Aftershock: A Collection of Survivors Tales (21 page)

I almost lost the kid in Virginia, somewhere near Marshall according to the map. Rolling through some town or another, we were looking for food and water, Mars bars and Snoballs, nothing new. This place was different. It still looked like shit, don’t get me wrong, but almost likes somebody had tried a little too hard to leave it looking like shit if that makes sense. William was his usual quiet self as we moved slowly down the main street looking for a food store with the windows intact. This town didn’t look too bad, not like some of the places we had been through. Most of the buildings still had glass and doors and the streets weren’t littered with half-eaten bodies. That’s why my ass was up, as my sarge would have said. Not up high enough though.

I came around a blind turn and right before it would have been too late, I spotted a thin wire strung about a foot high across the road. The Jeep skidded to a stop just resting against it. Another inch and it would have thrown whatever trigger it was tied to. I dropped the Jeep into reverse but before I let the clutch up, a van shot from an alley and crashed into a pole behind us.

“Fuck! William get down!” I screamed and grabbed his head and shoved him, a little too rough, down to the floor. I popped the clutch and the Jeep slammed into the van just as the driver’s door started to open. I heard a startled cry over the crunch of metal.

I only had one shot to get us out of here alive. I had to hope that whatever the hell was tied to the other end of that wire wasn’t big enough or fast enough to take us out. I shifted into first gear and bucked forward. The wire snapped as the Jeep snapped through it. At first there was nothing, no explosion, no popping tires, nada. I never let off the gas, not wanting to wait around to see if whatever the booby trap was had just misfired. We made it maybe ten feet before the gunfire started to follow us. It started coming out of the second floor windows of two stores simultaneously. One store was behind us by three buildings, or at least that’s what it looked like before a shot took out my side mirror. The other building was at the end of the street, right in the middle of the T intersection formed by the end of the street I was currently tearing east on, and the one I was planning to tear north on in a hundred yards. It was a damn near perfect firing line.

Three men moved out of the alley the van had come from with carbines trained on the Jeep, two more came from around the half-crushed vehicle with hunting rifles. I floored the gas and the Jeep threatened to stall out right there. It was at that moment that whatever delay their little trap had ran out. Only I don’t think the delay was intentional. I guess we all thought it was a dud, because two big sedans came crashing down from the top of buildings on either side of the street, right on top of the three from the alley. Damned messy way to go.

Two rounds punched through the windshield half a second later. Then two more hit the hood and another went through the radiator. We weren’t going to get much further in this vehicle but hopefully it would at least get us the fuck out of here.

I took the left at the end of the street way too fast and put the Jeep up on two wheels. We kept taking fire the whole time but the guy up in the window seemed to be the only one who knew what he was doing. A round hit the passenger seat right where William’s head would have been had he not been cowering on the floor. Though I wouldn’t say “cowering”, from what I could tell he was just sitting there not reacting at all to being shot at. He didn’t look happy about being jostled around, but he didn’t look scared either. Another right turn and we would be out of immediate danger, or at least I hoped so. The Jeep was making some very bad noises and I knew that if we had to beat feet we were toast.

One more round took out the back left tire and that was it. I fought to keep the Jeep from rolling and crashed into a burnt out wreck on the curb.

“Don’t fucking move William! Stay here and don’t move!” I screamed throwing open the door, grabbing my M-4 and rolling out behind the wreck. With any luck they hadn’t seen William and would only be looking for me. I had no idea how many there would be but it wouldn’t be long before I found out.

Two men in jeans and camo t-shirts came around the corner making nice, high targets of themselves. I hit the one in the lead dead in the chest. It was kind of nice to be able to aim center mass again after always having to make headshots. He went sprawling forward and his partner almost tripped. I took the opportunity to fire two shots and caught him in the shin and the hip. Down he went screaming. I rolled right to get a better look at who else was coming. Didn’t see anyone so I decided to advance to the next vehicle. I wanted as much ground as possible between me and the Jeep, between them and William.

Four more guys were coming up the street, moving a bit more cautiously this time. Two civilian hunting rifles, one AR-15, and a .45. Dumb bastard didn’t realize that a hand gun, even a nice big .45 was almost useless in this situation. They hadn’t seen me yet. They were looking at their buddies lying in the street. I sighted the one with the AR and was about to squeeze the trigger when a hot stream of air whipped past my left ear. Fucking sniper! My friend from the window no doubt. I dropped and rolled left under the car. I took a couple pot shots at the feet of the men on the street as they gave up stealth and ran toward my position. I caught one in the ankle and when he hit the ground I put two rounds into the side of his face.

I was pretty well fucked and I knew it. Even if I managed to take out the other three coming at me, I still had at least one sniper and who knew how many others that may be waiting for me to poke my head out. I could only hope they hadn’t seen William and that he would be smart enough to wait for them to finish with me before trying to get away.

No way in hell I was going to die with a full magazine anyway. I rolled backward and hugged the wreck as tight as I was hoping that the sniper wouldn’t be able to get a bead on me. I moved around the back of the car with my weapon up and started firing. Two more went down with little red holes in their chests before they even realized that I wasn’t under the car anymore. The sniper took at least three more shots at me but hit nothing but pavement. I could feel the little chips of stone cut through right leg of my pants and bury themselves, burning, in my calf.

Mr .45 dropped his weapon, threw up his hands, and ran back the other way. That left my friend upstairs.

I booked it across the street trying to make a small target. I was starting to think our luck had turned when the door to the building I was headed for flew open and I caught the butt of a shotgun right between the eyes. I was out before I hit the ground. As I fell I saw some huge thug dragging William out of the Jeep by the back of the neck. Then it was just black.

I came to with my feet tied to a desk chair and my hands cuffed, or at least tied tight behind my back. My head was throbbing and everything was blurry, but at least I was still alive. I tried to swing my head around, to get the layout of the room and hopefully catch a glimpse of William. They better not have hurt him… ‘Course I’m going to have to figure out how to get the hell out this chair before I can go around making any threats.

The room was small, grimy, basically square, and it smelled like shit. I don’t mean it stank, I mean it smelled like someone had been using it for a latrine for a while now. There was no way I was going to be able to wiggle out of these ropes to find out if the door was locked. I thought about trying to smash the chair against the floor, but the frame felt like steel. My scheming was interrupted by the door bursting inward hard enough to almost take it off the frame.

“You son of a BITCH!”

The short, squat guy who offered the greeting followed it with a wild haymaker swung that caught me on the left cheek and sent me and the chair to the floor. I smacked my head hard enough to almost get knocked out again. An arm snaked under me and set me upright again.

“You’re gonna pay for what you did to my boys out there you mother fucker!”

He punctuated the statement with another shot in the face. I felt my lip splint against my teeth and my mouth filled with blood.

“You fired first asshole,” at least that what I tried to say. Even I couldn’t understand what came out of my mouth.

“No use begging fucker. I’m gonna make you suffer. Make you fucking beg for me to kill you.”

The blows started again. The face, the ribs, the stomach. No real technique, just a lot of anger and ham-sized fists. Doesn’t mean it hurt any less. I don’t really know how long the beating lasted. I know I almost went under a couple of times and he had to stop to catch his breath once or twice.

By the time he was done my eyes had swollen almost completely shut, at least four of my teeth were either busted or knocked out completely, and I was pretty sure my jaw was broken.

I sat there, head throbbing, every breath stinging in my chest, waiting for whatever this asshole had planned next. He was wrong on one count, no way was I going to beg him for anything. I had a brief moment to wonder about William again. I offered a silent apology to no one in particular for dragging him into this. I thought I was helping, but apparently not. I had no idea what the hell they were doing to him, if they were sick enough to torture a retarded kid or not. Those kind of rules went out the window a long time ago I guess. The only thing I knew for sure was that if I got even the slightest opportunity to get out of this chair, I was going to take it.

Fat Bastard gave me one last hard slap in the face that left my ears ringing and walked out of the room. I listened to hear the click of a lock but didn’t. I guess he figured I was beaten half to death and handcuffed to a chair, why bother locking the door. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.

All I had to do was not pass out, then somehow manage to get out of these fucking cuffs, then somehow get the drop on Fat Bastard even though I could barely see. Shouldn’t be too hard…

The room is dark. I do not like the dark. I am not afraid of the dark, Father says a grown boy should not be afraid of the dark. I still do not like the dark. Earlier, I heard Ian’s voice through the wall. Then I heard sounds like thump, thump, thump and grunting. At least I know Ian is here. He seems like a good person even though he swears too much. Father says that people swear when they cannot think of something intelligent to say. Ian seems to be very intelligent though. He knows a lot about fighting and shooting and war. Those are good thing to know now.

I do not know who grabbed me outside, but he was very rude. I told him so and he pushed me down and told me to shut up. I cut my hand on the ground and it hurt, but I did not cry. Father says that grown boys do not cry either. I think Father would like Ian if they ever met. I wonder if Ian drinks scotch like Father did. This room is also cold, much colder than it was outside. I hope that Ian comes in soon, he has a flashlight in his pocket. I am not afraid of the dark, but I do not like it and it would be nice to have a flashlight like Ian’s.

The rude man shoved me into this room and pulled handcuffs out of his pocket. I stared at him the whole time. Father says it is rude to stare, but I get confused sometimes about why people do certain things and it is hard for me not to stare. He seemed to change his mind and put the handcuffs back in his pocket and left. He did lock the door after he closed it. Then the light went out and the room was dark. Then I heard Ian’s voice and the thumping. That went on for a while then everything was quiet. I like it when things are quiet, but I do not like the dark. I decided to sit on the floor and wait for Ian.

I wish I had a flashlight.

At some point I passed out again. I woke up to Fat Bastard sitting in a chair across the room from me just staring. My head was still throbbing, but at least I could see again. I guessed my jaw wasn’t broken either because I could clench it without too much pain, other than the broken teeth. I still hurt to breath too, but at least I was still breathing. I felt hungry too, which was odd, but a good sign.

“Can I get some water?” I figured it was worth a shot, worst thing he could do would be to tell me no, and then beat the shit of me some more.

“Don’t got none,” Fat Bastard replied, lying. I know they got at least six gallons out of the Jeep, but I wasn’t in a position to argue. I tried to shrug my shoulders, both to see if I could and to make it look like I didn’t care. I hoped he bought it.

“You killed seven of my men and broke Jimmy’s wrist. I’m gonna kill you eventually, just thought you should know why.”

Again, not being in a position to argue I didn’t point out that his guys attacked us first. I wanted to ask where William was, but a big part of me didn’t want an answer to that question.

“So what happens next?” I asked making direct eye contact. I guess I was hoping that being bold was the way to go here. My Granddad always said that people who thought it couldn’t get any worse usually found out pretty damn quick how it could. I figured, worst case scenario, he could beat me for a few hours before I passed out, maybe a few days before he killed me, what did I have to lose.

He spit right in my face and slapped me against the side of the head hard to make my ears start ringing again.

“What happens next is I think I’m gonna wail on you some more, maybe knock out the rest of your teeth, than I’m gonna go and have some fun with your half-wit, little friend.”

That’s when I lost my poker face. And Fat Bastard saw it. He fell on me with his fists again. My already tenderized face split open as he pummeled me. Pretty soon my eyes had swollen shut again and we were right where we were yesterday. He just kept swinging away, punctuating each blow with a grunt.

“Just” WHAM “Think” WHAM “About” WHAM “Me” WHAM “Fuckin” WHAM “That” WHAM “Little” WHAM “Retard…”

The chair fell over and I heard either it, or my arm, crack. Fat Bastard pulled me back upright and I could feel the chair wobbling. If I had any fight left in me, I might have been able to bust the chair in half and get free.

“I think I’ll make him blow me first. It’s been a while since I had a decent blow job and he’s got such a pretty face.”

It turns out I had a little fight left in me after all. There was no way in hell I was going to let this mother fucker sodomize the only friend I had made since the world ended.

I knew I only had one chance, and it was a slim chance at that, to get out of this chair. If I could get my weight forward enough and stand up fast and straight, it should pull the back off the chair and the cuffs would slide right off the slats. Then I would have to be quick enough to deal with Fatty. He was the only one I had seen, but I knew there had to be at least one more. Otherwise, who the hell had knocked me out yesterday. I’d have to worry about that later, if at all.

I wiggled my right ankle just a little to see if I could still feel my boot knife, but it was gone. That would have made this easier.

“I’m gonna leave you awake, so you can hear us in the next room. Don’t worry, I’ll be tender with him this time.”

As soon as his back was turned, I leaned forward in the chair and shot my legs straight. Just like I thought the back split from the rest of the chair. What I didn’t count on was that my left wrist would dislocate before it did. The pain shot up to my shoulder, but as soon as I felt the tension of the cuffs let go I swung both arms out in front and charged Fat Bastard as he turned toward me.

The look of surprise on his face as it occurred to him what was about to happen told me he was no professional. I took him in the chest with my shoulder and we both bounced off the wall and crashed to the floor. I came down on top of him and immediately started raining down elbows into his face. I brought my knee up into his crotch and received a very satisfying grunt of pain in return. He tried to buck me off but I hooked my leg under his and did my best to try and choke him with my left forearm. The empty loop of a handcuff that had only a minute ago been secured around the slat of a chair dangled from my right wrist and I got a grisly idea.

“Don’t think you’re gonna be getting your rocks off today sweetie.” I whispered in his ear while I continued to smash his fat , fucking face. I opened the empty cuff and grasped the end like a hook. He gave one last violent shove that almost succeeded in throwing me off and then I buried the semi-sharp cuff/hook right in his fucking neck. I’m sure he would have screamed had I not torn out his adam’s apple. Instead, he just gurgled and spat blood. I kept twisting the cuff, trying to saw his head off until the blood stopped spurting and he stopped kicking.

I laid there for a minute trying to catch my breath. I knew I probably didn’t have all the time in the world to be lying around, but fuck, things had turned around pretty damn quick and I had to get my bearings.

I figured William had to be close if this sick bastard thought I would be able to hear them, at least on the same floor, most likely in the same hall. Then I had to figure out how to get us out of the building, then out of this fucking town. I had no clue how many others were left. Rapid mental arithmetic told me there had to be at least one other asshole in the building. Odds were there were more than that. I had to hope we could get out without running into any of them. The Army trained me to fight long past the point where my body and mind would have given up, but in all honesty I didn’t know how much I had left in the tank. At this point, the only thing keeping me going was the fact that there was no fucking way I was going to die here and leave William behind to be some kind of toy for these fucks.

I needed to get my hands on a weapon, I needed to find William, and I needed to get us the fuck out of here, preferably in that order. I rolled Fat Bastard’s pockets, but didn’t find anything worth keeping. There wasn’t anything in the room worth taking either. The busted chair, a filthy mop sink, and a mattress in the corner stained with blood or shit or both.

I listened out into the hall and didn’t hear anyone moving around. I moved out of the room slowly. The hall was dark. Four or five doorways lined each side, all closed. There was a set of steel double doors at the end of the hall with an exit sign above them. So what then, just start knocking on doors hoping to find a slow kid and not a cannibal?

I pressed my ear to the first door. No sound. I tried the knob and it turned slowly. I eased the door open until I could squeeze my head in side. The room was empty as far as I could tell. It looked like a small classroom. Only one were a bomb had gone off. The desks were overturned and broken, the chalkboard covering the front wall was shattered, shredded books and papers littered the floor. I moved down the hall to the next door. I heard very loud snoring behind it. I knew from many, many nights of experience that William did not snore so I thought it best not to open this door just yet. The next room was another classroom and was likewise trashed and empty.

Across the hall, behind the third door, I found William. I slowly opened the door expecting another empty room and I saw him sitting quietly in a ratty armchair staring at the wall with that blank expression I had come to envy. He turned at the sound of the door and started to say my name. I raised a finger to my lips. He got the message but smiled just the same. I realized I had never really seen him smile before. He looked contented enough at times, cramming a Mars bar into his mouth, but never really “happy”. The look on his face told me that they hadn’t done anything to him and I said a silent prayer of thanks for it.

“What happened to your face?” he whispered, pointed to my mangled grill.

“Fell down some stairs,” I replied, momentarily forgetting that he had no grasp of sarcasm.

He nodded as if that was the only thing that made sense and went back to staring at the wall.

“We need to leave now William, and we have to be really, really quiet.”

“Are there more of the zombies here?”

I didn’t know how to respond. How long had we both been running, trying to stay away from the dead when right now I was more concerned with the living. No sense in trying to explain so I just nodded. His smile dropped away and was replaced by solemn resolve.

“Okay. Let’s go,” and he pushed past me into the hall.

I scanned his room and saw nothing of value. We quickly and quietly searched the other two rooms and came up with nothing. That left the room across the hall with the snorer. I suppose, if he was in there alone, I could get the drop on him, maybe smother him with a pillow. Maybe I could grab one of the desks from the other room and beat him to death with it. What I wouldn’t give for a blade right now…

I listened at the door again and heard the snoring still going strong. I motioned for William to wait at the far wall and eased the door open as slow as I could. I poked my head through far enough to see a mountain of flesh lying face down on mattress on the floor. What I saw against the wall sent me into a blind rage. All my own pain and weariness fell away and the only thing I could think of was wrapping my hands around the neck of this mother fucker and squeezing until his head popped.

As I moved across the room three things happened one right after another. First, as I advanced, I caught sight of a buck knife on the dresser so I scooped it up as I passed. Second, since I wasn’t trying to be quite anymore, Snoring Beauty woke up and started rolling toward me, a look of surprise breaking on his face. Third, I fell on him before he could even sit up and just started carving the enormous mound of his belly with the buck knife.

“YOU SICK MOTHER FUCKERS!!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!”

He batted ineffectually at me with his arms, but it was too late and I think he knew it. Blood began to dribble out of his mouth and then he was coughing up chunks of his own internal organs. I just kept stabbing and slicing and hacking.

I saw William out of the corner of my eye moving through the doorway.

“Don’t come in here!” I yelled and he stopped halfway through. No way did he need to see what was going on in here. Not what I was doing and certainly not the bodies chained to the wall.

At least a dozen sets of handcuffs were bolted to a beam nailed to the wall, a set of wrists in each. All of them were women. All of them were naked. All of them in varying stages of FUBAR. Bruised, bloody, and broken, every one of them disfigured and mutilated. Fucking senseless.

I got to my feet and stood there listening to the blood rush in my ears while William waited obediently out in the hall. I was going to find and gut every one of these fucks, then I was going to burn this entire fucking village of psychos to the ground and salt the earth.

I moved out into the hall still holding the buck knife in my good right hand. I was completely covered in blood and out of breath. William didn’t flinch, just stared at me.

“William, I want you to go back to the room you were in and close the door. Do not open it until I come to get you, okay? Just wait quietly until I get back.”

“You have blood on your shirt. You should find another shirt. I have a clean shirt in my backpack, but I do not think it will fit you. May I borrow your flashlight?”

I chuckled a little as I dug in my cargo pocket looking for the penlight he wanted. No dice, they must have taken it while I was out.

“Sorry William, I don’t have it on me.”

William shrugged and walked back to the dark room at the end of the hall. I had mixed feelings about sending him back there, but I sure as hell couldn’t bring him along to sweep the building with me. If I stuck close to this floor and branched out once I knew he wasn’t going to be in any immediate danger, I could clear the top floors and work my down.

I found the stairwell and moved quietly up to the top. Only five floors, should go pretty quickly provided I didn’t run into an entire group. I still had no idea how many I was up against here. My hope was that I could get my hands on a real weapon before too long or this was going to be useless. The adrenaline I was running on wasn’t going to last forever and it wasn’t going to do shit against one asshole with a handgun.

I backed down to the fourth floor, one up from where William was no doubt sitting quietly in a chair and counting cracks in the floor or whatever the fuck he did to occupy himself. This hall was laid out similar to the one below, four doors on one side, five on the other. I moved just outside the first door off the stairwell. It was open a crack and a light flickered through the opening.

I listened to hear voices or snoring or farting but got nothing. I couldn’t see around the corner into the room so I eased the door in. The room was empty. A half-burned candle sat in a dish on a bookshelf. More school desks were piled against the wall. Luckily no one was chained to the walls in here. I moved back in to the hall and checked the rest of the rooms, one by one, the same way. All of them were empty. So who lit the fucking candle?

I rechecked the closets and the storeroom before heading back to the stairwell. Nothing. Not even a fucking broom handle. Ditto the third floor, though I did find a clean shirt. Well, cleaner than the one I had on at least. That should make William happy.