Whatever It Takes To Survive

by Mike Staton

  With a sharp shriek, she lashed out with the knife. The edge skittered across the back of his hand and the rifle fell from his grasp.

  She whipped a kick at his knee as she drew the knife back.

  “Bitch!” Hall’s leg popped up and caught her roundhouse across his shin.

  She lashed out with the knife once more, the edge of it skirting close enough to draw blood across his midsection. He closed with a swift jab. Kat’s bloody hand shot to deflect the incoming blow, and pushed it from connecting solidly with her face to glancing off the side of her forehead.

  Stars popped into her field of vision as the world shrank for a moment. She felt his hand close on the back of her neck as his knee slammed into her solar plexus. A second later, she crashed into the barn’s floor. She gasped for air as her knife popped out of her hand.

  Hall sprang atop her in a split second, blood dripping from his ear splattered across her face. His hands latched onto either side of her stolen jacket and shirt and ripped them open in one swift movement.

  Kat’s senses came back to her as Hall’s hands ripped her belt away. She brought her fist up and around to the side of Hall’s head. It twisted with the blow, and her hand throbbed with the impact.

  Hall’s head whipped back to her with a growl. One hand whipped back and thrust forward in a vicious punch. Kat ducked her head away just in time to have the punch thump into floor by her head. She growled back at him and bucked her hips back away from him.

  “Fight all y’want. Just going to make this more fun fer me.” Hall snaked his hand behind her neck as his head bent toward her.

  “Fuck. You.” Kat whipped her head forward and crunched the crown of her head into his nose. Hall bucked back, and whipped his bloody hand across her face.

  Stars popped into her vision with the impact. Hall’s hands rushed down her body, not bothering to stymie the flow of blood from his nose, to her jeans. He grabbed on either side of the button and wrenched them open.

  As Kat’s vision cleared, Hall’s weight lifted off her and a hand closed on her ass and shoulder. A second later she slammed face first onto the cold, dirty ground. She let the air gush out of her lungs and sucked fresh oxygen in as her gaze locked onto her lost knife.

  She scrabbled to her hands and knees and made it two crawling strides before Hall’s hand clamped down on the back of her neck and pushed her face down against the straw. She felt the cold, winter air graze her bared backside as his other hand wrenched both jeans and panties out of the way.

  “No. No. No!” Kat shrieked to the chorus of his pant’s buttons coming undone. She twisted beneath him, shoving her hand out toward her knife.

  “I’m gonna have me some fun, you little bitch.” Hall forced himself between her legs behind her, hot, hard cock against her rear as he spit down on her.

  Kat’s mind went frantic, the little animal she usually kept so carefully in check clawed its way out of its cage. She let out a primal yell and jerked away from him and closed her hand around the hilt of the knife. She whipped it back and into his side.

  Hall gasped and jerked away from her. He closed back on her quicker than she’d expected and she stabbed again. His large, strong hand, closed around her shoulder as he tilted to the side and she moved with him.

  She rolled with the large man, coming to a halt atop him. Her knife flicked through the air and fingers and blood splattered across the straw around them.

  “You bitch!” Hall howled in pain and reared up.

  Kat let out another yell, brought her boot up and crunched it against his arm at the elbow. In another instant, she’d buried the knife in his shoulder. The blade flashed up and back down, this time into his chest. Her frenzy drove her to quickly whip the knife out and back into him, deeper and deeper. Each swift movement created another bloody hole with every descent.

  She kept stabbing until a hand dropped onto her shoulder when she drove the knife into Hall’s long still throat and spun toward the new assailant.

  Chapter 29

  Percival watched the man disappear into the barn. He cast one glance toward the farmhouse, which’d fallen silent and still, and popped up from his laying position.

  “Come on.” He didn’t wait for Judith to answer him as he jogged across the snowy yard with his M16 raised. He cleared the distance and pressed himself against the barn’s wall, wishing he had night vision built into his motorcycle helmet.

  Judith caught up with him a moment later. “Plan?”

  “Bitch!” the deep man’s voice echoed out of the barn.

  Percival crouched and prepared to swivel into the barn. “Sweep and clear. Watch for friendlies, so no firing without confirmation. You press left, I’ll go right.”

  Judith’s head bobbed in a quick nod.

  Percival raised his fist and three fingers. He counted down on his fingers and gestured for Judith to wheel into the barn. He followed on her heels, splitting to the right.

  The barn was lit from somewhere deeper inside, likely the light from the man’s M16. If he were there with it, it wouldn’t take long to find them. If not…

  “Fuck. You.” Kat’s voice echoed through the barn, impossible to actually figure the direction from which it was coming.

  “We’re comin’, Kat.” He cursed the poor acoustics of the barn. Percival stalked past hay bales and barn stalls. He swept around every corner, the sounds of a struggle getting louder the deeper he moved through the barn. He lead with his rifle, ready to empty the magazine into whatever asshole had his hands on Kat.

  “No. No. NO!”

  Kat’s shrieks drove spiraling spikes of dread and fear through Percival’s insides. He rose from the cautious crouch he’d adopted and sprinted in the direction he thought he’d heard her scream.

  “You bitch!” The man shouted and accompanied it with a howl of pain as the fight Percival could hear escalated.

  He sprinted toward the sounds and rounded the corner of a stack of hay bales. Wet, thick thwacks reached his ears as he rounded the corner.

  Kat straddled the big man’s chest, one knee on the blood strewn floor, her other boot planted firmly on the man’s left arm. Even if the arm looked to be barely attached, judging from the deep gash in it.

  Percival stopped, M16 falling to its sling, and stared at the brutality Kat rendered into the corpse. She whipped a knife through the air, driving it down into his chest. Each downward stroke opened a new hole in the man. It was obvious he’d not be moving without being infected with the zombie virus, though it didn’t stop her motions.

  Percival slipped his rifle off and crossed the intervening distance. He got a better look at Kat and the man. Her jeans still sat at an awkward angle, as though they’d been pulled down, but not back up properly. The man’s fly was undone and his member out to the air.

  “Kat?” Percival said quietly. When she didn’t respond, he lightly placed his hand on her shoulder.

  The knife in her hands jammed down into the man’s neck, right through his throat. She gave a vicious twist and he heard the vertebrae pop before she spun toward him.

  Her clothes, he assumed stolen from someone in the farmhouse, were ripped down the middle exposing blood covered bra and stomach to the air. Her jeans bore the same blood spattered appearance and desecration that would make Carrie envious. Her fist lost all its power and thudded limply against his chest as she recognized him. Her features twisted from vicious anger to relief.

  Percival sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, ignoring the gore she was covered in. She sagged against him, trembling with a soft sob rocking her gore covered form.

  “Come on, let’s get you somewhere safer.” He eased her to standing over the destroyed man and helped her away.

  *

  Percival ignored the cold through his long sleeved t-shirt. He’d shed his leather jacket and put Kat in it. She’d left the stolen and destroyed shirt and jacket behind on Hall’s body. Judith had taken the time to bind the graze on Kat’s arm before they return
ed to the farmhouse.

  “Stay with her. I’ll clear the way.” Percival lifted his M16 and moved through the backdoor.

  He cleared the kitchen and swept through to the hallway. He spared one glance at the dead man at by the front door before checking the rest of the room. The furniture, an over-stuffed couch, rocking chair, and recliner, had all been shoved to the inner wall.

  Lieutenant Adams stood by the front window. Three figures, two in digital military camouflage BDUs, one stripped to the waist with a bandage wrapped around his head, sat on their knees, hands zip tied to their ankles.

  “Sitrep?” Lieutenant Adams twisted to face him.

  Percival turned to look back down the bullet riddled hallway. “All clear.”

  “Contacts?”

  “Neutralized. Mostly by Kat.” Percival brought his gaze back to Lieutenant Adams. Kat hadn’t said much more than that.

  “Is she…” Lieutenant Adams’s voice died in her throat.

  Kat stepped through the entrance to the living room.

  “Oh God…” Lieutenant Adams’s helmeted head locked on Kat’s bloodied form.

  * * *

  Kat deviated from Judith’s side and scooped the meat tenderizer from the kitchen floor. She still felt shaky and sick. That sadistic jackass had nearly raped her before she made far more holes in him than he’d come with. And having a weapon in hand made her feel safer.

  She moved with purpose after Judith. They’d come after her. Not that she’d truly had any doubt that they would. They were friends. They were family.

  She stepped around the corner and pointedly didn’t look at the body by the front door. Her gaze found Krista by the front window.

  “Oh God…” Krista’s words rattled around Kat’s head.

  She didn’t look nearly as bad as when Percival’d gotten to her. His jacket helped cover her nakedness and hid the blood, Hall’s blood, which coated her skin. But apparently she still looked like she’d been through hell and back. Which, in a sense, she had.

  “I’m fine.” Kat could hear the iciness in her voice. The words hit Krista like a bat and the proud special ops woman staggered a step.

  Kat’s gaze came down to the three kneeling in front of Krista. She only recognized one; the man stripped to his waist. He’d survived her assault. A part of her felt a burning fire to see the man’s brains dashed to the floor.

  She closed her eyes and stalked across the room and around in front of the three.

  “You unruly, sadistic, fucking, assholes.” The words dripped with the venom she’d felt since first walking into the destroyed Prosperity Wells. She moved forward. These remaining three of the rogue militants all had a hand in destroying the place she’d called home. The place she’d formed a family out of strangers.

  Family she’d seen killed over the last month. She shook her head, battling with the demons of rage in her core. Her fist closed tight around the meat tenderizer in her hand. She’d put down so many of these bastards already. What was three more?

  Valerie’s face flashed before her eyes as she swept her eyes closed. Heidi’s face flickered before her, dead because of Kat’s failure to protect her on two different fronts.

  Dan’s reanimated face snapping back to the cot behind him as Kat pulled the trigger and put him back down. Even Samuel’s strong and kind face came to her. Every death could be laid at these people’s feet and she’d traveled so far to bring them to HER justice.

  And that hadn’t included the assault to her person. She could understand the beating she’d taken in the church’s basement. That’d been nothing more than two opposing forces colliding. She’d done her best to beat them as soundly as they’d done her. But the treatment she’d received in the basement of this farmhouse?

  She shook with fury. Time slowed as she raised the meat tenderizer.

  Percival and Krista started toward her. Percival’s hand stretched out toward her. Krista’s feet moved comically slow.

  Dolphi looked up at her. His gaze focused on her, then the meat tenderizer descending toward him.

  “No! Please, don’t!” He flinched away from the oncoming blow. His eyes slammed shut. “Without me, there’s no chance for a cure!”

  Kat stopped the meat tenderizer just before impacting against Dolphi’s head. “What’d you say?”

  Percival’s hand closed on her wrist.

  “A cure… There’s a chance for a cure.” Dolphi’s eye opened a crack.

  To Be Concluded...

  About the Author

  Mike Staton lives with his wife and two cats. He’s an avid practitioner of martial arts and enjoys contemplating how he’d best tackle the zombie apocalypse. Mostly that involves his hobby of running. If you’ve enjoyed this piece of fiction he can be reached at: IdyllAdventuerer@gmail.com