He hissed and bucked his hips.
“Just hold still, now. Don’t bite.”
His teeth clacked together, but she jerked the sack over his head and jumped back without getting bitten. She stood for a moment with her hands over her mouth, trembling, then turned and went to fetch the axe.
Just do it fast. Don’t even think about it, she advised herself.
But when she returned, axe in hand, she saw that he had fallen still. He had quit struggling, was no longer even snarling.
She watched the burlap sack turn left and right. It reminded her of a kitten with its head stuck in a box. And then he made a befuddled whimpering sound in his throat, and she thought: I can’t do it. Not like this either.
10 . Brother Robin, Brother Crow
It was the tinkle of breaking glass that awakened her.
Rachel sat up with a yelp, not sure for a moment where and when she was. She blinked around the basement, reorienting herself. She might have thought she’d dreamed the sound, but Charlie had heard it, too. He made an inquisitive groan beneath the burlap sack she’d pulled over his head. His hood turned blindly to and fro as he tried to pin down the direction the noise had come from. She knew where it had come from, however.
It came from upstairs.
She turned on the cot and put her feet on the floor, wondering how long she’d been asleep. She couldn’t tell what time it was in the basement. There were no windows, just vents up near the ceiling. It could be day or night, midnight or noon. She was not one of those people who could tell time by the rhythm of their body. Never had been. The last thing she remembered was lying down on the cot next to her husband’s bed. She’d leaned the axe next to her headboard—just in case he decided to misbehave—but he’d remained calm, and she had dozed off shortly after, more emotionally exhausted than she was physically exhausted.
She heard a scraping sound, and then a thump and the furtive creak of a board as someone—or something—crept across the floor overhead.
At first she thought it was one of the Frobishers, that one of the Frobisher clan had broken through a window and gotten inside, and she despaired, thinking she was stuck down in the basement now, wouldn’t be able to venture upstairs until the invader (or invaders) wandered back outside again.
But the more she listened to the furtive noises above her, the more she believed there was purpose behind the movements. She heard what sounded like rummaging, someone going through the kitchen drawers, opening and shutting the cabinet doors. She didn’t think any of the Frobishers had the mental capacity to search the kitchen. What would brainless zombies need from there anyway?
Then she heard what could only be muffled conversation, and she almost wept for joy.
Someone had come to rescue her!
She leapt to her feet and had crossed half the distance to the stairs when she faltered. What if they weren’t nice people? What if the interlopers were scavengers? What if they were up there looting the Frobishers’ valuables? She was on her own now, defenseless, her knight in shining armor tied to the cot next to the canned foods. She was small, even for a woman. She’d never been in a real fight in her life, just one lame catfight in high school, and she had even lost that. She wasn’t sure she could protect herself if the people she heard moving around upstairs were bad guys.
And then again, what if they were good people? What if they did offer to rescue her? They would expect her to come with them, abandon her husband, or worse, come down here and put Charlie out of his misery, which was something she didn’t think she could abide.
Rachel chewed her bottom lip, looking over her shoulder at Charlie.
From upstairs: muted laughter. A chair scraped across the floor.
Rachel returned to her cot and hefted the axe, then padded to the stairs and slowly made her way up them. She listened to the newcomers as she ascended, trying to make sense of their low conversation.
She heard the deep-pitched voice of a man. More than one, she believed. It was that or a solitary interloper who talked to himself, which did not bode well for her. She couldn’t quite make out what was being said. It might have been “let’s keep looking for survivors” but it might also have been “let’s burn this fucking place down”, and it was that uncertainty that kept her from calling out to them.
One of the risers creaked as she put her weight on it, and she winced, hoping no one had heard it. She intended to listen at the door before making up her mind what to do.
She got to the top of the stairs and placed her ear against the door. She listened for what seemed like several minutes but heard nothing else. The movement and low conversation had fallen silent.
Was she too slow? Had they moved on already? Had she missed her chance?
She imagined some fire and rescue team, or a troop of national guardsmen, withdrawing to their convoy out in the driveway, getting ready to move on to the next house to search for survivors. “Nobody here,” their captain would be saying. “Let’s move out!”
Desperation bolted through her. Hands shaking, she unlocked the basement door and flung it open, ready to dash out in the yard and wave down her imagined champions. The light of the Coleman lantern leapt from the stairwell, slanting across the kitchen floor, over the table, and halfway up the apple-bedecked wallpaper on the other side of the kitchen. It was nighttime. The Frobisher home was an inky black box, save the charmless white ribbon of light that unspooled from the basement doorway.
She dashed out into the kitchen, praying it was not too late. She expected to see the splash of her rescuers’ headlights as their vehicles turned in the driveway, heading out.
“Wait!” she shouted.
Someone snatched the axe from her grasp.
She had cocked it across her right shoulder as she climbed the stairs. She didn’t see who grabbed it as she leapt clear of the basement doorway, but he yanked it from her with enough force to make her stumble backwards.
A moment later, a glaring light blinded her. Someone standing near the foyer was shining a flashlight directly in her eyes. She squinted into the glare, but couldn’t make out the man’s features, only the outline of his body.
“Hey!” she yelped as large rough hands seized her upper arms from behind. Someone had been lurking behind the door. They must have heard her creeping up the basement steps and laid in wait for her. “Let me go!”
“Well, now, lookee what I found, Brother Robin!” the man holding her shoulders said, and her heart sank.
She knew that voice! It was the creep who’d given them a ride the day before, the one who’d tried to take her out in the woods and rape her!
“This gal look familiar to ya?” he asked his brother.
“Sure does,” the light-blinder, Brother Robin, said. “Ain’t this a nice coincidence? We didn’t think we’d ever see you again! What are you doing here at the Frobishers’, honey?”
Rachel blinked into the light. She tried to bring her hands up and shade her eyes, but her captor held her immobile. She turned her head aside, a swirl of green dots and streaks obscuring her vision. “Please, just let me go!” Rachel pled, wriggling in the other man’s hands.
Brother Robin stepped forward, shining the light up and down her body. “You been bit, honey?”
“What?”
“Are you infected?”
“No!” Rachel answered. “I’m not infected!”
“That’s good. It’d be a shame to have to brain somebody as purty as you,” the man with the flashlight replied. “Where’s your boyfriend, girlie? He down in the basement, too?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my husband,” she replied. “And no, he’s not down in the basement. He’s dead! He caught the Phage and died.”
That’s what they’d called it on TV. The Phage. It even sounded deadly.
She prayed Charlie didn’t start growling or shaking the bed right then. She didn’t want either of these men going into the basement. She knew what they would do to Charlie if they did. He was hel
pless, tied to the bed. Men like these two, they’d make a game of it, have some fun with him before putting him out of his misery. Zombie or not, she didn’t want her husband to die. Especially at the hands of these two buttholes.
“That’s too bad,” the guy holding her said. “My condolences. It’s hard to lose a loved one. Our brother Lark got it, too. We had to put him down yesterday.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning exactly the opposite, but they didn’t catch the sarcasm in her voice, or if they did they chose not to respond to it.
“Thank you. That’s a kind thing to say.”
“You’re nice,” the other brother said. “It’s nice to try and make somebody feel better when they’ve lost a loved one. It shows compassion.”
She couldn’t see either of them clearly, her eyes were too dazzled, but she could smell them just fine, and the odors her nose reported to her brain were not reassuring: smell of sweaty, unwashed flesh, filthy, unlaundered clothing, blood, soot, and the mushroomy funk of semen.
She might be a virgin, but Rachel knew that sour miasma when she smelled it. She had a younger brother who’d gone through a nasty I’m-not-taking-a-shower-this-month phase when he was sixteen. Her girlfriend had called that smell “jizzass”, most notably while visiting Rachel to work on a school project one evening. Her brother, who had a crush on the girl, had overhead. Her friend Christy had been a cheerleader, with a way of speaking that could flay a man’s ego to the bone. That was the night Billy started bathing again.
“So what are you doing here?” Brother Robin asked. “This ain’t your house.”
“Hiding.”
“Hiding from what?”
“From everybody,” Rachel said.
“Where are the Frobishers?” Brother Robin asked.
“I don’t know. The house was empty when I got here. The door was standing open, so I came in. The basement seemed like the safest room in the house to sleep in.”
Brother Robin looked at his sibling. “Sorry, Crow. Looks like Nancy done flew the coop.”
“Who’s Nancy?” Rachel asked.
“The Frobisher’s daughter. Brother Crow here kind of has a thing for her. We figured we’d come and see if she wanted some protection.”
“What’s your name?” Brother Crow asked Rachel, turning her with his hands so he could look at her face.
“R-Rachel,” she stammered. “Stop shining that light in my eyes, please!”
“Hey! You don’t give the orders around here, missy!” Brother Robin snarled.
“Anyone else here with you?” Brother Crow asked.
“How’d you get away from your husband?” Brother Robin asked.
“You kill him or just run away?”
“He try to eat you?”
She couldn’t think straight, their questions were coming at her so fast. The brother who’d grabbed her arms kept yanking her around like she was an inanimate object. She tried to pull away, but his grip on her arms tightened.
“I’ll answer your questions, just let me go!” she cried.
“You’ll hold still and answer us is what you’ll do, or we’ll make you regret it,” her captor replied, and the menace in his voice cranked her fear up another notch. These were not gentlemen.
“Hey, bro, you remember what we was talking about earlier?” the man with the flashlight said.
Brother Crow chuckled, a lascivious laugh that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Yeah, I do,” he replied, then to her: “Congratulations, hon. Nancy’s out. Looks like you get to be our first recruit.”
“Recruit for what?” Rachel asked.
“For our harem,” Brother Crow answered.
She started fighting in earnest then. They fell on her, laughing. One of the men struck her across the face with his open hand. She couldn’t tell which one it was, but the blow made her see stars and left her ears ringing. The flashlight swung to and fro, their shadows rocking up and down the kitchen walls. She tried to kick the guy with the flashlight, but he jumped out of the way.
“Gory, but she’s a fighter!” Brother Robin laughed. “This one’s got some fire in her belly. We’ll have to break her.”
“Maybe we ought to sample the merchandise first,” Brother Crow said with a guffaw. “Make sure she’s worth the bother.”
“You kiddin’? All pussy’s worth the bother!”
“Not all of it. I’ve had some pretty worthless pussy.”
“Come on, Crow! Let’s fuck her right here on the kitchen table.”
The one holding her said indulgently: “All right, little bro. Just do it quick, you savvy? I wanna head home before it’s gets too much later.”
Brother Robin set his flashlight on the kitchen counter, angled away from her. In the backwash of its brilliant glow, she finally saw him.
It was one of the men she’d seen the other morning, the one who’d sat by the passenger door. He was short but handsome, with shoulder length blond hair and boyish features. He wasn’t much older than she was either, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. He was dressed in blue jeans and a red flannel shirt, and he was armed Old West style, with crisscrossed gun belts and a pair of revolvers strapped to his hips. The fact that he was handsome made her even more desperate for some reason, and she redoubled her efforts to escape.
The man behind her grunted, trying to hang onto her. “Hold still!” he snapped. “Quit squirming, girl!”
Brother Robin took off his gun belts and slung them onto the countertop beside his flashlight. “Toss her ass up there on the table,” he said, and then he caught one of her flailing legs.
“Please, don’t do this,” Rachel pleaded. She yelped as the two men hefted her onto the kitchen table. “No!” she cried as the handsome one unsnapped her jeans and peeled them down her thighs. “Please, don’t! I’ve never done it before! I’m a virgin!”
Brother Robin gawped up at her.
“No shit?” Brother Crow asked, after a beat of surprised silence.
“Yes,” Rachel admitted, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I was waiting… for my wedding night.”
“Bullshit!” Brother Robin snorted. “You said that feller you was with was your husband.”
“We just got married,” she sobbed. “We were going to Myrtle Beach for our honeymoon.”
“Suuure,” Brother Robin laughed, and then he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and ripped the delicate undergarment off.
Brother Crow whistled.
“Nice, huh?” Brother Robin said, looking from her crotch to his brother.
“Uh-huh,” Brother Crow said. “That’s sexy as hell.”
Rachel stopped fighting then. She knew it would do no good. She was outnumbered, overpowered, and they were determined to have their way with her. She could not escape, and if she continued to struggle they would only be more violent with her. In their lust they were no better than the mindless monsters spawned by the Phage, appetite without conscience. Better to give them what they craved and hope for mercy when they were satisfied.
Brother Robin unsnapped his jeans. He pushed his pants and underwear to mid-thigh and shuffled toward her, following the bobbing head of his erection to the object of its desire. Rachel allowed him to pull her to the edge of the kitchen table and lift her legs. A cold breeze swirled between her thighs. She felt his organ prod her vulva and winced.
“Damn, girl, you’re bone dry!” Brother Robin complained, and his sibling laughed uproariously.
“Spit on it,” Brother Crow suggested. “Did you think she was gonna be wet for you?”
Brother Robin leaned between her legs and went, “Ptchew!” She felt his saliva spatter her groin.
“If you really are a virgin prepare to have your cherry popped,” he said, grinning up at her between her knees.
Rachel looked down at the face hovering over her pubis. Her eyes went wide. Creeping up behind him was Old Man Frobisher.
Still dead, and still wearing his bloody bib overalls, he stepped in
to the glare of the flashlight like an actor on a stage. The brothers must have left the door open when they broke in, she realized, like absent-minded teenagers. They must not have seen the monsters wandering outside in the dark.
Rachel tried to scream, but no sound came out of her. It was like her voice box had vapor locked. She tried to roll off of the table, but the brothers seized her roughly, pinning her back down. Neither of them had noticed the monster, they were so intent on her.
Pa Frobisher stepped into the kitchen, head lowered like a stalking predator, eyes narrowed to slits. He reached for Robin.
Brother Crow finally noticed the revenant creeping up behind his brother. “Oh, Jesus!” he cried.
Missus Frobisher stepped into the light then. She stood blinking in the glare, her mangled jaw opening and closing mechanically, teeth clacking, and then she hurried forward.
“Robby, look out--!” Crow yelled, but his warning came just a moment too late.
Pa Frobisher seized Rachel’s would-be rapist by his hair and jerked his head back. Snarling, his mouth dipped to the crook of the handsome young man’s neck. Brother Robin shrieked as the big monster tore out a good-sized chunk of his flesh.
A jet of blood from her rapist’s severed carotid sprayed across Rachel’s groin and belly. Rachel had frozen in horror, but the hot spurt of the man’s blood shocked her from her paralysis. She rolled from the table and fell to the floor on her hands and knees.
Brother Robin raised his hand in the air, appealing to his sibling for help, but Pa Frobisher grabbed his wrist and bit into his neck again. The young man’s penis gulped as he ejaculated into the swelling pool of blood at his feet. Pa Frobisher wiggled his face back and forth, sinew crunching, and Rachel’s rapist sagged in the big man’s deadly embrace, boots skidding on the bloody linoleum.
Brother Crow stumbled across Rachel as she scurried on her hands and knees for the basement. He was running around the table to help his sibling. Ma Frobisher darted around her husband at the same time and tackled him NFL -style. With a harridan’s shriek, she took him to the floor and began to claw at his face. He tried to hold her back by pushing up her chin, but his hand slipped on her gooey mangled flesh and a couple of his fingers slid between her teeth.
'Til Death (The Fearlanders) Page 5
