The Deadfall

by Lilly Black

  "What are you girls doing here?" Alek asked as he found Savannah, Sally, Bella, and Kylie gathered near the shed they were using as a holding cell. The women standing guard had been keeping a close eye on them, afraid of what they had in mind as they whispered and watched the door.

  "I want to talk to that asshole!" Savannah said. "Everybody at school knows I live here, and I want to know why he thought it would be okay to bring those old men up here shopping for child brides!"

  "I want to know the same thing," Alek said, "but if you go in there yelling at him, it's not going to do anyone any good."

  "It might make me feel better," she said, and when he saw the tears gathering in her eyes, he realized there had to be more to it. He held out his arms to offer her a hug, and she fell straight into them.

  "What's really going on, Savvy?" he asked as she cried against his chest.

  "He was like you. He was a good guy, and look what happened to him. Look what he turned into so fast. I don't want to live in a world like that. It's not fair."

  "I know, sweetheart," he said, stroking her hair. "But not everyone has lost their humanity. We have a lot of good people in this community. We're going to have to deal with some assholes out there, but we're going to keep growing, and we'll get this world back on track."

  "You promise?" she asked, looking up into his eyes

  "I promise," he assured her, and she smiled a sad smile. He reminded her of her dad, kind and thoughtful, not authoritarian at all. "Let me talk to him, okay? Let me get to the bottom of this, and I swear to you that he will be held accountable for whatever he's done."

  "Okay," she acquiesced, and Alek wiped a tear from her eye and gave her a smile before sending her and her friends away. He hoped that he'd done well at his first crack at being a father figure. Savannah was missing Reid as much as her mother was, and since life was more serious in this new world, if he was going to be Olivia's lover and help her run this place, then Reid's other responsibilities were his as well, including Savannah. He hoped she didn't see him as trying to replace her dad, but he did want to take care of Olivia's daughter as if she were his own. He was in love with Olivia, and keeping that secret was much harder on him than waiting for sex. He deserved to be able to say the words. He had just crawled up a mountain after being shot in the head with an arrow to save her, for fuck's sake.

  And now it was time to deal with the last, living son-of-a-bitch responsible.

  He went inside the shed and found Austin lying on the cot facing the wall, and when he cleared his throat and the kid turned over, a kid is exactly what he looked like. His eyes were red-rimmed and filled with tears, his cheeks were wet, and his mouth was twisted into a mask of tragedy.

  "Are you going to kill me now?" he asked right off the bat.

  "That depends, kid," Alek said.

  "On what?" Austin's voice was thin and weak. He had been crying so hard, his nose was entirely closed off, and as he sniffled, trying to breathe through it, Alek handed him a box of tissues from a shelf on the wall.

  "It depends on you being honest with me," he said.

  "I'll tell you anything you want to know. I wasn't like those men. That's why I killed Dave. I'd been trying to find a way to kill them since we got on the road."

  "Why were you with them?"

  "I didn't have a choice," Austin said. "I didn't know what I was getting into when I joined them, but they don't let you leave because they don't want anybody knowing what they do."

  "And what do they do?"

  "They..." Austin began, his lip trembling as Alek watched him from his chair, trying to determine if the boy was being sincere or just trying to win his sympathy. "I can't. I just can't."

  "Take your time," he said. "It's okay."

  "No, man! It's not okay!" Austin shouted, looking up at Alek with wild eyes, his cheeks glistening in the dim light of the shed. "Look at me! I'm a fucking fifteen-year-old guy, and I can't get my dick up! It's not okay, and it's never going to be okay again!"

  Taken aback, Alek was unsure of what to do as Austin broke down, sobbing hard, doubled over where he sat on the cot. Alek reached out to pat the boy on the shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

  "Please don't," he begged without looking up. "I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to live. You should just take your gun out and kill me now."

  Please, he thought. Kill. Me. Now.

  The sun was about to set when the caravan from the solar farm returned to the compound, every vehicle heavy-laden with supplies. The flatbed semis carried the solar cells, and the cars carried food and medicine. They hadn't completed the mission without casualties, but because of the Kevlar Liana had collected, they were in much better shape when the farm turned out to be protected by more than just hungry corpses.

  Dani rushed down the hill from her cabin when she received the signal that the gates were opening, and she watched as the last cars came through with no Jax. There were two vehicles missing. His and Liana's.

  "Oh, God!" she cried as she rushed up to Aiden the second he stepped out of his car. "They're dead, aren't they? Jax is dead."

  "No, no, Dani," he said. "They're fine. They stayed behind because there was a little more work to do. That's all."

  As soon as she received confirmation that Jax was alive, she became suspicious that the one female who went on the mission was the only person who stayed behind with him, and when Aiden noticed the look in her eyes, he just shook his head and walked away, annoyed with her jealousy. He had just lost a friend at the solar farm, and Liana and Jax had promised to burn the body. They weren't going to betray him or Dani.

  As everyone gathered in the lodge for dinner, Alek could see how worried she was. She claimed it was because Jax was still out there after dark, but he knew better. She needed a distraction, and he had one. He wanted her to meet with Austin because he had no idea what to do with him. Obviously, the kid had done something so horrible that he would rather die than face it, and Alek recognized that he was not equipped to be the one to help him.

  But more important to him than helping a fifteen-year-old boy who was a party to attempting to abduct young women was learning more about the group he came from. Alek had become convinced that the men they killed today were not the only bad guys in that group, and if so, this compound would never be safe with them out there. He wanted to know who they were, what they were doing, and how many they numbered.

  "Any information you can get out of him will help," he told Dani.

  "I'll do what I can," she said, planning to take Austin a plate and talk to him after dinner. "Would he not tell you anything?"

  "He was crying and begging me to shoot him, but he wouldn't say why," he explained, then he frowned and added, "There was one thing that might give you an angle. He said he couldn't get it up, and it seemed like he was implying that the people from his group are the reason for that."

  "Or maybe he was confessing that he can't get it up unless he kidnaps and rapes," Savannah said with disgust as she sat down beside Alek. He had been speaking low because he didn't want to be overheard, but she had been paying close attention.

  "You weren't supposed to hear that," he said.

  "Well, I did, and it's just one more reason I think he needs to die."

  "So does he," Alek said. "He asked me to kill him. Don't you think we need to know what's going on with his group if he came out of it with so much self-loathing?"

  "I already admitted that you were right, goddamn it," she said grudgingly, making Dani giggle.

  "Is there anything else you can tell me about him that might help?" she asked Savannah.

  "Nothing useful," she said. "He was a freshman, captain of the JV football team, and by all accounts, he never used to have a problem getting it up."

  "And you had a crush on him," Dani said.

  "No," Savannah protested, but Dani had caught her, giving her an impatient glare. "Fine. Yes, but that was before I found out what a total slut he was. He had a different girlfriend every two
weeks. Not my kind of guy."

  "Your mother will be pleased," Alek said with a wink.

  "Yeah, apparently celibacy runs in the family," she said, winking back as she picked up her plate to go sit with her friends, leaving Alek stunned.

  "Don't let her get to you," Dani said. "If that's the worst thing she ever says to you, you're lucky." She laughed, drawing a smile out of Alek. "She misses her Dad, but she understands that what's going on between you and her mom is a symptom of the state of the world right now. She's actually coping with it a little too well if you ask me. Just treat her gently."

  "I wouldn't dream of treating her any other way," he said, surprised at how well Dani was able to analyze everyone but herself, and like clockwork, her uncertainties came out.

  "So, you really don't have any clue why Jax and Liana didn't come home with everybody else?"

  "I don't know anything you don't know, but if they stayed behind, I guarantee you two things: There was a good reason for it, and Aiden would not have left them alone if he didn't feel it was safe. Okay?"

  "You're probably right," she reluctantly admitted.

  "Would you please tell Jax how you're feeling? I promise he'll understand."

  "Would you? If your girlfriend was always thinking you were fucking someone else, would you understand or would you think she was just an insecure nutcase and dump her?"

  "Well, if I was in love with her," he began, staring wistfully at Olivia as she stood talking to someone on the other side of the room. "I'd want to do whatever I could to make her feel confident that her faith in me was well-placed. Jax was a rock star, Dani. He knows you're going to feel insecure sometimes, but you need to understand that at some point you have to stop holding his past against him and give him the same trust you would any other man. Besides, Olivia has more cause to worry than you. Celibacy's starting to get real, fucking old." He laughed when he said it because he was teasing, but the joke would only be funny for so long.

  "Make you a deal. I'll talk to Olivia if you'll talk to Jax," she offered just as June sat down with them. She was carrying a cup of tea, having already cleared her dinner dishes.

  "I have talked to Jax," Alek said. "But if you want to know what he told me, you're going to have to ask him yourself. As for Olivia, my patience isn't quite spent...yet." He flashed his stunning smile and dipped his head as he stood to leave. "Goodnight, ladies."

  "Goodnight," Dani said.

  "Alek, wait!" June blurted out suddenly. "Can I talk to you for a minute? In private?"

  "Sure," he said, then he led her out onto the front porch where no one was around. "What's up?"

  "I just wanted to apologize to you. I've been meaning to do it for a long time. I've just been too embarrassed."

  "It's okay, June. I understand."

  "I hope so because I really am sorry. I didn't mean to mislead you, and I know how you must feel after what you did when you 'saved' me."

  "Honestly, I'd been looking for an excuse to kick Jobe's ass anyway," he said with a wink. He was trying to help her feel better, but it was still true and had been since the 'trying on vaginas like hats' comment.

  June giggled like a schoolgirl at his joke. She had spent the days since her husband's death thinking more and more about all the things she had missed out on because of the cult, and no one represented what she had been robbed of more perfectly than Alek.

  "That makes me feel so much better," she said, looking up at him with doe eyes, and when they parted ways, she rushed back inside to find Dani.

  "I need you to do me a favor," she said. "Would you talk to Olivia for me?"

  "What about?" Dani asked, taking her last bite.

  "I think I have an idea that could kill three birds with one stone," she said with a mischievous grin, and when Dani placed her napkin atop her plate, June pulled on her arm, urging her to go someplace private.

  Dani's mind was a million miles away as June dragged her down the hallway, through the kitchen, and out into the greenhouse. Alek's words had been no more reassuring than the stories she had overheard in the lodge at dinner about what had happened at the solar farm.

  If they had been so surprised by the militia they found there, what made them think there wouldn't be more surprises if they left Liana and Jax behind? What Dani didn't know yet was that they were certain, and she would understand when she heard the full story.

  When the caravan arrived at the farm, they pulled onto a gravel road that ran behind the fence to the solar installation with the intention of taking out the dead through the chain links with swords, long knives, and other sharp, pointed weapons. They all lined up as soft music played through a directional speaker rigged to one of the trucks and aimed at the fence to draw the herd from inside without getting the attention of any that might be lingering nearby. Though they did have to take out a few strays here and there, Liana had planned for it, and their formation kept them from being ambushed by any corpses.

  Estimates from the most recent surveillance mission had put the total number of dead within the fence at around fifty, but as more and more ambled toward their demise, it seemed that the count was off or something had happened in the past forty-eight hours that shored up their numbers. Liana was not concerned. They were making quick work of the corpses that had begun to pile up along the perimeter.

  Then suddenly, they heard gunfire.

  It came from inside the fence, and while several of the dead fell before their eyes, two members of their group were hit. John Vincent took a bullet in his upper left arm, and Neil, one of the few remaining Greyhawks, lay dead while everyone scattered, hiding behind the vehicles as they tried to figure out who was shooting at them.

  Liana climbed onto one of the rigs, peeking through the window to survey their situation, and over the heads of the corpses left standing, she could see a small militia approaching - twelve men loaded down with Kevlar and weapons. She watched for a second, scanning the buildings inside the fence for snipers, and though these men appeared to be the only threat, they were fearless as they stalked toward the dead in a V formation. Then just as Liana raised her rifle, balancing it on the hood by the windshield to take aim at the man in the front, a bullet whizzed through the cab of the rig, shattering the window to her right. She fell backward, and Aiden caught her, leaving her with only a couple of superficial cuts on the side of her face.

  "Oh, God!" she breathed, truly scared for the first time since they had gone through the toll booth the night the apocalypse began, but her military mind would never succumb again. She immediately began formulating a strategy. She drew her army to the spot where she was hunkered down behind the sturdiest truck and quickly laid out the plan, sending them left and right, high and low.

  When everyone was in position, Aiden and Jax got in Liana's heavily armored car, and drove off toward the road they came in on to draw the attention of the shooters - Jax firing the semi automatic weapon Liana had rigged to shoot through a slot in the passenger window while Aiden drove in a serpentine pattern, and as part of the militia headed after them, another group of Liana's men used the cover of the tractor trailer to shoot down all of the corpses blocking them from their enemies. The remaining militia members, in body armor and helmets, felt invincible as they rushed the break in the herd along the fence, but that was just another distraction.

  Crawling on their bellies, Liana joined her best snipers as they made their way to the end of the line of the dead, then they took aim at the unprotected legs of their attackers, mowing them down. The four men who had gone after Aiden and Jax came running back to meet the same fate, but while immobile, they were still heavily armed, most of them retaining the strength to continue the fight. That's when Aiden stopped the car, and having fallen completely off the militia's radar, he and Jax pulled the crown jewel of their arsenal out of the trunk, a wonderful surprise they'd found in a big, heavy box from Sylas Gun & Pawn that was labeled "random parts".

  "God bless you, Randy, you crazy, fucking redneck," Aiden
said as they set up the grenade launcher on the car's roof. Then Liana's voice came out of the loud speaker on the truck.

  "You are surrounded," she said, interrupted by shots as the dead encroached upon the men they had been herded to protect. "You are crippled. Lay down your weapons, and we will let you live."

  "Fuck you, bitch!" shouted the man who appeared to be the leader. He lifted his rifle, aiming at the speaker as Liana gave Jax the hand signal, and the first grenade deployed. The leader turned, trying to shoot it out of the air, but it landed, exploding right next to him and taking out four others.

  The remaining men had their sights on the grenade launcher now, but they also had the dead to contend with. Jax and Aiden reloaded, and Liana gave the men another chance.

  "You are surrounded," she repeated. "You are crippled. Lay down your weapons, and live."

  "Okay! Okay!" one man yelled. He was young, he was terrified, and seconds later, he was dead as one of his own men put a bullet in his neck.

  Liana gave the signal, and another group of three were obliterated.

  "Last chance," she said, but the loud speaker was drown out by gunfire as the entire herd, including the one soldier they didn't have the sense to shoot in the head, converged upon the survivors.

  "Well, that's that, then," she said, motioning for her team to gather. While Jax and Aiden locked up the grenade launcher, half of the group went through the gate and began taking out the rest of the zombies, but the other half had to stay out and deal with more than had been drawn by the sound of gunfire. Almost instantly, Jax and Aiden found themselves on the roof of the car having to use knives because they had left their guns in the cab.

  "We're in the middle of goddamn nowhere. How are there so many of these bastards?" Jax complained, and then Aiden drew his attention to a barn up on a hill on the other side of the complex. There was someone peeking around the side of the structure as a few straggling corpses wandered out.

  "Cover me," he said to Jax, and he took out his binoculars and saw a woman in chains with a thick collar around her neck. She was underdressed for the cold weather and cowering by the barn.