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

by J. Thorn

  “But it is,” I argued. “This is your house. I’m your ration?”

  He turned so that we were facing each other and whispered, “Prize. You’re my prize.”

  I shook my head, tears pricking at my eyes. “You’re crazy if you think I would ever go along with this.”

  His eyes held mine and we reflected opposite images of each other. Where he was cool confidence, I was fear and hatred.

  He broke the stare down first and reached for my hand. Gripping it gently but firmly he pulled me up the walkway and the stairs and then unlocked his front door. We walked in his comfortable living space, even if it was a little chilly and dark. He went around the room lighting candles and then a fire from an enormous fireplace in the front room.

  The house was tastefully and comfortably decorated. The pieces of furniture high end and in good shape and there was an overwhelming feeling of family here. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from wondering what happened to the family that lived here before Kane took over.

  Were they killed in the initial attacks?

  Were they forced from their home when Kane’s dad came into power?

  Did Kane kill them in cold blood when they refused?

  “It will be easier for you if you stop fighting this,” he said in a low voice from near the fire place.

  “I’m not sleeping with you,” I declared firmly.

  I couldn’t even find the fear that had been plaguing me all day. Yes, there was panic and terror somewhere inside me, but mostly I felt steel determination. I felt resolve.

  He was not going to touch my body. He was not going to get close to me.

  And to my chagrin he broke into the first genuine smile I had seen from him. It was staggering. He was staggering. Gone was the cold indifference and serial killer charm and in its place was a warmth and affection that seemed blinding with his charisma.

  “Nobody said you had to,” he laughed. “You can stop believing I’m a monster, Reagan. I’m not.”

  “Then let me go,” I countered.

  He shook his head, losing his infectious smile. “I won’t do that.”

  “Won’t?”

  “I won’t let you go,” he breathed. My skin tingled with a looming premonition and my eyes watered with panic. He continued, “You’re perfect for me. And you’re mine now. I won’t lose you.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I pointed out. “I’m a raging bitch.”

  He shrugged.

  “I would make a terrible wife…. uh, partner, um, possession. I won’t ever be submissive; I won’t ever not fight you.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” he admonished me with too much amusement. “Don’t you want to get settled before you warn me off?”

  “No. I want you out of my life today.”

  “Not happening,” he countered. “This is the best thing that could have happened to you. Stop looking at this like a tragedy and recognize your good fortune.”

  “And my friends?”

  “Will be safe and taken care of as long as you remember your place.”

  I laughed bitterly. “And if I don’t?”

  His expression became solid stone. “Don’t find out.”

  A knock on his front door had us both whirling around. He sighed impatiently but walked casually over to open it. I took the time to take in his house, find a way to escape, find a weapon to wound him with.

  The windows were all barred – something I hadn’t noticed at first. And the back door through the kitchen was padlocked from the inside. There was no walking out of this house, not easily anyway.

  I wondered what the second story was like, but had no desire to find myself up there. Not where the bedrooms were. Although in his defense, I wasn’t feeling a “raper” vibe from him. Which might be naïve on my part, but there it was. All the same.

  He was detached, distant and terrifying. But he wasn’t the forceful kind. His touches had been somewhat…. gentle and he had coaxed and manipulated me with soft threats and urging insistence. Other than that time he held a gun to my head, he’d actually been kind of a, uh, gentleman.

  I shivered with disgust at those feelings. He was also a kidnapper, a tyrant and a desperate man if he felt he needed to steal his women.

  The door swung open and a girl around my age stood through the haze of the screen door. Her black hair floated around her shoulders in tumbling waves and her gray eyes assessed Kane with calculating, judgmental eyes. Her delicate features were pursed into disapproval and her petite shoulders tense with frustration.

  “Tyler,” Kane breathed. “What do you want?”

  What was she? An ex-girlfriend? Lover? If he had this girl waiting for him at home, then why on earth was we dragging me back here?

  “Just stopped by to meet your new pet,” she replied with perky enthusiasm.

  Kane propped his shoulder on the door frame and crossed his arms, refusing her entrance into his home. “She’s not a pet.”

  “Really?” she laughed humorlessly. “Let’s see, you went hunting in the forest this morning and then returned with a creature that you’re keeping locked in your house. If she’s not a pet, then what is she?”

  Kane growled something under his breath that sounded like a string of curse words. “Get off your high horse, Ty.”

  “First, get out of my way,” she sniped at him. She ripped open the screen door and pushed her way through. She stomped over to me her eyes glued to my face. And then I saw it- fear, uncertainty, concern. Once she was out of her Kane’s gaze, she was a completely different person. But all that emotion was gone in a moment and she was face to face with her mask of hypercritical arrogance. She looked me over with a haughty eye and then ordered, “Alright, Kane, introduce me to my new sister-in-law.”

  Putting the pieces together in my head, I realized this was Miller’s sister- this was the sister that needed saving.

  “Tyler, this is Reagan,” Kane obliged us. “Reagan, this is my little sister, Tyler.”

  “Well, little as in two years younger. But he loves to hold that over me. How old are you?” she asked directly.

  “Um, uh, twenty,” I offered, still not knowing what to make of her occasionally compassionate eyes as she held my gaze.

  “Yay!” she squealed. “We’re just a year apart then!”

  “Yay,” I echoed sarcastically.

  “Big brother, be a good host and get us something to drink,” she demanded and then waved him away with a flick of her fingers.

  Her thick drawl was just as musical as her mother’s and now that I knew she was related to this Zombie-Apocalypse version of the Adam’s family I could make out all the similar family features: beautiful skin, pronounced bone structure, full lips, gray eyes.

  Kane sighed again but started off to do her bidding. Before he got too far though he looked back and asked her pointedly, “Did you have anything to do with Miller’s stupid little stunt last night, Ty?”

  She laughed like the very idea was ludicrous and shook her head, “Uh, did you see Miller this morning? Dad beat the shit out of him. I am not about to be part of his crazy antics. He’s just doing it for attention.”

  Her jaw clenched tightly in a frozen smile after her last words and only because I was looking for it, I watched her shake her head out in a nervous tick.

  “Right, attention,” Kane chuckled bitterly. “Seems like there’s better ways to get dad’s approval.”

  “Well, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you golden boy?”

  Kane shook his head but ignored her biting comment. He walked off into the kitchen and once we heard the cupboard door open I felt the hot warmth of metal in my palm. I looked down and saw that Tyler was pushing something into my hand.

  I grasped it and pulled back so I could see what it was. A handcuff key. She gave me a handcuff key.

  “I don’t need this,” I whispered frantically. I waved my free hands around.

  “You will tonight,” she promised with so much fear and anxiety in h
er voice that my insides froze into organ-sized ice cubes. “He won’t risk losing you.”

  “What does he want with me,” I pleaded in a frantic whisper.

  But she just shook her head and changed the subject, “Midnight, behind the bleachers, tonight.”

  I shook my head, wondering…. “How?” I mouthed.

  “Your friends. We’re going with you,” she explained. “Do not let him find that key. He’ll kill them, I promise you he will.”

  Understanding her message I nodded and slid the key into my bra. I would die before he got inside there, so by then it wouldn’t matter if he found the key or not.

  I was just about to say “thank you” when her rude snarkiness was back, “It’s honestly amazing how one girl as plain as you got all three of those boys to follow her around.” She lifted up a strand of my hair that had escaped my pony tail and then dropped it back to my shoulder as if in disgust.

  “Tyler,” Kane hissed from the doorway to the kitchen. He walked toward us with two unopened cans of warm Coke in his hands. He offered them to us and we both accepted. Easily. Manson family or not, there was no way I was turning down a can of Coke.

  We stood there drinking for a while in awkward silence. Tyler’s eyes kept floating around the room as if she were waiting for someone to jump out at her and attack. Finally, they landed on her brother and an expression of pure, undiluted hatred flashed over her features before she was able to compose herself again.

  “Well, I’m off,” she grinned at us. She drained her soda in one swift chug and then handed the can off to Kane. “I’m on dinner duty. Besides I’m sure you want time to get to know your new…. plaything.”

  Now her look of disgust was for me.

  Ugh. I didn’t know whether to hate this girl or love her for trying to save me.

  “Tyler,” Kane called out as she walked with graceful steps toward the door. “Check on Miller, make sure he’s alright.”

  “Why don’t you?” she huffed over her shoulder.

  “If I show him I care right now, he’ll think it’s Ok to behave this way. We both know, that under no circumstances can he be allowed to leave this place. He would die by himself; he would die in less than a day.”

  “What if he wasn’t by himself?” she asked with casual humor- the kind that made it seem as though she were laughing at you.

  “You’d die too, Ty,” he said with resigned sadness.

  “And you care, Kane?” she laughed humorlessly.

  “I care,” he agreed. “Just make sure he’s alright.”

  “Whatevs,” she shrugged with that same indifference that seemed to gnaw at Kane’s patience. And then she was gone and the screen door was slamming behind her with a cracking thud.

  “You have a very interesting family,” I pointed out as soon as we were alone again.

  “You don’t have any family left?” Kane asked, returning his attention to me.

  “Not anymore.” My tone was final and cutting. I would not talk about people I loved with him.

  “Reagan, I know how to keep you safe,” he promised in a soft voice as if picking up on some great pain of my past. “This will be a good life for you.”

  “Against my will,” I pointed out bitterly. “You’ll keep me safe against my will. And you’ll give me the life you think is good…. against my will. Honestly, I don’t even understand how I got here.”

  Confusion crossed his features and he reminded me, “We found you in the woods this morning.”

  Losing my mind just a little and all of my patience I snapped, “No, I know how I got here this morning. But I mean, to this place. To you keeping me under lock and key just like Tyler said, like a pet. Why do you think this is acceptable behavior?”

  “I don’t,” he quickly reassured me. “I know it’s not alright to behave like this. But I also know it’s been eighteen months since a girl that has even remotely peeked my interest has stumbled upon our encampment and she died three days later because she was too dehydrated and starved to come back from that. Her body shut down and we watched her die in our medical facilities. Since then it’s been a steady stream of mostly men. Or women that won’t work for me.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m the last of a dying breed.” My arms were crossed over my chest defiantly and my eyes boring holes into his stupid head.

  “No, but it means you are a rare and precious commodity. A woman is a status symbol in this community.”

  “So you’re lazy?” I bit out. “Go find another woman! Go find someone who’s actually interested in you. You can’t just kidnap people.”

  “I’m not lazy,” he growled. “I’m an opportunist. You should look at this from my perspective. If you were in the same position as me and the perfect man walked across your path I doubt you would be so quick to let them go.”

  I thought about the Parker brothers and how that was true for them now. I would not let them go if I had the choice. But it was different too. There was a point when I could have walked away. And I would never force someone to be with me- especially in this way.

  “I’m not perfect,” I said instead, afraid to incite his anger, or reveal more about the Parkers.

  “Perfect for me,” he insisted.

  “You’re delusional,” I hissed. And I meant it. He was, in fact, bonkers.

  “I’m your future, Reagan,” he promised in a low, stony voice. “The sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you will be able to move forward.”

  He walked over to the front door and closed it. Pulling a padlock off a decorative table, he locked the door from the inside and pocketed the key attached to his large key ring.

  The handcuff key burned against my breast as I realized that handcuffs were not going to be my only obstacle tonight. If I could escape those, I still had to break out of this house and then make it all the way back to the football field. If Hendrix, Nelson and Vaughan were able to get free, we still had to make it all the way back to the farmhouse and get Page and everyone else. There would be no way to warn them ahead of time, no way to tell them to be ready to go.

  Nausea assaulted my stomach at the seemingly impossible task ahead of us. But what choice did we have? We had to get out of this place.

  I had to get out of this place.

  And while I willed my panic and fear under control, my heartbeat seemed to take a new rhythm; it beat steadily in my chest, whispering a promise of hope, beating a melody of determination. Hendrix. Hendrix. Hendrix.

  If I could just get back to him, everything would be alright.

  Chapter Four

  Darkness. Every window had been checked, double checked and blackout drapes pulled. The doors had all been padlocked from the inside and my bedroom door had been padlocked from the outside.

  At least I was alone.

  I had no idea what time it was, or if it was close to midnight, but I hadn’t heard Kane moving around in a while. I hoped that meant he was asleep. Just like Tyler warned, my hands were cuffed to the metal bedframe above my head. Kane offered to pull the blanket up, but surprisingly I declined.

  Ok, not so surprisingly.

  As I focused on trying to get the handcuff key out of bra, I thought back to the day and what it would be like to be imprisoned here forever.

  After Tyler left us, Kane gave me a tour of his house- highlighting all the areas I was allowed to make myself home in and brushing past the doors he didn’t want me exploring. I would be free to roam around the town, house, and school, wherever I wanted during the day, but at night I was to return to him.

  So much freedom seemed easy enough to abuse, but the militant style of the guards around this place was insane.

  I wondered how long Tyler and Miller had been plotting to escape. Because obviously, this was no easy task.

  After Kane promised to have more clothes brought over in my size and we had a fast lunch of homemade bread and salted meats, he showed me more of the town.

  It was like Children of the Corn. Only instead of
just the kids being brainwashed and crazy, it was like every, single human being here had been injected with the insanity. They worshipped Matthias Allen and treated his beliefs like religion. There were signs posted all over the place with wacky political jargon and reminders of how to live communally.

  People lived in relative peace, with complaints or issues brought in front of Matthias first thing in the morning- which was why Kane took us directly to the school building. The school building itself didn’t have any residential dorms or anything, but remained kind of a jail/meeting-place/office for Matthias. The gym and fields were also used to train their guards and if I had to make an educated guess, I would have said that’s where they also kept their food supplies and weaponry.

  Kane never said that, even after I asked him specifically, but if I was planning this place, that’s where I would put it.

  I was even taken to the two entrances to the town by road- one north of town and one south. I watched as a middle aged man and wife seemed to stumble upon the guards. There feet were bare and bloody and they were obviously malnourished. The guards looked them over and made them strip in the middle of the road. After they searched them for bites or infection marks at gun point, they handed them simple black outfits that reminded me nurse’s scrubs- or convict jumpsuits. They were handcuffed behind the back, just like we were and then led off by another set of guards toward the school building. They could barely walk and their faces screamed for mercy and water, but they managed.

  “What will happen to them?” I asked Kane quietly as we stood leaning against one of the building fronts on the main street.

  “They’ll be asked to sign a loyalty contract and then sent to the medical facilities.” He shrugged, bored with the explanation.

  “And then?” I pressed.

  “They’ll be put on a six month mandatory probation where they have to live in community dorms and are watched twenty-four seven. At that time they can choose their job and they go to work.”