Lone Wolf: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (America Falls - Occupied Territory Book 1)

by Scott Medbury

  Every hour or so, Jack would head to Dawson’s house and hammer on the door and call out asking if he’d seen Katie. There was never a reply, but each time, Jack knew the man was in there, he could feel him, probably just waiting for him to make the mistake of breaking in the door.

  “Do you think we’re keeping him busy enough to stay away from Katie?” he asked Danny upon returning from his fourth visit to Dawson’s front door.

  “I do, I saw the curtains on that room on the second story moving just then. If he’s got her, I’m pretty sure she’s in the basement. I mean that’s what all the psychos seem to do, right?”

  “She could be up there though…”

  Danny put a hand on his arm.

  “Jack, we’ve waited this long, nothing’s changed since we made the decision to start this. If we try to break in, he’ll use the shotgun. The shutters are down on all the side windows and you can be sure he’s barricaded the back door. We need him to be off guard when we make our move.”

  Jack nodded, his face unhappy. He felt like Dawson had all the control in this situation and it was driving him nuts.

  “We have one thing in our favor. He doesn’t know we’ve seen the body of the kid – that part of the neighbor’s yard is blocked from his view by the trees – and with you waltzing up there and knocking on the door he won’t suspect it. So, he doesn’t know that we know what he’s willing to do. I say we wait for the sun to set, then try knocking one more time before we get in the car and drive out.”

  “He’ll wonder why we left without trying harder.”

  “Will he?” asked Danny. “I think he’ll be so eager to get back to his prize that he won’t ask too many questions. Maybe we should have a mock argument in the street, where I convince you we can’t hang around any longer. He doesn’t even have to hear us as long as he gets that we had a disagreement and that I won.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good, it’s going to get dark in about an hour. Let’s go back to your house and work out a plan of attack.”

  12

  Dawson had run down from his study, surprisingly agile for a heavyset man, when he saw young Jack approaching his property for the fourth time. He was becoming more and more frustrated with every passing hour. All he wanted to do was get back down to Katie and instead he had to monitor what these two young idiots were doing.

  Just as Jack climbed up onto his porch, he reached the front door and pointed his shotgun at the white painted hardwood.

  Come on you little shit. Break in, I dare ya.

  Again though, the kid turned away when he didn’t answer the knock or the calls. Dawson nearly screamed in frustration. He decided that next time he would pull the door open himself and shoot the kid where he stood. He ran back up the stairs, shotgun in hand, and pulled the curtain aside to see what the little bastards were up to.

  He quickly dropped it when he saw the other kid looking directly up at him. He knew the kid couldn’t have seen much besides the curtain moving, but he gave it a minute before he peered through a little more carefully.

  They were backing the car out of the Connor’s driveway. He silently willed them to keep going once they were on the road, but they turned back into Jack’s driveway, and got back out and headed inside.

  They’d done a good job of looting the neighbor’s houses and Dawson briefly wondered if he should have been out doing that too. No, he had more important things to attend to. After he’d had some fun with Katie, he could begin to worry about more practical matters, like keeping them both alive for a long, long time.

  The boys obviously had a plan. If they were loading up the car, it indicated they wouldn’t be hanging around, otherwise why not just use a wheelbarrow to move the goods into the house? The question was, would they come looking for Katie again before they left?

  Before he’d been spotted at the window, he supposed there’d been a chance they might have thought he’d gone, with or without Katie, but even they couldn’t be dumb enough to believe it now.

  After five minutes of watching the house across the road he grew bored. He looked at the dead computer regretfully before putting his shotgun down and unlocking the desk drawer. He slowly opened it and pulled out his ‘Katie’ file.

  It was a black plastic folder with clear display sleeves. In each was a piece of A4 paper upon which he had printed out color pictures of Katie. They were images he’d saved and printed from her Instagram and Facebook pages.

  He took it back to the window and flicked through them, glancing occasionally across the road. It was a 50-page folder and it was packed full of color images. One thing he’d discovered since he began stalking Katie was that teenage girls weren’t shy about taking pictures, obviously thinking very little about who might be watching when they opened that little window to their life.

  Unfortunately, Katie was modest in comparison to some of her friends that he’d stalked by default. He found plenty of bikini shots, selfies in underwear and suggestive images of them, but Katie was always better than that.

  It had only made him want her more.

  By the time he got to the last page and his favorite picture of Katie, the sun was going down and the two boys still hadn’t emerged from the house. He slipped his fingers into the sleeve and pulled out the paper. He dropped the folder on the desk and held up the paper like a doctor holding up an x-ray. The image was Katie next to one of her slutty friends, her hair down and wearing a clingy black dress that hung mid-thigh on her. She wore pearl drop earrings and looked tanned and beautiful and much more mature than her sixteen years.

  Dawson’s eyes took in every line, every curve, every inch of her, suddenly in disbelief that he had this gorgeous creature in his basement and awaiting his pleasure.

  He decided that their first ‘tryst’ shouldn’t be in the basement. She was worth so much more than that and why would he hide her away when he had inherited the whole world? There was no one to stop him.

  No.

  Tonight, they would share a meal and wine in his kitchen… and that dress, she just had to wear that dress.

  He slipped the paper back into its sleeve and put the folder away before locking the drawer again. First things first, he would need to deal with the boy and his friend now. He picked up the shotgun and headed downstairs but then paused in the hallway, thinking for a second before turning back into the kitchen.

  He thought he could afford a few minutes to check on Katie.

  13

  Katie had indeed heard Jack calling her name. It had been faint, and at first, she’d wondered if it was her mind playing tricks on her. Hungry and thirsty, she had lost track of time, the blindfold effectively leaving her in permanent darkness and her mind wandering from scenario to scenario as she tried to predict what would happen next. To add insult to injury, for the last two hours, she had been bursting to pee.

  The one constant was Jack’s intermittent calling.

  I’m down here!

  No matter how much she tried to send that thought to him, his voice would fade away and seemingly give up within a few minutes. Her feelings when that happened were always mixed. Relief and disappointment. While she wanted to be rescued, she also wanted Jack out of harm’s way and knew from what she had witnessed that day, Dawson wouldn’t hesitate to shoot whoever got in his way, including Jack.

  Hours went by and she began to will Jack to give up looking for her. If she was going to get out of this, it would be on her own. She just had to hope that Dawson would get sloppy. A short while after she had this thought, she heard the door at the top of the stairs open and close. It had been about thirty minutes since she had last heard Jack call her name.

  She felt a stab of adrenaline. Was this Jack come to rescue her? Or Dawson coming to gloat... or worse. She strained, listening to the soft footfalls and accompanying sighs from the old wooden steps.

  She sensed someone next to her and her hope that it was Jack faded. He wouldn’t have just stood over her. No, it was the creep again. Te
ars of disappointment stung her eyes, but she refused to allow herself to cry.

  “Let’s get that blindfold off, why don’t we?”

  She felt his hands on the blindfold and Katie gladly raised her head to assist her captor undo the knot. Being tied up and isolated in a basement was bad enough, being blind only made it worse. Even though there was only dim light from a kerosene lamp on the workbench against the long wall, Katie had to blink rapidly for a few seconds as her eyes adjusted.

  Dawson stood over her, smiling as if he had done her a huge favor by removing her blindfold. She sneered at him and looked away in a small act of defiance.

  “That’s okay. I know you’re upset. I have some water for you. Are you thirsty?”

  She looked back at him reluctantly. He held up a clear plastic water bottle and waggled it in the air. Katie had never seen anything look so good. She nodded.

  “Okay, I’m going to take out your gag, but if you scream or cuss me it’ll go right back in, you hear?”

  She nodded again.

  “Okay, good girl.”

  A few seconds later he pulled the horrid ball out of her mouth, Katie gasped in relief.

  “I need to pee,” she blurted, as he lowered the water bottle to her lips.

  “Oh, I’ve been a bad host,” he said with a chagrined look. “Sorry I was distracted by... stuff. You have a drink and then I’ll take you to the bathroom.”

  Katie sipped the warm water as he held the mouth of the bottle to her lips. Some spilled out and over her chin, but she didn’t care. She guzzled as much as she could.

  “Wow, you’re thirsty. Nearly drained the bottle. Now, I’m going to unshackle you, same rule as the gag. If you play up, you’re going straight back on and I don’t care if you pee your pants, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  She looked at him confused and then it dawned on her what he wanted.

  “Sir?”

  “That’ll do for now. Whenever your gag is out, you’ll call me sir. Understand?”

  Fuck you.

  “Yes sir.”

  After freeing her from the shackles, he secured her hands in front with a new set of handcuffs and led her up the stairs into the kitchen. A solitary candle sat on the counter, burning with a soft glow. Dawson pulled her towards it and picked it up before leading her down into the main hall to the bathroom. Katie glanced longingly at the front door, barely visible in the faint glow of the candle.

  Dawson opened the bathroom door and led her into the bathroom. He placed the candle on the sink and looked at her.

  “I’m going to take off the handcuffs, so you can do your business, but I’ll be right outside the door. The window is nailed shut and this door can’t be locked from your side, so don’t get any ideas. If you try anything, I’ll be in here in a flash and you’ll never pee or poop on your own again. Understand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good girl,” he said, and took off her cuffs. Much to her disgust, he patted her backside as he walked out. “Remember, I’m right outside the door.”

  Katie swallowed her anger and revulsion at the casual molestation and watched until the door had clicked shut. She ran to the shaving cabinet. The shelves had been stripped. Same for the cupboard beneath the sink.

  Goddammit.

  There was nothing in the bathroom she could use as a weapon or tool to get out. Not so much as a bobby pin. Feeling down but not defeated, she sat on the toilet and took care of her most pressing need. Her captor appeared to have thought of everything, but she knew she would eventually find some crack in his armor, hopefully before he put his filthy hands on her again.

  “Are you finished in there!?” he called through the door, causing her to jump.

  “Nearly sir.”

  Katie finished up and went to the sink. She washed her hands and splashed cold water on her face, staring into the mirror a long time before using the clean hand towel to dry her face.

  “I’m done,” she called.

  The door opened instantly, and he stepped in holding up the cuffs on one finger.

  “Hands out please.”

  Katie did as she was told and was soon being led out of the bathroom. They had only just re-entered the hallway when light splashed across the front of the house. Dawson’s reaction was instantaneous; he blew out the candle and let it drop to the floor and gripped Katie by the upper arm, pushing her back into the bathroom before pulling the door closed.

  She heard a click and realized he had locked her in. A second later she heard the unmistakable pump of a shotgun. With her heart beating a hundred miles an hour, she put her ear to the door.

  14

  “I think we should go now,” said Jack.

  It was the third time he had said something similar. Danny looked at his Samsung phone, which was down to 20 percent battery life. It was 6:26pm and the sun had been down for almost an hour.

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  Jack jumped out of his seat.

  “Let’s go.”

  They headed out to the car, Danny carrying the backpack with the handgun inside, along with an aluminum baseball bat, its handle protruding from the top. Jack climbed behind the wheel. He didn’t waste any time starting the car, but Danny put his hand on the shifter before Jack could put it in reverse.

  “You should back out in a wide circle, so the headlights run across the front of his house then go down and around the cul-de-sac before we head back out. He won’t miss us that way.”

  “K.”

  Jack put the headlights on high beam and reversed out of the driveway onto the road in a wide circle until the beams splashed over Dawson’s house, then he put it into drive and drove down into the end of the cul-de-sac and back out at a snail’s pace.

  They both peered intently at the Dawson’s house as they passed. The night was overcast and with no streetlights, it was hard to see details, but there didn’t appear to be any light inside the house.

  “Are you sure he was in there?” Danny asked. “It could have been wind blowing a curtain that I saw. I mean I didn’t see his face…”

  “He’s in there,” said Jack, his tone leaving no room for disagreement. He put his foot down and they headed out of Loxley Close.

  At his front window Dawson watched the Mazda SUV head out of his street. His heart was still beating fast as he ran to the front door, opened it and sprinted out onto the road. In the distance he saw the car turn right at the end. His heartbeat slowed. The kid had given up on his sister and headed out of town with a trunk full of supplies and his boyfriend riding shotgun.

  “Good choice asshole. Don’t worry, I’ll look after your sweet, sweet sister.”

  He headed back inside and locked the front door.

  “Hello!?”

  The sound of the voice from the bathroom was tentative and tinged with hope – and he loved it. He placed the shotgun on the console table by the door and tiptoed to the bathroom resting his ear against it.

  “Katie? Is that you?” he whispered breathlessly.

  The response was immediate and sudden. She pounded on the door so hard it made him jump.

  “Jack! I’m in here! Let me out!”

  Grinning, Dawson unlocked the door and pulled it open. Katie burst out and into his arms, only reeling back in horror when her brain registered it was her captor rather than her brother waiting with open arms. He didn’t let her go though, pulling her into a rough embrace as she began to kick and fight.

  “There, there,” he said. “Shh, your brother was here, but he’s gone now. Packed the car and headed out with his friend. I guess it’s just me and you against the world, kiddo.”

  Katie struggled a bit longer, but the guy’s arms were like knotted tree branches and when he squeezed so hard she was unable to breathe, she capitulated, crying softly into his chest. She refused to believe that Jack had left her. But then, there had been no gunshot and no sound of a fig
ht. Why would Dawson lie?

  After she had calmed, Dawson slowly eased his embrace and allowed her to pull away. Gripping her by the handcuffs he bent and retrieved the candle and led her into the kitchen. He stopped and lit it again before directing her back down into the basement.

  This time he didn’t lay her back down on the table, instead he grabbed the manacle that had secured her right hand to the slab and clasped it on the chain of the handcuffs she was wearing.

  “Now that we don’t have to worry about being interrupted, I’d like to invite you to dinner. Are you hungry?”

  Katie fell against the slab, all hope washed from her.

  “I said are you hungry?”

  Sniffing miserably, she nodded, even though food was the furthest thing from her mind.

  “Good, I’ll get things started. Oh, and I’ll have a surprise for you too.”

  Like an excited kid, he bounced up the basement steps again. Relieved to be alone, and frightened of what was to come, Katie looked around frantically in the flickering light thrown by the lamp. She spied a screwdriver sitting on the workbench just a few feet away.

  Not quite believing her luck, Katie took a few steps towards the bench, stretching out her shackled arm until the chain was taut, then reaching out with her other arm. Her hopes were soon shattered. Her outstretched fingers only just managed to brush the rough wood of the benchtop, at least six inches short of the tool.

  “No, please God…” she whimpered and stretched until her wrist screamed in agony. She gained perhaps another half-inch, and with every fiber of muscle, bone and tendon burning, it was clear she wouldn’t reach the screwdriver.

  Katie stopped trying and stumbled back to the bench. She collapsed next to it, sobbing.

  When he reached the kitchen, Dawson filled a saucepan of water and put it on the camp stove ready to light when he got back. He grabbed his shotgun and flashlight from the table and ran into the hallway like an excited schoolboy.