Decay (Book 2): Humanity

by Locke, Linus

  “I don’t really ca—“ Multiple voices, but what they were saying was garbled.

  Did he say he was going to eat the black guy? No. That is ridiculous. Nobody says that. Jonathan listened to the voices for another minute with no luck of understanding anything they said. Finally, he lifted his throbbing head, tried to rub his temples, but his hands were gone. He couldn’t feel them. He panicked and tried moving his body. His body was gone, too.

  It took some effort to finally open his heavy eyelids. It was a few more minutes after that before he could finally see. Everything was blurry. It hurt to breathe. He must be waking up in hell. His mouth was so dry that he was sure a fire could be started with his tongue being used as tinder.

  “Jonathan,” the whisper came from a mile away. “Jonathan, wake up.” It was a woman’s voice.

  “Mo—“ the word wouldn’t come out. His throat was so dry that the word just stuck there. He let his mouth fill up with saliva, and then swallowed. It was painful yet satisfying. “Mom?” His voice came out as a croak. “I do not think I should go to school today.”

  “I’m not your mom.” The whisper sounded a little irate, yet he was sure he could hear some level of humor.

  He concentrated on the voice, and then tried to focus on the source. A few feet in front of him was a man sitting against a pole. The man was hunched over, either dead or asleep. There were others, all sitting in the same position. As he turned his head, he saw the woman sitting next to him. She was a few feet away yet still out of focus. Jonathan could tell that she was looking at him.

  “Layla?”

  “Yeah, it’s me Jonathan. How are you feeling?”

  “Are you dead, too?”

  Layla giggled quietly. “We’re not dead. They shot you guys with rubber bullets or those bean bags. Something.”

  “What about you?”

  “I went quietly. They came at us so fast that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t see any blood when they shot Tyler, so I assumed he wasn’t dead, but I was in complete shock. I wanted to attack or something, but my mind had shut down and all I could do was scream at them to leave us alone.”

  “Is anyone else awake? Do you know where we are?”

  “Everyone is still asleep. We ain’t far from where we were. Just up in the mountains a bit. There is a camp up there behind us. I can turn just enough to see it. Doesn’t look permanent.”

  “Will you two keep it down?”

  “Elliot? How long have you been awake?” Layla asked in surprise.

  “Since we left the gas station. You’re right. The camp isn’t permanent. Nice call. Judging by the ground surrounding the area, they have only been here a few days. By their knowledge of the area, there is either a central camp they report to, or they just stay close but keep moving,” Elliot whispered from across the circle where he was tied up.

  “What do they want with us?” asked Layla, scared.

  “They’re cannibals. They want to eat us. More than likely they’re a hunting party for a bigger camp,” replied Elliot, almost too calmly.

  Layla began crying, trying to bury her face in her hands but couldn’t reach. “Oh, God. Oh, God. I don’t want to die this way.” She sobbed harder.

  “Why does it seem that everything wants to eat us all of a sudden,” Guillermo said.

  “Guillermo, you are alright.” Jonathan was relieved to hear his friend’s voice. His vision had improved enough that he could make out who was who. “Tyler is the only one still knocked out.”

  “He’s probably just sleeping at this point,” retorted Layla. “That man can sleep through anything. And he did hit his head pretty hard on the hood of the Prius. It could’ve been a YouTube moment.” Jonathan was confused by her lack of concern for her husband’s health, but decided to roll with it.

  “Who are they?” Jonathan asked, nodding toward two women tied up on the other side of Guillermo.

  “Not sure. I really do think the one on the left is dead. They were just brought here before you woke up,” Layla explained.

  “I for real want to know why these people want to eat us! Don’t they know there aren’t that many living people left?” Guillermo was more frustrated about that than being shot and tied up. Then he started laughing.

  “What the hell is so funny?” asked Elliot.

  “I remember when we first met Deacon and Sophia. Bradley thought they might be cannibals,” Guillermo pulled together his best Bradley impression and said, “People in extreme situations will do anything to survive.” He let out a sigh. “I wish Bradley was here. And if not here, then at least still alive somewhere.”

  The group didn’t make another noise for several hours. None of them slept–except Tyler. As the pain began to subside, they realized how cold they were. Someone from the camp would walk into the middle of the circle that they were in and examine them. No one tried to communicate. They just watched. They just waited.

  Chapter 3

  The cold day was slipping away into a much colder night as the sun set behind the beautiful Rocky Mountains. It was snowing lightly; flurries, really, the kind that kids watch from the window before going to bed at night, hoping that it picks up enough by morning to call off school. The wind whistled through the branches of the trees above the group. Otherwise, the night was eerily silent with the exception of the occasional laughter from the camp and the popping from the fire as it slowly burned through the not-so-dry wood.

  “Why the hell am I tied up?” Tyler asked as he awoke.

  “Mornin’ Sunshine!” Layla exclaimed with fake excitement. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

  “What’s going on?” Tyler asked again, his voice was raspy.

  “We have been captured by what appears to be a cannibalistic group of survivors who have determined that the most abundant source of meat is that from any ill-fated humans who should be unfortunate enough to cross paths with them,” explained Jonathan.

  Tyler looked around in astonishment. “You all seem to be pretty docile, so I will assume you have tried to break free, found it useless, and have accepted our fates.” Judging by his rapid breathing, Tyler hadn’t accepted that, yet.

  “Pretty much,” Elliot jumped in. “We’ve exhausted all of our resources for escape. You need to get yourself under control before you hyperventilate.”

  After a few minutes of calming thoughts, Tyler asked, “You guys have a plan, don’t you? Someone has to have a plan.” He said this as less of a statement and more of a plea. The thought of losing Layla this way caused his throat to feel as if it would collapse.

  Nobody replied.

  “Who are they?” Tyler pointed to the two women tied up next to them.

  “Reese Stewart,” the woman replied. Her voice was calm and collected. Long strands of her brown hair fluttered around the tanned skin of her face. She tried unsuccessfully to blow away some hair that had stuck to her lip. Giving up, she said, “My companion next to me is Laikynn. She froze to death out here in these Goddamned mountains.” Tears clung to her cheeks and she looked as if she would curse the mountains if she could.

  “I’m sorry to hear that?” asked Guillermo. When he realized he had been staring at her for some time he turned his eyes to the snowy ground around him.

  Reese nodded and made an attempt to wipe away her tears, but she couldn’t move her arms far enough. “Thanks. I guess she was lucky when you think about it. There are far worse ways to die.”

  “Do you know where we are or who these people are?” Elliot stared her down hard; he wondered how long she had been awake. Pretending to sleep in order to acquire information was his trick. Sure, anyone could do it, but a woman who just lost her friend and was about to be eaten by cannibals should be slightly more panicked. Something about her didn’t sit right with him.

  “We are about a three hour hike from Denver. These people are cannibals, just as you suspected. They’ve been taking people from our town for about six months. We’re not sure where they’re from, so we were
sent out to track them down. I guess they found us first.”

  “I assume it will be all too soon before we find out more than we want to know about our hosts,” Jonathan said before returning to his own thoughts.

  As the dark of the night swept over the mountains, their captors came with a sled. They loaded up the dead woman, untied the survivors from the poles, and bound them to the front of the sled like they were preparing for a morbid version of the Iditarod. Not a word was spoken by anyone but Reese, who spit and kicked at the men while they took her friend.

  Guillermo was a bit surprised by Reese’s height; she stood around five feet tall. The mountain breeze blew her scent past him, which made his heart skip a beat. She looked to be a few years older than him, and despite her cheeks and nose being red from the cold, she had a subtle beauty. He wanted to give up this thought, knowing that it was useless now, but at the same time it gave him hope. It brought him a little happiness at the end of his life.

  With everyone secured, the three men began to march them through the snow. The snow crunched beneath their feet with every step. Jonathan didn’t have the chance to see snow very often, but he knew for sure that he hated it. One man led their group of captives while the other two walked several feet behind. The man in front was large. Well over six feet with a thick neck and massive arms. His chest puffed out, making him look like a barrel. Even in the freezing temps he only wore a flannel jacket. He could’ve been one hell of a lumberjack.

  The other two men were much smaller than the giant. Both were above average height. Each wore brown Carhartt overalls and hooded coats that made it hard to tell their build. One man had a long black beard that hung down below his chest and teeth that were rotting away. The other frequently complained about the cold despite being more bundled up than their prisoners, who were sure they’d be joining the woman on the sled any minute.

  The moon shone bright and reflected off of the snow, illuminating the mountains. Nobody was sure if the temperature was increasing or if their bodies were too numb to feel the cold any longer, but after three hours of walking, no one cared. The only sure thing was the wind died down, leaving the night with an eerie calm.

  “Stop here,” the brute up front said in his deep, booming voice. He walked back to the sled and grabbed some canteens of water that had been next to the dead woman. “Drink.” He passed the canteens around to the prisoners. None of them wanted to show any signs of weakness, but they were too thirsty. They drank.

  Water spilled from Jonathan’s mouth as he drank. Each freezing drop felt warm against his cold skin. “Why not just kill us now?” he asked in between gasps. “I am not walking another step.”

  The brute stepped in front of Jonathan and grabbed him by his throat. “You will stop when I tell you to stop.”

  Jonathan was thankful he couldn’t breathe. The brute’s warm breath caressed his face; Jonathan assumed it reeked.

  “Leave him alone, asshole,” Reese yelled.

  “How about you shut up you little bitch, ‘fore I come over there and rip your damn arms off,” spat the brute. “Besides, we’re almost there.” He pointed off into the distance. Just down the mountain they all could see the light of a large fire. They were close, but still a few miles out. “We will be just in time for breakfast.” The brute laughed as he walked back to the front. The two men behind them laughed also.

  The crunching of snow in the trees startled them. The brute stopped laughing, and the three captors crouched down and listened as hard as they could for the source of the noise. The next crunch came from behind the two men in the back. The fiend came from behind a tree and bit down hard into the bearded man’s shoulder.

  “Git’m off!” Bearded Man shrieked. The bite wasn’t enough to penetrate his heavy coat, but the fiend was punching and clawing at his face and pulling his beard. He spun in circles hoping to dislodge his attacker, but the dead fingers gripped tightly.

  “I got him. Just stop moving,” the other man said as he pulled Kadavre from his belt. His first swing dug the sharp blade into the fiend’s shoulder and did nothing to slow the attacker. Pulling the blade free, he sung again. This time he drove it hard into the fiend’s head, which burst like a watermelon at a Gallagher show. Brains and skull fragments spattered the bearded man.

  “Thanks,” he said reluctantly as he wiped his face with a dirty cloth he pulled from the sled.

  “You can sure sharpen a blade, Mexican,” the other man said as he smiled at Guillermo.

  Guillermo, never missing a chance to accept a compliment said in his best stereotypical Hispanic accent, “Gracias, amigo.”

  The brute looked down at the dead body lying on the sled. Lust was rich in his eyes and he could feel the swelling in his pants. “You guys watch the prisoners. I got some business to take care of real quick.”

  Both men looked uncomfortable by this, yet neither would argue with the much larger man.

  He reached down into the sled and slid a massive arm underneath the woman, lifting her easily. A smile crept across his face as he ran his eyes over her body. Even under the thick layers she wore her body was easy to imagine. Just as the others thought his smile would extend past the physical boundaries of his face, his head burst. A second later, the crack of the distant gunshot could be heard from up in the mountains to the east. The .50 caliber round hit the brute center in the top of his head with so much force that all that remained was a red mist. His torso was shredded all the way to his abdomen.

  The woman leapt from the sled, grabbed the brute’s knife from his falling body, and threw it into the chest of the man holding Kadavre. He grasped at the blade handle, but there was nothing he could do to save his life. The blade split his heart in two and stuck from his back. Blood poured down his front and soaked into the white snow, glistening in the magnificence of the moonlight.

  Bearded Man was still standing there beside his fallen friend. He was too shocked to move. The woman walked over to him. Her long red hair, pouring from her thick green stocking cap like lava, was so bright against all the white that surrounded her that she looked like a demon from hell about to feast on his soul. She stopped just several feet from him.

  “Please,” he begged. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Nor does anyone else,” she replied. Her Irish brogue was so thick that Jonathan almost forgot what part of the world he was in. “We offered you a home. We brought you and your people into our town. You repay our hospitality by murdering us. Eating us as if we are some kind of farm animal raised to fill your bellies.”

  “I’m sorry. I only want to live. If I would have gone against them, they would have killed me too,” Bearded Man reasoned.

  “Aye. I’m sure they would’ve,” she said understandingly.

  “So you’ll let me go? I can work. I will make it up to you. Put me to work.”

  “I’d rather have you bleeding to death here on the snowy mountain.” Without another word she punched the man in the face. He clutched his nose as blood sprayed from it like a showerhead. The Irish woman grabbed Kadavre from the dead man on the ground with one hand and pulled the brute’s long knife from his chest with the other.

  “Please!” the man begged in a nasally voice. He began to sob uncontrollably as he looked up at her from his spot on the cold ground. “I don’t want to die.”

  “I bet you’ve heard that quite a bit, too, haven’t you? I imagine you have stood above a woman or child, listening to their pleas, and showed no mercy. Well, I too show no mercy.” She plunged both blades down into the man’s stomach and began to saw him in half. His screams echoed across the tree tops. Even after his body lay in two pieces, he screamed for several more seconds before he fell quiet. Blood poured from both halves of the man. His guts rolled out onto the ground in a steaming wet ball.

  Layla leaned over and vomited. It had been so long since she last ate that only a thick slimy stomach acid came out.

  “Are you alright, Laikynn?” Reese asked with a smile.

&
nbsp; “Would you ever think otherwise?” Laikynn responded with a cocky attitude. She found the keys to the shackles in the pocket of the dead brute. With Reese by her side, she stopped and looked at the group of survivors in front of her. They stared back in disbelief.

  “Can you undo these cuffs, please?” Elliot asked, a bit annoyed that she hadn’t done it already.

  “Names Laikynn O’Malley. I’ll undo your bindings when I’m good’n ready. I look after a town up in the mountains. Are you going to be any trouble for them?” She stared hard at each of them. The moonlight was enough to illuminate her green eyes and set her long red hair ablaze.

  “We do not want any trouble,” Jonathan spoke up. “We just want to be on our way.”

  “You saw what I did to that man. I have no qualms about doing it to each’n every one of you. I’ll cut you’n half and hang you from the trees by your intestines if you bring any trouble to my town.”

  “There will be no trouble,” Jonathan replied. He was beginning to feel as if they were safer with the cannibals.

  Laikynn handed the keys to Reese and walked past the group. Most of her body was numb from the cold, her legs were asleep, and she had to piss so bad it hurt. The hardest thing she has ever done was lay perfectly still for God knows how many hours. That wasn’t part of the plan. There wasn’t supposed to be other captives, but she knew how to adapt a plan when needed. She looked out at the camp miles away. She had found them. After months of searching, she had found them. A crooked smile spread across her soft lips.

  Chapter 4

  They had walked up into the mountains and out of sight of the cannibal’s large camp. There they started a small fired and huddled in its warmth. Elliot had used some branches and a blanket from the sled to make a shelter that blocked the wind. Despite feeling as if they were near starvation, none of the group ate any of the meat their captors carried.

  Jonathan began to tell his story as the heat from the fire warmed him. Laikynn and Reese listened closely; enthralled by the way he crafted his tale like an expert blacksmith fabricating the most ornate weapons and armor for his majesty. He made them feel as if they had been by his side through it all. They were standing with him as his father ran out to save the children, who he would later meet, alive and well. They fought with him as they battled their way through the Biological and Chemical Research Corporation. And they were in the BMW for every mile they put on it between Clay Hills and Denver. But they didn’t feel his pain; the pain he felt as Emalynn’s short life came to an end. He wasn’t ready to share that pain with anyone else.