Beneath: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 4)

by Flint Maxwell

  With Kurt in the backseat, lying on his side, spewing foam and vomit from his mouth, his eyes rolling around in his head, Skylar floored it. The hospital was about three miles away, and she didn’t have her license. She’d done her fair share of joyriding—who hadn’t—but this was the first car she’d stolen. Though it wouldn’t be the last.

  When the lights turned red, she just flew through them. She went around people who were driving too slow, honking her horn and flipping them the bird.

  In the hospital’s parking lot, she drove right over the curb, almost taking out an old woman sitting in a wheelchair, and the male nurse leaning on her chair’s handle. Missed them by a few feet.

  “You’re gonna be okay, honey,” she kept telling Kurt over and over again. “Just hang on a little longer. Just a little longer.”

  She couldn’t carry him, he was too heavy. So she shouted and screamed. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she was crying, crying more than she had since she was little.

  A couple of large men rushed out, put Kurt on a gurney with care, and took him inside and through the double doors. They’d saved his life.

  Skylar had saved his life.

  Thus began a very long and abusive, but sometimes achingly beautiful—in Skylar’s eyes, at least—relationship.

  They got married two years later, when she was eighteen. He’d been unfaithful. They broke up. He promised he wouldn’t do it again. They got back together. She got pregnant. They gave the baby away, left it on the doorstep of a nunnery in North Carolina. He didn’t want the kid, and he said he would leave her if she even thought of keeping it. There was no other family. No friends. The convent was the next best place, she’d told herself. They’d care for her son.

  She remembered looking down at him, her son, the life she had carried for nine months, the life she’d fought so hard for during labor. She remembered how the boy’s eyes resembled Kurt’s. Sometimes she missed the baby. Sometimes she could hear him crying in the night, even after all these years, feel phantom kicking in her stomach.

  Life went on. They moved around the country. Kurt was unfaithful again. Sky swore she was going to leave him. He begged her not to. They got high together. He kept her loaded, kept food on the table. She loved him.

  Then the world ended, and he protected her from the…the monsters, both human and alien, and he hadn’t been unfaithful again, and he protected her.

  The world was reborn. All that old stuff, the skeletons in her closet, was buried beneath the rubble. They could start anew.

  Everyone deserved a second—sometimes, third—second chance, didn’t they?

  So Skylar was not worried about this turn of events.

  The only thing she was worried about was Kurt’s anger. He had quite the temper, especially when he drank—which seemed to be constantly these days. Most of the drugs were gone… If they weren’t, he didn’t know where to look for them, so booze had become the replacement, as had the packs and packs of cigarettes.

  He was drinking now. He kept a bottle of whiskey hidden in the breakroom ceiling. His ‘secret stash,’ he called it, because he knew the day would come when they’d turn against him. At least that was what he always said when he was hammered.

  He wasn’t sipping at the whiskey, either. He guzzled it in gulps, hardly coming up for air. She wanted to tell him to slow down, to take it easy. When he got too drunk, he did stupid things, very stupid things.

  She was grateful his gun was gone. She was grateful the armory was locked and Kurt didn’t have access to it. He might’ve shot her and then shot himself.

  “Fuckin’ rats, that’s what they are,” he muttered now, taking another swig of whiskey. It was like watching a magician—a booze magician; now you see it, now you don’t. “They’ll pay for this. They’ll pay.”

  Skylar told herself it was just the booze talking. She tried to forget all the times Kurt had become violent. She tried to forget the time fifteen years ago, when he’d beaten an Applebee’s coworker of hers so badly that the poor coworker’s eye had literally popped out of its socket. She tried to forget all the times he’d made her bleed. She tried to forget. Tried. Tried.

  “They’ll pay in blood,” Kurt said. “Yes.”

  13

  Stay

  Avery was escorting them through the food court. Kurt held a gym bag full of his meager belongings; Skylar held a different bag with the goods the Amsterdam Mall group had spared them: food, water, clothes, clean socks. They’d taken heavy jackets from the rack at Dillards. Kurt refused to wear his, so Skylar had it tied around her waist. All in all, she felt like she was carrying a hundred extra pounds.

  “I’m not a baby,” Kurt blabbed. “I don’t need an escort.”

  Avery remained quiet and stolid. He trailed behind, walking at the pace of a pallbearer, and Flo was right there with him, her head down.

  Skylar thought that she herself should’ve been more upset they were getting kicked out. But she wasn’t. Because she wasn’t stupid; it was Kurt’s fault. The stupidest thing she’d done in her life was fall in love with him, take his last name, and allow him to control her for all of her adult life. Like many women who stayed in abusive relationships, she knew better, but she just couldn’t get away, especially now, especially when she needed him, truly needed him.

  Skylar felt a hand on her shoulder. She stopped, turned. It was Flo. Surprisingly, Flo’s eyes were wet with tears. That took Skylar aback; she hadn’t thought Flo was capable of crying, yet here she was…

  Avery went on toward the barricaded door, as Flo spoke in a low voice. She didn’t have to take the precaution; Kurt was mouthing off about ‘colored’ people, a common topic of conversation when he was slightly drunk, and sometimes when he wasn’t.

  “You don’t have to go,” Flo whispered. “You can stay here, you know.” She reached out and grabbed Skylar’s hand. Her flesh was very warm, almost comforting, completely unlike the world outside, which was as harsh and cold as a winter graveyard. “We want you here. We like you, Sky.”

  For a moment, a very brief moment, she contemplated what it would be like to stay, what it would be like to let Kurt go out on his own. The thought was much like the ones she’d have in the dead of night, while he slept next to her stinking like booze, and snoring, mumbling in his sleep. Just like those thoughts, this one made her feel guilty… But there was no denying the spark currently igniting her soul, that spark of wonder.

  “C’mon, Sky, let’s blow this fuckin’ pop-stand! I don’t wanna be under no roof with a nigger!” Kurt shouted.

  Flo’s grip tightened on Skylar’s hand. “You can say no,” she said. “You have a choice. You do.”

  All Skylar could do was shake her head.

  Florence let go of her hand. She reached into her back pocket then, and pulled out something wrapped in a washcloth.

  “Take this,” she said. “For protection.”

  She handed the bundle to Skylar. The item was heavy, solid. Sky could feel the cold steel even through the fabric of the washcloth.

  The two women met each other’s eyes—Skylar’s tired, aged browns and Flo’s younger, brighter blues—and in this look, the women understood each other.

  This gun wasn’t for protection against the monsters; not the inhuman ones, at least. No, this gun was for protection against Kurt.

  “Ray set up your weapons just outside the parking lot on the southeast side,” Avery said. “Over the fence in a blue duffel bag. You don’t open it until you’re away from the mall, unless you have to. Ray’s on the roof with a sniper rifle. If you try anything, Kurt, he will not hesitate to put a bullet in you.”

  “Oh, I bet he’d love that,” Kurt crooned. He was at the door now, as Avery removed enough of the barricade for Kurt and Skylar to squeeze by. “Bet he’d love to put a bullet in me. At least if I were dead, I wouldn’t be able to kick his ass in basketball anymore.” Kurt looked out the dirty glass of the window, into the gray darkness. It was still early by Skylar’s a
ccount, but the dark weighed the sky down.

  Avery remained silent.

  Skylar looked over her shoulder one last time, at the place that had been her home for the past months. She would miss it.

  “Let’s go!” Kurt yelled at her. He grabbed her bicep roughly, pressing a place that was permanently bruised.

  Avery lunged forward as if to put a stop to it, Skylar noticed, but he thought better of it at the last moment. Probably a good thing. The way Kurt was acting, with the seething anger and the booze coursing through his veins, things were liable to get ugly. Uglier.

  Like many times before, Skylar was faced with a choice. She could drop everything, and run, hide, get away from Kurt for good. The others here, they would protect her. Flo would, at the very least. Or she could follow the man she had saved when she was a teenager.

  Like many times before, Skylar did not make the right decision.

  14

  Dinner

  Ray watched them leave from the roof. Kurt, swaying, picked up the duffel bag full of weapons, turned, and looked at the mall. Ray’s finger rested on the trigger; he had the man in his sights. He followed them with his scope until they turned down the distant road. The darkness swallowed them up, and Ray thought, If I never see that bastard’s face again, it’ll be too soon.

  He did feel pity for Skylar. She wasn’t a bad person. She was just an abused and used person. He thought there was a term for that. ‘Stockholm syndrome’ or something, that condition when you fall in love with the person who held you captive. But what could they have done, short of not letting Skylar leave? Nothing. She was a human being. She made her own decisions, even if they were bad ones.

  Looking through the scope, Ray did one last sweep of the surrounding area. When he saw nothing, he lowered the gun from his eye. His stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten in three hours, and that was much too long for a guy as big as he was. Slipping the strap of the rifle over his shoulder, he turned and headed for the access stairs, back into Amsterdam Mall.

  The darkness of the world was growing thicker by the moment, the sun barely a wink in the sky. Avery called it a ‘nuclear winter,’ but he was lying to himself. The world had already been like this, long before the bombs went off. And that was the truth…the terrible, awful truth.

  As the service door closed behind Ray, the creatures below the city slowly ascended to the streets. They had grown fat off their mother. When they’d run out of her flesh, they began gnawing on her bones, licking off the blood and sinew.

  Then they learned how to hunt.

  The bones of their victims, both of this world and not, piled up until the sewer was choked with them.

  Now the sewers were empty, and the smell of flesh permeated the world aboveground. The monsters followed the smell, heading toward Amsterdam Mall.

  Dinner consisted of frozen burritos and sparkling grape juice. The five of them ate together in front of the shuttered and darkened Sbarro’s, at two pushed together tables.

  Candles and torches lit up the food court. The door was barricaded once again. Avery, Ray, and Florence had double-checked all the entrances and exits. Made sure everything was locked nice and tight.

  Tyler looked down at the food in front of him. The burrito steamed. The bubbles in his glass of sparkling grape juice floated to the top. He was hungry, very hungry, as was always the case, but he couldn’t eat. Well, he could; he just wouldn’t enjoy it.

  Guilt washed over him. Not for Kurt’s exile, but for the woman he’d dragged along with him.

  Florence said, “Skylar didn’t have to go, Tyler. We gave her the choice to stay.”

  He wondered if the guilt on his face was that apparent.

  Short answer: Yes.

  “I know,” he said. “I guess…I guess I feel bad because I’m new and it was my fault.”

  Avery snickered. “We’re all new. This is the new world. The rebirth. But Kurt was only here for about two months. When there isn’t anything to do, you can learn a lot about someone in two months.”

  “Psh,” Ray said. He took a swig of grape juice, smacked his lips together. “I knew from the outset that he was an ass. Remember their first night?”

  “Oh, God. Don’t remind me,” Florence said.

  “What happened on their first night?” May asked.

  She had already eaten the majority of her burrito. Good, Tyler thought. It had been too long since she’d had actual food for dinner. Microwaveable burritos, of course, weren’t actually real food, especially back in the day, but it certainly beat the expired scraps they’d been living off of since leaving the Falls.

  “Well, I’m sure you could guess what it involves,” Ray said. He made a motion of bringing a drink up to his lips.

  “Kurt got drunk and puked all over the Victoria’s Secret store,” Avery answered. “We let it slide that first night because every life is precious, yada-yada-yada…but he’s the reason we had to start locking up the guns and alcohol, and then eventually the food.”

  Ray nodded. “We should’ve kicked him out a long time ago. Besides, we definitely upgraded here.” He grinned at Tyler. “I’ve never seen an old man with such a good jump shot.”

  “It’s that YMCA game,” Avery said, chuckling. “Those old dudes knew the fundamentals and they always grouped up so when you play them, their team’s chemistry was unrivaled, and they never got beat. Tyler’s got that going for him.”

  “Easy, fellas,” he said, but he was smiling, too.

  Everyone laughed.

  After a moment, Florence spoke up. “They’ll be all right, both of them. I wish Skylar would’ve stayed, but…” she shrugged. “What could I do?”

  “Besides shoot Kurt in the face, nothing,” Avery answered.

  They continued eating. For dessert, they downed a tub of Breyer’s vanilla bean ice cream, soaking the top with Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

  For the first time in a long time, life was sweet.

  15

  Kurt Makes a Deal

  That first night was hard on Skylar. Kurt wouldn’t shut up about getting revenge. She had almost told him to be quiet on more than one occasion, but she knew what would happen if she did. Kurt would backhand her—no, he’d been drinking again, so he would use his fists. She didn’t want that.

  It was hard enough out here in the cold dark. In the distance, they could hear the devilish moans of some creature. Skylar’s steps would hitch as she tried gauging where the sounds came from. Kurt would continue on without problem, the booze giving him the courage to do so. She would tell him to hold up, to pause, that they needed to get to cover. By her wristwatch, which had been wonky since the bombs dropped, it was going on eight in the evening, which meant it was practically the dead of night.

  Of course, there were times when she almost didn’t tell Kurt to stop. Maybe if she let him keep going, his head bobbing along to his off-key whistling, he’d just step right off a cliff, fall a long way, and break all of his bones—his neck and skull included. But she couldn’t not tell him to stop, just as she couldn’t leave him.

  That first night, they slept below ground, in the subway station. Part of the platform had crumbled and fallen, and some of the roof, too, but the air was warmer down there, and there were no sounds, save for the steady drip-drip of water. They took shelter in a subway car covered in rock dust. It was empty. All the windows were broken, and a few of the metal bars meant for passenger support had bent at odd angles, but it was better than staying outside, and better than sleeping on the rock platform, too.

  Kurt was snoring in front of the fire that Skylar had gotten going with the book of matches they were given. The smoke filtered out through the broken windows, and the air grew warmer still.

  With Kurt’s snoring and the crackling of the low flames eating away balled up papers, wood, and vinyl from the subway seats, Skylar grew weary, and she herself began to snore.

  Her dreams were filled with monsters. In them, she was back at her mother’s apartment, a girl o
f fifteen, and her mom was in the bathroom with the door locked. The place was small, the walls were thin. She could hear her mother crying, sobbing, her breath hitching, and Skylar knew why. She knew. She knew because it had happened many times before.

  When Mom came out of the bathroom, she would be sporting a new black eye, courtesy of whoever her boyfriend was this week.

  Unlike in real life, when Skylar had run away from it all because she was scared and confused—but mostly angry at her mom for not standing up for herself, for not doing the right thing and stopping her association with such bad, scummy men—in the dream, Skylar approached the man who had done this to her mother.

  He was another faceless bastard wearing a sweat-stained tank top, with a buzzcut, bad teeth, and an even worse temper. Skylar came up from behind the man. He was sitting on the couch, the cushions absorbing his stench of beer-sweat and body odor. In front of him, the old TV, the kind with the rabbit ears covered in tinfoil for better reception, and the dials on the front, played some baseball game. A frosty Budweiser sat between his legs; a score of empty bottles lay around his socked feet. He cheered as the clink of a baseball bat emanated from the TV’s speakers.

  Skylar grabbed the nearest object she could find. It was a crystalline paperweight, a gift from someone she couldn’t remember. It weighed close to five pounds. Heavy. Solid. If she hit the man hard enough, she knew she could crack his skull, and how nice would that be? Her mother wouldn’t have to worry any longer. She’d never have another black eye. She’d never have to lock herself in the bathroom to cry. They could live together, happily ever after.