“Look at all that!” Magda pushed her way through to the cellar. “This can feed us ten times over!”
A man with a spiky mohawk followed. “I can smell all the food!”
The starved raiders couldn’t resist anymore. All seventeen of them stormed the cellar. Lara and Daren peeked inside to look at them. Some tore open sacks of rice and shoved uncooked grains in their mouths. Others used their weapons to hack open containers. One burly raider smashed his axe on a can of chickpeas, which caused the contents to splatter all over the floor. Several other raiders dove to the ground and shoveled handfuls of chickpeas in their mouths. Bryson tried to stop them from finishing the food.
“Are they all in there?” Lara asked Daren.
“Every last one,” he replied.
Lara looked at Daren and nodded. It only took him a second to know what she was thinking. They placed their hands on the door and slammed it shut. Lara turned the hand wheel as fast as she could until it locked. From inside they heard scrambling and shouting. A dozen fists and weapons pounded on the door. The racket filled the entire bunker, making both of them cover their ears.
And then…silence.
There were no more voices. No more pounding. No one trying to get out.
“You think they’re gone?” Lara asked.
“I’d wait a few months just to be sure,” Daren said. “Long enough for all the food to run out and have them die from starvation.”
“Don’t be such a wuss.”
“Riiight, the guy who got tortured for you is a wuss.”
Lara turned the hand wheel back. She pulled open the door. The room was dark, though Daren half expected Magda to leap out with a flaming arrow.
Lara reached in and turned on the lights. Everything was exactly where they left it. No chickpeas on the floor and no raiders making gluttons of themselves. It was like it never happened.
Daren looked at the neatly stocked shelves. “They’re gone.”
“Where do you think they are?” Lara asked.
“Wherever it is, I hope they’ve gone to a much worse place.”
They stood there silently gazing at their largesse. Then Daren remembered something Murphy had told him on the night the village had dined on the meager catch he’d brought home.
“Do you remember the prophecy about the Angel of Death?”
“Which one?” Lara asked.
“The one about the final harvest.”
“Oh that one. My dad used to repeat that all the time.”
“How did it go again?”
“In the last days, the Angel of Death shall appear in human form and walk the earth,” Lara recited, “to enact the final harvest of the damned.”
Daren looked in the cellar that once contained seventeen homicidal raiders.
“I think you might have fulfilled the prophecy.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “No shit.”
“By the way,” he said, facing her. “How did you carry me all the way down here when I was unconscious?”
“It’s a mystery.” She smiled at him. “Just like this room.”
Daren gave her a look.
“Fine.” Lara placed her hands on her hips. “I slumped you over the wheeled platform and tied you to it. Then I rode it all the way to the entrance.”
“Ooookay.” Daren drew back from her. “And how did you get me down the stairs?”
Lara looked down, apparently guilty of some atrocity.
“Lara?”
“I strapped you to a sheet of plywood,” she said, “then I…uhm…slid you down the stairs.”
“Are. You. Kidding me?” Daren shouted. “I could’ve been killed!”
“But you weren’t,” Lara said. “So drop it already.”
“Drop it? Drop it? You shoved my unconscious body down a flight of stairs! You can’t just expect me to pretend like—”
Lara grabbed his shirt and pulled him towards her. She kissed him squarely on the lips. Utter shock and joy turned his tendons into mush. Daren felt suspended in midair. After she finally let go, he was left stunned and slack-jawed.
“Feel better now?” She twirled her hair with her finger.
Daren closed his eyes, smiled, and exhaled slowly.
“You have no idea.”
⊕ ⊕ ⊕
SHERIFF GARRISON TURNED ON THE wiper to sweep the bug splatter off his windshield. He cursed under his breath as he saw what was ahead. Several news vans were parked near the closed gate while reporters and camera crew milled about. The perky brunette from Channel 8 News saw his cruiser approach and headed straight towards him. Before he could press the button to raise the window, she had the microphone shoved in his face.
“Sheriff, could you care to comment on the bloodbath?”
“I can’t say anything at this time.” He raised his palm to her. “My office will release a statement later today.”
“Do you know how many were killed or how the confrontation began?” She moved the mike closer to his mouth.
“No comment!”
He pushed microphone away and closed the window. Pounding the horn with the heel of his palm, he drove right up to the beige-colored gate. The gate slid over to one side, revealing a paved driveway winding through a densely forested area. Several deputies manning the gate blocked the news crews from entering. As soon as Garrison drove in, the gate slid back into place. He reached for his radio to call his senior deputy, but it fizzled out and died. He swore and slammed it down. The county budget cuts were getting ridiculous.
He rolled down the window and called one of the deputies to come over. A pale, pimply-faced rookie right out of high school trotted over to him.
“Henson, right?” Garrison rested his arm on the window and poked his head out.
“Yes, sir!” Henson brought his hand up in a salute.
“This ain’t the goddamn Marines, son,” Garrison said, “so quit the Gomer Pyle routine.”
“Sir.” The rookie put down his arm. “Yes, sir!”
Garrison closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
“Who’s Gomer Pyle, sir?” Henson asked.
“Just tell me where the hell Jones is.” Garrison brought down his hand and glared at him.
Henson’s acne stood out more as he turned even paler. He pointed up the road. “He’s waiting for you at the crime scene, sir.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you sir?”
Garrison muttered under his breath as he floored the accelerator. In the rearview mirror, he saw Henson blankly staring at the back of his vehicle. There was something to be said about more stringent IQ tests.
The sheriff sped through two miles of winding tree-lined road before he finally reached the compound. The whole morning wasted just trying to get there. Why couldn’t criminals commit offenses in more convenient locations?
The cruiser slowed to a stop as it approached another gate. This one was open but had razor wire on top. There were two empty sniper towers on either side of the gate. One of the towers had a flag with the words “Don’t Tread On Me” sewn on the fabric. He drove on until he saw several other patrol cars with red and blue flashing lights. A large black van with SWAT painted on the side was parked nearby, and uniformed officers moved about the area. He stopped the cruiser, put his hat on, got out of the car, and walked towards the yellow crime scene tape.
Jones, with his perfectly groomed handlebar moustache, stood just behind the tape. He had a grim expression on his face.
“Well, Sheriff,” Jones began, “looks like we’re in over our heads.”
“What do you mean?” Garrison pulled up the tape and went under it.
“Haven’t seen anything like it since Iraq.” Jones scratched behind his ear as he looked back at the scene. “There’s a shitstorm of blood, guts, bodies, and shell casings. We’ll need some outside help to process everything.”
“That’s just what we need.” Garrison marched onward. “Hot shot, big city, forensic assholes.”<
br />
“We’ve detained some of the militia guys for questioning.” Jones walked beside his boss. “But there’s something weird about the whole thing.”
“Weird?” Garrison looked at his second in command.
“Maybe you should see it for yourself.”
Garrison frowned. It wasn’t like Jones to be so cryptic. They walked towards a group of cabins. Strewn all over the grass were about a couple of dozen bodies. Several wore the camo style uniform typical of the militia. But the rest of them made Garrison stop dead in his tracks.
He knelt down and looked at one of them. It was a woman in her twenties with a bloody scythe in her hand. Only half her head had been shaved. Branded on her arm was a symbol of a cross inside a circle. All over the woman’s face and arms was a pattern of scars that looked deliberately inflicted. A few feet away, with a gaping hole on his forehead, lay a bearded bald man. He also had the same distinct scarring on his arms. Both of them, as well as the rest of the oddly marked corpses, were riddled with bullet holes. All their blood coalesced into a dark ocean of red.
“Look at his teeth.” Jones pointed at the bearded man’s open mouth. “He looks like that creature from the Alien movies.”
Garrison looked around at the assortment of primitive weapons. “Who the hell brings knives and axes to a gunfight?”
“It’s like they’re part of a tribe or cult or something.”
“Where’s the leader of the militia?”
“He was one of the first casualties,” Jones answered. “His nephew seems to be in charge now. He’s the one who called us.”
“Where you keeping him?”
“He’s in one of the main cabins. Seems really shook up.”
Garrison entered the cabin and saw a man in desert camouflage seated at a desk. His hair stuck to his forehead in a bad case of helmet head. He clasped his hands tightly to stop them from shaking.
“I take it you’re the new leader of this outfit,” Garrison said.
The man’s lower lip trembled. “I guess I am.”
Garrison sat down, removed his hat, and placed it on the desk. “What’s your name?”
“Walter Adkins,” the man answered.
“Haven’t seen combat before, have you, Walter?”
The man swallowed. “No.”
“Playing soldier ain’t fun when you see real blood and body parts, huh?”
Walter bowed his head. “No.”
“You wannabe soldier boys don’t trust the government or us law and order types.” The sheriff watched the man’s fingertips go white from squeezing his hands together. “So what made you call us in?”
“I didn’t know what to do.” His voice cracked. “There was screaming and blood everywhere. People were dying all around me. I figured we needed help.”
Garrison leaned forward. “I’d like to know what the hell happened out there.”
Walter unclasped his hands and laid them flat on the desk. He bowed his head low and remained quiet for a few seconds while Garrison waited.
“I can’t rightly say,” Walter finally spoke. “All I know is that one of the guys heard a racket in the food storage facility. When he went to open the food cellar one of those freaks decapitated him.”
He went on to describe how the intruders rushed up to the surface and killed three more men. By that time, the entire camp had been alerted. But even with high-powered assault rifles, it took a while to take all of them down.
“Those were crazy bastards,” Walter said. “I’d never seen people with axes and knives charge against a hail of automatic fire. They just kept coming at us like zombies on crack.” He shuddered. “It’s like they all came straight out of hell.” He curled his hands into fists and clenched them. “I’ll never forget what happened to Uncle Mort. That psycho bitch with teeth on her necklace ripped him open.” A sob escaped him. “Before he died, he kept trying to stuff his guts back inside.”
“How’d the intruders get into the food storage?”
“Damned if I know.” Walter ran his hands through his hair and grabbed it. “There’s no other way in or out of there, and we’d never seen them until this morning. They just appeared out of nowhere.”
⊕ ⊕ ⊕
AT THE END OF THE day, Garrison trudged back to his cruiser and shut the door. He opened his glove compartment and rummaged around until he retrieved a pack of cigarettes. He inserted a cigarette in his mouth, lighted the tip, and watched the orange glow in the fading light of dusk. Taking a long drag, he sat back and blew the smoke out the window.
He went through the facts over and over again in his head. He’d visited the food cellar and searched for another entrance. He’d questioned several other militia members repeatedly. He’d gone through surveillance tapes. Yet he had found nothing that could explain how seventeen crazed freaks got beamed into the cellar from a slasher flick dimension.
“Try putting that on your report.” He chuckled to himself.
He turned on the radio to distract his mind from the day’s events. Tim McGraw was crooning about living while dying. Garrison closed his eyes and lowered the back of his seat, his hand hanging out the window to let the ash from his cigarette drop to the ground.
Minutes later the news came on. There was a report about the events at the militia compound. The media couldn’t confirm anything at this point and were still waiting for an official statement from the sheriff. Garrison sucked on his cigarette and blew smoke at the radio.
The news was followed by a sound bite regarding a completely different topic:
“The asteroid, which is expected to arrive within the next year, will be one of the closest near-Earth objects ever recorded. Based on its trajectory and our calculations, there’s a slight chance of collision with the possibility of an Extinction Level Event.”
Garrison turned off the radio and brought his seat up. It was time to head back and face the cameras. He turned the ignition key, and the motor roared to life. He was about to engage the gears when something made him kill the engine. He stepped out of his car, removed his sidearm from the holster, and pointed it in the direction of the woods.
“This is the Sheriff,” he called out. “Come out where I can see you.”
Only the distant sound of an owl greeted him. He reached for his flashlight and aimed it at the trees, sweeping the beam over the whole area. After waiting a few moments, he turned the flashlight off and holstered his weapon. Shaking his head, he got back into the cruiser. He should either have his eyes checked or get therapy. He could’ve sworn he saw a cloaked figure walking among the trees.
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading The Cellar! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review at Amazon US, Amazon UK, or your favorite retailer. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can
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Finally, this book is lendable, so share it with a friend!
Also by Richard Dela Cruz
Stark Raving Maddie: A Maddie Jax Thriller
Sixteen-year-old Maddie Jax has only one thing on her mind: save her younger sister from a sexual predator. The plan was simple: take a cross-country bus ride, confront the creep, and rescue Amy.
When Maddie gets booted off the bus two thousand miles short of her destination, she accepts a ride from a stranger. But things go wrong, and she finds herself trapped inside a creepy basement lit by one flickering light bulb. It doesn’t take her long to realize that time is running out, not just for Amy, but for herself as well.
Acknowledgments
To God: Thank you for listening to me and for blessing the road ahead. It’s only through your grace that I’m actually anywhere close to being a decent writer.
To my parents, Ramon and Rani: Thank you for showing me the wonder of the written wor
d and for planting the dream in my heart. Thank you for your wisdom, your love, and your patience. Without your faith and support, I would never have gotten this far.
To my brother, Allan: Thank you for wading through my bizarre tale and giving me your two cents. I always knew I could count on you, bro. I owe you one. Maybe one of these days I can return the favor and beta test your awesome little app.
To my father-in-law, Romy Rillera: You were a superb beta reader. Your perspective and insights were invaluable in the writing of this book. Thank you for taking the time to help me out. My writing can only improve from here on.
To my mother-in-law, Benaida Rillera: Thank you for critiquing my book and being an early fan of my work. You gave me the encouragement I needed to pursue my goal.
To my good friend, Shannon Derning: Thank you for your eagle-eyed editing of my manuscript and your hearty approval of the twist in the end. And thanks for the eyebrow-raising tidbits you added to the story. They definitely made my day.
To my oldest friend, Cliff Abellera: Thank you for being my first beta reader and showing me how to be a better writer. It’s a long journey, and I appreciate the help and advice you’ve given me. Here’s to us…who’s like us…dem few.
And to my wife, Justice: This book would have never seen daylight without you. Thank you for your love, your support, and your belief in the dream. Thank you for the countless hours of editing you’ve put in and for putting up with me. You make my book worth the reading and my life worth the living.
About the Author
The Cellar: A Post-Apocalyptic Novella Page 7
