The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding

by Greene, Daniel

  Ignoring the advice of his father, he went to a small college for baseball instead of business, focusing on the mechanics of a swing as opposed to the macroeconomics of global trade, and none of those things mattered much now. The auto industry trade restrictions in the 80s against Japan meant nothing to him. And all things considered, he’d used a baseball bat more than economics, clubbing to death so many infected at this point that he’d lost track of how many skulls he’d smashed with it, probably as many as balls he’d hit playing baseball. His average in the league was a cool .350; his batting average in the apocalypse was almost perfect. It had to be. It didn’t earn him a place at the table in the big leagues, but he knew every day living was like getting a lease on life. If you struck out, you died. If you got the hit, you’re still in the living game.

  He gripped the side of a bucket and climbed in. Baseball, business, battered brains, none of it mattered to him, not compared to a country girl from Missouri held hostage somewhere in the bowels of the earth beneath him. Those were the things that meant something. Humanity. Life. Companionship. Those were worth risking it all for.

  The metal bucket moaned as it swayed back and forth. He knelt in the crammed bucket and gripped the side with white knuckles, attempting to keep his weight balanced. The vertical conveyor belt of buckets continued its work and lowered him below. Darkness swallowed Ahmed whole; not caring for his noble purpose or past deeds, it ate all it could.

  He chanced a look downward. The blackness gave way to light far below. Square wood beams outlined the shaft. Roots and vines lined the sides, years of neglect allowing nature to begin its reclamation of man’s penetrative incursion. The gears clinked and clanked as they lowered his bucket and lifted others upward, a continual trade-off of circular motorized motion.

  The bottom came fast. The bucket tipped sideways near the ground, almost dumping him outright. Ahmed stumbled and put a hand on the wall. The first thing he noticed was the warmth of the mine compared to above. It must have been in the mid-50s, a considerable improvement from the open air outside.

  The corridor was pitch black aside from light coming down the hallway.

  Jim’s voice came out quiet and harsh. “Ahmed.” A shadow moved nearby. “We follow the lights.”

  They stalked slowly toward the light. Feet grated on the gravelly ground, and more than once, Ahmed felt his ankle twist and turn on the uneven rock. He clutched his pump-action shotgun close to his body, aiming it away from his compatriots. The ceiling weighed down upon them as if threatening to crush them beneath thousands of pounds of vengeful boulders and stones every moment. His shoulder ran over thick square beams as they moved cautiously down the corridor.

  Two men passed through the intersection ahead. They were merely black shadows with light blasting around their outlines. Ahmed and his comrades stopped. He held his breath and trained his gun in their direction.

  One of them spoke, “Somebody was shooting at them.”

  The other man laughed. “Stupid fucks. Macleod is going to kill the lot of them. Too much trouble from these yokels. Better to just find some new ones to do the heavy lifting for us.”

  “You know what that means?” said the other.

  “Was that?”

  “New women.”

  The other form nodded. “They were hollering their heads off earlier. Let’s go check on them.”

  The men didn’t look in their direction, carrying on. Ahmed exhaled. It wasn’t that they couldn’t kill the men. It was being found out before they could escape.

  The quiet group rounded the corner, stalking the men. The light traveled down the passage from an opening to another room. “They went this way.”

  They buddied within six inches of one another, creeping to the entrance of a massive room. Ahmed leaned out and peered inside. A large industrial floodlight spotlighted a cavernous rock-walled room with over forty-foot ceilings. A generator’s engine rumbled near the far wall, keeping the light going.

  Boxes, bags, and crates of supplies were stockpiled all over the cavern, enough to supply forty plus men for months if not a year. They were marked as canned and dried food. Others were survival supplies like clothes and blankets, jugs of water, boxes of ammunition, and guns.

  The number of guns was staggering. Are they building their own army? Water pooled in one corner from a crack in the rock, and a fire sizzled in the center. Tarps and tents were placed along the wall farthest away from the men.

  The black wolf patches of the two bikers veered toward the tents. Two other men were near a fire.

  Ahmed dipped back to the corridor.

  Jim whispered, “Let’s kill them.” He looked ready to charge in and unleash hell on the unsuspecting bikers. The Wolf Riders would never assume men would come from the interior of the mine. All their guards would be near the mine quarry entrance roughly a hundred yards in the opposite direction they came from.

  “We don’t know how many more are still in here. If we can get in and out before they know we are here, it would be best.”

  Jim shook his head. “We send a message for when they get back.”

  Sly’s eyes darted back and forth. “Ahmed’s right. Go in quietly. But kill those nearby in silence.”

  “Two by the fire first,” Jim said.

  Ahmed found himself nodding. How easily men can get roped into violence. Exacting vengeance on this gang would be gratifying after all they’d done. He snuck into the cavern. The floodlights gave off an eerie glow that cast long shadows along the jagged rock walls.

  His back bent, Ahmed weaved through the boxes of supplies. He knocked one, and it teetered on the precipice of the box below. His heart leapt and he stood still. A silent hand steadied it.

  One of the bikers glanced over his shoulder and the infiltrators crouched silent. “You hear that?”

  The other biker didn’t even bother to look. “Can’t hear nothin’.”

  “Thought I heard something.”

  “What? Are you afraid of the dark?”

  “Shut the fuck up. I ain’t scared of shit.” He took a swing from a bottle.

  Jim gave Ahmed a nod. Ahmed exhaled and slowly crept behind the Wolf Rider standing by the fire. The man held a bottle of tarnished yellow alcohol loose in one hand.

  “Took a while to get used to the dark round here. But I know this mine like the back of my hand now. Thought Macleod was crazy for setting up shop here, but it’s warm in the winter. Cool in the summer. Protection from anybody on the outside.”

  The other man stared at the flames, his eyes distant above his black beard. “Pork said he saw something in the mines. Something not human.” He sat with his back to a crate, watching the fire crackle and burn.

  The one closest to Ahmed took a drawn-out swig of his gold-colored alcohol. “I told ya not to talk to me like that.” He pointed a finger, holding the bottle.

  “Jesus, man. Don’t be so uptight. Of course there ain’t nothing down in the mine. It’s been abandoned since the Civil War or something.”

  “That’s good. ’Cause I ain’t got no problem with the dark.” He brandished a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol. “Nothing that this baby can’t take down.”

  The seated biker glanced at the shadows as Ahmed moved behind the standing biker. The leather-clad man turned his head to the side and then his eyes squinted as Ahmed crashed the stock of his shotgun into the man’s skull. The biker emitted a soft “uff” as he lost consciousness, his body slumping onto the fire.

  Jim rammed a deer-skinning knife into the side of the other biker’s neck. The blade caused a revolting crackle as it bit through vital veins and tissue that kept the man’s brain supplied with ample amounts of blood. Jim brought him down roughly to the ground.

  Sparks sprayed around the body of the biker as he started to burn. Ahmed clasped a hand around one of his arms and dragged him out of the flames. He beat him with his hands to put him out.

  “Roody?” came a voice. The name echoed from wall to wall of the cavern a
nd over the generator. A fat biker plodded over from the tents. His chin had chins and his head was almost shaved bald. Sly’s form popped like a lemur, and he fired his rifle into the man’s chest.

  The fat biker didn’t even have a chance to be surprised, but the gunshots were louder than sirens, alerting anyone inside the mine that they were under attack.

  Ahmed jogged to the tents. A man emerged from one, shirtless. Ahmed pumped a slug into his chest, and he fell in reverse, taking the canvas with him. He racked the handle of the shotgun, prepping another shell for devastation. Chu-chink.

  A biker scrambled along the wall as Jim fired shotgun blast after shotgun blast at him, the barrel of his weapon releasing fire and smoke with each shot. His third slug took the man in his hip, forcing him face-first into the rock face. He smeared blood down the uneven surface and wailed in frenzied pain.

  Jim marched over to silence the man while the other men ran for the largest tent. A frightened girl was shoved out the tent entrance. Fear laced her eyes, and her hair was black and wavy. A leather-coated arm tightened dangerously around her throat. A snarling Wolf Rider stood behind her, using her as a body shield. He had long dirty hair hanging around his shoulders and pressed a chrome-plated handgun to the side of her head.

  “Listen up, fuckers. Put those guns down or the girl gets it.” His lips stayed snarled like those of a rabid wolf with a drooping mustache. “More than she’s already gotten it.”

  “You drop it!” Sly shouted. “I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna kill him.”

  “Daddy!” Jes cried.

  Ahmed held his shotgun zeroed in on the biker. The biker twisted his body back and forth. “I said drop ’em. Guns on the ground.” He started to step Jes toward the entrance to the cavern. “Make room, fuckstick.” He stumbled as he angled her toward them, his back away from their guns.

  “Sly. Let’s put the guns down. Nobody has to get hurt,” Ahmed said.

  The biker peered over Jes’s shoulder. “Yeah, Sly. Listen to him. He’s smart.”

  Sly shook his head. “Can’t.”

  Jes’s eyes were like a doe’s in the headlights. Her hands curled around the biker’s arm. “Daddy, please.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” The biker jerked her, dodging his head from side to side to make himself a harder target. “Sly, look at that precious face. Put the gun down.”

  “All right.” Sly set his rifle on the rocky ground with a clank of metal on rock. “Just let her go.”

  With his chin, the biker gestured at Ahmed. “You too.”

  Ahmed slowly shifted the barrel of his gun in the direction of the ceiling. “Where’s Sadie?”

  The biker sneered, eyes darting down a side corridor. “That’s the boss’s cunt.”

  Ahmed let the shotgun settle on the cavern floor. It was a good run.

  “You two are a pair of dipshits.” He shoved the girl and she stumbled, running for her father. Sly wrapped his arms around her body and kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay.”

  “Stupid fuckers.” Lining up his sights, the biker canted his gun slightly to the side.

  A firearm blasted from behind them. The right side of the biker’s face and skull disintegrated, leaving a bloody carving where a part of his face used to be. His single eye blinked a few times before he collapsed.

  Jim jogged to them. “Where’s Sadie?”

  “Somewhere else.”

  Both men instinctually ducked as gunfire burst from the door to the outside. Three-round bursts chipped away at the hard rock around them, spraying fragments. Bullets thudded up Sly’s back. Thump-thump-thump. He arched and fell into Jes, taking them both to the cavern floor.

  Jim ran over and rotated Sly to his back. Sly’s chest heaved, gaping exit wounds fraying his chest. He tugged Jes gently free of her father. “Are you okay?”

  “Daddy?” she said. She scrambled over the loose rocks to her bleeding father.

  A wet cough came from Sly. His eyes were wide as he tried to breathe. “Go, love.” He stopped, his chest heaving. “Take care of my girl.” His hand grasped for Jim’s. “Promise me.”

  Jim gritted his teeth and nodded, wrapping an arm around Jes. “I’ll do it.”

  “Get her out of here,” Ahmed yelled at Jim. Gunfire whizzed overhead. Wolf Riders were taking cover in the hallway to the quarry, periodically leaning in to lay down fire.

  “Sadie’s down there,” Jim said, pointing.

  Ahmed eyed the other hall. Faint light slung out of the tunnel, tempting them. “I’ll get her.”

  “Do it.” Jim took Jes by the arm, and they sprinted for the rock elevator.

  Sly’s chest went still. Ahmed exhaled building his courage. A biker hesitantly stepped inside the cavern, his gun scanning the room. One. Two. Three. Crouching, Ahmed fired at him as he ran for the passage to Sadie.

  The biker jumped and scrambled back for the quarry entrance. Ahmed racked his pump and sent another slug toward the door, keeping the bikers pinned down until he reached the safety of a rock hallway. More gunfire banged away, muffled by the mine.

  He took a moment to breathe and quickly reload, shoving shells inside his shotgun. He began to stalk along the corridor. With frequent checks to the rear, he made sure no one pursued him.

  The rock hall opened into a smaller cavern room. A battery-operated lantern illuminated the room from atop a table, shrouding every corner with darkness. Boxes lay against the wall. A tent that could hold twelve or more stood to the other side. Wooden chairs and a table were cluttered with bullets, glasses, plates filled with half-eaten food.

  “Sadie?” Ahmed half-shouted. He poured over the room, looking for any sign of her.

  A fist blurred into the side of Ahmed’s head, connecting with the orbital just below his eye. His vision immediately disoriented, his eyes fogging over like a cool summer mist.

  He toppled onto the rocky floor, his weapon clattering on the ground.

  A man mocked him with a high-pitched nasal voice. “Sadie.”

  On his hands and knees, Ahmed scrambled for the shotgun. He crawled until a searing pain lanced through his calf. “Argh!” Held in place by pain, he peered back. Macleod had pinned him to the floor with the handle of his long Bowie knife, the blade sticking out of Ahmed’s calf. It was like he was stuck in a bear trap. Any movement forced the sharp metal further inside, solidifying his demise.

  Ahmed grasped for the gun again, and Macleod laughed as he twisted the knife. The shooting pain made him scream out, his hands digging into the rock.

  Macleod wrapped a hand around Ahmed’s other leg and dragged him farther away from the firearm. Rocks scraped and dug into his skin as the man pulled him away from the firearm. His hands scratched for anything to retard his progress, fingernails chipping on rough unforgiving ground.

  Grunting, Macleod said, “You know, Ahmed, I just had this gut feeling you hadn’t died out there, but I had no idea that you were behind these shenanigans.” He stopped and tightened his grip on the handle of his knife. He ripped it free with a reddish-pink flourish like a painter’s finishing touch.

  “God!” Ahmed yelled.

  Macleod studied the bittersweet liquid running along his knife. “You’re a little bitch you know that?” Macleod stood and gave Ahmed a swift kick to the side.

  Ahmed grunted in pain, trying to get his legs under him.

  “Oh, Steele this. Steele that. Jesus. You two must be queer for each other.” He jumped down next to Ahmed, leaning his face close. “I promised Sly I’d cut off his balls and feed them to him.”

  Squeezing his hands around his wound, he spat, “He’s dead.”

  Macleod turned his head. “Too bad. I would have liked to have watched him eat ’em.” His eyes ogled Ahmed with crazy mirth. “So you’re leading this little rebellion?”

  Warm blood trickled along Ahmed’s hands, searching for a way out of his body. He didn’t say a word.

  An evil smile sat on his lips and he raised an eyebrow at Ahmed. “I guess you’l
l have to do, huh?”

  Ahmed squeezed his calf, trying to stem the bleeding. “We want the girls back.”

  Macleod stood and laughed, his goatee wiggling with glee off his chin. “All this for a little bit of poonani? Should have just asked. I mean, I still would have cut your head off, but no reason to bring my protectees into conflict with the club. It’s so hard to find good help nowadays. But I assure you, Sadie is filling her role just fine.” He called to the tent. “Sadie, come on out.”

  With a flip of a tent flap, Sadie came out. A long chain cuff secured her hands, and her feet were bound with the similar silver chains. She wouldn’t have been able to run even if they had found her in time.

  Her voice was all misery. “Ahmed.”

  “You two?” Macleod said in surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought a girl like you would fall for a man like Ahmed. I mean, on the account of his foreignness. I’ll have to admit it’s very cute. Just like in every single movie nowadays, country girl falls in love with city foreigner. Difference in cultures. Disapproving families. Blah, blah, fast-forward to you two breeding out a bunch of little mocha-colored bastards. Probably the cutest little things ever to grace this earth.” He shook his head in mock heartfelt emotion. “Damn, that’s precious to think about. A real-life fantasy, but some things just make you think.”

  He flung his arms apart in dismay. “If only the world was different. Softer, gentler, free of all this bullshit surrounding us. Then you.” He pointed his knife at Ahmed. “And you, Sadie.” His knife wavered at her. “Could be a happy little couple.” He made a mock sign of the cross. “I pronounce thee man and wife.” A grin split his face, and when neither of his captives laughed, he sighed heavily. “But alas, we don’t live in that world, do we. We don’t live in that fictional fantasy land that they want you to think is a possibility. We live here and now, and this world isn’t going to have such a happy ending, and there’s no way she is going to want a ball-less man as a husband. Isn’t that right?”