A few minutes later, his eyelids relented and allowed themselves to be opened. The writer took a chance and raised his head carefully. When it didn't fall off, he figured he was going to live and took a look around.
Another slap rocked him suddenly. He would've hit the floor again if it weren't for the two guards holding him up under his armpits. Jake shook his head and—after it didn't come off—focused on Tompkins as he helped the still shaken Nichole to her feet. The skinhead was scowling so hard, it added another inch to the depth of his brow. As his blonde-haired and (more importantly) crazy companion finished pulling herself together, Jake could see Tompkins considering the best way to separate him from his appendages. Maybe with the help of a hatchet. A dull one.
“Boy,” the shaven-headed man drawled, “I've tortured men to death for looking at me without the right amount of respect. What do you think I'm going to do to you for—”
Jake was through playing nicey-nicey with these pricks. He pointed weakly at his sliced and blood-covered torso. “See this, Milo? I'd like to see you sit still while some crazy bitch starts carving on your favorite chest. Then tells you she wants to screw around? Literally? Give me a break.”
Tompkins' gaze flicked to his woman's form-hugging, blood-smeared shirt. It was sticking to her breasts, making it look like she'd entered a wet t-shirt night at a slaughterhouse. Strangely, even though it was quite hot on the top floor of the main building, it was clear her nipples were still extremely hard.
The blonde gave a cough, took her hand away from her bruised throat, and smiled languidly at Jake. “Now that's what I call foreplay.”
“Hey, more than happy to continue. Send these guys out, get back on the bed, and we'll try it again,” he said.
“Promises, promises,” she replied, licking her lips.
“Go have someone take a look at your neck,” Tompkins snapped, then gripped her by the arm and lead her to the door. “I'll come check on you after I finish.”
She gave him a bright smile and left the room, pausing only to look back towards Jake with hot eyes.
He flipped her off and blew her a kiss. “Not gonna happen. Not if you got down on your knees and begged me.”
She moved out of sight and the Purifier's second in command turned to regard O'Connor thoughtfully. The man walked back across the room to stand in front of him, staring at his bloody chest. Jake thought about asking Tompkins if he saw anything he liked, but thought better of it. They did have a couple of males in the harem, after all.
“She's been hard to control.” Tompkins said. “The way her mind works is... interesting.”
“If by that you mean she's bug-fuck looney-tunes crazy, she was that way before the outbreak too.” Even though his bruised ribs were screaming at him, Jake managed to half support himself with the Silly-Putty stumps his legs had turned into. It also relieved some of the pressure the two guards’ fingers were putting under his arms, as they basically held him up. “Personally, I can't believe you put up with her.”
The Purifier shrugged. “Nichole's a great piece of ass. Since she arrived, I haven't had to wait for a turn for one of the broads in the harem. Besides, somebody has to handle the women. Having her around to do it just means it's one less thing I have to deal with.”
“That's nice.”
“You know I have to tell you, I'm not really a beat-around-the-bush type of guy,” Tompkins said, and picked up Nichole's forgotten knife. Jake saw him notice the nick on its edge. “I'm more along the lines of; if you can’t solve the problem by beating it with a hammer, get a bigger hammer.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “I bet you're a lot of fun at parties.”
Tompkins took hold of Jake's sliced up shirt and pulled him forward. The two guards moved up as well, still mostly holding the rubber-legged writer up. The Purifier's number two put the knife point against Jake's cheek, just under his lower eyelid.
“I can see you're going to be a problem,” The skinhead growled.
“Maybe,” Jake replied. He was very conscious of the knife but if he showed any fear at all, Tompkins would take it as a show of weakness and start carving on him. “But I'm Poole's problem. Unless you feel like taking on that responsibility.”
The angry Purifier seemed to consider it for a minute.
Tompkins slowly took the knife away from Jake's face and waved for the guards to let him go. The man's two flunkies dropped Jake roughly to the floor as his legs gave out. He watched them leave with their boss, wishing them all the joy and excitement that comes with a case of enormous, bleeding hemorrhoids.
“Shame Nichole was the only one who had the chance at your friend,” Tompkins said over his shoulder before pulling the door shut.
Jake put another black mark next to the skinhead's name, on the list he carried around in his head. If he got the chance, Tompkins, along with his boss, would be on the receiving end of some pain. By way of a large, blunt, and heavy object. He listened as the man gave the guards outside a dressing down for allowing Nichole in the room with him alone and smiled wryly. Then he began blotting his chest with the remains of his poor shirt.
“Well. This was a great idea.” He grumbled.
* * *
There wasn’t much Professor Larry Carlyle could do at that point.
Everyone else was dead.
The aging English professor sat a-top the water tower in south Wood River and watched numbly.
The modifications they’d made to the town’s three churches had held the zombies at bay for a while, but they’d been doomed to fail from the start. No amount of chain-link could stand up to the hundreds—and then thousands—of zombies that had flowed west out of Omaha.
Larry had known there was no chance of holding the town, and that he—along with the rest of its remaining population—should have headed west long ago. When he’d suggested just that, the others had all but shouted his suggestions down, however. So he’d volunteered for watch duty on the town’s massive water tower.
He’d watched as the residents of Wood River had fought the initial waves of creatures but had finally been forced to retreat into its churches. Larry had a few days of food left and no shortage of water when that had happened, so he couldn’t bring himself to make a break for it. He couldn’t leave all his neighbors to be consumed and simply forgotten. He felt it was important to record what happened. So he’d looked on as the dead had overwhelmed the defenders without emotion or mercy, weeping for the lost.
That had been two weeks ago.
Professor Carlyle continued to record his observations, along with his thoughts on how the uprising of the dead would affect humanity in future times. Larry did so numbly, for he had long accepted he would be dead in short order.
He’d been out of food for the last nine days.
-Chapter Eleven-
The guards came for O'Connor right on schedule.
One covered him with a Police issue Beretta. The other freed his hands long enough to pass the strap of his crowbar sheath over his right shoulder. Then they slapped his restraints back on. This time at least, Jake's hands were cuffed in front of him, which allowed the writer to hit the locking bar to the door they used while exiting the building.
The afternoon sun was bright and warming as he headed to the Quonset hut housing the Humvee. Jake wondered when or if he'd be able to enjoy open air again. The offices were basically clean, but the smell coming from the power plant floor below—mainly the stink of unwashed, racist assholes—was beginning to turn his stomach. It had become evident that, with the exception of Poole and Tompkins, none of the Purifiers had discovered the wondrous invention known as 'Speed Stick'.
He took a lungful of sweet, fresh air and started forward, but one of his handlers took him by the arm. They steered him to the left, away from the garage, towards the center of the facility. They moved towards the transformer yard where electricity had previously been sent, via high-voltage transmission lines to the surrounding areas. There hadn't been any power flowi
ng through them to the grid in a couple of months and, if the Powers-That-Be didn't come up with some sort of plan to retake the country in fairly short order, there probably never would be again. On the drive down from the DHL hub in Wilmington, he'd seen dozens and dozens of downed lines. It would take a dozen men a dozen years, just to restore power to a small city. Never mind the whole of the United States. Unfortunately, the unruly-haired writer was certain the days of a thousand points of light were over. The sheer amount of manpower that would be necessary to repair the country's infrastructure: power lines, roads, bridges, he didn't see it happening in his lifetime.
Especially since there was a high probability of him not surviving the week in the hands of the Purifiers. Nichole was nuts and he was sure good ol' Milo fully intended to have him strung up on a tow truck sometime in the very near future.
Hell. The asshole will probably let her help with the butchery, O'Connor thought, as they rounded the primary control structure and circled around one of the plant's five looming smokestacks.
There was a five-foot tall, fifty by fifty foot poured concrete slab at the rear of the office complex that looked out over the transformer yard fence. Jake realized it was actually attached to the power plant cafeteria, when he saw the picnic tables scattered here and there about the slab. A few poorly-maintained, Korean boxwood shrubs sat at each of the corners, slowly working their branches through the wire mesh of the four foot safety fence along the edge. The Purifiers had also left all the umbrellas up on the tables, allowing them to eat outside even in the pounding sun. Mainly, so they didn't all have to cram into the cafeteria and eat while sniffing each other’s underarm funk. With all the shaved heads and jailhouse, swastika tattoos Jake saw on the patio, it looked like the Hitler Fan Club Annual Picnic. Which would've been funny, if it hadn't been so pathetic.
There were fifty-five or sixty Purifiers in Poole's little group of psychos scattered along the edge of the railing and lounging at the umbrella-shaded tables. Some were talking, others drank assorted brands of beer from cans looted from Quicky-Marts and gas stations. Almost all of them, however, looked expectantly at the writer as his guards moved him past. One particularly inebriated shithead with muttonchops called to him from one of the tables.
“How long you gonna last, sweetheart?”
“Ask your mother, fart-knocker,” the writer shot back.
The man had clearly expected a different answer. At least from the way he stood quickly and started forward, intending to jump the railing and beat Jake to a pulp. Muttonchops was restrained by a trio of his friends, but he continued to yell obscenities as his guards kept him moving.
“Where are we going?” Jake asked the one to his right as they approached the fence encircling the transformer yard, frowning. “Poole's been holding Karen out here? What? You guys couldn't manage to keep one blonde woman away from her?”
Neither of the guards answered. Righty wordlessly uncuffed him once they reached the gate to the transformer yard, then Lefty put the barrel of his rifle in the middle of Jake's back.
“In,” the one to his left said, and shoved him through with the end of the weapon.
After the he was securely behind the eight foot, razor wire topped fence, Poole strolled from the cafeteria. He was in full Nazi regalia too. The Purifier's leader had donned a gray-toned, Afrika Corps-style suit, a pair of spit-shined Doc Martin's, and had a Waffen-SS tie pin holding the collar of his shirt closed. The outfit was immaculate, causing Jake to believe the man had a healthy case of OCD. He filed that little tidbit away for later use. It could be a weakness he might be able to exploit and just then, he'd take any advantage he could get.
Speaking of advantages, Jake took a look around the enclosure. There had to be half a hundred transformer units inside the fence-line with him, all attached to a now useless power conduit that ran back to the generators and steam turbines. He wondered at Poole's tendency towards public spectacle as he rubbed the numbness out of his hands. The man seemed to be more interested in pontificating in front of his followers than anything else. Granted, he'd provided for his people. They had plenty of supplies, at least from what Jake had seen on the trip through the primary building's echoing expanse. Fully half of it had been stacked with food, weapons, and ammo: all looted from National Guard depots, discount outlets, and military supply stores. There were packs of BDU's and dozens of bundles of white tees (all still unopened), along the wall furthest from the offices. Over a hundred, one gallon bottles of household bleach had been lined up beside them, as well as an ungodly number of cases filled with MREs.
Tompkins, with Nichole following in his wake, came through the cafeteria door while their boss continued preachin' the gospel. The blonde earned plenty of speculative looks as the two walked towards the railing overlooking the transformer yard. Milo's expression, however, made it clear the first man to let loose a whistle, would be very sorry, very shortly.
Poole moved to the railing, opposite where Jake stood thirty meters away inside the fence, to a burst of applause. He looked around smiling, then held his hands up for silence and the loosely gathered men quieted quickly.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “almost three months ago this country, by judgment of the Almighty, was brought low. The dead have risen to cleanse our nation of the unholy scourge, brought into being by those of unclean blood. “
A round of cheers went up, and Jake wished he had a gun. Any gun. He'd have shot Poole dead right then and there.
“This is not to say our survival has been easy or pleasant. The creator's solution has been a trial upon the faithful as well. We've all been required to make sacrifices in this time of hardship. Most of us have lost our homes. Some have lost their families.” Poole but a hand on his chest. “Myself included. My wife Trudy was, I came to learn, killed during the first forty-eight hours of the initial outbreak.”
Jake had to hand it to him; the man was a genius when it came to manipulating a crowd. He could see some of the dipshits nodding. A few of them were actually tearing up over their leader's tragedy, as he described his wife's frantic call from the strip in Vegas. She'd gone there every spring, while it was still relatively cool. To shop at the Bellagio.
Poole continued. “We've all lost comrades since that day as well. But, thanks to Milo's efforts, our ranks have actually increased over the last month. Fully a dozen of you were brought to the cause after the dead began to rise, and I commend you for the insightful way you've embraced our values. If you had not, rest assured you would without a doubt have fallen victim to the ravening sickness currently beyond our walls.”
O'Connor sent his gaze along the men gathered upon the raised slab in an attempt to find any that looked at all shamefaced. There were none.
It wasn't surprising, really. Poole had made it clear to everyone his group encountered that it was join or die. And then come back.
I'll just have to insure they kill me. he thought. Jake really...really...didn't want to be walking around as nothing but a soulless, slowly rotting, eating machine.
Poole rattled on and on and on. It gave the writer plenty of opportunity to consider new and exciting ways, by which he could prompt the long-winded, light in the loafers—or in this case, Doc Martins—leader of the Purifiers to have one of his Nazi-droogies put a bullet in his brain.
“Our brothers assigned to guard the people we rescued in New Holland were, night before last, killed by a rogue faction. While currently it is unknown who committed this act of underhanded—”
Even though he knew it was pointless, Jake called out to the gathered xenophobes. “Right here! That was me. I killed every last one of them, you pack of pencil-dicked, inbred, sheep-humping, fuck-tards.”
All those gathered turned to glare through the fence at him accusingly, and Poole actually halted his tirade. Tompkins gave him a look that said, Shut your damn mouth, you candy-ass, little bitch.
Jake ignored the skinhead. “Your glorious leader there? He knew about what happened yesterday,
when he radioed me to offer a prisoner exchange. Unknown, my ass. And rescued? Half of you assholes where there when they attacked the place we were staying and kidnapped my friends. That was no more a fucking rescue than I am Hugh Hefner.”
He gave them the particulars about the assault, leaving out who his companions had been at the time. He told them about the gunfight on the first floor, and then the pair they'd turned into human-flavored jelly on the second.
“And I'd do it again. Anybody who tortures people for fun, or for the color of their skin, deserves it. And pussies who like to screw the unwilling deserve it more.” He raised his eyes to the unrepentant, blonde bombshell at Milo's side. “No matter who they are. Or who they think they are.”
The chorus of angry murmurs that went through the men listening on the raised slab proved to Jake he'd simply wasted his breath.
Poole raised his hands for silence. “My friends, you've all heard this man’s confession. Even though we must not allow the unprovoked murders of our people to go unanswered—”
“You. Attacked. Us! You fudge-packing, little turd-eater!” Jake pointed at Poole through the fence. “For all your well-rehearsed arguments and pacifying, political double-speak, the fact is you're really nothing but a limp-wristed, wanna-be. No matter what you wear, and no matter how you want to spin your radical, racial, hate-mongering, you're nothing but a piece of shit.”
The Purifiers all stood there looking daggers at him. No one had previously shown enough intestinal fortitude to call their leader out, right to his face. Usually, they were too busy begging for their lives.
Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) Page 22
