Hundreds of people followed and when they got through the opening, they dashed for the best seats. As the improvised stadium filled, the River King went to the front of the stage where there was a small podium. He didn’t look back at his prisoners.
Soon the place was filled, packed with at least two-thousand people. There was an excited buzz in the air that made Grey’s pulse race. They were eager for a show and eager for blood. The people of Cape Girardeau had been living off blood sports for a year now and their appetite was just getting wetted.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the River King’s voice boomed over a dozen loudspeakers. “Thanks for coming out on such short notice. This is a very important day for us. Today is the day we finally get some revenge!” He screamed the word so that it could be heard from one end of the base to the other.
“These are the pieces of filth who destroyed our bridge. They blew it up as an act of sabotage against, not just me, but against all of us. Yes, we have killed the men who paid them for their treachery, but now it is their turn!”
The crowd cheered this with such enthusiasm that for a few seconds, Grey thought that they would rush down in a giant mob, tear down the cage and rip them to pieces.
The River King waved his arms, yelling: “Hold on, hold on,” until they were quiet enough to hear him speak in a normal tone. “I know you are excited, but you’ll have to wait just a little longer. As you can see, there is a girl with them.”
A hiss erupted from the crowd and cries of “bitch” and “slut” rained down on Sadie.
“Yes, she is a nasty piece of work and, regrettably, she is my own daughter.” The crowd emitted a collective gasp and then began whispering to each other in amazement. The River King spoke over the noise. “I can not kill my own daughter. It’s a failing of mine as a father. I love her too much to kill her.”
There was a smattering of jeers and boos from the audience. “Yes, I deserve that,” he said, shaking his head in theatrical sadness. “She won’t go unpunished, I promise you that. She will be sold in the slave auctions in New York and the proceeds will go to help the disadvantaged here in Cape Girardeau.”
“She’s cute, I’ll buy her,” someone called out, causing the crowd to cheer and catcall.
“Okay, sure,” the king said, easily. “The opening bid is seven thousand.” The crowd oohed and ahhed over this amount which seemed deliciously extravagant. The man who had offered to buy her sat back down, disappointed. “She leaves tomorrow on the next caravan east,” the River King went on, “you have until then to scrape together any money…”
Sadie interrupted him, screaming: “You are such an asshole!”
He turned on her with hate in his eyes. “And you are guilty of collusion, as well as aiding and abetting enemies of the state. Your friends, on the other hand, are guilty of treason and the penalty for that is death!”
A snarl rose from the crowd and once again they seemed on the verge of turning into an uncontrollable savage mob. The River King called for quiet. When he got it, he bellowed into the microphone: “Iiiiit’s time!” This caused the people to go nuts and they began stamping their feet on the bleachers, making a sound like thunder. When they carried on for a few minutes and began to tire, he asked, “Who wants Skinner?”
The cheers were deafening as a giant of a man came down through the opening in the bleachers. He was dressed in scarves and rags that were brown with old blood, and across his face he wore a fearsome leather mask. In one hand he carried an axe with an immense blade and in the other he carried a whip that had eight heads.
He carried his instruments of torture raised up high as if he had earned a victory with them. The River King beamed at him as though he were a favorite son.
“To celebrate the capture of the saboteurs, we will have a three day party and Skinner will be our star attraction. But all of you will get to participate as well. At noon and nine, you will get to pick the winners for the day.”
The River King snapped his fingers and said something to one of his flunkies, who then snapped his own fingers and a squad of guards went into the cage and dragged out the prisoners who were lined up in no particular order. Grey was happy to see that his men didn’t shy back or whine. They stood tall and proud.
“We’ll pick the first of today’s winner by applause,” the River King said, heading to Grey, who was furthest to the right.
“What’s the winner get?” Grey asked, though he knew the answer.
At first the River King wasn’t going to answer, but then he smiled right into Grey’s face. “He gets to die. Trust me, being the first to die is really a plus.”
“Because he doesn’t have to look at your ass of a face any longer?” The squad grinned at Grey’s display of bravado.
“No,” the River King answered calmly. “Because he doesn’t have to come back here every day with a ball of ice in his guts, afraid he’ll piss himself if he’s called and sickened that if he isn’t, he’ll have to sit through the torture of knowing that everyday could be his last. You’ll be the final man chosen, Grey. I’ll make sure of it. I want you to watch every one of your men get skinned alive.”
Grey had no comeback for this. The hate was so strong in him that he could taste the bile in the back of his throat.
“Back in the cage with him,” the River King said to his flunky. Louder, he addressed the crowd: “That one is special. We want to save the best for last. Now, about these. Who wants this one?” He came to stand behind Lieutenant Wilson, who calmly turned and spat a yellowish loogie square into the River King’s face.
Rage turned him red in an instant, but he refrained from violence. He wiped away the spittle and declared: “It looks as though we have a volunteer.”
The crowd roared approval as the others were led back to the cage while Wilson, spitting and kicking in a fury, was dragged forward to where a six foot tall pole was cemented to the ground. His hands were uncuffed from behind his back and then recuffed to the top of the pole, where a metal ring had been welded. His clothes were cut away so that he stood in only his boots and his underwear, shivering and not just from the cold.
Grey’s heart melted for his friend, but he found he couldn’t say a word in support. It felt as though his tongue had been glued to the roof of his mouth.
At a safer distance, the River King walked around the man, appraising him. Finally, he said: “The toughness of the Valley soldiers is legendary. I say eighty. Do I have any takers?”
He had many. The place went nuts and the noise grew even louder than ever. It dragged on for half an hour and during that time Grey had an opportunity to ask the ferret-faced guard what was going on.
“They’re betting on how many lashes it’ll take before that dude dies or goes unconscious. I seen some go a hundred and twelve. Yeah, it was pretty gnarly. You couldn’t even tell what Skinner was whipping at the end.”
Stunned, Grey could only stand there with his forehead pressed against the bars, his eyes seeing nothing. The River King’s voice brought him around. “Two minutes until the betting is closed.”
The first lash landed exactly two minutes later. Skinner raised a muscled arm and then brought his whip across Wilson’s back and slashed eight red lines through his flesh. To his credit, Wilson didn’t scream. He jerked and grunted, his body going rigid from the pain.
It took seven lashes before he finally cried out, which only made the crowd more bloodthirsty. Their cheers were beyond anything Grey could have imagined. They were animals, jumping up and down in an ecstasy of evil.
It triggered something animalistic in Grey. He attacked the door of the cage, stomping it with a heavy-booted foot. A second later, PFC Keene joined him and they alternated hammering on the door until they were too tired to go on. Two more soldiers quickly stepped up the second Grey and Keene fell back.
As he caught his breath, Grey’s eyes were pulled toward the horrible execution. Already the skin across Wilson’s back had been completely stripped away so that white bone
stood out in a field of red gore.
“Fuck!” Grey raged, getting up again. He knew that kicking the iron gate was useless and futile and yet he couldn’t just sit there as Wilson’s screams drilled into his head.
At first, the screams were piercing with the vibrancy of his pain, but by the fortieth lash that tore away the last thread of his underwear, his cries had dropped in volume. By the sixtieth, he lacked the strength to do more than blubber.
As the eightieth lash drew near, it was hard to tell if Wilson was still conscious; both of his eyes had been exploded out of their sockets. A ghoul of a doctor checked him after each lash and by the eighty-third, the doctor waved off the bloody figure of Skinner.
Wilson was unchained and allowed to flop into the stew of flesh and blood underfoot and then Skinner was back having exchanged his whip for the huge-bladed axe. He turned his masked face to the River King, waiting for the signal to strike off the head.
Grey couldn’t watch and turned away, however the River King ordered him to turn and watch. “I have all day,” he said when Grey started cursing in an incoherent rage. “I can let that poor bastard suffer until the cows come home. Good boy. Your men, too. I want everyone to see who is really in charge around here.”
“You’re not in charge around here,” Grey shot back. “You’re afraid of the crowd. You’re afraid of your own people. That’s why you do this. You’re a weak little coward.”
The king only raised a single eyebrow, affecting a bored expression and finally Grey ordered his men to face forward. They stood at attention, their eyes forward as Skinner took Wilson’s head off with one stroke.
Chapter 35
Neil Martin
It took both of them straining with all their might to heave the bodies to the edge of the pontoon and shove them off.
“That was a gentler death than he deserved,” Neil said, taking a water bottle and rinsing his hands. There was blood on them and as long as it was there, his face had a curdled look to it.
“Deserves is a dumb word,” Jillybean said in something of a monotone. She looked exhausted and it was no wonder. They had been charging hard for four days now. “No one gets what they deserve. I used to be a really good girl, but I didn’t get good things. I just got people dying like Mister Ram and Miss Sarah and Nico. Then I was bad and I got to end the war with the Azael, which was good. You see how nothing makes sense?”
Neil wanted to smile at Jillybean to reassure her that everything would be okay in the end, but the body of the Colonel and his two bodyguards were floating placidly next to the boat and his lips wouldn’t move in the direction of a smile. The bodies were proof that the only thing they could really count on was death.
“I guess it is a dumb word.” She nodded, looking out over the bodies and not seeing them. If one didn’t look too close, they seemed to blend in with the rest. The boat was surrounded by bodies, most thrashing in a futile attempt to get at the two humans.
“We should go,” Neil said, at last. “We don’t want to be around when the Colonel’s men find his body. Our goose would be cooked.”
“Huh? Isn’t a cooked goose a good thing?” Jillybean asked. “I could go for some goose right now.”
Neil nudged her towards the front of the boat with his now clean hands. “It’s just an expression and I guess I really don’t know what it means. Either way, we have to get away from the scene of the crime.”
She gave him a sharp look at his poor choice of words, but the look faded quickly, replaced by the tired one again. “Sure, but they won’t find his body. It doesn’t even look like him, you know what I mean? He looks kinda fake, and in a day, he’ll start to puff up and turn green and stinky…”
A sudden wave of queasiness had Neil breathing heavily just to keep his stomach from turning inside out. “Just go to the front and keep a look out, please. We should get as far down river as we can before dawn.”
It was a difficult trek. Zombies clogged the propeller so frequently that Neil wanted to tear his hair out in frustration. He spent half their night sawing away bleeding bodies.
Jillybean finally came to look at the situation and suggested altering the angle of the engine that stuck down into the water. She pressed a button and the entire engine shifted.
“Hey, which button was that?” Neil asked coming to stand over her as she sat in the pilot’s chair.
There were only three buttons on the entire console and she pointed to the one on the right. “It’s not going to fix everything, but it’ll help until I can get some proper welding supplies. Can we stop and get some? There’s a little river coming up that like, smacks into this one. Just up it a few miles is a town that gots to have all sorts of stuff for us.”
“Sure,” Neil answered, wondering how she could possibly know the first thing about welding. For a good hour as they trundled down the river, Neil watched the girl sitting like a shadowy lump at the front of the boat.
She only spoke to point out better routes around the “monsters.” She wound them in a curling course that sometimes made Neil wonder if they were still traveling downriver. He had to watch the slowly drifting zombies to tell.
When they finally reached the tributary, he slowed until they were going at walking speed. “This is the one, right,” he asked.
Jillybean jerked as if waking up, even though she had just called out a change in their course. “Right one what?” she asked. She stood suddenly and almost lost her balance. “Neil,” she said with fear in her voice. “Where are we? Where’s Rock Island?”
“What do you mean? You’re not lost, are you?” Neil knew that it was almost impossible to get lost on a waterway that went in only one direction, but he also knew that if anyone could, he’d be the one.
“No, I don’t think so. This is the mighty Mississip…I think.” She spun, going in a circle, tottering slightly as if she hadn’t been on the boat for the last few hours.
“What do you mean, you think?” Neil turned the pontoon in a gentle turn. “Do you remember what happened? I heard you talking about forgetting. Is that a thing? Did you forget what we did?”
Her eyes were big and shiny, the stars glinting on what Neil suspected were tears welling. “We did some…” Her wet eyes fell on the deck of the boat where the Colonel’s blood had soaked into the bristly green carpet. In their world, the splotch couldn’t have been anything except blood.
“What did we do?” she whispered. “And where is Sadie and Mister Captain Grey? I-I didn’t kill them, did I?”
A shiver ran up Neil’s back. What deadly strangeness swirled in her mind for her to even ask the question? “Why would you do that?” he asked and then immediately regretted the question. What if she answered? What if he was invited into her deranged mind and saw a glimpse of something he shouldn’t see? With anyone else, he’d take the risk.
“I wouldn’t…I think,” she said. “But you never know. I mean, I’ve done…” She broke off and the tears were now on her face slipping down.
“You didn’t do anything,” he said, quickly, but then immediately started yammering: “You didn’t do anything to Sadie or Captain Grey, but we did something to…wait, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Grey and Sadie are already downriver, sold to the River King.”
Her eyes hung on the bloody splotch as she tried to makes sense of a world suddenly and inexplicably turned on its head. Neil couldn’t possibly understand this, except to come to grips with the fact that this was Jillybean and there was no understanding any part of her mind, the sane or the insane.
He explained most of what had happened earlier, leaving out the executions, saying instead that they had left the Colonel alive and tied to a tree. “He’ll be able to get free?” she asked, and he could tell that she wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
“We don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Neil said. “Our focus should be on the River King…hey, you can still weld right?”
“Still? I’ve never welded nothing. Oh, sorry Ipe
s. I’ve never welded anything, but it’s not that hard. I read about it in this ‘do it yourself’ book that lets you do all sorts of things.”
Neil pulled her to the back of the boat and pointed down at the engine. “Can you weld something to fix this?”
She rubbed the last of the tears away, forgetting or perhaps never knowing why they had been there in the first place. “The engine’s broken? But it was just working.”
“It’s not the engine. The zombies keep getting caught up in the engine. It’s kind of slowing us down a lot.”
“Have you tried varying the pitch of the engine? You know pulling the propellers up a bit? There’s a button that…”
“I know the button, but you said something about a weld that would fix the issue.”
She stared down at the engine her brow wrinkled. It cleared a second later. “Okay, I see it. A weld isn’t going to help, but affixing twin steel plates in a V would divert any of the monsters around the propellers.”
Neil could only say: “Oh,” in awe once again of her intellect. He didn’t feel bad, however, as none of the Colonel’s men had thought of it either and they had been using the boats on the river for a lot longer than he had.
Now he just had to make sure she didn’t forget how to weld. He turned them up the small tributary which was far less congested with corpses. They buzzed right up the river and though it was shallow in spots, the pontoon floated so high in the water that they barely scraped the rocky bottom, but when they did, it was with a hair-raising screech and a sudden deceleration that would, on more than one occasion, throw them to their knees.
Just before dawn, they reached the town. Jillybean was all business. The first thing to do was to hide the boat. Neil started to look around for a secluded dock or a boathouse jutting over the river.
Jillybean would have none of that. “If the colonel is looking for us, those will be the first places he’ll check. We need to really hide it.”
The Apocalypse Executioner: The Undead World Novel 8 Page 35
