Haven From Hell (Book 3): A Young Man's Game

by Won, Mark

  Chapter 9

  All I can remember of my dreams that night was something about being roasted in the fires of Hell and asking if someone could possibly pass the pepper, but when I woke up it was with a firmer resolve.

  Whatever may come, I promised myself I’d be ready for it.

  I heard someone moving up the stairs so I hustled back into bed. The stench accompanying the opening of the bedroom door was as horrific as ever but I had finally mastered my reaction to it. I gave a sickly smile to the man who opened my door, the same man who came to the door last night.

  He smiled in return but it never reached his eyes. I could sense in him a contempt for me, for my tears last night, for my weakness. In that instant I knew for a fact that we were not among friends.

  He said, “Breakfast will be ready soon. It’s time to get up, little buddy.” He placed some fresh clothes on the bed.

  “Sure thing, Mister, thanks for waking me!” I felt that I was going to really enjoy killing him.

  Once dressed in clothes that were not my own, I made my way downstairs to find everyone around a big dining room table. It was one of the same rooms I had been listening at last night. On the table were piles of eggs, and cornbread. It ought to have smelled wonderful but the pervading odor of effluvium made me nauseated. I begged off breakfast by blaming a touchy stomach. There was some sympathy from Mrs. Smith and some mocking laughter from Mr. Hawk but the hosts of the house seemed pleasantly surprised.

  Avery said, “Aside from the stomach, how do you feel this morning, Gideon?”

  “I feel fine, Avery. Janet was ever so lucky to have found this place, wasn’t she?”

  Janet spoke up, “It was actually you’re dog that found the place. Don’t you remember?”

  At the mention of a dog Mrs. Bradbury became more attentive. “Where’s your dog now, Gideon? We haven’t had a dog since Boxer died.” I just bed she hadn’t.

  “He ran off once I jumped the fence last night.” Inspiration struck, “Maybe Brandon could help me look for him after breakfast.”

  Brandon looked like I’d just given him a gift. “I’d love to. I’m ready when you are, champ.” Another smile that never reached the eyes. “How big a dog is it?”

  My thinking was simple (Uncle said it always was). If the family’s plan was to break us up and murder us one at a time, then they’d need reasons to draw us off. But two could play at that game.

  Meanwhile, everyone else was busy expressing his or her thanks.

  Mr. Hawk was most effusive. “I want you to know we ain’t no freeloaders, nohow. If there’s anything any of us can do to help out around this place just you say so and we’ll jump right to it. Why, I used to work on a farm as a kid before joining the army...”

  Aria was quick to second Mr. Hawks thinking, “I’ll be happy to help out around the house any way I can. I don’t know much about farm living but I’m a quick study, if you’ll just give me a chance. Once I took a class in sewing...”

  Kim said, “I’m pretty good with electronics. Maybe I could check up on the fence and optimize its performance.”

  “I’m sure my wife would be happy to keep all the kids out of trouble,” said Mr. Smith, “while I could at least help guard the perimeter, if you would lend me an ax or something.” He was told flat out that ‘family should stick together’ and he would be most useful at his wife’s side (and, incidentally, unarmed).

  June didn’t seem to impressed by all the boot licking so she settled for a, “Anything you need, just ask.” Mr. Owen nodded his agreement.

  After breakfast Brandon and I went out to where I’d left tracer the night before. Brandon was armed only with a wood cutting ax. We used the same gate Janet and he had used earlier. I made sure to keep him at my side (no sense handing out an advantage, he was already bigger and stronger than I). At once I heard Tracer coming toward us. He was, naturally, ecstatic.

  Brandon asked, “Hey, sport, that’s a fine looking dog you got there. Mind if I pick him up? I don’t want him to get electrocuted.” We were standing close to the gate.

  Before I could answer he reached down and made a grab for Tracer. The trouble with that idea was that Tracer was my dog. Not his. Mine. Tracer backed off before being grabbed. Brandon tried again and I motioned for Tracer to submit to being picked up.

  While Brandon had been doing that I’d been picking up his ax. After all, I’m sure he’d want me to hold it for him. Once he had a firm hold of Tracer he turned back to me with a triumphant grin. Much like my own.

  Seeing me with the ax he lost his smile and, with a sudden angry visage, said, “Hand that over!”

  I believe in last chances so, grinning from ear to ear, I surrendered the ax. There he was holding Tracer by one hand and the ax with the other. With his evil triumphant grim firmly back in place he swung that ax one handed, right at my head.

  I side stepped and Tracer went nuts lunging at him, biting his neck. While Tracer was busy being dropped I stepped in and grabbed the hand holding the ax. Before he knew what had happened I’d broken his thumb and had retrieved the ax. Now he had neither the dog nor the axe nor his smile. I was still grinning, though.

  I said, “I bet ya didn’t see that coming, did ya?”

  His face screwed up in anger and he lunged at me. I did have to burst out laughing at such a clumsy assault. Tracer went for his lower leg and might have tripped him up, too, if I hadn’t planted the ax head deep in his aorta. Down he went. I was just starting to feel good about the day when he very suddenly Changed.

  His guts shriveled in and his bones all stood out. The ax came free in my hands. Some sharp looking bones sprouted from his elbows and knees, his ankles, wrists, and fingers. His spine seemed covered by them and a pair of horny looking bones sprouted from head. His hair just seemed to fall off while his tongue stretched out like a ghoul’s. All his cloths were torn off and he seemed to grow a foot. All that in less than a second. And then he was coming at me, and all I had was that crummy wood ax.

  Surprised as I was, I still swung low and caught it in the leg. Its oversized foot went flying, but not before the thing’s claws gave me a shallow cut for my effort. Its fingertips had become suddenly as sharp as a boar’s tusk. Tracer had managed to foul the thing’s good foot and that let me line up the killing blow, right through its forehead. The stench suddenly went away and all that was left was the clean scent of the woodlands.

  “Well, Tracer, was that educational, or what?” He didn’t disagree. My question was, how should I proceed? If they all changed like that then things could get messy. Up until that point I’d assumed that the house and surroundings were an unaffected area, the kind of place where nobody turned into a zombie. Otherwise, what were the odds that all the people living there would just happen to be unaffected by the Change? Maybe they were all strangers who got together after the Change and decided to move in together, but that didn’t seem likely. They had a family resemblance as well as a clear personal relationship. Besides, why would three men decide to work together with one older lady. To my way of thinking that’s not how the murderous mind works.

  Maybe the unaffected area was just smaller, closer to the house. With one down and three to go, I’d have to be careful to manage my next kills closer to home, so to speak.

  I hung my new ax by its lanyard from a low tree branch and told Tracer to stay put. I made sure the ax was well hidden by a tall bush. Then, after a cautions look toward the house, I jumped the fence and began a stealthy approach. I was guessing that the psycho mad dog killer family would wait until Brandon returned before selecting its next victim.

  The goon who had told me to come downstairs for breakfast was busy watching Avery, Kim, and Aria tear up weeds from the crops. They were using some of those long handled tools from the garage. I had a sneaking suspicion that at least one of the machines behind the garage would get the job done better and faster. Breakfast goon was obviously enjoying himself watching others work while not working up a sweat, himself. H
e would do nicely.

  “Hey, Breakfast Goo, er, Man. Brandon told me to come back and get you. There’s a whole bunch of food cans I showed him and it’s too much for him to lift. He said to bring some bags.”

  Breakfast Goon seemed confused, “Where’s Brandon?” he asked.

  “He’s over there,” I motioned vaguely to where I’d just been. “I showed him all our extra food that we’d been saving. Do you think I should have done that?” I asked with my best sappy expression plastered on my face.

  Breakfast Goon spared Avery and the rest a self conscious glance before quickly reassuring me, “Yeah, sport, you did the right thing. Come on, let’s go.” He wanted to move on before any of the others became ‘suspicions’. Getting caught swiping all our food might be the kind of thing to cause resentment, thus making murdering everyone more difficult.

  He grabbed some garbage bags from inside the house, and as we walked back to the fence I caught Breakfast Goon muttering to himself, “…couldn’t have just got the job done and then gone back for…” In spite of his hideous aroma I was starting to have fun again.

  We passed through the gate and I led the man on toward the Changed dead body of Brandon. As soon as Breakfast Goon saw it he stopped in a stunned state of surprise. No doubt he had never seen the like before. I used the opportunity to grab the hidden ax and swung it at the back of his head, connecting solidly. The corpse did not rise. Two down and two to go.

  First I called Tracer out from under the underbrush and gave him a few good doggy pats. Then I pulled the second corpse off to the side and repositioned my ax in its favorite hiding spot. Over the fence one more time and back to the house. I asked around a bit and overheard goon #3 chatting up June in the barn. I peeked inside by looking between a couple of loose boards.

  It was funny. There she was, obviously made uncomfortable by the goon’s interest, but unsure how to proceed. Back before the Change a girl like June wouldn’t have even looked twice at someone wearing flannel. But there she was making nice for the sake of another free meal. Or, as she was coming to suspect, maybe not so free, after all. Still, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, and anything beats eating roast fowl, if you’re an idiot. At first I had thought to lead the goon back to Brandon’s Changed body and deal with him there, but this was way more interesting. I wondered what would happen next. I wondered what, if anything, I’d do about it.

  I stayed hidden around the side of the barn, peeking between those boards and listening in. He kept moving closer to her and she kept backing up, bit by bit. Almost nothing he said made any sense to me but I could read the intention. June was looking more and more compromised. Finally, she broke down and lied.

  “Look, your great and all, but I’m with someone else,” she thought for a second, “Kim is my boyfriend.” What a liar! I was mildly shocked that her pants didn’t spontaneously combust. Goon #3 seemed to think what she said was funny. I moved quickly to the barn’s door.

  By the time I’d gotten there things had progressed to the deplorably physical. While I had been running he’d struck her in the face a few times to take the fight out of her. I noticed that he had left a Winchester rifle leaning up against the wall just inside the door. I thought about it but decided I neither wanted to waste the ammunition nor make the noise, so I moved up behind him while he was working on his fly.

  June, being the moron she was, had begun staring at me with undisguised hope as soon as she saw me enter the barn. Goon #3 caught her wandering gaze and turned about to catch me silently walking up behind him. I didn’t pause. The instant he began to turn I charged and caught him in the solar plexus with a drop kick. I stuck my landing (not as easy to do as it seems) and had my garrote around his neck in a trice.

  Once his throat was entirely slit and flowing freely, I leaped back before any offensive bone spikes could start poking through his skin. I needn’t have worried, his corpse remained safely inanimate, and his stink quickly dissipated. My guess about the proximity to the house had proved correct. Which was good, because I really hadn’t been looking forward to taking on another one of those bone covered ghouls while unarmed.

  And then there was one. Ma Bradbury.

  June said, “What have you done?!” I had thought it pretty obvious, leaving me a bit confused.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “Now what are we going to do? You’ve killed us all! They’ll never believe that a little kid like you could have killed him, all alone. They don’t know you’re a psychopath!” There was that word again.

  It didn’t hurt as much that time because I never really thought of June as my friend. All my friends are better people. They may not be much smarter, but they are better.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her, “your clever. You can easily figure out how to sleep your way out of this. Meanwhile, I’ve got a job to finish.” I turned and left.

  She said something to my back but I was in no mood to listen. The sooner I killed Mrs. Bradbury the sooner I could restore my equanimity to its normal healthy state. To that end I jogged back to the house and began my search. It didn’t take long to find her working in the kitchen. I could smell her hideous stench long before I saw her. She turned away from her stove in time to see me pick up a knife and ram it through her heart. For the final time the assault on my olfactory sense came to an end. I had discovered a pattern, but I still didn’t understand it.

  Even though it hadn’t seemed likely, my hope had been that she would Change, but no such luck. I was so angry I really would have liked to kill her twice. From there I searched through the house until I found all my stuff. The three goons had already divided it all up. I found my cloak in the basement, in the dryer, right next to five chest freezers full of butchered human remains. With all my inanimate friends back on my person and my beautiful red cloak back in place I sauntered outside.

  I found everyone gathered together out front having a hushed conversation. I walked over to listen in. As they saw me approach everyone fell silent and stared at me with fear, and in some cases with hate filled eyes. The only one with an appropriate level of curiosity in his level gaze was Mr. Owen.

  I asked, “What’s up?” in my most innocent tone.

  Most everyone began a panicked muttering. Aria asked me, in a despondent voice, “Why did you have to murder him, Gideon. We could have had a life here.”

  “Because he was attacking June,” I pointed to her face, “That big bruise on her face didn’t put itself there, you moron. What are all you idiots whining about? Except you, Mr. Owen, and you, Isabella, and you, Jeremy, you’re not idiots.”

  Mr. Owen stepped up and asked, “What happened, Gideon. Tell us from the beginning.”

  He was interrupted by Mr. Hawk, “We can talk later. Right now we need to run.” He gave his daughter a meaningful look. A very meaningful look.

  I raised my index finger to Mr. Owen to indicate that I hadn’t forgotten his question, but I addressed Janet. “All I did was save everyone from getting raped or murdered or raped and murdered. If you need to throw down on me, there’s no need to wait. We don’t need to run. Don’t worry, there’s no one in that morally diseased family left to hear the gunshots.” Her odds would never be better, from her point of view. There was fifteen feet between us and she had a gun in her hand. All I seemed to have was a couple of empty pistols and two swords.

  She glanced at her dad before turning her gaze back to me. All she said was, “I’m sorry” and raised her .45.

  I pulled Bob from his holster in a practiced manner and fired my last 20 gauge shotgun shell through her skull. I had a little trouble replacing him in his holster without taking my eyes off everyone. I would have much preferred to have brought Zippy out to play, but I did pretty well considering how heavy Bob was.

  Turning back to Mr. Owen, “Well, it’s like this...” that’s when Mr. Hawk went nuts and charged. A primitive tactic which I’m sure had served him well all his days, until that day. A single sweep of Polly
and his head went flying off into the ankle high grass. I managed to step aside before getting too much of his blood on my cloak. Either I was getting taller or I was really learning to compensate for my shortness.

  I continued to explain recent events from my point of view, sparing no deserving party from my acerbic and agile wit. I especially remember calling June a stupid cow a whole bunch of times. I conclude with, “And, by the way, Mr. Smith, you should probably pick up that pistol you’ve been staring at. Preferably before it rusts. Oh yeah, after I go get Tracer, some of you imbeciles should come down the basement with me, to help clean out all the butchered human body parts from the freezers.” That last part had a real impact for some reason.

  Chapter 10

  Everyone was just sick about all the human remains in the larder. At first Aria didn’t even believe me (understandable, since the crops throughout the region were bursting with produce). Then, after we cleaned all the long pig out, I, somehow, ended up with the job of cleaning the empty freezers. It didn’t seem fair, but I had to figure we’d want the freezers later, if for example, we decided to put the cows in them.

  I really don’t know what the big deal about the cannibalism was. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never eaten people, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t if I got hungry enough. And if I ever learned for a fact that someone had slipped a little human into my pork sausage, it wouldn’t have bothered me all that much. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still kill whoever would do such a thing, but it’s not like I’d throw up the food or anything.

  Look at it from my point of view. I’m so much smarter than most people that the difference between me and a normal person is about the same as the difference between a normal person and a sheep. So why shouldn’t I eat the other, other white meat? Most people have the brains of cows and the manners of pigs, anyway.

  But my uncle had taught me better. He pointed out that, although we Christians have very few dietary restrictions, human is still off the menu. He put it to me this way: “Gideon,” he said, “let me ask you a question. If you eat bad people, are you sure that you would still be better than them?” I was thinking yeah, of course I would be. But he answered his own question before I could say anything. “Of course you would be, my boy, of course you would be. But not by enough. Not by nearly enough.” That really put things in perspective for me.