“Lets go.” He said to the group.
They walked through the darkened streets of the tiny community. It seemed James had been expecting them to come back at some point, as he had taking the precaution of letting zombies roam the streets at night. One stumbled towards Charlie. Quick as a whip, he drew his two tomahawks from his belt and threw them towards the zombie. Each tomahawk pinned a hand to the wall behind the zombie. As the zombie stood there struggling to get away, Charlie drew his sword and rammed it through its eye socket.
“NOT a good time, motherfucker.” He said.
All in all, Charlie was actually starting to fell a lot more confident about the fight that was surely going to ensue. That was until the light in the house next to them turned on.
***
“Shit. DUCK!” Jack whispered frantically to the others. As everyone hit the floor, the door to the house opened. Due to the fact that they were actually in between two of the houses, the guard that had opened the door didn’t actually see them.
“Must have just been a cat or something.” They heard the guard say to the other occupants of the house.
“THAT was close.” Vanessa said as they silently got up and walked on.
As they approached the warehouse, Vanessa leaned over and whispered into Jack’s ear.
“She won’t be in the warehouse anymore. James will have moved her to one of the rooms in that house over there.” She gestured to the third house.
They ducked behind James’s own house. One light was on. His bedroom. Jack could see the outline of the bastard. He was sitting at a desk, reading aloud. Jack was overcome by so much rage that he threw himself forward, towards the house. Rory had to wrap his arms around Jack’s waist in order to stop him from giving their position away.
“NOT. YET.” He hissed into Jack’s ear.
Rory checked the road up ahead. When he pronounced the coast clear, they ran across the road towards the house that Penny was captured in.
***
Think.
That is what Penny needed to do. James, or any other guard for that matter, was going to check up on Penny or the guard that would surely be noticed missing soon. She looked down at the guard’s body that lay at her feet. If she was lucky, and she worked quickly, then it was possible she could clean the blood off the floorboards before they stained. She grabbed the body from under the arms and hauled him into the closet. She slammed the door shut and walked over to the pool of blood. She ripped the cover off her bed and grabbed the sheets lying beneath it. She used them to mop up the blood, and when she was satisfied with the job, she threw the bed sheets into the cupboard with the dead guard.
***
Jack, Charlie, Rory and Vanessa reached the house that housed Penny, as well as the other prisoners. Vanessa had told them that the door would probably be locked, but they had come prepared for that. Jack unsheathed his machete from it’s holster in his belt and slid it in the crack in the door. He brought the machete down over the lock, breaking the door open. They quietly slid through the door.
“She is going to be in this house, but we CANNOT make much noise, ok?” Rory said, mainly talking to Jack.
They walked up the stairs, wincing as each step groaned on the staircase. When they reached the top of the staircase, they turned left on Vanessa’s orders and nearly had a collective heart attack when one of the floorboards screamed in protest.
“Who the hell is that?” They heard a voice coming from one of the rooms.
Jack dropped to his knees and almost started sobbing.
The voice belonged to Penny.
***
Jack got to his feet and threw the door open. Penny was sitting on her bed. She looked absolutely awful, blood covering her dress, and a bloody bandage to match. Yet she still looked so beautiful. As soon as Penny realised that the people in this room were the good guys – her husband, and her best friends, she gave a yelp of surprise.
Jack ran towards Penny, ecstatic that he had finally gotten his wife back.
That was when the good news stopped, however. The door was thrown open to reveal James. He was nowhere near as pleased as the rest of the survivors were. Charlie, who was standing behind Penny, very slowly handed her his gun, in case things went pear shaped.
“Motherfucker” James said. “You forgot about me, didn’t you? Did you really think I would be kind enough to let you run away with that girl? She’s MINE now, got it? I will die before I let you run away with her, happily ever after.”
“Poor choice of words, bastard.” Jack said. He ran towards James, grabbing his gun from his holster as he did so. James stood his ground. Jack stopped about 5 metres away from him.
“I really enjoyed breaking you, Jack.” James said. “I saw the look in your eyes when I took her. Now I get to see it again. Right before I kill you. I enjoyed cutting up your wife. I REALLY enjoyed it. She has very lovely tasting blood, some of the best I’VE ever sampled. I am quite looking forward to tasting that again. What about you, sweetheart?” He finished, looking at Penny.
Penny snapped.
“Burn in hell, you crazy, fucked up son of a bitch.” She said, pulling out the gun Charlie had given her. She pointed it straight at James’s head and without hesitation, pulled the trigger.
***
The bullet hit James right in the eye. His head flipped back as the bullet made its way through his brain, blasting a huge hole in the back of his skull. Blood and brain matter showered back as James fell to the ground.
He was dead before he even hit the floor.
Chapter 7: Its Not A Good Day To Be A Bad Guy
Charlie looked at James’s broken body. “Well… that was… something.”
He looked over to Jack. He had Penny in his arms, and for the first time in almost 3 weeks, he looked happy. Actually, happy wasn’t the right word to describe it. Positively ecstatic was more like it. A grin stretched across his face as he looked towards his friends.
Then he looked down into his wife’s eyes. She was staring at James’s body with a mask of positive horror.
“I… I killed him. I killed a human being.” She said, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes.
Rory walked towards Penny. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye.
“That wasn’t a human being.” He said.
She looked at the body again. She remembered the times he had sliced into her and tasted her blood. 4 times in all. She had suffered the torture once per week, accounting for 3 of the long, jagged cuts on her arm. She had been given the torture an extra time for actually biting James when he had come in to check on her. She remembered all the times he had sat at the foot of her bed and told her that she would never see her husband again, that he was absolutely positive that he, along with the rest of her group, would have been devoured by zombies by now.
She smiled at her saviours and grabbed Jack by the hand.
“Your right. Let’s get out of here.”
They all walked away, hand in hand. As they left the room that Penny had been trapped in for almost a month, Charlie spoke up.
“You know, one of us should probably take the bastard she just killed out of here, shouldn’t we? We wouldn’t want his corpse dampening the mood in here, would we?”
Penny gave a shaky laugh, and they left.
***
They walked throughout the darkened corridor that led to the front door of the house.
“Those guards will have heard the gunshot.” Jack said. “We are going to have an absolute riot on our hands when we get out there. So, I ask you. What is our policy on the killing of humans?”
“We defend ourselves.” Charlie said. “If that means we have to kill those bastards, then so be it.”
Charlie unsheathed his sword. Jack unclipped his gun from his belt. Rory grabbed his Colt M4A1 Carbine. Vanessa took her Walther PPK from her back pocket and Penny raised the gun that Charlie had given her.
They were ready.
Charlie
opened the front door…
… To reveal no less than 8 guards, all aiming their machine guns at the groups head’s.
“Fuck.” Said Jack.
***
Jack slammed the door shut as bullets peppered the door. They sprinted back up the stairs, into Penny’s room. Amazingly, no one had been hit during the attack that had just taken place. Jack kicked James’s body to one side and sat on the bed.
“This is bad. This is very, very bad.” He said, with his head in his hands. Rory peered out the window and looked down below. The eight guards were standing with their guns ready, pointed at the door.
Charlie reached behind him and pulled out his gun. He stuck his hand out the window and shot blindly towards the ground. He heard one of the men scream, meaning at least one of his bullets had struck a guard. The remaining guards started shooting at the source – Penny’s window. Glass fragments exploded outward as bullets shattered the window. Charlie ducked until the guards stopped shooting.
Charlie walked over towards Jack and grabbed his hand, hauling him up. He looked him square in the eye.
“We WILL get through this, Jack.” He said. “We have done it before, and by Christ we will do it again. Get up now, and lets go home.”
Jack stared at Charlie. He was right, of course. Had they really come all this way, rescued Penny, only to be holed in by a dead man’s guards? Hell no. Jack got up and grabbed his gun.
Rory decided to chance another peek out of the window. The guards were still standing there
They left the room and cautiously tiptoed into the hallway. The front door was still there, bullet holes riddled through it. The guards had now moved slightly, but the survivors could still see their feet through the holes in the door. They positioned themselves and raised their firearms, execution style.
“Ready?” Jack whispered to the others.
An assorted whisper of ‘yes’ wafted through the darkened hallway.
“Then lets bring these motherfuckers down.”
***
“On my mark. 3…2…1……… fire.”
The survivors let rip with their ammo. Bullet smashed through the door, and into the guard’s body. The bullets completely disintegrated the door, allowing the survivors to see their targets. They all slowly walked forward, still with bullets flying out of their gun, until they were satisfied that every guard was dead. They lowered their guns and walked towards the henchmen. They were barely recognisable as human beings anymore. Their bodies had been absolutely ravaged by the bullets. Some had even had whole limbs ripped off because of the sheer power of the bullets.
That was it.
The battle was over.
Everyone was ecstatic. The sound of cheers rung through the darkened night. After almost 10 minutes of joyful celebration, they died down and it really sunk in.
They were free. That homicidal maniac was NEVER going to hurt them again.
Jack turned to see Vanessa walking away from them, up the road.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jack asked her.
Vanessa turned around. She looked absolutely devastated, but resolved as well.
“You found her. I helped you out of that place, then I helped you back in. You guys are free. I can leave now. I’m done.”
Jack laughed. “You are not going ANYWHERE. You saved our lives. We would have never been able to get back of it weren’t for you. You are just as much a part of this group as anyone.”
“Really? You want me to stay?” Vanessa asked.
“Of course.” Jack said.
Vanessa smiled. “Thank you.”
Charlie broke the lovely moment with a bit of a shock.
“Guys?” He said, pointing to a window. The survivors followed where his finger was pointing to, only to discover that they were not alone.
The faces of five people peered out from one of the other rooms in the house at them.
***
Charlie raised his gun and pointed it directly at the people.
One of them, a man in his late 60’s held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa. We aren’t looking for any trouble here. We just noticed that you killed James. You guys are pretty capable! Now, I’m going to just cut to the chase here: We want to join your little group. We haven’t been on the road for a while, and we sure would like to have a bit of security. What do you say? ”
Jack looked up at the people.
“Stay where we can see you.” He said.
Rory gathered the survivors into a circle and said what was on all their minds.
“We need them.”
Jack looked at him, an incredulous look in his eyes.
“After the trouble we just had? You really want a repeat of that?” He said.
Rory shot straight back: “Do you really want a repeat of what happened at your place? These people might be able to help us. A group of 10 people instead of 5 has to count for something. Maybe groups like James’s won’t fuck with us if they see we are in a big group. Besides, you let us in without a thought when this whole thing started. In fact, you asked us to join.”
Jack considered this. Rory was right, after all. They needed the strength, and the manpower. Jack pulled Rory aside.
“They make one fuckup, and it is on you.” He said.
Rory nodded solemnly.
Jack walked towards the window, with his gun in his hand. Not aimed at them, just ready for action if a threat presented itself.
“STICK YOUR HANDS OUTSIDE OF THE WINDOW WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!” He yelled up to the group of five. Five pairs of hands were seen hanging out of the window. With no danger present, Jack holstered his gun. He looked up at the group, and began to speak.
“We have considered your offer. We will let you stay with us.” Jack said. There was a muffled assortment of excited whispers in the group. “But.” He continued, “There are a couple of ground rules. Number 1: No straying from the group. We need to know where you guys are at all times. Number 2: I am in charge. That is final, what I say goes, alright?”
A chorus of ‘OK’ drifted through the cold, biting air.
“Well then.” Jack said. “Welcome to the group.”
***
Just to be on the safe side, Charlie had kept his gun drawn when he went up to collect the new members of the group. He pushed the door open, to reveal the 5 people. They were sitting on the bed and, as per Jack’s request, they had their hands in their laps, so Charlie could make sure that they weren’t going to try and pull a gun on him. Charlie led them down from the smoking, ruined house and into the street.
“Alright. Maybe we could get a round of introductions happening here. I’m Jack. This is my wife Penny, and my three friends, Charlie, Rory and Vanessa. Charlie is my second-in-command, so make sure you listen to him as well. You treat us all with respect, and we will get along very well, I think.” Jack said.
The man who had previously talked to Jack stood forward. He had long white hair and a long snowy white beard. He wasn’t a slight man, although he wasn’t overweight. That, coupled with his rosy cheeks, gave him the appearance of Father Christmas. “My name is Edward Scott, but for my whole adult life, everyone has been calling me Santa.”
Jack gave a chuckle at that. It was amazing to see how his whole demeanour had changed ever since he had found his wife. “Santa, huh? I think we will call you that too, as long as you don’t mind.”
Santa smiled. “Not at all, my friend.”
The next person to introduce himself was a tall man in his mid to late 30’s. He had long curly brown hair and glasses. He had an ornate gold watch on his left wrist. He wasn’t very muscly, quite slender, in fact. He spoke with a deep, calming voice.
“My name is Walter Scott, but people call me Walt.”
Jack looked at him. “Walter, huh?” He extended his arm. “Alright, nice to meet you, Walt.” Jack shook Walt’s hand and he stepped back into the group of others.
Two girls stepped forward and introduced themselves as Jessica and Megan. T
hey were in their mid twenties, and they were identical twins. They both had long black hair, although Megan wore her hair straight as a ruler, whereas Jessica’s hair was curly and bouncy.
Life As We Know It Page 7
