by Paul Freeman
“Maybe you should just stay here with us and help me take care of Bart Junior.”
She tried to shrug the older woman off in protest but Penny had too tight a grip on her arm. Bart burst past both of them and ran towards the main entrance to Colony as the heavy wooden gates swung closed.
A loud crack rent the air and the bell stopped ringing, all the more noticeable now for its silence, leaving the air hanging thick with tension. Tim Williams slowly turned around and Amy could see his face was a mask of crimson horror. He toppled ponderously from the palisade like a falling tree after receiving the final cut of the axe. Amy heard screaming and realized it was her own cries echoing in her ears. More shots were fired and one of the gatekeepers pitched forward onto the hard, dusty ground.
“Oh my God!” Amy screamed as she saw Bart taking aim and firing at the second man on the gate. A red stain appeared, quickly spreading across the man’s shirt. “What…” She was unable to finish what she was going to say, as Penny squeezed her arm until it hurt. She completely forgot what she was going to say when she felt something hard jammed into her back.
“Don’t think I won’t shoot you, cos I will,” Penny said. Amy glanced over her shoulder and saw the gun in one hand, the baby in the other.
“Why?” Amy asked as tears snaked a trail down her cheeks.
“Get in the house if you want to live,” Penny said, ignoring the question.
A couple of hundred yards away Bart was pushing open the gates, stepping over the bodies of the two men he’d shot as he did so. Amy’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the ball of dust and what it contained racing towards the main gate of Colony. The sound of gunfire filled the air now as defenders on the wall fired at the coming tide, while marauders on horseback shot at anything that moved.
In what seemed to Amy only heartbeats they were inside, the sound of their horses drumming on the sun-baked earth. Amy screamed again when they were close enough for her to see them clearly. “Monsters!” she gasped.
Beasts of men on wild, snorting and rearing horses charged inside the town, their faces a patchwork of bulbous growths and scarred or blistered skin. Some were bald, others had strands of thin, lank hair hanging from scalps of peeling skin. Not all were deformed; she saw one man close-up when he was shot from his horse by a woman standing in the middle of the street. He pitched and fell from his mount and rolled yards away from Amy. He didn’t seem much older than her, his hat fell off his head and a scarf he wore over his face for protection from the dust slid down. His shoulder-length hair was light brown as was the coarse hair on his face. Even in death he was handsome – a stark contrast to his monstrous cohorts.
“Get inside, Amy, or so help me God I’ll put a bullet in you where you stand.” She felt the gun jamming into her spine, sending a shockwave of pain and fear through her.
Amy could hear howls of pain and, almost, animalistic cries of terror from the citizens of Colony as their sanctuary was violated in the most brutal manner by men and monsters intent only on destruction. Penny shoved her towards the house and she stumbled on the step. When she looked up she saw, through the dust cloud thrown in the air by the stampeding horses, a woman taking a bullet in her throat. She was punched back several yards before her body came to rest in the dirt. She saw from the corner of her eye a man falling head-over-heels from the wall, a crimson spray of blood hung in the air from the hole in his head. Her senses were assaulted from all sides, the smell of gunfire and blood hung thick in the air, the screams of dying and terrified men and women formed a blanket of sound enveloping her, and the sight of the rampaging monsters was something she doubted she’d ever forget… if she lived past the day.
“Get in the God-damned house.” Penny cradled the baby in one arm while shoving Amy towards the open door.
Her mind tried to tease out what reason Bart could have to shoot the gatekeepers and allow the marauding, deformed men inside Colony. “You planned this all along…” she voiced her thoughts out loud. A bullet hit a post on the small porch they were standing in, throwing splinters of wood into the air. Horses flew past them, kicking sods of turf into the air with their hooves and enveloping Colony in a choking cloud of dust. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just leave us alone?” she screamed at Penny.
Penny fired a shot into the air, hitting the ceiling of the porch before pointing the barrel at Amy’s head. “Get in the house,” she said softly. “You’re young and pretty, they won’t kill you if you survive the raid.”
“So you’re trying to protect me now?” Amy spat at the older woman.
It drew a smile from Penny and a curious look. “No, honey, I’m not trying to protect you. You’re just property now. Life is harsh and a lot crueler now than it used to be, but that’s just the way of things.”
Bart came storming up the steps, grabbing Amy by the arm and dragging her inside. She cried out as his grip sent a sharp wave of pain up her arm to her shoulder. He yanked her through the door and flung her into the living-room. “It’s almost done, there’s not much fight in these people,” he said, a grin forming on his face. He turned his attention back to Amy then. “You’re a tasty little thing. You got me all fired from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
A cold feeling of dread formed a knot in Amy’s stomach. She looked from the leering eyes of Bart to Penny – his wife. If she expected help or sympathy from her she found none. The baby was crying but Penny seemed oblivious as she watched Bart.
“You gonna take her here and now?” Penny asked.
“You got a problem with that?” Bart snarled as he reached out to grab Amy once again.
“Nah, hell, I’ll hold her down if you like. Only you know how Jared feels about new goods bein’ mishandled.”
Amy gripped Bart’s wrist with both her hands as he grabbed a handful of her hair. She gritted her teeth with the effort of trying to break free from his stranglehold but he barely noticed. “You can’t allow him to do this… you’re his wife!” she sobbed, appealing to Penny.
“Oh, honey, we ain’t married. We don’t even like each other.”
Beyond the walls of the house the noise had intensified – the screaming, the cries for help and of pain and terror. People she’d known all her life were dying outside and in their homes. Where was her pa? Why wasn’t he coming to rescue her like he always did?
“You have a baby…”
“And I’m sure his mother misses him very much,” she said with a grin.
“Screw Jared!” Bart growled, grabbing Amy’s top with his free hand. He pulled once and the light fabric tore.
Amy screamed and redoubled her efforts to break free as she realized what was about to happen. How could this be happening? she thought. The older folk in Colony, like her pa and Logan spoke of a time before the Fall, when life was a lot different. She found it hard getting her head around some of the things they talked about and how technology made their life so much easier. She couldn’t even imagine a world without feeders, or a time when going out after dark was a normal thing to do. The world was a darker, bleaker place, but they had survived. They’d built a place called Colony and made it their home. She didn’t know anything else. Rage overcame her fear as she thought of the destruction being wrought by this pack of marauders. People like Bart and Penny who only knew how to leech off the sweat and toil of decent folks trying to build a better world. Monsters and parasites, she thought. She sunk her teeth into Bart’s hand, clamping down until she tasted blood in her mouth.
“Bitch!” Bart cried out and hit her hard with the back of his uninjured hand. She staggered across the room and stumbled backwards over a pile of logs stacked by the fire. “You’ll be sorry for that,” he snarled at her as he examined his injured hand. “I’m gonna beat your ass black and blue, then I’m gonna fuck you good.”
“You’re gonna beat whose ass black and blue?” Amy turned to see the biggest man she’d ever seen stooped in the doorway, his huge bulk blocking out the light.
“Jared,” Bart
gasped.
Jared walked into the house, his boots echoing off the wooden floorboards. “You plannin’ to damage my goods, Bart?”
“Little bitch bit me,” he said defensively.
Dark curly hair drifted down from beneath a wide-brimmed hat – reminding her of the hat Pastor wore – framing an unshaven face made to look cruel by a vicious scar that ran from his hairline to his lip. His eyes drifted from Bart before slowly resting on her, his scrutiny making her even more uncomfortable than Bart’s leering glare. She was being measured, her worth calculated.
“Maybe I’ll give her to you – maybe I won’t, that’s for me to decide,” his voice was deep and when he spoke it was with quiet menace. She got the impression that this man did not need to raise his voice to be heard.
“Yeah, yeah, of course, Jared,” Bart said.
“Now get outside and control the freaks or they’ll leave nothin’ or no one left standing.” Bart threw a single regretful look in Amy’s direction before nodding and hurrying from the house. Jared walked slowly over to Penny who still stood there, baby in hand. When he was close enough he reached out and caressed her cheek with the back of a single finger. “You done good,” he said in his soft voice.
Amy could see Penny leaning into his touch as if it were the only thing she craved in the world. Her eyes shone at the praise from him, sickeningly so. When he turned back towards her Amy flinched involuntary. It was a hard face with cold eyes regarding her.
“This ain’t a bad place, they got a good thing goin’ here. They got crops and livestock. Might not be a bad place to hold up for a while,” Penny said.
“I saw that. We’ll let the boys and the freaks have some fun then we’ll take off, maybe take a few choice hostages with us. Then we’ll come back every so often and the good folk of this little community can share a portion of the fruits of their labor with us.”
“You empire building, Jared?” Penny said, a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.
Jared traced a line around her lips with the tip of his thumb. “I reckon so.” He walked over to Amy, appraising her. She was still on the ground, small cuts of logs digging into her back. “I can see the attraction.” His lips parted in a smile that looked unnatural and out of place on his face. “Here,” he said and handed her a cloth, “Get yourself cleaned up.”
She became aware of the stinging pain coming from the side of her face where Bart had hit her, she could already feel her eye begin to swell.
“She gonna be one o’ them hostages you talked about?” Penny asked.
“Oh yeah.” Jared grinned. Amy noticed he was missing a couple of teeth. She wondered who could have knocked them out and given him the scar. She couldn’t imagine any man standing up to him. He oozed power and control. Just being in his presence terrified her. The baby began howling and Jared’s face darkened. “Leave that and bring her outside when the freaks have had their fun.”
Penny looked down at the baby cradled in her arm. She rocked him gently, trying to appease and shush him. “Leave it… just abandon it here?”
“What do you care? It’s not your baby. You took it from a woman in the last town we raided.”
“Yeah… but he’s only a baby, I…”
“You goin’ soft on me?” Jared said, his face unreadable.
“No,” Penny said firmly and put the baby in a basket being used as a cot, with only the briefest of looks.
“Wait until it’s quieted down then bring her,” Jared said before turning and leaving the house.
Amy felt as if a dark cloud had been removed from the room when Jared left, despite still being Penny’s prisoner she felt nothing but relief to see the back of the marauder. She looked up and saw Penny regarding her.
“So, looks like it’s just you and me,” Penny said cheerily.
“Why are you doing this?” Amy pulled herself up cautiously as Penny watched her every move, training her gun on her as she did so. She glanced out of the window and wished she hadn’t. Two deformed men with skin peeling from their faces dragged a woman, whose face she couldn’t see, to the ground. Her high-pitched wails drowned out even the noise of the gunfire and other screams.
“Only the strong will survive in this world. The weak must be culled or subjugated.”
“That’s how you explain killing babies?” Amy closed the distance between the two women as she caught sight of a hand-axe embedded in one of the logs.
“What I do is none of your God-damned business, and I ain’t killin’ no babies.”
“You’re happy to leave him here.”
“Screw you!” Penny cried and stepped into Amy with her pistol raised. She swung her arm in an arc intent on delivering a blow to Amy’s head, not unlike the one Bart had already landed on her. This time Amy caught the wrist of her assailant. Penny’s face twisted in effort and rage as she attempted to free herself from Amy’s grip. “You’re stronger than you look,” she gasped.
“Yeah, you should try working in the fields more often, bitch!” Amy snapped Penny’s wrist back and the gun flew across the room. She was sick of being afraid, tired of being pushed around by everyone and anyone – Bart, Jared, Penny, even Mrs. Davis. Screw them… screw them all! She drew back her arm and punched Penny in the face with a closed fist. The older woman staggered back and fell over the table. She was up in an instant, pulling herself up with the furniture. As she did so she knocked a lamp to the ground. Glass shattered and oil leaked out onto the floor quickly erupting into flame. She scrambled towards the gun.
The flames snaked up a table leg and followed the trail of spilled oil across the floor. Amy snatched the axe from the pile of wood – Great, she thought, bringing an axe to a gunfight. Penny scampered across to the floor to where the gun lay. Amy followed her as quick as she could, leaping across the rising flames. Penny grabbed the gun and scrambled to her feet as Amy was about to swing the axe. The sight of the gun trained on her made Amy drawback on the swing. Then the baby wailed as flames licked at its basket. Penny gasped and turned her attention to the cries of distress. It was a moment of distraction and all Amy needed. She swung the axe with as much force as she could muster. The flat of the blade hit Penny in the side of the head, sending her reeling away. Although she hadn’t hit her with the sharp end there was enough power in the blow to leave the axe-head covered in blood. Penny lay face down on the floor, unmoving.
Amy could feel the heat from the fire now as it spread across the room, engulfing the furnishings and anything in its path. She coughed as smoke filled the room, making her gag and raise her shirt over her face. She ran for the backdoor… then stopped and turned. Smoke drifted up the basket as the table beneath it caught fire. The baby wailed and then began wheezing. “Damn it,” she said and ran back to the basket, grabbing the baby up and racing for the door.
Outside was mayhem as marauders ran riot through the town. Behind her smoke billowed from the doors and windows of the house as the home of Penny and Bart turned into a blazing inferno, stunning her with the speed of the fire. All around her the citizens of Colony were being beaten while their homes were ransacked. She fought back tears, forcing herself to be strong and not focus on anyone or anything. Cradling the baby in both arms, she ran to where the gates of Colony still stood open. Praying to God and Jesus and anyone else who would listen that she wouldn’t be spotted.
She ran from Colony, from her home without a backward glance. When she was out of sight of the town she stopped and sobbed. Tears streamed down her face as she looked at the tiny form of the baby in her arms. In the distance she could hear the screams of folk she’d known all her life, she could smell the smoke from more fires than the one in Penny and Bart’s. And away, across the fields and beyond the trees the sky glowed crimson as the sun neared the end of its daily circuit across the heavens.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He opened his eyes, shaking off the dream. Logan was standing over him, saying something about keeping watch all night. His neck and back ached as h
e straightened himself into an upright position. Outside it was bright and sunlight seeped into the dilapidated building they had used as sanctuary for the night. He blinked as images of the eternal suffering of damned souls replayed in his half-awake mind – one more nightmare for him to tease out the meaning of. His attention focused in on the debris littering the room – half-rotted window frames, piles of rubble, even part of the roof. This is how the world is now, he thought, decaying around us.
“We should probably check out the tunnel before we leave – just to make sure none of the feeders are left alive in there,” George said. It took him a moment to figure out what George was talking about. His mind was still reeling with the dream to have any room for the realities of life. It came back to him quickly enough and he nodded in agreement. They’d lost two good men the previous day in the disused tunnel, two more victims of the feeders and the vampire apocalypse. It wouldn’t be easy on the others – Logan especially, revisiting the scene, but George was right, it would be wise to make sure there were no surviving feeders in the tunnel.
“And when we’re done here?” Logan asked.
“I’m riding north,” he said, “
“You gonna search for the girl you spoke about?”
He nodded again before clearing his throat. His head hurt and he was parched; more complaints to add to aching joints and painful muscles I’m getting too old for this.
“You think she knows something about all this – about the Fall and why it happened?” Jeb joined the others as they formed a ring around him.
“Honestly, Jeb, I don’t rightly know.”
“You’re a driven man, Pastor,” Logan said, wiping sweat from his brow.
It was hot, despite the earliness of the hour; the summer months were almost upon them. He knew Logan and the other residence of Colony were a little in awe of him, it’s not something he ever sought or wanted, but what Logan said was true. He was driven, driven by an intense hatred of the vampires and what they’d done to the world. A need to eradicate them from existence burned hotly within him. He didn’t fear them like other men – he respected the threat they bore – the paralyzing terror they instilled didn’t affect him though.