This is the End 2: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (9 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  “Don’t worry, darlin’,” his friend hollered from behind, his drawl thick and heavy. “I never heard not one of Kane’s prisoners complain!”

  “Oh, god.” My stomach roiled and convulsed.

  Kane cleared his throat but didn’t offer an explanation. Two things were clear in that moment. The first was that neither Kane nor his friends actually ate people.

  The second was that Kane was used to getting his way with girls.

  Shit.

  We were quiet the rest of the way. I could practically feel Vaughan’s protective shield as he walked behind me. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to me. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to us.

  At the door to the school, we paused while Kane took a moment to pull out a large set of keys. I looked up and took note of the men patrolling the roof and then swung my gaze wide, realizing there were armed men everywhere. The front of the school sat on a little plot of property but beyond that was a tiny, closely built town with an adorable downtown. Neighborhoods sprawled to the sides of the main street and extended beyond my visibility.

  Someone called out Kane’s name just as he pulled up the right key and grabbed his attention. While the guard walked over with two more in tow. Vaughan’s guards turned to the other men too and I took the opportunity to have my own meeting with Vaughan.

  “What the hell!” I mouthed.

  “Reagan, listen to me,” he whispered sternly. Apparently, he saw the same precious seconds as I did. “Whatever happens, you need to meet me tonight. Under those bleachers.”

  “Why are you-“

  “I don’t know what they’re going to do to us, or where they’re going to keep us. But if I had to guess….. Kane is…. I don’t think they’ll keep us together.” Vaughan’s words were bitter and hard steel. He glanced over at the man in question and then back to me, imploring me to listen. “Whatever happens, you need to get there. By midnight. Can you?”

  I nodded. “Can you?”

  “Whatever it takes,” he agreed.

  “Whatever it takes,” I echoed. “And Hendrix and Nelson?”

  “I’ll find them. Don’t worry about them.” When I snorted as if that were impossible he bit out. “Just worry about taking care of yourself, yeah?”

  New fear built like a raging volcano inside me, “Yeah.”

  “They’re going to ask questions,” he dropped his voice to barely above a whisper and I had to read his lips to understand him. “Have you ever played that game, Two Truths and a Lie?”

  I looked at him like he was crazy. “Yes.” I finally admitted, feeling like we would be ripped apart at any moment.

  “That’s the key to interrogation,” he explained quickly. “Remember that. Give them more truth than lies. Always.” I nodded but that wasn’t good enough for him, “Say it back to me.”

  “Two truths and a lie,” I whispered with my heart in my throat.

  “You got it, babe,” he winked at me.

  I almost smiled at his inside joke, but then Kane and his henchmen were back and the door to the school was opened. Inside the building was dark and cool and after the brightness of day outside, I felt blind as I stumbled around inside.

  “Careful of the walls,” Kane murmured.

  The door slammed with a bang behind us and three things became obvious. The dim candlelight that illuminated the hallways. The tortured keening of the undead. And the lack of smell.

  As my eyes adjusted to the light I took in one of the most horrific scenes of my life. In my life- my life that was filled with killing and rotting flesh and death daily.

  The school was set up so that it split into two hallways in a V away from the front doors. There was an office of sorts directly to my left made completely of glassed walls and a swinging door. Immediately my eyes fell on Hendrix and Nelson and I only briefly registered the barest hint of relief.

  And then my eyes went back to something so vile and disgusting I actually gagged. Zombies lined the hallways. Lined the hallways. The lockers, that were originally used for students, had their doors removed and replaced with steel bars like a jail cell. And stuffed into each, individual locker, so that their arms were able to reach out into the hallway was a Feeder. They moaned low and high at the same time with their faces pressed up against the bars. They space between was wide enough for their bone-thin arms but not big enough for them to stick their face through.

  Their skin was paper white and peeling off in places until all that was left was either tendons or bones. They clawed and grasped at the air in front of them as if they could reach the humans that walked in between them, as if only one more inch would get them the meal they seemed to so desperately need.

  I stared speechless and disgusted. The feeling was something like watching dog fighting- I knew they were animals, not humans, but the cruelty was staggering.

  Through the haze of my thoughts I heard Kane order, “Take him in with the others. I’m taking her to my father.”

  Panic infused my boiling blood and my head snapped to Vaughan. It was good that they were putting him with his brothers.

  But what about me?

  Kane put his arm on my bicep and started to pull me down the opposite hallway. I struggled just a little and his grip tightened. Leaning down so that his mouth was next to my ear again, he whispered, “He will be a hell of a lot safer if you come easily.”

  “Reagan,” Vaughan said in a low voice. Our gazes collided with emotion- he was promising that everything would be Ok and I was begging him to make it that way. And then, shocking the ever-living hell out of me, he shouted, “I love you.”

  I think my mouth unhinged almost permanently and I stumbled backwards as Kane pulled me down the hallway. I stuttered over what to say back when he held up two fingers and then just one. Two truths. One lie.

  “I love you too,” I lied back.

  And it was a lie- on both our parts. Because while there might exist some kind of friend-love between us, there was so far none of that deeper stuff.

  But then my eyes flickered over to Hendrix who was standing in front of his side of the glass, his jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle was popping in and out. His hands were crossed tensely over his heaving chest and his livid stare was fastened on where Kane’s hand gripped my arm.

  I didn’t understand why Vaughan had put us together but I assumed, by taking one glance at Hendrix, it was something to do with protecting his brother. And I would do anything to protect any of those boys so I went along with it- easily. There wasn’t a question in my mind whether I trusted Vaughan to do what was best for this family- including me.

  I willed Hendrix’s eyes up to mine and when we finally connected after agonizing seconds my heart slammed into my chest and stopped beating completely. He was tortured behind the glass, utterly pained and distraught. His lips pressed into a thin lined and the muscle in his jaw started ticking again.

  With a meaningful look that hit me in the center of my being he mouthed, “Be careful.”

  And in reply with as much emotion as I could convey, I mouthed back, “You too.”

  Not exactly the most profound thing between people who might potentially, one day in the future…. like each other. But it was the most important thing right now.

  I turned back around and followed Kane down the darkened hallway. The sound of Feeders reaching out for me in the dim light was alarming. Their keening drifted around me and in and out of my head like razor blades on soft flesh. My hands were still behind my back, but I desperately wanted to press them against my ears to block out the sound. My heart didn’t slow its rapid rhythm and my skin felt itchy and wrong as it stretched out over my body.

  “They don’t smell,” I commented in a rasping voice.

  Kane glanced down at me and then at his hand that still held my arm. Slowly he removed his grip and I stumbled without his support. His frown deepened but he didn’t attempt to touch me again. I regained my balance and wondered if he heard me.

  “We’v
e learned that if they don’t eat human flesh, they don’t emit that noxious smell.” His voice was quiet and lilting with that southern accent but I heard him clearly.

  “But why would you keep them like this? It’s cruel!”

  “Are you siding with the Feeders?” he asked in amused disbelief.

  “No!” But then my chest ached at the idea of prolonging this kind of life. “But it’s unnecessary. Why would you make them live through this? They’re starving and emaciated.”

  “They only eat human flesh,” he emphasized. “What would you suggest we feed them?”

  “Don’t feed them anything! But don’t leave them like this either. Shoot them. Kill them. Help solve the problem!”

  “In one breath you share compassion for them and in another you suggest genocide,” he pointed out sounding surprised that I would have either.

  “It’s not that,” I argued. “It’s disgust for a creature that should not exist. It’s revulsion for humans who should know better.”

  “You’re revolted by this?” The disbelief resounded in his voice.

  “Aren’t you?” I demanded.

  But he didn’t reply.

  He stopped walking and I turned to find out why. He looked down at me, his gray eyes black in the dim hallway- the only light came from low lit kerosene lanterns that hung from the ceiling. Light flickered over his face and cast the angular planes of his jaw and cheekbones into shadowy contrast.

  “My dad is going to ask you a lot of questions,” he explained and for the first time I noticed a heavy wooden door behind him. “It’s better if you answer…. all of them. And if you answer them truthfully.”

  “Is this how you treat everyone that stumbles on your settlement?” I asked with more bitterness than I wanted to show. “You handcuff them and order them around? Are you going to let us go at some point? Or enslave us? Or eat us like you said?”

  His lips twitched like he was trying not to smile and my insides burned with hatred. I despised that he found me amusing.

  “We don’t actually eat people,” he assured me carefully. “And we don’t have slaves.”

  “So then why am I handcuffed?”

  “It’s temporary.” But I didn’t believe him. When my eyes narrowed and I pursed my lips he continued, “We’re taking precautions. You could have been bitten. You could bring the virus to us.”

  “We didn’t even know this was here,” I lied. This was my lie. And I realized how terrible telling more truth than lies was going to be for me. “You found us, not the other way around.”

  “And can you imagine what that is like for us day in and day out? People wandering through? Potentially carrying a virus or stumbling upon us and hoping to relieve us of our food and guns? We have a permanent settlement here, we have to protect it.”

  All of that made sense and it bothered me. “You don’t need to treat us like prisoners. You didn’t need to separate us.”

  “Was that your boyfriend you were with?” he asked in a low, irritated voice. I nodded because I didn’t want to explain and his jaw clenched and unclenched before he continued, “His brothers showed up late last night, sneaking around our camp. They had my little brother with them- my rebellious, tenacious, disobedient little brother with them. And then we find you and your…. boyfriend this morning. You’re obviously in the same traveling party. You obviously knew they went ahead of you last night.”

  Ignoring the bulk of his accusations, I asked, “How did you know they were brothers?”

  “It’s fairly obvious by their looks,” he gave me a sarcastic eye roll. “And even if it wasn’t, they carry the same gun. I made an observant guess.”

  I didn’t respond verbally. What could I say? It was kind of obvious they were brothers, or at least related in some way. Besides, that wasn’t information that I had to be worried about giving up. Two truths. One lie.

  Realizing I wasn’t going to add anything to his hypothesis, he said, “I’m not trying to be the bad guy. But I will protect what’s mine.”

  I leveled my stare with his and promised, “Me too.”

  He nodded slowly and then issued one more warning, “Do not leave my side. Do you understand?” When I didn’t say that I did, he continued, “I will say this once for your benefit and I will not say it again. This camp is low on women. But we have an abundance of men. And we do not share our women. Once you belong to a man…. he keeps you. You might not like me, but what is inside that room is worse. Stay by my side.”

  I still didn’t respond. I had been saved often enough by men that I was a little less feminist than when I first started this sojourn after running my Zombiefied boyfriend over for cheating on me. But I wasn’t submissive enough to believe I would or could become a man’s property. My thoughts were free, my actions were defiant and my life plan did not involve twenty-one children and a husband that kept Zombie pets starved and tortured in his hallway.

  That was just not going to happen.

  Kane’s eyebrows snapped together when I still didn’t respond and he impatiently demanded, “Just tell me that you at least understand what could happen to you. At least make me feel somewhat confident about taking you in there.”

  If my hands were free, this was the part where I would have clenched them into fists so I could punch him in his face.

  And then in the balls.

  “Why should you feel confident when I can’t even feel my fingers anymore?”

  He spun around and yanked open the door. His broad shoulders were rigid again and his face a mask of serious energy. He held the door open for me and gestured that I walk into an old classroom that had been turned into a kind of courtroom…. or throne room. It was confusing.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he mumbled in a sing song voice that was meant to taunt me.

  I stifled the urge to roll my eyes and walked into the center of the room. A man and wife sat in rolling, leather desk chairs in front of a long white board- the front of the classroom. But this wasn’t just any classroom- this was a tiered band room.

  If I had to guess, I would assume that this was the largest of classrooms and placed near the back of the school. There were stackable cushioned chairs that lined up in rows of spectators as the tiers climbed higher. A teacher’s metal desk sat just inside the door with a man sitting behind it. He seemed like a clerk of some kind and as soon as Kane followed me inside he went over to talk to the man behind the desk.

  Most of the chairs were full and seated mostly with men. They stared down at me like they were sharks and I was fresh chum and they had been swimming for days and hadn’t tasted so much of a nibble of something delicious. They were clean for the most part and decently shaved- unless it was obvious they were opting for the mountain-man look. Their clothes were in good condition and their skin tanned and healthy.

  The man and woman at the front of the room were no exception. Even the woman’s hair seemed well-tamed and styled with some kind of product.

  Other than the leering men, no one else offered a kind expression or friendly smile.

  They seemed to hate me on sight.

  Or be making silent wagers on what I tasted like with a little bit of Lowry’s.

  “Kane? Who is this?” the man in the head spot asked. His accent was thick, but his words were carefully pronounced. He had the same thick mess of black hair that Kane did and angular cheek bones set off with a broken noise.

  “More wanderers in the woods,” Kane shrugged casually and looked around the room bored and unimpressed. “We found them close to the edge of the forest.”

  “Any connection to last night?” his father pressed.

  “Yes,” Kane answered simply.

  Kane’s father looked me over from top to bottom, scrutinizing every aspect of me in all my hands tied behind my back glory. His brows rose just barely in surprise and a small smile tugged at his lips.

  Finally, he released me from his study and shouted at a guy in the back of the room, “Samson, go get Miller
.”

  Samson was a fifty-something man with salt and pepper hair and overalls. He scurried down the wide tiers and then disappeared down a hallway to the left of Kane’s dad- practice rooms.

  “Make introductions, son,” he ordered and then nodded in the direction of the woman to his right.

  Kane looked over at me and admitted, “We came straight here. I don’t even know her name.”

  “Think she’ll be as difficult as those boys last night?” his dad laughed good-humoredly, but I had a feeling that did not bode well for Hendrix and Nelson.

  “She’ll tell us,” Kane assured him. “She just got done telling me that she’s not our enemy. If she’s not an enemy, then she’s our friend. And a friend wouldn’t withhold a simple detail like that.”

  Tricky bastard.

  But if Vaughan’s theory was right, then this was an easy question to be honest about.

  “Reagan,” I confessed with a steady voice. “My name is Reagan Willow.”

  There were a few moments of silence where my name just hung in the air, stationary. Finally the entire room seemed to digest it before Kane continued.

  “Reagan,” he tested my name out on his lips and I wanted to take it back immediately, to hide it it… bury it. “This is my father, Matthias Allen and my mother, Linley.”

  I had been without civilization for almost two years- still I had to stomp on my manners and ignore the instinct to be polite and receive their “hospitality” with grace. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t the perfect cheerleader that mother’s adored and teachers could count on.

  I was a hunter. A killer. A survivor.

  So I stared at them and waited, putting puzzles together inside my head. Miller had said last night that he wanted to save his sister. He had also said he had a mother and while he would like to rescue her, he knew she wouldn’t come.

  Possibly this was because she was married to the head guy. Ugh. Miller!

  He also never mentioned his brother. How many other awful family members did he have lurking around here? Had this whole thing been a trap from the beginning? Had Miller lured us here under the pretense of free medicine?