, but had once been trimmed.

  “Where are you from?”

  The boy shrugged, “I don’t know, they took me from my parents during the winter.”

  “Why are they kidnapping children?”

  “To feed Wasta.”

  “What, who, what’s a Wasta?”

  The boy shuddered, obviously frightened by the memory, “I don’t know, when I first got there they put me in the same room with him.”

  “Is it a man?”

  The boy shook his head. “At one time maybe, but now he’s Wasta.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “I don’t know, it was always dark when they put me in there.”

  “You’ve been in more than once?”

  The boy shook his head, his bottom lip trembling as tears welled up in his eyes. “Please don’t put me back in there. I’ll do anything you want, but please don’t put me back in that room.”