No Room In Hell (Book 1): The Good, The Bad and The Undead

by William Schlichter

  He feels sorry for the poor women as they march back to the house.

  Why doesn’t she run?

  The one with hands could race from the springhouse keeping it between her and any rifle. Using the binoculars, he confirms what he feared—her feet. She’s been burnt. Small burn scars on her legs and feet, but enough to make running painful. She’s forced to care for the other girls. The back of her legs sport whelp and whip marks, bruises and scars from beatings.

  Raising the question, how does the jacketed man feed these women?

  He saved Emily. He will help them, but how do they survive in a world no longer tolerant of the handicapped? He should just leave. Gather his people and travel on. Forget this place. Too much of some useless chivalric code tears at him—defend the helpless.

  He has killed and selfishly saved only certain people to keep his camp functioning in order to exist in this apocalyptic world. Why doesn’t he just leave these poor souls to their fate? Ellsberg might try and rescue them, and he needs the engineer. He has more reasons to abandon them. They’re unable to work without two hands. There are no more amputee rehab facilities. They’ll be a burden. Need constant care and drain food resources with no way to contribute back.

  Leave them!

  No question, he should just forget about this place.

  No. No matter what…no matter the justification of any innovative rules necessary to survive in this new world, he won’t sleep at night knowing he has left these women to suffer under torture. Even if he marches in there and puts a bullet in each of their skulls, he won’t leave them to be abused any longer.

  His watch takes forever to click five minutes past the time the women paraded into the house. If someone had been observing them out the window, they should have taken up a new preoccupation with the girls inside.

  Stealth has never been his strong suit. He’s too big of a man to easily hide at a moment’s whim. With biters, hiding’s not even an option. No hiding from them. They detect the living. He hopes this guy’s too absorbed with the abuse of these women to notice him skulking haphazardly through the field, and he hopes there are no friends.

  He should have an idea of their location inside before he kicks open the door. The windows on the same side as the springhouse are high enough to stand under without him having to duck.

  Plugging his ears from the noises emanating inside would quell his anger. He draws his Beretta, raises his right leg to kick the front door open, and thinks better. He reaches for the door knob. It’s not locked. A few seconds added to surprise this guy. He steps inside. He takes in the room, across from the modest living room is the kitchen.

  The brunette, Elle, bent over the table receives blow after blow from a conductor’s wand. Forced to feed the other two girls, like toddlers in a high chair, the woman allowed to keep her hands drops her eyes to avoid witnessing the beating.

  No warning shot.

  No chance at redemption.

  He just raises the Beretta and squeezes the trigger. The bullet smashes into the man’s skull, spraying blood as it exits.

  Screams.

  Elle refuses to move. He holds up the gun in a non-threatening manner. “Consider this a rescue. Who else is in the house?”

  Blank faces recoil from him, unsure what to make of a new man. Finally, the woman with her hands intact speaks. “He was alone.” She breaks down in tears.

  “I won’t even begin to pretend to understand the trauma you’ve all gone through. I’m traveling to a safe camp. I’ve got people in the woods. If you get everyone dressed and fit for transit…I’ll take you with me.”

  “Why would you help us?” she stammers.

  “It’s what I do,” is the best answer he musters.

  “We’ll go. I’m Leah.” The girl with her hands explains, “I don’t move too fast. He made me care for everyone, but cut and burnt my feet so I couldn’t run.”

  “When we get to my camp, you won’t have to worry about running. Now I need to collect my people.”

  He reaches toward her. Leah recoils until he snaps the dog collar lock removing it from her neck. “Get everyone ready to travel.”

  “You’ll come back for us?” Leah pleads. Fear clings to her from whatever torture was imposed on them.

  “I’ll be back and I’ll make sure no one else hurts you.” He picks up a semi-automatic AK-47 with the largest scope he’s ever seen. He tries not to grin at being correct, because these poor women wouldn’t understand his smile.

  Ellsberg drops his pack into the hay wagon. “This thing will make a lot of noise.”

  “We’ve lost a couple of hours. I don’t know how far we’ll get into the woods on this thing, but any time we gain before the dark, I’ll take.”

  “If this thing even starts.” Brock places Olivia in the wagon.

  “You’re just going to add these people to the group. You know nothing about them. How do you know Olivia will be safe around them?” Karley stews.

  “I guarantee they won’t lay a finger on her.” He kicks the trailer hitch to ensure a tight fit. “These poor women have been in a bad situation.”

  “We should be nice to them,” Olivia volunteers.

  “That’d be nice of you,” he praises the girl.

  Sarah stands at the end of the wagon contemplating how to get in. She’s too short to jump and too heavy to pull herself up.

  He pulls down a hay bale for her to use as a step. “I’m going to get our new companions. Prepare yourself.”

  The four women follow their rescuer to the hay wagon. Karley clamps her hand over her mouth to hide her shock. She knows whatever words fall from her mouth will be insensitive.

  “Mommy, why don’t those women have any hands?” Olivia asks with the innocence of a child.

  He and Ellsberg pick up the chubby brunette and set her in the wagon. “This is Elle.”

  They help the next woman as well. “This is Bobbi.”

  They place the third woman on the wagon. “Meet Willie.”

  Leah crawls into the wagon herself, but needs a bit of a push due to her weakened legs. “I’m Leah.”

  “Olivia,” the little girl blurts.

  “Sarah,” she introduces herself before Karley can scold her daughter.

  Brock gives his new commander a glance expressing these women will put them in a great deal of danger due to their handicap and inability to care for themselves.

  Elle lies on her stomach over a hay bale. Olivia stares at her missing hands. Self-conscious, Bobbi hides her hands behind her back. Tears just trickle down Willie’s cheeks.

  The consummate rescuer of the helpless climbs into the tractor seat and fires the behemoth up. The rust red monster roars to life, sending plumes of choking black smoke from the exhaust pipe as it lurches forward. He depresses the clutch in order to grind the gears into second and the fast pace fifteen miles an hour jolts them across the field. They roll over a wire fence and keep moving toward the tree line.

  The cattle path leads through the woods constantly jolting everyone in the wagon. The three handless girls have to continuously shift their weight to keep from being bumped over.

  The tractor sputters. A few more feet forward and it coughs the last of the black smoke before dying.

  “Looks like no more gas.” Despite a search of the farm he could find no more gas to add in the tank. He hops from the tractor. “We’re walking.” He pulls out a plastic sleeve containing a map.

  Ellsberg helps all the women from the wagon. “You think we made up any time?”

  Figuring they gained seven or eight miles, he says, “Some, but this trail leads farther south than I want to keep traveling.”

  “Are we lost?” Brock asks.

  He stuffs the map back in his coat and slings the AK-47 over his shoulder. “How did the pioneers cross The Great Plains? I mean, the first groups. Later, people followed the wagon ruts, but the first group. How did they know how to go without a map?” He hikes into the woods up a small ridge. At the to
p he halts. “If we cut through this way we’ll reach the blacktop before dark, but everyone’s going to have to move.” He won’t show any favoritism toward the handicapped women. No matter what, in order for them to survive they have to be able to move.

  Karley keeps Olivia close to her. The little girl keeps attempting to run and help the handless women or touch the stump. Elle requires assistance. Sarah acts as a crutch for Elle.

  Elle won’t admit to pain. She marches on, somehow she knows even these generous people might leave her. Why would anyone take the time to care for handless girls? She slips. Sarah steadies her.

  “You’ll make it.” Sarah’s voice gives no comfort.

  The trees give no sign of turning back into pasture. He feels his own long wounded leg strain under the hike. The area has become rocky, hard to navigate under foot, but they have no time to rest, not yet. Dangerous to be here, in the trees, in the dark. A fire would attract unwanted attention. He would get no sleep and potentially the most dangerous part of the trek remains.

  The climb up the steep incline reaches a pinnacle at a cliff edge. The fifty foot drop into a shallow spring-fed pool would have been a beautiful location for a picnic, but now it’s one more obstacle before reaching a safer location.

  “Head over this way. It drops off here.” He warns moving away from the cliff. The landscape inclines, and through some trees: pasture. If he calculated correctly, they should be on the other side of the farm and near a gravel road leading to blacktop.

  Screams break the quiet of the trees. He spins around, the AK unslung and ready to fire. Sarah, Leah and Ellsberg stand at the edge of the cliff. Karley hides Olivia’s face by pressing the little girl into her stomach. Bobbi and Willie hug each other avoiding glances toward the cliff.

  He guesses, but marches back anyway. Even knowing what’s over the cliff, actually witnessing the poor woman’s twisted mangled body as blood balloons into the shallow pool turns his resilient stomach.

  “She broke free of my arms and just ran.” Sarah breaks down. “She leaped off the cliff.” Major Ellsberg nods in confirmation.

  Does he say something? Will words make it worse for these people? Should they just move on? He thinks back to his psychology classes in college and even other work-related sensitivity training. Nothing has prepared him for this. No matter what he says it will be the wrong choice of words. “We need to keep moving.”

  “You heartless bastard,” Karley screams at him. “That poor girl just died.”

  “I can’t do anything for her. She made her choice.”

  “You want us to live in your camp, and you show nothing toward the death of that poor woman,” Karley criticizes.

  “What do you want to do, repel down there and give her a funeral?” He leans over the cliff and raises the AK. The thunder sends Olivia into tears. Everyone jumps. “I did what I could for her. Now we know she won’t come back. Her soul’s at rest.” He marches on, shouldering the Kalashnikov.

  “You want to go live and work for someone like him?” Karley sneers at her husband.

  “Karley, shut up.” Brock marches after his new boss.

  “We should move, ladies,” Ellsberg herds them forward.

  “Does no one care about her?” Karley pleads.

  “She’s been through too much,” Leah says, feeling as broken as poor Elle. She takes one last look at the girl she has been feeding, cleaning and witnessing her abuse for months. She accepts there was only one choice Elle had in a world not rejecting her condition. For just a second she contemplates joining Elle, but if nothing else, she couldn’t leave Bobbi and Willie to fend for themselves. Leah hikes over the ridge.

  “Mommy, we should go with them,” Olivia pleads, pulling at her mother’s hand. “Mommy, he will keep us safe.” She points to the duster clad man.

  “I don’t know of any place safe anymore, my darling,” Karley says.

  Twilight befalls the group as his boot kicks over a rock on the gravel road. Major Ellsberg stands on one barbed wire strand and picks up the strand above it, opening a portal through the fence for the group to scurry through.

  “We’re not as far as you wanted,” Brock observes.

  “We’re close. A few more miles.”

  “I can’t walk anymore,” Leah confesses.

  “Mommy, carry me,” Olivia begs.

  He rubs the growing stubble on his chin. “Camping here in the middle of the road would invite dangers.”

  “They can’t keep walking,” Ellsberg slips through the fence. “So how do you want to handle this?” The major doesn’t directly play against his authority, but he certainly brings it into question.

  “I’ve never scouted this gravel road before.” He glances at his map. “In a few miles is a blacktop road I’ve been on. I know several houses and barns where it’s safe to sleep.”

  “Can we cut across the field to one of the houses?”

  “In the dark with no lights we could walk right past it completely.”

  “We need to move,” Brock insists.

  “No, the woods aren’t the answer,” Ellsberg slips in his bid for command of the group. “I suggest you and I head down each direction of this road and find a house and return to get the group.”

  “Barns are better. Biters can’t climb ladders into the hay lofts. Houses have dark corners where the biters hide.” He’s never found a biter in a barn loft—not yet. “How far do you suggest we walk?”

  “Maybe a mile each. Should be a house by then.”

  “Out here homes tend to cluster or be extra far apart.” He hands the AK to Brock. “All you have to do is pull the trigger. Just don’t shoot one of us.”

  Ellsberg throws a log onto the fire burning in the fireplace.

  Brock fumbles with a box of nails and a hammer. He secures the door.

  Stoic, their rescuer stands guard as Karley rummages through a bedroom closet for blankets. The flashlight he holds gives her enough light to strip the bed of sheets.

  “They smell.”

  “Like what?” he asks.

  “Just unwashed. Can we check upstairs, get enough blankets for everyone?”

  He nods, but in the fire light darkened shadows mask his face. “I check out the rooms first.”

  Karley dumps the blankets on the family room floor. “Olivia, Mommy’s going to check upstairs. You stay here with Daddy.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” she eats from an MRE.

  The first bedroom they check upstairs has a closet full of blankets. He opens the door to a second bedroom and checks the closet, each corner, even under the bed before letting Karley strip the sheets and pull more blankets from the closet. When she does, a plastic case hits the floor popping open. She scoops it up. “It’s empty.” She hands him the gun case.

  He fumbles holding the flashlight and checking the case. “Too bad. Always use another gun.”

  “I see what’s on your list of priorities over some poor girl’s life,” Karley berates.

  “Karley, you’re going to have to accept there was nothing to do but move on. We could do nothing for her.”

  “You didn’t even try.”

  “What would you have had me do?”

  “Compassion.”

  “Overrated.”

  She gathers the blankets. “This should be enough.”

  “Go straight downstairs. I want to check the rest of the rooms.”

  Downstairs, Brock nails the door to the basement shut. Karley whispers to him, “Leaving the military base was a horrible idea. He will get us killed.”

  “The colonel trusts him, and he didn’t have to help those poor women.”

  “What are you doing?” Karley asks.

  “Making sure nothing gets upstairs from the basement. You’ve seen scary movies. It’s way too dark to make sure nothing’s down there.”

  “Don’t let Olivia hear you talk. She needs to sleep.”

  Ellsberg takes one of the heavier blankets and tacks it up over the window.

  �
�An extra blanket would keep us warm,” Karley protests.

  “It will keep anyone including the Infected from seeing the fire light,” Ellsberg explains.

  Karley realizes the major would not oppose the man leading them. She looks at their new leader resting on the top stair. He desires safety.

  Sarah collapses onto the bench of the road side park. “How much farther is this camp?” she huffs.

  Even Ellsberg, with his daily regimen of physical exercise, feels the ache of the hike.

  “Seventy-five, eighty miles at most.” He marches into the tree line. “Take a break. I want to check something.”

  “I want to come, too,” Olivia begs fascinated by the big man.

  “Honey, no, he might need a private moment.” Brock says.

  “No, I might be able to shorten our trip.”

  “Can I go, Mommy?” Olivia pleads.

  “I won’t be going far,” he says, inviting the little girl.

  “Stay with him.” Karley plops on the bench. She has no idea how she’ll find the energy to walk the rest of the day.

  Leah pushes a straw into her canteen allowing Bobbi a drink. She feels obligated to help the two women. She had only been allowed to keep her hands due to her luck in being kidnapped last. She was his fourth victim. Before her, Elle had cared for the other two. Once he took Leah prisoner, her captor cut off Elle’s hands to demonstrate his power over them. He burnt Leah’s feet to keep her from running and said as long as they please him then he had no need to find a replacement. The things he did to pleasure himself. The things he made them do to each other she did willingly to keep her hands. She feels so guilty, but with Elle gone she feels a burden somewhat lifted. Difficult as it may be, two women will be easier to care for than three. She opens an MRE bag containing more food than the four of them used to get in a day, not because her torturer didn’t have a reserve, but he kept them malnourished as a means of control.

  The roar of motorcycles breaks the natural silence of the road. He spins around and grabs Olivia by clamping his hand over her mouth and ducks into the trees. “You have to stay quiet,” he whispers to her. His duster shields them both in the shade. She nods. He releases her.