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

by Won, Mark

  With all the smoke making me cough, I was getting kind of tired of Rimwolf. Feeling that I’d outgrown the place, I made my way into the freshly burning forest, and back toward the farmhouse. Things were no better on the journey back. With the woods burning around me I actually had to pick up the pace or risk being engulfed.

  On the way Tracer brushed up against me. We both froze. Once he’d figured out that his human buddy couldn’t read him through the smoke and darkness he went back to warning me like he used to in the old days, before I’d increased his vocabulary. If things got really bad he might even utter a low growl.

  Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. A bandit had managed to escape the general conflagration and was trying to get his breath up ahead of us. Sneaking up on him was the work of but an instant and left me with a bit of a moral dilemma. On the one hand I really wanted to shoot him in the belly and leave him to die, but on the other hand he just might, just barely might, have some useful information I could torture out of him. Ever since the first time I talked with Mark from Haven, he had impressed on me the need to learn more about the where and when of the zombie’s movements. And the dweeb in front of me had surely been around.

  I knew that I had left two victims for playtime later at the bar in Lawville, but the more the merrier. One of them might remember what the others had forgotten. Then, too, they probably knew where there was some choice stuff to loot (like more ammo for their guns). So, his lucky day, I decided to capture him.

  I cocked Zippy at his back, and he froze. I enjoyed the imagery so I said, “Freeze, sucker!” just for fun.

  Then, “Take it nice and slow and,” I had to cough because the fire was spreading. “Oh, to heck with it. Just move.” With that I herded him back to the doc’s home.

  By the time that I got back everyone was awake and waiting for me. Dawn was still hours away and I wondered what the point of everybody being awake was. Then I saw Sheriff Slim, Neil, and Melissa were all standing guard over a pair of handcuffed men. It was Curly and Gimpy (the guy that I’d shot in the knee earlier). I thought that was pretty good, since they had just saved me a trip.

  I was glad to see that the three cops in our group had all remembered to bring some cuffs for the end of the world as we knew it. It showed a proper respect for priorities. There were enough handcuffs to add my newest prisoner to the collection. I took the opportunity to thoroughly search each of them. Gimpy had a hold out pistol concealed in his pants (I’d need to sterilize it before use).

  Everybody wanted to know all about the adventure, such as it was. I told my part, making sure to tell Gina how Dan had rushed in and saved me from certain death. Then everyone told me how they went back to Lawville to get the prisoners which I’d left in the bar. Melissa wanted to know what we were going to do with them.

  I said, “First off let’s get them apart from each other, then I want to ask each of them a few pointed questions. Very pointed questions. And by ‘very pointed’ I mean I plan on sticking them with pointy things until they answer.” I added that last part just in case the kids didn’t understand my metaphor.

  Doctor Saxon didn’t like that idea one bit. He opined, “You can’t torture those men, Gideon. It’s wrong and I won’t have it!” Then in a gentler tone, “I know you’ve been through a lot, son, we all have. And I know you’ve opened my eyes to some things that I did not want to see, and I appreciate that, but you just can’t torture people. It’s wrong.” Yeah, I’ve heard people say that to me before, and I agree that it is wrong to torture small animals for fun (and innocent people). But those guys were bad guys, so that made it okay. More than okay. It was my duty, my responsibility.

  I knew I had to fib a bit just to keep the peace. “Okay, Doc, no pointy objects, but we still need answers.” Then to the sheriff, “Let’s at least separate them for now so they can’t talk.” Neil understood me loud and clear, I could read it in his eyes. We either question them and then kill them or just kill them, there was really no other way. I gave him a subtle sign to not kill them just yet. Melissa and Neil helped Connor get my future playmates into three separate outbuildings.

  I was disappointed to see the doc follow along after Gimpy to look after his leg. The attention seemed like a waste of time and resources to me. Still, maybe I could use it to help bolster some false hope in my future victims.

  With everyone else looking on, I addressed all the adults, “We have an unknown number of survivors out there, everyone of them is a bandit. Tomorrow I plan on going out to kill them if I can. You guys need to set up watch and keep a guard on our prisoners, okay?”

  Steven, ever the practically minded sort, asked, “How long are we going to keep our ‘guests’? I don’t feel real comfortable with them anywhere around.” The way he was looking at all the women and kids I knew that he was mostly worried about them.

  I said, “Don’t worry, I got a plan. Mostly, I want you to keep watch from the second floor of the house all the time. I know your ankle is mostly better but you got to finish healing up. The rest of you might ask the doc if he’ll consent to having the house boarded up some, in case we get attacked.”

  I took a final look at the fire in the distance. It had finally reached a patch of wet swampy ground along the creek and looked to be contained, at least from our direction. What a night. Tracer and I were asleep before our heads hit the pillow.

  Chapter 20

  Early in the morning my hunt was simple enough. Why the doc thought it was acceptable for me to go out and kill a bunch of wandering bandits who would gladly kill us, and not okay to kill a bunch of imprisoned bandits who would gladly kill us was beyond me. Maybe he didn’t think I’d catch anyone.

  The trail of fleeing men was not hard to follow. Even without Tracer the tracks were plain to see. Eventually they all converged and headed north. My estimate put them at twelve souls remaining, moving at a steady pace.

  I caught up with them after about sixteen miles in another small town, also surrounded by forest, also infested with marauding scum. I kept watch from a tree top and counted heads. They had a total number of twenty-two men, including the returnees. They also had a house they kept some women in. Based on the one building with prisoners in it, and the comparably large number of brigands that would visit the residence, my guess was that they went through prisoners pretty quickly. The flesh can only take so much abuse before giving up the ghost.

  By the time I’d learned all that, I’d learned all I could stand. This little town was probably the group’s robber den. My plan was to make it into their necropolis. More of an idea really, I was a bit fuzzy on the details.

  Having come on foot I had only brought Mary Ann and left Ginger behind. That was okay, this didn’t look like sniper work anyway. I began by shooting out the tires of all of their cars (because limiting enemy mobility never gets old). Once they understood what was going on they all fled to one house, the neighbor to the one with the prisoners. Remembering the overreaching nature of my last controlled blaze, I had decided to try something besides fire this time, at least at first.

  I did manage to kill two of the men they posted as sentries in the windows, and that kept the rest of them out of sight. That made my approach to the prisoner holding house a simple matter of walking up to it. If my enemies had any sense they would have been keeping a careful watch using mirrors and then all shot me when I broke cover.

  My approach to the prison was not entirely without care. I did close on the building from the south, the opposite side from the neighboring residence full of bandits. I peeked in a couple of boarded over windows and then unlocked the deadbolt on the door (it was locked from the outside).

  Inside, Tracer and I moved through the house as silently as possible. Tracer could only tell me there were living people in the house, not how friendly they might be. I decided to try what deception might uncover. In my best Curly voice I said, “Hey, where are you guys?”

  A couple of guys poked their heads out at the top of the stairs so I
started shooting. One of them fell back to safety and the other fell back with a new hole in his head (I was trying to be careful not to make new zombies). I charged up the steps, guns in hand. Hearing sounds of struggle, I cautiously looked into the room of the bandit who had escaped my earlier attack. What I saw was that three naked women had him pinned and one was trying to stab him in the head with a pen. I liked their spunk and decided to help out by pistol whipping the bandit into unconsciousness. The stabby woman with the pen seemed pretty upset about something, and she didn’t stop gouging with the writing utensil until both his eyes were nothing but gory holes. Her intensity was such that I didn’t feel comfortable disturbing her. Then the other women began helping her break his arms and legs. He was going to be in for an uncomfortable awakening, assuming he ever did wake up.

  I told the ladies (while averting my gaze the best I was able), “I hate to disturb such impassioned artistry, but do you have any clothes? Because you’re naked.”

  They looked up at me like I was some strange, horrible, goo-based residue someone had tracked across the floor. “Well, I’ll just leave you to it then. I guess I’ll check back in later and see how things are going.”

  I slipped back into the corridor and down the stairs as unobtrusively as possible. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a few more women moving into the room I had just vacated, no doubt hoping to join the party.

  At the back of the house I took off my backpack and I peeked through a window using my telescoping mirror-on-a-stick trick. The bandit residence was no more than thirty feet away, built with its side facing the house I was in. There were two windows facing my direction, but there was no one looking out either of them. I had to stop and consider.

  Now that the prisoners were freed they could easily escape any fire I chose to ignite. But on the other hand, all their stuff would get burned up. I couldn’t have them running all over the place naked (what would people think?). But on the other, other hand, I really didn’t want to just walk over there and step through the front door, either. That’s how people get shot. I decided to go back upstairs and ask for some help.

  At the doorway to the ladies bedroom I knocked cautiously, even though the door was open. The women seemed to have gotten the worst of it out of their systems and were enjoying a little rest (still no clothes, though).

  “Seriously, do any of you have any clothes?”

  I was met with a staring, stony, silence.

  “You guys speak English, right? Because that’s my favorite language.”

  With a deep and hateful resentment, Stabby, the pen wielding maniac (and I don’t mean that in a bad way) answered, “What do you want?” A very sensible question. If more people concerned themselves with what I want the world would probably be a better place.

  “For starters, if you could all put some clothes on that would be great.”

  Stabby asked, “Why?”

  “What kind of stupid question is that?! You plan on staying inside forever? Sometime you’re going to want to leave, right? Also, I need some help killing some people and you look motivated to that kind of work. But I got a pretty strict dress code for all my friends when it comes to helping kill folks. It involves clothes.”

  One of the others said, “Who do you want to kill?”

  I was beginning to suspect that these ladies were all suffering from some kind of partial lobotomy. “I want to kill your neighbors in the house next door,” I motioned in that general direction, “but it would be nice if you all could be ready to clear out.”

  Another chimed in, “Why?”

  “So that when I start their house on fire you all won’t get burned up if it spreads, see?”

  Some looks of confusion and a universal mistrust, “But why do you want to kill them?” the pen wielder asked.

  I had to stop and think about it for a second, “Firstly, because I got friends who these rapacious monstrosities have tried to attack, and that makes me mad. Secondly, because these rapacious monstrosities have hurt you, therefore Justice demands their deaths. Thirdly, because if I don’t kill them then they might try to hurt my friends in the future, so I must kill them in the defense of the innocent. Fourthly, if I don’t kill them all, they’ll just come over here and get the lot of you, and I don’t want that, either. Fifthly,... it’s fun. And that’s about it. Oh yeah! They might have some neat things, too. Like bayonets and stuff. Do you know where they got those things from?”

  Ignoring my question, the stab lady with the pen said, “How can we help you kill them?”

  “You can get dressed!” and I stormed out of the room, already planning my next firebomb.

  The nearest derelict automobile had enough gasoline for me to whip up an adequate number of incendiaries, once I mixed in a little petroleum jelly and some detergent (both of which I found in the ladies’ house).

  Stabby and a couple other of my new friends were looking over my shoulder as I finished my bomb making. I complimented them on their choice of garmenture, not because there was anything special about it, but because I was just glad to see them getting with the program. They seemed eager to learn a new skill set, and I’m always glad to teach.

  Then I snuck over to the bandits’ refuge and shot out a window. I could hear them shouting to one another, but no one came over to take a peek outside. So I lit up my bomb and tossed it inside.

  I could tell that as soon as the half gallon jug hit the floor, it broke open and leaked its contents all over. Fire spread everywhere and I had to pay special attention to Tracer to see if they were fleeing out the front or the back. I hoped that they’d stay together.

  They didn’t. As soon as the fire spread they forgot all about loyalty and discipline, and every man fled his own way. That made things tricky. First I ran to the house’s rear and gunned down the villains I saw running there, then I had to hurry back to the front and pick off any I could see fleeing down the street. I couldn’t be sure if I got them all or not, but I had to figure there weren’t more than three left.

  With Tracer at my side I began a house to house search. That’s one of Tracer’s specialties. He could let me know right off if anyone had recently entered a house sized building or not. Once the two of us reached the first building he indicated as harboring a fugitive from what I call justice, I shot out another window (I do love the sound of breaking glass). Then I chucked in bomb number two, and ran around to the other side of the house just in time to see him come out the front door.

  The criminal’s face was to me and he was armed with another one of those fancy bayoneted rifles. Before he could bring his rifle up I shot him dead, right through the heart, then through the head. One down, and if my count were right, two to go.

  As I was sneaking about, looking for the remainder of my lawful prey, I suddenly got the sense that I’d made a mistake. Sometimes that happens, and it always means the same thing. I immediately ducked and rolled (not easy when wearing a backpack). A shot rang out and Tracer barked a belated warning.

  I felt the tug of the round as it passed through my backpack and a cold wetness began pouring down me. Without attempting to discover my assailant, I ran and zigzagged around the corner of another house. I didn’t stop there, either, but continued to move around the building so as to evade any of my enemies hostile intentions (I assumed he was either trying to close on my position or line up a better shot).

  From there I made my way around the house which I was using for cover until I could look down the street I had been previously paralleling. Looking at all the windows, I couldn’t see an obvious threat. If my adversary were smart he was already on the move.

  I risked a quick run across the street and began paralleling the same street from the other side, crossing the houses’ back yards and keeping my eyes open. At a narrow alley I paused to give a potential pursuer a chance to catch up. It didn’t take long.

  Tracer gave me all the warning I could hope for (not that I needed it to spring my own trap), so I gunned my pursuer down as soon as
he passed my corner. He didn’t even have time to look surprised. With Trace at my side I began looking for any remaining threats.

  After about three quarters of an hour all my new lady friends showed up fully clothed and bearing some of the rifles of the fallen. They wanted to follow me on the hunt, so I told them to hang back and had them hold onto my backpack (the water bottle in it was ruined but everything else was okay).

  Tracer managed to uncover the final bandit’s hiding spot, but it took some time. The bandit had chosen to run through town and try to hot wire an abandoned vehicle. He succeeded, with little difficulty, but quickly found that two flat tires does not make for a practicable getaway.

  By then the ladies had joined us. When we caught up to him he was crouched down in the back seat, trying to hide. Which was especially pathetic, since he hadn’t bothered to shut off the car’s engine.

  I encouraged him to get out with a shouted warning. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I remember that I made no promises. Once my new friends had him disarmed he began to experience a real harsh time of it. Tracer and I stood guard. I remember Stabby really liked going for the eyes. I would have preferred to have asked him where he and all his buddies had gotten all their guns and bayonets and stuff from, but the ladies were all so intent on getting even that I didn’t have the heart to interrupt. After twenty minutes of nothing but screaming we were beginning to lose our daylight, and even with the fire I was getting worried that there might be some more zombies moving in on us (screaming tends to draw them in).

  So I advised Stabby and the other ladies of my concerns, and they decided to leave the ruin of a man littering the street, while following me to some cover. That seemed like a dangerous move to me. The guy was almost certainly going to die and then we’d have a zombie (or worse) on our hands.

  I asked, “Aren’t you concerned about leaving a zombie behind? Shouldn’t you kill him?”