Zombie Evolution: Volume 1 No Man Left Behind (2 page)

One of the men raised his arm and pointed towards the back of the warehouse.  He said something to his partners. One of the partners walked over to Trent and grabbed him by his shirt collar. The man started to lead him in the direction that was pointed out. Apparently the screams of the little boy were getting to the leader, so he wanted the boy to be gone.  Carla watched closely to see where the man was taking Trent. 

Without a screaming child ringing in her ears, she could now make out what the questions were. 

The man stared at Calvin with a cutting glare in his eyes. 

“Where…. do... you... live?”, the leader of the group asked Calvin, with his words chopped and spread apart.

Calvin looked at the ground and wouldn’t say a word. 

“Look man, I don’t want to hurt you and your boy.  I will let you go, if you just tell me where this farm is.  I know that it is a secure place, because your little man told us about it.  We can even contribute to the community.  You see all of these pallets, they are food.  This warehouse is packed with food.  What else could we possibly offer you?”

Calvin gathered some strength to answer the man, “I see all this food before me, but it would not be worth letting an evil group of heathens live in the same community as my family and friends”.

Calvin spit in the man’s face and then remained silent.  When Carla realized what was going on, she knew why Calvin would not give their location away.  These were evil men and they would come into her home and terrorize her village.  She was proud of Calvin and had much respect for him.  She was not sure that she could have been as brave as he was. 

The man that seemed to be the leader of these thugs, looked around at his companions with surprise on his face.  He could not believe that this man would give his life before giving up his home. 

“Ok, looks like we are going to have to do things the hard way.  I didn’t not want to have to get mean, I have been pretty nice until now.”, said the boss man.

Carla looked over Calvin's body. She could only see the outer wounds on the man, but what she seen on the outside, probably meant that there was some internal injuries as well. He had blood trickling down his face.  She couldn’t really tell specifically where most of the blood was coming from, but it looked like it was coming from right above his eye.  His clothes were torn, and one of his boots were missing from his foot.

The boss man turned to the man that had taken Trent away and said,”We are going to have set up the persuasion room, put him in the holding cell for now”.

The man then turned to Calvin and said,”I don’t like torturing children, but I am going to let you sleep on something.  If you do not tell us the information that we require from you, your son is going to feel some major pain. The good news is that you will be able to stop it at a moment's notice.  You are going to tell us where it is that  you call home, sir.”

The same man that had taken Trent, also handled Calvin.  All of the men walked in the same direction.  When they got far enough away, Carla slipped out of hiding to follow them.  She had to know where they were keeping them.  Her plan was to get help and stop this future torturing session.  She was not going to let these men hurt little Trent.

Being extremely careful, Carla scurried forward, darting from place to place.  Using the maze of pallets as shields, she followed the men in a stealth fashion.  She never took her eyes off of the group of men.  Quickly glancing at her watch, she saw that she only had three hours to make it back home.  It had taken her three and a half hours to get to the warehouse.  She had to start back to her village, but she was not going to leave until she knew where to find her friends, when she returned.

Finding another clever hidden spot, she darted behind some boxes that were lined up in front of another back wall.  She watched stealthily as the men pushed Calvin into a room, that was at the back of the building.  Carla could hear Trent cry out, when he saw what shape that his daddy was in.  At least she knew that both of them were in the same area.  This would make a rescue a little easier than if they had to find Trent in a different place.

Panic raced over her, when she looked at her watch once more.  She only had two hours and forty-five minutes to get into the gates.  Carla had never ran so fast for so long at one time in her life.  Her body hurt inside and out.  Thorns and vines had tore through her flesh from head to toe.  Every one of her  joints and muscles ached. 

Chapter 3

After telling T-Bone to put the prisoner back into the cell, he went into his office.  Him and his men lived in the huge basement under the warehouse.  It was easier to gain supplies from travelers if the place looked abandoned.  Living in the basement, made the rest of the place look undiscovered.  This worked out well for him and his gang.  This was how they survived in this harsh world. 

Land pirating worked so far, but The men dreamed to have more of a home filled environment.  They had been searching for a place that they could really settle down in.  A community, of sorts.  The biggest problem was that they did not want to be ruled.  They wanted to be the rulers.  Chris had no problems taking a community by force. 

The men wanted women at their beck and call.  Chris wanted to be just like his messed up father.  Even though he watched his father abuse his mother all of his life, he craved for the same thing.  He needed a wife to do all the cooking and cleaning.  He would find her so that he could reproduce with his offspring.  They did need to repopulate the earth.  It was the right thing to do, after all. 

He would teach his children how to be tough, like his father did with him.  An occasional beating will do it every time.  He did not like it when he was a child, but now he understood why his dad would dish out the hard love.  Chris would not be as strong and as tough as he was, if it wasn’t for his father.  Hell, he would probably be dead, for that matter.  Yep, he wanted a family just like his dear ol pops.

“Come in,” he said, when he heard a knock on his door.

Rusty walked in with a bundled up piece of cloth.  He laid the cloth onto Chris’s desk.  When Chris unrolled the items in the cloth, he smiled an evil filled smile. 

“This will do wonderfully,” said Chris, as he picked up a set of pliers.

Rusty cleared his throat and said, with a nervous shake in his voice,”Are…...are we really going to hurt that little boy.”

Chris cocked his head to one side, as a confused dog might do to a strange noise and said,”It’s called tough love.  Didn’t you have parents to teach you anything at all.  We are really helping the boy.  He will toughen him up and he might be able to survive in this world.”

Rusty knew better than to argue with Chris. He definitely disagreed with him, but he has seen him kill the last guy that went against his wishes.  Antonio was part of their group at one time.  They gang had caught two women that had roamed into the warehouse.  They were stuffing their packs with cans of food when Antonio and Rusty had come up on them.   After taking them to Chris, to see what he wanted to do with them, the men ran a rape chain on one of the girls.  The other girl,Tristan, was being held in one of the cells.  Antonio had a moment with Tristan.  He wanted her, but he wanted her to want him also.  He had talked to her when no one was looking.  The two of them had formed a light friendship over the two days that she was held against her will. 

The night that Tristan's friend died from being raped and beaten, Chris announced that Tristan would be next.  Antonio did not take part in the rapes of Tristan's friend and he was not going to let this happen to his new friend.  After all the men had called it a night and nestled into their rooms below the warehouse, he went to Tristan and rescued her from her cell.  He lead her into the woods and gave her a place to meet him.  He had planned to go back inside to gather some things for the two of them, when Chris met him on the way back into the building.  Chris had already discovered the traitorous act of his companion.  The next day, he tortured and killed Antonio.  This was a good example to the rest of his gang.

Chris had T-Bone and Rusty set up one of the old office rooms up as a torture chamber.  Why hasn't he done this before.  There were many old offices down in the basement of the warehouse.  This was a perfect place to dwell and wait for the next victim.  T-Bone had picked a room that would be out of earshot from where the men slept and relaxed in their rooms.  No one wants to hear all that yelling when they are trying to get a little peace and quiet.  They had picked the room right next to what they called the brothel room.  The brothel room was where they would he put girls for recreational purposes.  That’s what Chris called it, anyways. 

After setting up the torture chamber, Rusty and T-Bone met the rest of the gang in the kitchen.  The kitchen was the old break room for the employees of the warehouse.  It was equipped with an electric stove and a refrigerator.  Thanks to a big generator, these appliances were in working conditions.  Chris wanted his men to gather for a meeting, before the next day. 

There were seven men left, after Antonio’s demise.  Chris, T-bone, Rusty,  Cliff, Shawn, Buster, and Jim were all of them.  It was a small group of thugs, but they were all guys that you wouldn’t want your children hanging out with.  All the men had criminal records.  Antonio was the only one that did not have some sort of abusive background.  The men had escaped the prison together when the virus had overrun the institution. 

Antonio was in for theft.  Chris was in for rape, no surprise there.  T-Bone was in for killing a man in a bar fight.  Rusty was in for stabbing his abusive father, at the age of seventeen.  Shawn was in for beating his wife to death.  Jim was in for domestic violence that went too far.  Jim’s wife had not died but he did beat her into a coma.  Cliff had killed a man in a fit of road rage.  Last but not least, Buster had been arrested as a serial killer.  He did not claim all of the murders, but he did claim four of them.  Buster told everyone that he believed that the DA had some murders that needed solved, so they chose the man that had admitted to four recent murders.  Buster denied all but four, even to his prison companions.  Needless to say, no one on the face of this earth would want to welcome and live with this set of criminals. 

When all of the men had arrived to the kitchen, Chris began to speak.

“Listen up guys.  This is the plan.  We will torture the kid, until his father gives us the location of his happy little home.  We will then kill the father, but I would love us to adopt the boy.  He is young now, and I think we could mold him into a great young man.  Don’t you guys think so?”

All the men were nodding up and down, as Chris looked around the room.  All of the men knew better than to disagree with Chris.  The one man that was the least afraid of Chris was Buster.  Chris was actually a bit afraid of Buster.  It was no surprise when Buster spoke out to Chris.

“What if the father don’t talk?  What you going to do then, smart guy?”, Buster said in a cocky tone as he crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side.

This angered Chris, he was scared of Buster.  If Chris showed any weakness at all, he would lose the respect of all the men.  He couldn’t let Buster over shadow his authority.

Chris walked over to Buster and leaned into his face.

“Do you really think that a father is going watch his son be in the pain that we are going to cause?”, said Chris.

Buster grinned a ferocious grin and said,”Your father wouldn’t have minded much, would he?”

The fury in Chris’s eyes told Buster to get ready for a fight.  Buster stood up to get level with Chris.  The two stood almost nose to nose and toe to toe.  Buster waited patiently for Chris to throw a punch.  Chris began to realize that he really did not want to go up against Buster, but he could not cower down, or the rest of the men would lose respect for him.  Words would have to do for now. 

“My father made me tough and I am grateful for that. If you have a problem with the way that I run things, then you can just get out and go find some different folks to be in charge of.”

Buster did not argue with Chris, not because he was scared of him, but because he did not really want to be on his own.  He did not like Chris very much, but no matter what, he did not want to be alone in this new world.  After sitting back down in his seat, Buster snarled a bit.   Chris was relieved that the confrontation did not go any further than it did.  After taking his eyes off of Buster, Chris addressed the rest of the group.