by Robert Brown
“They were all passed out when I entered the building. I still didn’t know where Jessica was, but I knew these men had taken her, so I slashed the first man’s throat. The second man started to shift when I approached him, and I jammed my knife into his chest. I was terrified, but he didn’t even open his eyes. I couldn’t pull my knife back out of his chest because I was shaking so bad at that point. And then I saw Jessica. She was lying on the floor, by the wall over there,” he says, pointing, “She was curled up and bloody, but she was still awake.”
“She looked up and saw me walking toward her, but then she passed out. I quickly tied up the last two men so they couldn’t chase us if they woke up, and then started carrying her out the back door. That is when I thought you were his group returning and ready to kill me. When that girl with you told me to put Jessica down, the first thing I thought was, how could she help men like these capture and torture other women? I’m glad that you weren’t the returning group of men.”
“I’m glad we didn’t just shoot you before hearing what was going on,” I say.
“So Lilly is out there still, and you’ve been gone for several days?” Ashley asks. “I mean, I’m nineteen and can’t imagine being on my own in this world. How could you leave her there when she’s only sixteen?”
“I couldn’t bring her with me,” Greg says. “I didn’t expect to come back to her. I thought the best I could do was free Jessica and hold these men off long enough for she and Lilly to get away. I didn’t really have time to plan anything. I just told her to wait for Jessica to come back and be ready to fight or run if the men return.
“Is there any way some of you could help me bring Jessica back to our houses? I would like to get back home and let Lilly know that we are okay.”
“We can’t move her,” says Melissa. “She can’t be moved until she wakes up, and we can ask her about her injuries.”
“But I can’t stay here, what if some of the men come back?” he asks, clearly afraid that he is trapped.
“Greg, you are free to go if you want. I don’t want you to think we are holding you here. My wife is a nurse, however, and I would like to take Jessica back to our place to make sure she recovers from her injuries.”
“No, you can’t take her away! Lilly needs her,” he shouts and stands up.
“Greg, it will be Jessica’s choice, not mine,” I say trying to reassure him. “We will wait here, at least some of us, until Jessica wakes up and we can find out what she wants to do. If she wants to return to her house by yours, she will be free to do so, and we'll make sure she makes it there. We will give you and the two ladies supplies to help you try and survive. I would hope that you, Lilly, and Jessica would all choose to return to the ranch with us, though.”
Greg steps back. Uncertainty etched on his face. I can see a glimpse of how difficult things must have been out here for the last three months. Any act of kindness is looked upon with suspicion, as though it is a trap of some sort. So I call him on it to try and bring the issue to the surface.
“It isn’t a trap, Greg. It isn’t a trick question, and I’m not trying to tempt you with something that isn’t real. The ranch isn’t as secure as it was a few days ago, but we survived a massive attack. Once we clear the land, rebuild and reinforce the fences, we will be fairly secure, both from the infected and from outside attackers. We have food, water, guns, and ammunition. Women have nothing to fear from the men that are there, as you can see by the five women that came with us. They are fed, armed, and trained just as every man is. Just as you, Jessica, and Lilly will be if you come to live with us. And even if you only come for a short time to rest and heal, you will be free to go anytime you want.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I can leave right now?”
“Yes, but you should take supplies with you if you go.”
“And I can return to you with Lilly?”
“Yes, and you can come to the ranch with us if you want.”
“I want to let Lilly know that I’m all right and that I found Jessica, but I don’t think she will come back here with me. I’m listening to you say there is a safe place to go and that we can trust you, but even I am having a hard time accepting it. Lilly will never believe me. She only spoke to me the first time to tell me Jessica was taken.”
“I could go with you,” Ashley says, surprising everyone, not just Greg. “I know you all probably think I’m being naïve, wanting to go off with a stranger, but we all believe him or he’d be tied up right now. I think I can help convince Lilly that it is safe to come back.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to come with me. I mean, it would help convince Lilly, but it still isn’t safe out there.”
Dianne, Melissa, and Megan all agree with Ashley and say they want to go as well. Dianne adds, “We haven’t had to face survival on our own the way you have out here, but we can shoot and have fought the infected, the sick ones. I think we’ll be able to protect ourselves, especially as a group.”
Greg looks at the four women, smiles, and then sits back down. “If you are coming with me then we can wait until tomorrow. We won’t be able to make it back here from the houses before nightfall on foot.”
“Is it that far?” Michael asks, clearly concerned for his wife’s wellbeing.
“No, it isn’t far. Twenty, maybe thirty minutes if we walked straight there, but you have to walk slow these days, and keep watching for the sick ones.”
“We have over an hour of daylight left. Why don’t we go now?” Ashley says.
“It will probably take longer than a few minutes to convince Lilly to come here, and they may have supplies they need to pack,” I say. “I don’t think we should split the group up for the night in a strange place, and send you off with someone that we just met and only think he is telling the truth, but don’t know.”
Jessica solves the dilemma for us when she wakes up during our conversation. She first sees Samantha looking down at her, and then Melissa, and Megan. She slowly sits up with an uncertain expression on her face mixed with pain when she touches her swollen left eye. Greg walks up and kneels in front of her, and she lunges at him, grabbing him in a fierce hug. “Where’s Lilly?” she asks and looks around.
“She’s at the house, still. I left looking for you the day after those men took you.”
“We have to go get her. Please! I don’t know who you people are, but we have to go get her. I can’t let anything else happen to her.” She tries to get up, but the movement causes her to vomit.
Samantha helps her lay back down, and talks to her, “You have a concussion, Jessica. You won’t be able to walk there in this condition.”
“Don’t worry, Jessica,” Greg says, grabbing her hand. “I’m going right now to get her. I’ll bring her back here in the morning. You get some rest.”
*
Throughout the night we split off in different shifts. Some do guard duty, others gather all the remaining supplies to be transported back to the ranch, and all of us worry about the four women that went with Greg.
I’m not completely sure why it was important for the women to go without any of our men or their husbands, but everyone could sense that’s how it had to be. They needed to know that they could do it, and we needed to know that we could let them and still survive. Sending some men with the group wouldn’t have stopped Lilly from trusting Greg, but it would have caused the women to doubt that we trust them to handle themselves. We rely on each other to survive, so we can’t afford to have that type of doubt seep into anyone’s minds.
Early the next morning our four departed women return with Greg and Lilly. Everyone is happy to be reunited, but none more than Lilly and Jessica. It is nice to witness such genuine happiness in such a screwed up world.
“There’s more than a blade of grass today, huh, Eddie?” Randy asks me, looking at the reunions.
“Yes, much more than a blade, Randy, much more,” I say and smile.
After returning to the ranch we found out there was an attack by one of the infected. None of our people were injured, though. An infected wandered into the stable where Chad and the now toothless prisoner were tied up. We forgot to leave guards posted there, and when Simone walked in to check on them with Hannah, they found the man with the drilled teeth had been ripped open and gutted. There was only one infected carrying out the attack and had left his first victim once he died to start chewing on Chad’s bloody hand, which was now a bloody stump.
Simone killed the uninvited dinner guest and left Chad tied where he was. Since we found Kim in Rogue River, we have all wondered what the process is for someone that doesn’t turn right away, and Chad is just the person we were looking for. She said he started a fever six hours after first being bitten, just like Kim, and the fever lasted almost a full hour and then disappeared. After the fever he regained consciousness and didn’t seem to be infected. He was weak and disoriented, but could speak, and didn’t seem to want to attack anyone any more than he usually did. This new information gives us a small bit of good news that some people are immune to the illness. Unfortunately, without medical testing facilities, the only way we can find out if we are immune is to be bitten.
Greg, Jessica, and Lilly all chose to come to our ranch. They are staying long enough for Jessica to heal and regain her strength, and then they plan on going back to survive on their own. I would like them to stay and hope they end up liking things here. Besides them all being genuinely likable, we have a shared kinship since we were all injured by the same group of men. If they don’t stay, at least helping them makes me feel like we are accomplishing something from the mess Chad and his group brought on us. And we’ll be able to give them plenty of weapons to defend themselves as well.
Our new supplies have been sorted, and we have gained a great deal of defensive capability with the guns and ammunition recovered from the sheriff’s office. The grenades are the most shocking part of the stockpiles, though. Daniel and I have just finished looking over everything, and I have to ask him, “Why the grenades? What could you possibly need them for in dealing with the public?”
“We didn’t request them. They came in with some of the other supplies the week before the attack. Homeland Security sent them to us and probably every police station in the country. Our offices were getting taken over, and were going to be used as regional headquarters if things got really bad. They knew martial law was coming, just like that old memo said. All we could do was store the stuff they sent us, we couldn’t send it back.”
“You think every police station received the same type of stuff?” I ask, shaking my head.
Daniel nods, and replies, “The bigger the department or area the more stuff they would have gotten, I imagine.”
It’s not a comforting thought that people like the gang Chad was with have access to weapons like this, but then again, that means we do as well. I think we’ll have to try for the Medford and Central Point police buildings one of these days.
*
Chad is about to die. He survived my torture yesterday and the inadvertent attack by an infected. His three remaining buddies are tied up in the stable here next to him. I want to say that he will die a painful death and suffer greatly but his reaction to the infection appears to be what was originally intended with the Zeus drug. He no longer feels pain, his body barely bleeds when I cut or stab him, and his feeling of weakness after the fever is more accurately described as a general body numbness to resist reacting to trauma. So I am putting a spike in his head now that I realize nothing I do to hurt him from this point on will matter.
I wanted him to suffer, I wanted my rage and his pain to continue, but now his dead body is dangling like a discarded marionette by the ropes holding his arms in place. As much as I want to continue being angry at these other three, it just isn’t there. I am worn out, and most of my anger at Chad was my regret at being a decent person on the first day and letting him live. His death on that day would have prevented all three of the attacks we’ve endured so far.
I turn to Simone and shake my head with a frustrated expression on my face. She’s standing guard by the door, making sure no more unwanted infected people wander in while I deal with these guys. “I don’t think I have it in me anymore, Simone. I’m just going to kill them and get it over with.”
“Do you think that’s what they would do?”
I just shrug my shoulders at her question. I’m exhausted. I barely slept last night in the police station. As much as I wanted to, I was too much on edge from everything that had happened. My body was ready for sleep, but my brain refused to shut down long enough for me to get it.
“If they had captured us on the ranch, do you think they would just kill you, or do you think they would keep you alive and make you watch whatever they did to us? What they would do to me or to our daughters?”
“I get it Simone, I do. I know what they are capable of, but I don’t think I should keep doing it. I was really enjoying making Chad and the others suffer, but now…”
“But now it makes you feel dirty, right?”
“Yes.”
“Eddie, who do you think this is going to benefit? I mean, if you continue torturing them, what will it do?”
“It will make them suffer.”
“And who will know about the suffering these men endured at your hands? Will you leave any of them alive to go out as a warning to others?”
“No. None of these men are going to leave here alive. No one will know that I tortured them.”
“You can’t think of anyone, Eddie?”
I shake my head no, not knowing where she is leading me in this conversation.
“Our people will know what you did. If you continue torturing these men, then our people will know that even when we had our ranch secure, you tortured and eventually killed these men for no reason other than your desire to see them suffer for what they did.”
“So you think I should stop as well?”
“No Eddie, I think you should continue,” she says firmly while nodding her head.
She steps closer to me and speaks in a whisper to tell me what she means. “Not everyone will stay on this ranch. Eventually, someone will move away when things start to quiet down, and before that there will be trips for supplies. Every one of our people that survive will eventually come in contact with other people on the outside. If you want to keep us safe and this ranch secure, then when any of our people talk with people on the outside, they have to be absolutely certain that to come here and cause problems for us will not just result in their death, but in something far worse.”
I’m starting to see where she is guiding me but the odd expression on my face is enough for her to know I still don’t completely understand.
“Everyone here already sees you as a fair man, Eddie. These people trust you and rightly so. Being fair or decent doesn’t keep you alive in a world like this, however. The people on our ranch need to know that others should fear you. You need to torture those men until they die. You need to do it slowly, and you need to look like you are enjoying it for anyone that comes to watch or asks about it later. If our people believe you are capable of being a monster, then they will have no problems in the future telling people they encounter about it, and that will help keep our family safe.”
“You’re an amazing woman, Simone. Thank you for always keeping me on the right path.”
*
I’ve spent the last three days torturing our three remaining prisoners. They started begging me to kill them yesterday, but I kept on going, and actually got into a rhythm with things. After the first day of torturing them, I returned to the house, showered, and then stared at the ceiling for the rest of the night. I felt dirty and rightly so. What I was doing now was cruel, and I have never been cruel without intention before. Even the torture I performed right after the attack I could personally justify as needing to get information, it was to help us survive, but what I
was doing now was different. I stared at the ceiling all night without sleep, wondering what I was doing, and couldn’t come up with a reason.
The torture yesterday went easier. I was exhausted and numb. I really didn’t care how much they begged, even though they increased their pitiful pleas for mercy. I started getting creative as well. I started smashing fingers and toes with hammers to make large blood blisters, which I would then drill. It caused them more pain. I raised their legs on supports and slammed the soles of their feet with a baseball bat. That one I saw in a movie when I was younger. Last night I was able to sleep. I slept well.
Today I was looking for ways to punish them specifically for raping Jessica and other women they had captured and killed. What I did was a brilliant yet simple idea that made me personally cringe when did it the first few times. I bent the men naked over a table with their legs spread and played ping pong with their testicles. I started with just light taps, the ones that hurt, but you can recover from after some deep breathing and a few minutes. By the end I was smacking them full swing, and all three men had bloody swollen scrotums that were probably more mush than testicle.
Joshua Langford has stayed in the stable with me while I have been torturing the men. He had avoided coming anywhere near the men we captured until this morning. He said he felt the men should suffer for what they did and knew he would kill them on sight if he came earlier.
I still haven’t found out what happened to his family or how his group was overrun before they could get to the shelter. No one has wanted to bring it up with him yet. Even Jason and Rebecca have given him his space, even though they must desperately want to know what happened to their son Christopher. I imagine he will probably tell us all tonight, with the events going on today.
It is funeral day. The group found the bodies of little eight year old Christopher, the thirteen year old twins, Steven, and Lauren, and thirty seven year old, Matthew. We are going to bury my mother at the same time.