After The Apocalypse Season 2 Box Set [Books 4-6]

by Hately, Warren

  The urge to vomit coursed through Lilianna again and she ignored that too. Fluctuating gorge trapped in the back of her throat, she kept her leveled eyes on the ironically-named Safety Chief as the other corrupt troopers Yusuf, Slinky, and McGill squeezed past to unlatch Aurora’s cage. Aurora started freaking out, clutching onto the wire divider and forcing the two men to roughly haul her out. McGill punched the girl in the kidneys to unfasten her from the fence and then stood back, a mute witness rather than a participant, or at least telling herself that. The men beside her muttered some kind of similar remark, “You watch us work, Jerri,” and the look that crossed the hard blonde woman’s face extinguished any hopes Lilianna entertained.

  Greerson waited until they dragged Aurora past. Then he opened Lila’s cage door and stepped back, a thumb in his belt, expecting something. Chesterton stood just off-stage with his AR15 lowered. Lilianna’s eyes flicked to him, then back to Greerson.

  “Chester told me you’re going to hunt us,” she said. “Aren’t you going to even up the game?”

  Greerson snorted, though not without an annoyed look to his lieutenant.

  “‘Even up the game’,” he replied. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ve got all that gear and we’ve got nothing,” Lila said.

  “That’s the general idea.”

  “Give me a blade at least,” Lila said.

  The suggestion genuinely amused the Chief.

  “I’m not giving you a knife, honey,” he said. “You’re still Vanicek’s daughter. I seen you in action, babe. I’m not that dumb.”

  “Good,” Lila said. “Then you know what you’re doing.”

  Greerson couldn’t understand her answer – a threat amid the ramifications of the decision he’d made throwing his lot in with Ernest Wilhelm. Greerson glanced to Chesterton as if his second-in-command might supply more details. But the burly redhead only shrugged, picking at his dense beard, disavowal as clear as McGill before. They were gate guards at Auschwitz, just doing their jobs.

  “What do you mean, ‘I understand what I’m doing’?” Greerson asked (and misquoted) her.

  “You’re not hunting rabbits now, Denny,” Lila snapped. Her voice coiled with revulsion. “You want to hunt, but you’re too smart to make it a real sport. I’m going to live long enough to make sure you know it.”

  Greerson exploded in laughter, but Chesterton stayed silent. Greerson glared at his subordinate with a rageful look, annoyed at his lack of back-up, then he snarled at Lilianna as if resisting the urge to step into the cage and force her submission. He clearly begrudged the look of wariness his features slowly assumed.

  “You boys!” he called out to Slinky and Yusuf. “Once you got the other one prepped, get back in here.”

  He shoot an accusing look at Chesterton.

  “Check her over, one last time,” he said. “Make sure she’s not carrying.”

  Then Greerson shouldered his hunting rifle and trudged away.

  *

  THEY’D BROUGHT another hostage with them, but the young man hadn’t taken the excursion well. He lay in a tangle of bony limbs on the ground in front of the lead vehicle’s headlights.

  The trooper they called Apache stood watch beside the freshly-arrived vehicles. The other new trooper with him wore a full visor helm despite the dark. He kept his Ak47 trained on Lilianna as if all Denny Greerson’s fears were well founded. But Yusuf drove a knee into Lila’s ribs as they dragged her from the kennels, and once she went down, that was it. The dark-skinned man kicked her twice in succession.

  She curled in a ball, saving her strength as the assault stopped as soon as it started. Greerson barked something fiercely, and the two guards dragged her out into the open space and dumped her beside Aurora. The young man opposite sat up reluctantly, as if blinking awake, bewildered and terrified and woefully under-prepared for the elements. He wore no shoes, his skinny jeans were as torn as his tattered black t-shirt. He clearly favored a broken arm. Eyes like lamps turned on the two young women, but he did it without words.

  Astonishingly, the young man then lay down again and covered his head with his other arm.

  “Get up, yo,” Apache said.

  Their captive failed to co-operate. By then, Greerson, Yusuf, Slinky and Chesterton had circled. Aurora twisted her gaze around as if expecting a friendly face, and thus Lilianna’s heart died as she bunkered down, waiting for another kicking.

  “He won’t get up,” the guard said.

  “Can’t hunt if they don’t run, Apache,” Greerson replied. “What’d you do to him?”

  The big Native American man only shrugged and sniffed.

  Aurora focused on Apache for a moment, recognizing one of her rapists. She then squirmed closer to Lilianna as if it were up to her friend to protect them both. And maybe it was. That’s certainly the direction this is headed, Lilianna thought to herself. Although her wrists were still bound, they remained in front of her. She lifted them to shield against the vehicle lights as Greerson nudged the twentysomething-year-old with his toe, and the captive didn’t move an inch. The Chief looked sad, like someone was ruining his special night.

  “What you want us to do?” Yusuf asked from the side.

  “You? Nothin’,” Greerson said. “Go collect Fuckface and go home. I expect you out here tomorrow, for clean-up. You’ll be bringing the Councilor.”

  The black man looked chastened and frustrated, but nodded with understanding.

  “Wilhelm not comin’ out with us tonight?” Apache asked.

  Greerson shook his head, adjusting the goggles around his neck as if they suddenly interested him.

  “Nope,” he replied. “Wilhelm knows the deal. And he likes to hunt alone. He was doing this long before any the rest of you guys got brought in.”

  The Chief motioned back at the building and Lila somehow understood now who scrawled the words across the office face. Wilhelm’s transformation in her understanding was too great a puzzle for here and now. Maybe it was no transformation at all, anyway. Like so many others – and the others they’d faced during their years of life in the wild – the apocalypse was the cosmic sculptor teasing the true form of men and women out of the clay.

  She cursed under her breath, which was a mistake. Too many eyes turned towards her. Greerson took it as his cue to grab her in one explosive movement, hauling Lilianna to her feet and almost into the air. It was all Lila could do to balance herself, and then Greerson danced back, clearly expecting some kind of mad, last-ditch resistance, saw nothing like it, but still knew Lila played a waiting game.

  “Try smiling,” he said gruffly. “You’d look prettier.”

  “I have something to smile about?”

  “Every moment in every day.”

  Greerson sucker punched her in the bread basket to drop her again.

  “See?” he asked. “That could’ve been your face.”

  Lila struggled to suck air and almost said to hell with it, then and there, and blacked out. It was only Aurora’s panicked mewls, almost subliminal beside her, that stilled Lilianna – or maybe that was just her excuse. Terror sank clawed fingers into her legs and again she had to fight off adrenal shakes. Someone had to know about what they were doing here. Fifty thousand survivors wouldn’t conscience this, she thought.

  “Now up you get,” Greerson said. “Time waits for no man – or wo-man.”

  If that were a pun, again, only Greerson found it funny. The others watched like Dobermans waiting to be uncaged, which sent shivers up Lila’s spine. She stood, then helped Aurora shakily beside her. Greerson retreated a few steps like some kind of showman and raised his voice.

  “Alright, folks,” he said. “The Councilor understands everyone wants some action. But this little hussy’s mine, clear? Everyone drew lots and if you’re not in tonight, your turn’s next. Got it?”

  He addressed the last comment to Yusuf, still hovering at the edge of the group. The surly man nodded, stroking his thi
n fuzzy beard. A bigger form loomed out of the darkness at his side to resolve into the one they cruelly named Fuckface. Lilianna averted her eyes from the abyss of his face. Surely, he had to eat with a straw.

  “So Slinky, Apache, and Chesterton, you’re all up with me, Stonefish and Hardy tonight,” Greerson said. “Understood?”

  Chesterton cleared his throat, standing far back from them all.

  “I’m good,” he said.

  “You not taking your due, Chess?”

  “Thanks all the same, Chief,” the lieutenant said. “My job’s here.”

  “Alright.”

  “What do we do about this one?” Slinky asked, pointing to the stricken young man.

  “I tell you what,” Apache muttered. “If he’s mine, I want a fuckin’ refund, man.”

  “You two can double up on number two,” Greerson told him.

  He pointed to Aurora, who started shivering – and not because of the cold. The wind picked up handfuls of grass as it rushed through, and Slinky had to raise his voice to be heard.

  “What about Joy Division here?”

  Greerson took the question on notice. He strode back to the young man on the ground and crouched, nudging him, and when that didn’t work, he stood and kicked the hostage hard. It wasn’t a good sound. The man made a squeak, then covered his head again one-handed even more fitfully. Greerson released a sigh like a shopper ready to file a complaint.

  “Weak as shit,” he said. “Apache, you fuckin’ broke him.”

  “Yusuf and Babycakes brought him in.”

  Greerson tutted. “Fuckin’ Yusuf.” But Yusuf and his companion had already withdrawn to the second vehicle and clambered in. The running engine surged into gear and the battered white utility reversed and took the bulk of the illumination with it. None of the hunters said anything for a moment as their comrades’ vehicle got underway, the wind clutching at everyone’s clothes, and slowly the taillights flickered out of view beyond the crest of the undulating terrain.

  Finally, Denny Greerson gave a final grunt.

  “It’s gonna be a long night.”

  It was more a promise than a complaint.

  *

  AURORA AND LILIANNA were ignored while Greerson stepped across the young man’s supine form and drew a knife, hauling the exhausted and defeated captive upright by his hair just long enough for the Chief to slit his throat. The young man’s surrender was no fakery. He barely mewled, eyes flicking open as a hideous gush of blood sprayed from his neck. Slinky and the helmeted trooper had to skip aside to avoid the wash as the wind tore through.

  Greerson dumped the dying man onto the ground.

  Still grinning, the handsome trooper dubbed Slinky drew a Colt automatic.

  “Gonna shut him up?”

  “No,” Greerson said like it pained him. “Tape him up. Throw him in the back.”

  Then he glowered at the two bound women.

  “We might need him to help us track.”

  “We should be using dogs,” Slinky muttered. He gestured at the faded sign rendered invisible by the night. “It’s a fuckin’ kennels, after all.”

  “Wilhelm said someone ate all the dogs.”

  For some reason, Greerson’s answer made Apache chuckle. Chesterton only watched. Behind them all, McGill came into view only long enough to see which way things were headed, then she retreated into the concrete office out of sight.

  As horrified as she remained, Lilianna had more immediate concerns. Dryness building in her mouth throughout long hours of captivity now hit its peak, and beside her, Aurora wilted, pale, battered and unwell.

  Like a dead weight.

  Lila edged up beside her friend.

  “We have to survive this,” Lilianna rasped.

  Aurora only returned a collapsed look. Lilianna’s heart dropped further.

  “I have to escape,” she said even more quietly now, eyes shifting to track the men as they moved around them with a growing sense of purpose. “I think something’s planned. My father and my brother – they’re in danger. Tonight. We have to get back to the City.”

  “Lila. . . .”

  They’d left Aurora’s hands bound in front of her. Lila tried to comfort the girl as best she could – despite fighting yet more spiraling terror, Lilianna’s reptilian sense of self-preservation at war with the obligation she felt to this person who’d been a rival until so recently.

  “‘Rora,” Lila said again. “I’m not leaving you, OK?”

  The other woman licked cracked lips, split where someone’d hit her.

  “If you can go, you should,” the young woman said.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Aurora started to cry, albeit silently. “I can’t do this.”

  “Hey ladies,” Slinky barked across at them. “How about a little shut-the-fuck-up, yeah?”

  Lilianna eyed the handsome bastard with venom.

  “We need water.”

  “Is that so?”

  The trooper swaggered closer and played like about to open his flies. Greerson, busy moving his kit around, caught the joke and made a savage hand signal.

  “You pull that thing out, don’t be surprised if she bites it off,” he said.

  Lila lowered her eyes, no plan for such an attack and yet so true.

  Greerson removed a water bottle and tossed it to them, onto the ground. Lilianna took it at once and forced some towards her friend while the Safety Chief held her gaze.

  “You try anything like that with me,” Greerson said, “and you’ll live just long enough to regret it – and beg for death.”

  Aurora drank and Lilianna managed to hold the brutal man’s stare.

  “There’s one thing I can promise,” she answered. “I’m not begging you for anything. Ever.”

  “That so?”

  Spent, Lilianna nodded with no energy for her own conviction. A truck door slammed. Chesterton made a teeth-sucking noise and gestured farewell to the other perverts.

  “I’ll give you a holler when I hear from the boss,” he told Greerson.

  The Chief seemed to bristle at the term – applied to Councilor Wilhelm – and gruffly turned his frustrations on the hostage pair. Lilianna barely snatched a drink for herself before he tore the flask from her bound hands and hauled her by them to her feet.

  Aurora slumped, then lay down, only to be dragged upright by the other men.

  *

  THEY THREW THEM into the back of the open truck. With silver tape binding his hands, ankles, and mouth, the wretched dead twentysomething twisted and squirmed and sucked air through the gag staring at them red-eyed and starving, a Fury reborn. Aurora started weeping, and Lila let her wriggle out of the way as Slinky clambered into the back with them as well.

  “Sit down,” he said – a redundant comment, since they were laid out like sardines in the can, the smell of congealed blood in the air or something else driving the newborn Fury wild. Slinky took a long look at the resurrection, a gentle smirk on his face like a young dad staring in through the windows of a pet store. He looked nothing like a hard-faced murderer and rapist – until his cold eyes fell on Lila.

  She had trouble swallowing, and wished desperately for more water. Greerson instead walked past the tray and thumped the metal panel as he climbed into the cab.

  “Let’s go meet the others.”

  Lilianna’s heart fell further still.

  *

  THE TRUCK DROVE across a swampy hinterland, in and out of old driveways, overgrown laneways and country roads on the outskirts of Columbus’ far north. The darkness conspired with nature, reclaiming huge chunks of the territory. Lilianna knew there were old homes and businesses and industrial sites out there, but five years of unchecked growth cloaked nearly everything.

  She and Aurora were hopelessly lost.

  The vehicle climbed a slight hillock where trees failed to make the ascent. Another four-wheel drive sat there with two more men looking cold and bored smoking cigarettes. Lila recognized Gre
erson’s regular sidekick Stonefish from everyday life in the Bastion. The other was a smaller, slightly stooped figure clad in all the requisite gear favored by the others, but not quite able to pull off the look.

  “Finally!” Stonefish cried out. He thumped the side of Greerson’s truck as it pulled in and immediately peered into the back. Sandy-haired and weak-chinned, he shared a gleeful look with Slinky that took a frightening number of years off him.

  With the vehicle stopped, Lilianna got to her knees using her momentum, but Slinky shoved her off-balance so that she fell across Aurora and onto the tape-bound wraith groaning and with actual slaver leaking out the sides of his silver gag. Lila regretted a squeal as she urgently struggled away from the Fury despite the lack of immediate danger.

  There was danger enough. And she was face-first with the fate perhaps awaiting her come sunrise. Lilianna shivered and pledged an end to her weakness.

  They dragged Aurora slithering from the bed and Lila crawled out into the men’s callused hands which discarded her like trash onto a rank, muddy patch of grass.

  “On your feet, ladies,” Slinky said.

  Greerson appeared. He lit a smile of genuine affection on Stonefish.

  “I thought you wasn’t gonna come,” his lieutenant said.

  Greerson nudged him with one elbow as he rearranged his gun. He had ten or fifteen years on the other man and some kind of dysfunctional father-son dynamic going on. Wide-eyed, Lilianna almost expected the Chief to ruffle Stonefish’s hair. Brooding Apache watched closely, unimpressed. Slinky kept his eyes on the two women while the smaller, dark-featured man remained near his vehicle.

  Lilianna checked him up and down once. Though small, Hardy radiated a sense of nervous, feral danger Lila knew she couldn’t dismiss. The pencil moustache gave him a rodent’s look. With Aurora moaning and whimpering at her side, Lila continued her quick scout around as she staggered to her feet.

  “‘Rora,” she said. “Get up. This is it.”

  “Never a truer word spoke,” Slinky agreed.

  He tittered, but Greerson shot him a look that killed the mood. His men seemed to ignore the Chief’s belligerence most of the time, but now they all stepped back, making room for Greerson’s undeserved swagger as he moved center-stage in the stormy moonlight. The truck lights were doused, leaving their vehicles like wrecks. The wind cutting through the tall grass and the susurrus of nearby trees filled their ears. And some birds engaged in startled histrionics, off in the far-off, which slowly faded from hearing. The other hunters checked over their communications gear while Greerson stepped closer and Lilianna braced herself as Aurora grabbed a handhold of Lila’s dirty jeans to stand as well.