Emily drops the bag and falls against a tree. “How do you do this?” she whines, breathless.
“I’ve been walking for months. It actually helps strengthen the muscles. It’s been easier to find free time to walk since I haven’t had to work to earn money for the electric bill.”
“I got to rest,” Emily pants.
“Soon.”
Snap.
He spins at the sound, hand on the gun. A biter shambles from the trees. He snags Emily’s corn knife and embeds it in the biter’s skull.
Emily jumps to her feet, still breathless, with new energy to flee.
The blade rings with a ku-chunk as it tears out of the skull. He spins around. “Don’t scream.”
“I won’t scream.” She unhooks the bag from her shoulder. “But we’d better run.” She points.
He turns. Dozens of biters crash through the tree line. They snap and moan-howl as they race toward them. He draws his gun, then the whiff of rotten flesh drifts on the breeze blowing upwind from the attacking corpses.
“What are you waiting for, shoot!”
“Running might be better.” He chucks his bag of supplies onto hers, grabs Emily’s arm mustering up his fastest possible pace. The undead won’t bother the packs.
“You have more bullets than—” Emily’s cut off as dozens of undead tear through branches.
“Not now!” No matter how great of a shot he is, no matter how many thousand rounds spent in practice, even if he had a bandoleer of high capacity clips, the growing number of undead would overwhelm him long before he could expend thirty-five shells. Still, a half-crippled thinking man should be able to outrun the faltering corpses.
“Where do we run?”
“Anywhere but here!”
Emily races ahead of him. Her glance back to check on his progress causes her to miss the upcoming wooden fence. Emily flips over the top sprawling into the lush grass.
He leaps the fence landing next to her. He grunts, ignoring the pain of his landing and scoops Emily off the ground, only needing one arm to lift her to her feet.
She doesn’t know what happened to his leg, but she’s sure he shouldn’t have leapt a fence. The trees open into a forgotten yard surrounding a fancy log cabin.
Emily races for the porch. She tugs on the doorknob. It won’t open. “Someone’s boarded up all the windows.” Panic washes over Emily until she spots her savior remaining perfectly calm.
He throws his coat behind his hips as he spins around, drawing both his pistols. He fires one gun and then the other. Chunks of skull, brain and coagulated blood fountain from each biter.
Someone boarded up the windows. Someone could be inside the cabin. Emily bangs on the door hoping someone will let her in. She holds back the urge to scream, her cries would attract the attention of more biters than the noise of rapid firing guns.
Emily steps to the edge of the porch. “I can’t get in!”
The door flies open. A couple of hands grab Emily and drag her inside.
“Help!” Emily panics.
A man steps out holding a shotgun. “Hurry! Get inside.”
Emily’s savior leaps onto the porch, empting the last five M&P rounds, demonstrating his skill by not missing. The guy with the shotgun races inside, followed by the man still shooting at the biters. The door slams behind them. Emily’s savior has an empty gun in each hand, leaving him with no way to draw his magnum. If the man with the shotgun turns out to be a threat, he will have no other option but to pistol whip him.
He sizes up the situation, and decides to give their rescuers the benefit of friendship, raising the M&P to show the open slide.
The man with the shotgun holds it at an angle revealing he doesn’t know how to use it.
He bets the shotgun has only one round loaded into it—maybe. The way the man handles it, it seems a little light to have five shells loaded. The problem with testing theories is one round of buck shot covers a lot of territory.
“Thanks for letting us in.”
“It was God’s will.”
A small woman unclasps Emily’s arm. “It was God brought you to us.”
Emily notices the waxing of her savior’s face. In the small amount of time she’s known him, she’d bet he follows no religious path, but she keeps this thought to herself.
“God led you to us,” the shotgun wielder adds.
“We can discuss who brought who where and how, but first, let’s put away some guns.”
“Sorry.” He lowers the shotgun. “It’s not loaded. I found it here. I’m Joshua.”
Before Joshua introduces the other two men, the small woman says, like a mantra, “God brought us here.”
“What were you doing when you were led here?” He asks.
“We’ve been following His word.”
He slips the empty clip into his pocket and eases another one in the M&P. He holsters the weapon without releasing the side. “God talks to you?”
“Through one of his prophets,” she says as she holds up a hand crank radio. “We were following his broadcasts when the tire on our van blew.”
“I didn’t want to change it on the blacktop,” Joshua adds.
“Smart.”
Joshua explains, “We rolled in here when the wave of the punished drove us into the house. The owner had saw fit to barricade the home before he went home to God.”
“The punished?” Emily asks.
Her savior’s eyes snap at her like a father about to ground her for a month.
“Yes, child, the punished. God promised to rid the world of sinners. The soulless never to reach His glory.” The woman lifts her arms to praise His glory.
Scrapes, like a dog at the door, turn to pounding as more and more biters climb onto the porch. He draws his Beretta and jams in a fresh clip.
“It’s okay, mister. God will protect you, just as He has been protecting us.”
A boarded window collapses in from the weight of three biters. Before those undead recover more biters crawl in on top of them, filling the window.
“Where’s God now?”
“Don’t blaspheme,” Joshua snaps at him.
“You’re not one of the faithful. God’s sending them in here after you because you are not worthy in His eyes,” the woman says, her accusatory index finger shakes at him in disdain.
“I don’t have time for this shit. Em, get upstairs!” he snaps.
Emily moves to the stairs. The woman holds out her arm as a gate stop. “Sweetie, the punished are only here for those faithless. You don’t have to follow him,” she points at Emily’s rescuer, “if you believe in Him.” She points up.
More biters crawl through the window. Emily’s savior pushes past the two unnamed men. Joshua raises the shotgun, and finds the Beretta within an inch of his temple. “Yours is empty. Mine’s not.”
Joshua lowers the shotgun and steps back.
“Em, get the fuck upstairs.”
Emily bolts for the stairs. Joshua swings the shotgun like a club. Biters spill through the door. The shotgun connects with his bicep. He staggers back. Moments of intense decision must take place in a tenth of a second. His mind fights back the surging pain of his left arm. He feels the capillaries bursting and the bruise forming. He counted at least seven biters entering the door. As he focuses on not thinking of the pain, counting biters and avoiding the zealots, he notices a long handled axe leaning against the fireplace.
The seven biters…he’s sure hitting four will trip up the remainder. He’s not sure he wants to kill the living. Weighing the situation, he considers. Right now these people are misguided. No one has given a reason for the rise of the dead. God forsaking us is as good an explanation as any. The axe is the key to an escape plan, not a foolproof one, maybe even a completely stupid one, but it will keep the living alive.
He pops a biter and kicks the closest servant of God just as Emily reaches the stairs. He shoves the woman after her. His smoking gun burns the end of Joshua’s nose. “Move,” he orde
rs. The four religious fanatics dart for the stairs.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Two biters fall. The third bullet splinters the shoulder. Not a miss, but not effective on the undead, either. The second the two biters fall the third moves into their position.
He grabs the axe in his left hand and backs up the stairs. Two more biters drop from head shots. He holsters the Beretta. The axe digs into the wood.
The stairs act as a bottleneck, allowing no more than two biters to approach at a time. He splinters the wood, rendering the bottom step useless. He has seen some corpses still use tools, rocks to smash, one even held onto a gun even though it was essentially just a loaded club. He hopes they don’t have enough of a brain stem left to figure out how to climb over a few broken steps. He jerks the axe from a biter’s head and drives it into the next wooden plank.
“Look out!” He turns in time to use the axe to block the shotgun—turned club. Glancing past Joshua, he spots Emily, struggling to free herself from the other man’s grasp.
So much for sparing these poor, misguided people.
The shotgun flies at him again. Readjusting his footing to block the blow means using a step he just smashed through.
KADE DRAGS HANNAH by her arm to the gate of the base headquarters.
“Corporal, get Colonel Travis,” he demands.
Hannah has given up struggling against his iron grip. She has no doubt Kade has more strength than she could ever gain. She contemplates screaming, drawing attention to him, but decides this may harm her case with her father. It’s childish. He clearly won’t hurt her, especially not in front of the soldiers. The soldiers would beat him down good. Later he’d just take it out on some poor mother trying to feed her baby.
She forces away the image of Kade behind the bent over woman and the wine bottle. The way the poor woman limped away. There’s only one thing he could have been doing with it. She coughs up bile as her stomach twists in a knot. Hannah feels the hard jerk as he drags her through the gate.
“Good morning.” Her father, sweating from his morning run, greets Kade, not even questioning why Kade has a hold of his only daughter.
“Colonel, I think we should discuss this…in private.” He flings Hannah at her father.
“Acceptable.” Travis grabs Hannah to steady her.
She bites her tongue. She wants to protest and scream, ‘just shoot this ugly bastard,’ but reason works better on her father. She has no tactical advantage here. This man must be shot before he violates another woman.
Hannah plops on the leather couch in her dad’s office. Travis sits at his desk. Kade remains on his feet uneasily glancing at the rifle the colonel places on his desk.
“Sit,” he offers.
Kade glances at the chair but he keeps on his feet. The simple invite’s not enough for him to give up the high ground; a strategic power play on his part he believes makes him the big man in the room.
An illusion, Hannah knows, if her father keeps to his normal tactics.
Travis slides open a desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of scotch along with two glasses. He pours the brown liquor, corks the bottle, picks up a glass and sniffs the fragrance. He soaks in the aroma, but does not drink.
Travis waves his hand offering the chair again. “Please, join me in a drink.”
Kade snatches the glass, and falls back into the chair. He gulps the shot, an insulting gesture if the colonel lets it get to him. A pure waste of the expensive liquor and possibly last to be made. But at least they have reached a level playing field. Hannah smells the testosterone in the room.
Travis savors the liquor’s bouquet before sipping his drink. “You just dragged my daughter across the camp. I need a reason not to shoot you like a dog.”
Bold on Daddy’s part.
Kade backs down and moves like a knight on the chessboard. “We had a deal. You’re precious little girl was caught stealing from my tent.”
Hannah upsets the board. “I was not stealing! Dad, he was raping a woman with a wine bottle.”
“Sit down and remain quiet.” Travis keeps his eyes on Kade.
Kade keeps one eye on the weapon. Hannah falls back on the couch in a pout.
“One of my men caught her taking food from my tent. He brought her to me. I brought her to you, unharmed. None of my men have raped any woman in this compound.”
An accurate statement, by Kade’s definition only. Hannah knows her father’s face. He believes no rapes have been committed behind the fence.
Kade smiles. Speaking the truth works. He gains nothing with a lie. The woman willingly participated, even if it was forced upon her by circumstance. What Hannah understands and her father realizes is Kade’s choice of in this compound.
Thoughts race through Travis’s mind. How many women has Kade rescued who never reached the military base because he assaulted them in the wilderness and left them dead so they couldn’t report on him?
Her father’s attention turns to her. “Hannah, what were you doing on the refugee side of the base?”
“I was passing out food. Helping people. The Bowlin brothers run a black market. He trades items to needy mothers for depraved sexual acts.”
“We’ve a deal,” Kade spouts his constant defense.
Travis leans forward in his chair—a debating attack posture. “We had a deal. Since the growing number of refugees, I’ve needed more of my soldiers to keep order on the base. You were to patrol the area and bring in survivors. Anything you found on the patrols you could keep or trade.”
“He has food. The tent was full of FEMA boxes.”
Hannah’s words jab at Kade. He avoids the urge to stare daggers at her. Better to focus on the colonel and the rifle.
“We found an overturned FEMA semi. Under our deal…”
Hannah doesn’t understand what deal they had, or why Kade admitted to the food so freely. Something else has to be going on. Her father would never let a man like Kade run loose.
“Trading a few cans of soup you find out there is one thing, but entire stocks of emergency food go beyond our deal.”
“My men took the risk to recover it.”
“Then you keep a few boxes. The rest will be circulated into the rations for the base. We’ve a lot of mouths to feed. And even you only want to deal with the right amount of hungry people.”
Fire lights Kade’s eyes at the colonel’s threat.
Hannah protests, “What about the black market and the woman—”
“Quiet, Hannah,” her father snaps. “The black market’s a necessary evil. It needs to exist to bring hope. People still cling to items they had before the apocalypse. Items they don’t need now and won’t keep them alive. But when they have them, they feel better and it helps keep people safe. I don’t approve of trading for sex, but if it’s not forced, it becomes a choice.”
Hannah’s anger prevents her seeing how painful it was for her father to make such a statement. “Such a male’s answer. She had no choice! She traded her body for baby formula.”
Colonel Travis’s full attention turns back on Kade. “All babies get more than enough rations.”
“Then why’d she have to trade?” Hannah’s question eats at her.
“Maybe she likes what I do to her.”
Hannah feels the bile crawl into her throat.
“Kade!” The dam bursts on Travis’ anger.
Hannah’s never heard her father speak in such a tone before.
“I don’t take nothin’ from children. The black market isn’t your problem. I provide a service, get a little ass for me and my men, but we remain on the level. We’ve a deal. I honor my deals. But maybe you should investigate the growing gambling dens. Give you a better picture on how women lost their government-issued formula.”
From her father’s widening eyes Hannah knows the existences of the gambling dens are news to him.
Soldiers simultaneously burst into three tents near the Bowlin brother’s part of the camp. Kade witnesses the dragging of car
d players and other clear deviants from each tent. Several scantily clad women are also shoved down into the mud, their hands zip-tied together. The entire action seems to last for an hour but only transpires over sixty-seven seconds.
Kade’s dwindling black market profits due to these high stakes poker games caused concern among his brothers. The cards were becoming popular as a means to earn quick supplies. Confronting the practitioners would result in a turf war costing Kade his station within the camp. People were betting everything they had left in the world to win what they needed to survive. Only most were losing. A few would win big to attract others, but no one beats the house, just ask anyone attending Gamblers Anonymous. Kade even endorsed some of the games, at first, getting a small kickback. He had left that part out when he explained to the colonel what he knew.
Kade grins even as soldiers carry the white FEMA boxes from his tent. With the elimination of his competition he just boosted his own cache.
“They left us twelve boxes,” Hector whispers.
“More than we need to continue our trade along with our other supplies. We make another run and get more. The tractor trailer was still half full. This time we just don’t bring in as much, and maybe find a place outside the fence to stash the rest.”
“You know best, boss.”
“The colonel has done more for us today to increase our situation than you know. Consider those few food boxes as an investment.”
Hector clearly doesn’t understand why Kade finds this arrangement acceptable. He’s merely blind muscle. Every organization needs unquestioning muscle.
The colonel lights up a stogie.
“Dad, do you have to smoke in here? This Humvee has no windows to open,” Hannah whines.
Travis ignores her. He glares out the window at his soldiers cleaning up the poker games. They carry the spoils from cheating people out of what little they have and load them onto the back of a cargo truck.
He had decided on the punishment for any non-essential personnel involved in this, now as Travis puffs his Cuban cigar, he determines how to live with it.
One of the men controlling the gambling den makes part of the decision easier. He draws twin machine pistols and fires with the intent of not being taken alive. Bullets pelt the cargo trucks and soldiers and civilians dive for cover.
No Room In Hell (Book 1): The Good, The Bad and The Undead Page 4
