“Those are our guns!” Rusty almost screamed.
“A lot of the guns and ammunition were taken from the armory inside this guardhouse,” Dennis said.
“No violence.” Brit felt the argument was lost.
“No violence.” Dennis immediately agreed before hotheaded Rusty could jump in.
Rusty seemed to be having a hard time swallowing it but finally agreed, not very convincingly, “Okay. Okay, then.”
“We’re just going to get more of what’s ours for running the plant. Things are going to get divided more fairly from now on,” Dennis continued.
“Yes. Okay,” Brit nodded.
“This is our power plant. We run it. We provide the infrastructure that makes everything else possible.” Dennis waved his hands expansively.
“Yeah!”
“We provide the heat, the lights, the power…”
“And the security,” Thompson added.
“Damn straight!” Rusty nodded.
“Think of us like the government. We’re just going to levy a tax,” Dennis said.
“We get our cut,” Rusty was catching on.
“Of everything,” Thompson’s eyes went wide, realizing the possibilities.
“So what’s the plan then? We talk to them when they get back?” Brit asked.
“Hit em’ where it hurts,” Rusty said.
“Remember, Sven took advantage of Eve after her parents died.” Dennis spoke directly to Brit, watching him closely to gauge his reaction.
Brit didn’t know what to say. This was supposedly why he was living in the guardhouse. Recently, Jackie had been pressuring him relentlessly to come live in the tower with them. It was safer, better food and the guards were filthy, vile pigs. A gigantic nest of cockroaches had sprung up in the kitchen area. Of course, the cockroaches would survive the apocalypse. They had become so numerous that yesterday he found a cockroach in his bed. It was so large it actually challenged him. He could hardly stand it over here. But the real reason was that he just couldn’t face Sven. He couldn’t wake up every morning knowing that he was in the next room screwing some girl, the latest of which was Alexis. Brit knew that eventually Sven would realize that he was in love with him and that his reaction to Eve had been pure jealousy. “We don’t know what really happened.”
“Fuck ‘em!” Rusty shouted.
CHAPTER 27: October 30, Noon
“Poor chickens. This is why I’m a vegetarian.” Eve squinted to look into the dim chicken coop through the small crack in the rear of the giant industrial barn-sized plastic structure. The inside of the coop was a kill zone. Dead chicken carcasses were piled a foot deep or more on the floor. They lay bent, twisted, mangled and smashed in piles of feathers, dust, blood, chicken shit and dirt. The survivors sat nervously jerking their long necks spasmodically, wide-eyed from the topmost tiers of long wooden racks attached to the walls among piles of crusty, chicken shit straw.
The sound attracted her attention even before her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Hundreds and hundreds of infected packed together in the center of the coop, touching, jostling, biting, snarling and writhing like maggots. It was what she imagined hell would sound like and it chilled her to the bone and made her involuntarily shiver and wrap her arms around herself. A terrible and constant moaning emanated from them, almost like a twisted meditation chant. The voices all mixed together in some terrible harmony, the higher voices of the undead women and children and the lower voices of the undead men groaning and moaning in agony. Layered beneath and within this festering harmony were the sounds of many teeth grinding and gnashing and jaws snapping, the sounds of an unquenchable thirst and hunger for human flesh and blood. A high wail pierced through the moans. It began quietly at a high pitch and steadily increased in volume until Eve wanted to scream and she had to cover her ears. It was like someone slowly driving a knife into the wailing victim’s heart and with every millimeter deeper the pitch became louder and more fervent and more painfully desperate. Two more wailers joined in and a low pitched male voice screamed, and then five more. It almost sounded like the screamer was calling for help, but he was dead. He was infected. There would be no help for him or any of them. They were the damned. Other voices joined in what sounded like howling. Each voice that joined in held so much pain. The howlers mixed with the wailers into a twisted chorus of agony and now more howlers had joined. Eve wanted to scream. She wanted to do something; anything to make it stop.
“Eve!” Jackie called from the truck where they were loading their meager catch of fourteen chickens clumsily corralled and finally trapped in a large commercial fishing net. “Get away from there. It’s too dangerous.” Just beyond Jackie, she could see Sven watching her.
“We have to help the chickens,” Eve said. “The infected just kill them. They’re not even eating them.”
Jackie covered his mouth, trying to suppress a chuckle, and turned away towards Sven. Several of the men loading the chickens smiled, and even Sven! Now she was mad. “Come over here,” Jackie waved to her and then turned his back dismissively.
“We could open the door to let the chickens escape. The infected won’t come out because of the light…” No one was listening. She could see Sven talking to Jackie and smiling.
She tried to peer back into the coop but something lunged at her from the other side snarling and drooling and scratching with heavy claws. She caught a glimpse of its eyes and teeth. It was filled with rage and thirst and hate. She wished she had a gun, but they wouldn’t give her one. She felt in her pockets and found her lighter. Before she even knew what she was doing, she bent down and lit the dry grass mixed with the hay sticking out of the sides of the coop. She turned and walked toward the truck. Sven was still watching her. Good. But now he looked surprised.
She heard a whooshing sound behind her, and the side of the coop erupted in flame. She could hear the panicked chickens clucking and flapping and the sounds of the infected moaning became louder.
“Come on, we have to open the door.” She ran around to the front of the coop and began struggling with the large barn-sized door.
“Get the nets!” Jackie ordered, and everyone scrambled to arrange the two empty remaining nets in front of the door. Smoke was filling the coop and the chickens were throwing themselves against the door and walls, flapping and clucking, desperate to escape the smoke and billowing flames. “Shooters ready!” The shooters lined up on the truck beds, and pointed their weapons down at the closed barn-sized doors, over the heads of Eve and the men down below.
Jackie and Sven each had pistols in one hand and long rifles strapped to their backs. Sven handed Eve a pistol. Jackie, Sven and Eve flung open the giant double doors and out came pouring smoke and panicked chickens. A few infected wandered blindly into the light and were shot by Sven, Jackie and the shooters. The smoke seemed to confuse the infected and they seemed much less aggressive.
In the span of three minutes, hundreds of panicked chickens flew into the nets. They increased the day’s chicken run take by the power of ten in three minutes. Most of the infected remained packed together in their circle in the middle. A few stood in deeper shadows near the door. They were shot.
Some of the men wanted to shoot into the pack. “No!” Jackie said. “If they rush us, we’re dead. Help me lock these doors back up.”
The net of chickens was so heavy it took every available hand to load into the open beds of the large truck. The entire building was consumed in flames now. A few infected ran out of cracks in the building, their thick hairy manes aflame, their tattered clothes alight carrying the sweet sickly smell of burning human flesh in the smoky air. They were shot immediately. Horrible screams and sounds of torment issued from the burning coop. Eve strained her eyes from the truck, afraid to approach, ready to flee. Finally, through the fire and smoke, she thought she glimpsed a huddle of infected digging into the dirt and throwing it on top of themselves. They couldn’t run safely into the dim daylight of the last days.
&nb
sp; “We will return tomorrow for the rest of the chickens in the other coup,” Jackie said.
Eve held out the gun butt first to return it to Sven. Sven began reaching for it then changed his mind, instead tousling her newly cropped hair with his large hand. Her body temperature flashed hot at his touch, and she felt her cheeks flush. “I like your hair. Did you do something to it?”
Eve was tongue tied, and she was angry with herself for reacting so transparently. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Sven cocked his head and leaned down to get a look into her down cast eyes.“You keep the pistol. You’ve earned it.”
A fresh issue of tormented screams and howling emanated from the building as they pulled away in their truck. The building collapsed in flames but she saw no infected run out of it. Sven smiled at Eve before getting behind the wheel of the truck. Everyone was smiling at her and had words of encouragement for her. Eve realized that she wasn’t afraid, and right now at least, she didn’t want to die.
CHAPTER 28: October 30, Noon
Animals. These men were filthy animals. Actually, animals were much better than these men. Brit peered out from the corner of the guardhouse, feeling trapped. “You have to stop this. This is going to get us all killed.” Brit spoke quietly to Dennis. Thompson had removed Alexis from the cell where they were holding all the girls, to have his way with her. Alexis said, “Be gentle, big boy,” and forced a nervous smile.
When Thompson was done, immediately Rusty wanted a turn. Candy said, “Leave her alone now. That’s enough.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to, bitch?” Rusty opened the cell and slapped Candy across the mouth. “You’re not in charge.”
“And you think you are?” Candy said under her breath, then smiled very broadly. “Look, this will be over in a few hours. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
Rusty pulled her roughly out of the cell and shoved her into the next room. “I’ll show you who’s in charge.”
Candy never made a sound, but when she came out of the room to be put back into the cell with the other girls, her clothes were disheveled and there was a large red handprint across her face where Rusty had slapped her.
“She is fucking hot!” Rusty had a big smile on his face. Thompson smiled back. “Like porn star hot! No wonder she charges so much. I think I’ll have a go at Alexis after all.” He moved toward the cell after the briefest of pauses. Alexis shrank toward the back of the cell, behind the other girls.
“No. That’s enough.” Dennis stepped in front of the cell. “They’re on their way back. Pull it together.” Dennis dispatched them to the guard gate catwalk.
“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?” Brit went to the cell after they were gone. The girls huddled in the back in a terrified bunch. “Do you need anything?”
“Yeah, let us out of here.” Candy fixed him with a steely glare. “Look at what they’re doing to my girls. Brit, I can offer you unlimited free visits. You help me, I help you. Let us out. They’ll never know what happened, and I’ll owe you one.” Candy realized her mistake after the words were already out of her mouth.
“I…I can’t.” Brit turned away, involuntarily putting his hand to his mouth to choke back the bile. “I’m sorry. I really am,” he said, and hastily shut the door behind him. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than constant pressure to have sex with women, by accepting free unlimited visits to the girls.
CHAPTER 29: October 30, 1 p.m.
Sven mulled over Eve’s reaction to him moments before. It was obvious she liked him and they had a connection. When he touched her hair, he could feel her immediately respond and it was hot! He wanted her. At that moment, all he could think about was taking her to a private place to cuddle up with her. He needed to know her physically, emotionally and at the deepest levels of his being. But there was the issue of Brit…was she simply playing them off against each other? Raising her price by playing the field? Sven had to admit that to some extent this was what his thing with Alexis was about. Sure, she was an attractive woman, but really he just needed a little emotional space from Eve who had become a bit clingy after the death of her parents and it never hurt to gauge a woman’s interest…
“They took the girls…Candy…over.” Zeb’s voice crackled over the radio as they came within a few miles of the plant.
“Say again?” Jackie spoke into the radio riding shotgun while Sven drove.
“They took Candy and the girls. They are holding them hostage in the guardhouse.” Sven slammed on the breaks, crushing the chickens against one another in the net, and tossing Eve and the others forward in the back of the truck. They needed to think this through. There could be an ambush waiting ahead.
“They better not hurt Candy,” Sven shook his head.
“What do you advise? Over.” Jackie stepped out of the truck and spoke loudly into the radio.
“They say they just want to talk,” Jeb said. “Frank, the Doc and some others are set up in the bottom of the tower as defenders. About half of the folks from Building 3 are in the bottom of the tower. The other half stayed in Building 3. We’re buttoned up tight here at the top. It’s just me and Mack up here.” No one had seriously considered the possibility of attack from within their own ranks.
“Sit tight. Don’t let anyone in or out. Don’t engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary…” Jackie began.
“There won’t be any shooting from our side,” Dennis broke into their conversation. Apparently, he’d been listening the entire time. Jackie took his thumb off of the send button and stomped around outside the truck cursing silently. “This is a peaceful protest, if you will, of the current division of goods in the community. We merely wanted to get your attention.”
“You have my attention, Dennis.” Jackie spoke through gritted teeth. “What is it that you want?”
“We want half of everything. And as a show of good faith, we want all of the chickens you scavenged today.”
“Let’s go back. First of all, I understand you are holding Candy and the girls as hostages.”
“They are not hostages. We needed to get your attention.”
“Have any of them been harmed?”
“Absolutely not,” Dennis lied.
“I’m going to need to speak to Candy before we can continue negotiating,” Jackie said, getting control of himself.
“First of all, I’m calling the shots here, not you. Number one, I’m going to need you to agree to our demands. Number two, upon agreement, I can offer you safe passage back into the power plant and the tower. I would hate to see you all have to spend the night outside the gate. No telling what could happen out there…” Dennis’ voice was measured and reasonable in an ‘I’ve got you by the balls’ kind of way.
“If we don’t get these chickens out of this net and inside they’re all going to die. That means no food. We don’t bring these chickens in, you starve. We are prepared to spend the night outside the gate. We considered this possibility before going on this scavenging run,” Jackie lied.
“Half of everything and all of the chickens in exchange for Candy and the girls,” Dennis said.
After ten more minutes of negotiation, Jackie bargained Dennis down to half of the chickens in exchange for Candy and the girls and safe passage. The remaining exchange of goods would occur the following day.
CHAPTER 30: October 30, 3 p.m.
Brit chewed his fingernails mercilessly as he watched the exchange of the chickens. Candy and the girls were held at gunpoint by Rusty and Thompson at the front of the guard tower facing the entrance. This was bad, really bad.
“If any of you ladies decides to run, you’ll be shot,” Rusty threatened.
Candy just glared at Rusty. She never took her eyes off of him. Alexis held her stomach and looked down. Brit saw movement out of the corner of his eye by the fence to his right. It was a sniper wearing camouflage lining up a shot on them. Brit was too far to see his eyes, but he looked at him and nodded and
then stepped back into the concrete entry way out of the line of fire. Finally, peaking tentatively around, he thought he saw the sniper nod back. He hoped that the man, whoever it was would tell Jackie that he saw him and didn’t reveal his position. He knew that Zeb had more shooters on top of the tower facing the fence, but they were on the other side of the guard gate house. Likewise, they had all available guards up on their catwalk, ready to fire should anything go wrong.
Jackie and Sven had the chickens ready when Dennis lumbered over. Dennis was having trouble dragging the chickens himself, so Thompson ran out to help. Dennis gave the signal to Rusty, who released the girls. They took off running toward the tower. Candy just stood there looking at Rusty with something in her mouth. She stepped toward him and spit a big wad of gooey phlegm into his face.
Rusty was momentarily in shock, then back handed her across the face where she landed in a heap at his feet. Then realizing he had a rifle, he turned the butt side to her and was about to bash her before she could get up. Candy lifted her arm to protect her face.
“Let her go! Candy, get out of there!” Jackie boomed. Every gun from the chicken run trained on Rusty and Dennis.
“Let her go, Rusty,” Dennis called. Rusty lowered his weapon. Candy turned and slowly walked away toward the tower with her head held high, not looking back.
CHAPTER 31: October 30, 3:30 p.m.
“That one. That motherfucker right there. The one with the red hair. See him?” Candy pointed, stone faced, at Rusty. Rusty could feel someone watching him on the back of his neck as he helped Dennis and Thompson to drag the net of clucking, squawking and flapping chickens the final few feet into the guardhouse. Rusty turned and saw Candy pointing at him. They locked eyes momentarily from a distance. “Dead. You hear me, Jackie? That fucker is dead.” She turned her back and stalked away into the tower.
TAGGED: THE APOCALYPSE Page 11