The Dead Lands Diary Vol. II)

by S. David Staggs

  Just then, we heard a man yell out on a bullhorn:

  FALL BACK! COVER FIRE ON OUR WAY OUT, LET’S GO. THEY GOT THE MESSAGE. THEY AIN’T MANY HERE, WE’RE DONE FOR TODAY! YOU FUCKER’S GET THE MESSAGE? YOU KILL US, WE KILL YOU! WE’LL BE BACK SOON TO GATHER WHAT’S REST OF YOU! WE NEED WORKERS! YOU’LL SURRENDER OR YOU’LL DIE. CHOICE IS ALL YOURS! DON’T THINK OF FLEEING, WE HAVE EVERY ROAD OUT OF HERE COVERED FOR BLOCKS WITH MULTIPLE MEN.

  With that, the gunfire soon stopped and we heard the sound of several vehicles leaving outside the walls. Some guns being shot in the air as they left.

  **

  Tina and Rachel sat outside consoling each other in tears. Mindy leaned against the house outside smoking a cigarette. Jim came outside with the rest of us after placing a sheet over Kurt’s body.

  ME: Travis will be devastated. Kurt was his best friend.

  TODD: He’s also going to go off the deep end and wanna strike back right away. As in now, so we’re gonna have to calm him down. He can’t run off, he’ll get himself killed.

  REGGIE: I don’t even want to go looking around…the way he said they’d be back for what’s left of us. How many of us are left?

  ME: We need to find out, let’s go. Mindy, Rachel, Tina…go tie that fuckers hands and feet. He ain’t walking but he’s dangerous. Do it while he’s still unconscious.

  We headed west where most of the fighting occurred. We ran to the end of the stretch of houses. Ray approached us when he saw us.

  JIM: Where the hell’d you run off to? I noticed you ran past awhile ago.

  RAY: Thought more firepower was needed this way. My pops and sis were fine. Guys came over the walls way down here.

  ME: Plenty also made their way down here, surely you noticed.

  RAY: How is everyone?

  ME: Kurt’s dead.

  RAY: NO! What?! How??

  ME: Took a bullet to the head.

  RAY:…Shit. The guy get away?

  ME: No, he’s dead.

  RAY: Good. Son of a bitch…

  TODD: How’s things further down?

  RAY: Things are contained, no one injured. Well, Karen fell off a wall but she’s fine, just a little banged up is all.

  JIM: Where were you heading?

  RAY: Other end…some men came over the east area.

  JIM: No, I was watching…I didn’t see anyone! Kelly and Ben are down there!

  RAY: I didn’t see them, but earlier a few men came over and I saw them shooting at Travis and Alexis.

  JIM: You seen Kelly at all??

  RAY: No, I’m sorry.

  [Jim runs east]

  When we arrived to the far houses we saw Kelly and Ben wandering around their yard and checking the garage to make sure no one was in there. Jim ran to her and calling to her. She turned and ran to him. Ben waved toward me and the others as we walked slower toward them.

  Between two houses were two bodies, both of which had several arrows in them, which Alexis was pulling out casually.

  ME: Nice work!

  ALEXIS: Yeah.

  ME: Saw you take one down by where we were.

  ALEXIS: Yeah…y’all seemed to be struggling on that one so thought I’d lend a hand.

  ME: You seen Travis?

  ALEXIS: He was over at Mark’s last I knew. What’s up?

  [I walked over to her]

  ME: Kurt. He didn’t make it.

  ALEXIS: Wait, what did you say? He didn’t…make it? Is he?

  ME: Yes. Yeah, he is.

  ALEXIS: Oh, fuck. Fuck…I don’t even…Travis…I’ll go with you to talk to him.

  ME: Thank you.

  I looked over as we walked and Kelly was consoling Ben and Jim had his arms around them both. They knew what happened. Further down I saw a body laying outside the front steps of Lily’s house. Blood had pooled around his midsection.

  ME: Are they alright??

  ALEXIS: Yeah, Kelly shot him while he was kicking the door in. Dropped that fucker like a bad habit. She’s pretty shook up by it. Lily and the kids are fine. Lily will recover.

  ME: Recover? What do you mean? She was in the attic crawlspace?

  ALEXIS: Key word was. When shooting intensified, her mother bear instincts or whatever must have kicked in. She came down and started shooting through the front area. A stray bullet caught her in the waste.

  ME: What?!

  ALEXIS: Just the side of her hip, above the pelvis. Just hit the fatty area, ya know? Looks like it hurts like a bitch but she’ll be fine

  ME: She’s damn lucky she ain’t dead! Few inches over or so and she likely would be. That was reckless.

  ALEXIS: Yep. I concur.

  Reggie and Todd joined up with us and we walked together to Mark’s house to give Travis the bad news. Something none of us looked forward to. I already had told enough people.

  Mark stood with Travis in the middle of his backyard. Mark looked stern and angry. He nodded his head toward us. Travis turned and smiled.

  TRAVIS: We showed those pricks, didn’t we? How many you think…what’s wrong? Something’s wrong.

  TODD: Take a seat maybe, Trav.

  TRAVIS: What? No…I don’t want to. Just tell me.

  TODD: Kurt. Kurt was shot.

  TRAVIS: What? Huh? Where is he? Is he okay??

  TODD: No. No, he’s not. He’s dead.

  ME: We’re so sorry, Travis. I know you guys-

  TRAVIS: NO! Shut up!! He’s fuckin’ fine! He’s just hurt, he’s badly hurt! Take me to him, he ain’t dead! He can’t be dead!

  ME: Travis, I was right there…I was in the room. So was Rachel. He got hit in the head, son. He’s gone.

  [Travis fell to his knees shaking his head]

  TRAVIS: I’ll kill them! We been friends since we were kids! I mean, little! Kindergarten…I’ll kill them all!

  ME: We will. We’re gonna finish this! You know that!

  TRAVIS: WHEN?!

  TODD: As soon as we regroup, soon as possible while they’re sure they have the upper hand.

  REGGIE: Don’t they?

  TODD: No, I don’t believe so.

  TRAVIS: Where’s the bastard that killed him? Did he get away?

  ME: No, he’s dead too.

  TRAVIS: You kill him?

  ME: Mhmm.

  ALEXIS: Come on, Trav. Let’s go talk and get ourselves ready for hitting back whenever we do. Let’s go over some stuff.

  TRAVIS: Yeah…Yeah, okay.

  [they go to Jim and Kelly’s]

  MARK: How many you guys take out?

  ME: One on the wall…two in the yard. One that killed Kurt. Couple more? I’ve lost track. You?

  MARK: Personally none. I wounded one, then Alexis turned him into a damn pincushion. We need to hit soon.

  TODD: Agreed. They won’t expect us to strike back soon…if at all! They seemed pretty convinced they killed most of us.

  MARK: That’s because after taking out a few, we all went into crawlspaces. When others came over the walls, they didn’t get shot at and assumed many of us were dead. It worked. They never bothered looking in the houses. So long as they weren’t getting shot at was enough for them. They’re not very swift. They’re not methodical. If they were, this would have been worse. They’d have damn well made sure. They’re also bluffing.

  ME: About what?

  MARK: Multiple men on every road out of here? We’ve swindled their numbers, they ain’t got the numbers anymore for those kind of road blocks.

  ME: Right, I caught that part too. If they were sure…why not just try to round us up to take as slaves now? Why come back?

  [Hank from behind us]

  HANK: Because he’s methodical. Thankfully, his men not so much. He likes to fuck with people’s heads. He enjoys breaking people mentally. He did this once before.

  TODD: Elaborate, will ya?

  HANK: Somewhere outside of town, out near West Branch, was a group of maybe fifteen people. They were set up in a little trailer park. They weren’t fighters, though, they
were barely armed. Couple guns among them. I wasn’t there, thankfully, but When the group was reported to Victor, he ordered Harry to take men there and attack them. The order was to kill the majority and then let the others know they’d be back and not to go anywhere. Told’em there would be road blocks around them. At that time, there were. He had the men for it then. Especially around that are. Were only two ways out of there. Not like where where there’s many roads. Victor got satisfaction just knowing those people were sitting there, day by day, stressing and worrying. Wondering what they should do. When they’d be back. What would happen to them? He let them wait for two weeks before they went back and beat the shit out of them all and brought them to The Retreat. Once there, Victor gave his public speech to them so they knew their jobs and their place. There was five of them. They’re still there. Well, four of them are. One was killed when he went on a hunger strike.

  TODD: So he ain’t sending for us for a little bit? That’s good to know. And we have more info than they think we got. They have no clue that we know how many men they had. And how many they have once we add up those we killed today. We have the advantage.

  ME: They honestly won’t expect us to attack back. He’s arrogant and thinks this is over.

  HANK: Extremely arrogant. And considering how many of his men are now dead cause of you, he’ll be looking for, like I said, blood. He won’t want to enslave you. He will want to publicly torture you. For days. Then kill you. Also publicly. One of the slaves one time got the jump on one of his men and clubbed him in the head with a brick. Killed him. Victor had him placed in the road in front of his building strapped to a chair. He stayed in that chair for two days. Day and night. He was only given water. He was hit, beat, cut. The ultimate example. On day two he started cutting on him with razor blades. His arms, face, everything. Then he’d pour alcohol on him. He’d scream, Victor would laugh.

  REGGIE: Fuckin’ A, man!

  HANK: He broke bones and removed digits. Eventually he got bored at the end of day two and doused him in gasoline and tossed a lit match on him.

  TODD: Are you fucking kidding me??

  HANK: I wish. He even left his charred remains there for slaves to see for about a week. So, believe me…he’s got special plans for you!

  ME: So he thinks.

  REGGIE: So wait, the guy on the bullhorn today? That was Harry?

  HANK: Yeah, that was him.

  ME: We collect the dead. We bury Kurt. Burn the Head Hunters. We’ll convene tonight and go over our plan of attack. Tell everyone.

  REGGIE: We’re on it. I’m gonna go see Alan. Check up on Tina and Rachel.

  TODD: I’ll tag along.

  REGGIE: Cool.

  MARK: Fuck…told you everything was screwed. Let’s go talk to your boy Jim and his wife.

  **

  A few hours later we buried Kurt in an unused section of field and surrounded his grave with stones. We all said a few words and left some flowers nearby. Travis stayed standing there for a couple hours alone and we left him undisturbed.

  Later in the day, all of us convened outside of Lily’s house so she didn’t have to travel far. Just to her porch. She was walking well despite being shot. It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined but she was clearly in some pain. Her two young boys were upstairs entertaining themselves.

  LILY: So. What comes next? You heard them, we all did. They’re coming back.

  ME: Yes, eventually. They think there are less of us than there is. We also know they’re lying about their numbers. We all know they don’t have a ton of men blocking these roads. They have no clue that we know how many of them there are. That, friends, is our advantage!

  TINA: So they think we’ll sit waiting…

  TODD: Exactly. They will never expect an attack. We are gonna finish this. We’re bringing it directly to The Retreat.

  MINDY: And if they should come back here first? Before we attack? We have to be ready to fight again here.

  ME: We’ll be on full alert, of course. But I don’t think they plan on coming back soon…couple weeks give or take. Maybe even longer since their leader has it out for us big time.

  HEATHER: Wouldn’t you think he’d wanna finish us fast then?

  TINA: And what makes you think they wouldn’t come back soon? Especially that long?

  ME: You weren’t present during an earlier conversation, but Hank said he’s done this before. To a smaller and more defenseless group. Killed most of them and told the rest he’d be back for them. Let them feel trapped. Mental torture. This lunatic is expecting us to sit here for weeks shitting our pants until he sends for us. Well, we’re gonna give him a fuck of a shock here within days!

  TRAVIS: I want them all dead!

  JIM: And they will be. We have no choice in that matter.

  TINA: Still wish there was another way, but I know there isn’t.

  ME: Hey, at least we have Hank, right? He was one of them but didn’t want to be. Now he’s with us and helping. The rest of them enjoy who and what they are. I got enough details from Hank. And anything else we don’t know, we’ll know tonight. So if you hear screaming tonight, just try to ignore it.

  LILY: Screaming? Wait, why?

  TODD: We took one alive today, folks. And the dickhead is gonna talk!

  HEATHER: Oh, wow! Okay, so we got that going on.

  KAREN: Do what ya gotta do.

  TINA: Of course you’d say something along those lines. It’s another human being.

  KAREN: One that kills and makes slaves from innocent people. Human? Barely.

  TODD: My thoughts exactly, so yeah. Don’t worry about your safety, he ain’t getting out or anywhere near anyone. He ain’t staying. If you understand what I’m saying.

  TINA: Yeah…it’s clear.

  JIM: I understand your view, Tina. But it’s for our safety.

  TINA: Yeah, them or us, I heard it earlier. I get it. It’s just ugly. Killing to defend ourselves, I get it…but torture is ugly. All of this has been ugly.

  ME: Yes. It could be a lot uglier if we’re on the losing side, remember that.

  TODD: We’re gonna interrogate in that old barn back by the north wall. Shouldn’t be too bothersome to anyone from that distance.

  HANK: I saw who you caught. Name is Burt. He won’t be willing to talk. He’s also a brutal guy. Tina, don’t feel too bad. I once saw this man kick a weakened old man to death at Victor’s order. Just because he was a little dehydrated and couldn’t work. He enjoyed killing him, too. So don’t waste any feeling on him.

  TINA: …

  ME: We’ll officially go over everything tomorrow. Let’s go back to our posts and patrols. Stay vigilant.

  Larry and Ray took our prisoner to the barn and tied him firmly to a wooden chair by the hands and ankles. Reggie and Jim wanted no part of this. Couldn’t blame them…I really didn’t want to be there either. Todd asked if he could see my crowbar. I handed it over. I could only imagine what he was going to do with it. It’s an evening I won’t soon forget. By which I mean never.

  Todd walked into the barn that was lit by multiple lanterns and I followed, closing the door behind me. I stayed near the exit. I was letting Todd handle all this. If I had a question Todd didn’t ask, I’d chime in. I was just a second pair of ears.

  TODD: So, what’s your name partner?

  BURT: Name’s Kenny…how about yourself, fuck face?

  TODD: Well, my name’s Todd. And I don’t like being lied to, Burt. That’s your only freebie.

  BURT: How the fuck you know my name?!

  TODD: We know a lot of things, Burt. For starters…we know you fucked up.

  BURT: [laughs] this is rich. It truly is. We fucked up? You started a war, motherfucker! A war you ain’t got a chance of winning!

  TODD: Now, see, you’re not being very polite. Kinda stupid for man in your situation, don’t you think?

  BURT: I ain’t worried. You’re the one’s that should be worried! Victor is going to love you guys. Oh, yeah! He’s gonna have a
lot of fun with you people.

  TODD: That a fact? Well, he’d have to find us, yes? Maybe we’ll just gather our essentials and head on out of here. There’s plenty of places to go and set up, I’m sure. Further down into the country.