Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born

by Voeller, Cody

  In a knife fight, the object isn’t to try and hurt the knife holder, it’s to eliminate the knife from the fight entirely. There were dozens of moves that could be employed to disarm him, some simple others complex. Some required leverage and others made use of another knife. I was in a hurry and had no time for complex moves, so when he tried to stab me in the stomach I made my move to take away his knife. Shifting my weight to the left I used my left hand to raise his arm up and away from my stomach. Using my right hand, I punched the back of his knife hand. It flew out of his hand and I followed up with a solid left jab to his temple, dropping him like a rock. We bound and gagged him and drug him over to our first captive. When the first guard caught sight of his limp companion his eyes grew wide. “Oh don’t worry, he’s just taking a little nap. So now that I have both of you here we can begin.”

  Walking over to the still conscious guard I crouched down right next to him and spoke in a cold, calm voice, “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. I’m looking for the two girls you motherfuckers kidnapped. You’re going to tell me where you’re keeping them. This can go one of two ways. One, I ask you where they are, you tell me and I go get them. Or two, you refuse to tell me, then I hurt you until you do tell me. So which will it be? Where are the girls?”

  I slipped off the gag, “Fuck y…” he started but I gagged him again.

  “Looks like you chose option number two. I was hoping you would,” I said baring my teeth, “So this is how it’s going to work. First I’m going to break a finger, then ask you again where the girls are. If you don’t tell me then I’ll break another, but don’t worry, I’ll switch between fingers and toes so you don’t grow used to it. When I run out of fingers and toes to break I’ll start to cut them off, asking you the question between each one. If I run out of things to cut off I’ll move to your face and take your ears, then your nose, then I’ll break limbs. Finally, if you refuse to tell me I’ll cut off your dick and make you eat it. I’m going to quell any fears you might have of bleeding to death or passing out. Jason, hand me the torch, the brand, and the needles.” He dug through the bag he was carrying and handed me what I asked for. The first was a large butane torch used for cooking. The brand was a joke gift, it was meant to be used to brand steaks, but it would seal a wound just fine. The last items were the Epi pens we got from the hospital earlier that day. “These two will be used to cauterize the wounds so you won’t bleed out and this is epinephrine, it’ll keep you awake if the pain becomes too much. When we’re done I won’t kill you. I’ll leave you bound and gagged and let the Walkers or the animals get you. Either way, you’ll die slowly and very, very painfully. So, I’m going to ask you again before we begin. Where are the girls?”

  “Fu..”

  I didn’t let him get out much before I gagged him again. I took one quick look at his tattooed arms before starting “Those look like they hurt, this will hurt more.” We untied his hands and retied his left to his waist, leaving his right to be worked on.

  The guy tried to struggle but I placed a knee in the middle of his chest, directly on his sternum, with enough pressure to force him to the ground. I grasped his index finger and wrenched it back. It made a crunching noise and his screams were muffled by the gag. I waited until he stopped thrashing and calling out before I removed the gag. “Wow, that looked like it hurt. Do you feel like telling me where my friends are?” He glared at my with murderous silence. “No? Alright.” I gagged him again and switched to the bound hand at his waist. I didn’t bother untying it because I still had access to his fingers. “Ready?” His eyes widened as I grasped his index finger and then hardened as he readied for the pain. Just before I broke his finger I switched to his pinkie finger. He had been ready for his index to be broken, not his pinkie. The pain was more unexpected and therefore more effective. Once again I waited until he was still and asked him without removing the gag “You ready to talk yet?” He shook his head “Ok, let’s switch it up a bit.”

  “Toes?” asked Jason.

  “Nah, let’s try taking off a few fingers. I mean this guy looks tough,” I said and drew by knife, “This is going to hurt a lot more than just having your fingers broken,” I said as I waved the knife back and forth. I was glad to see that his eyes wouldn’t leave the blade, he was afraid. “Let’s try the right middle finger.” I had Jason pin his arm to the ground while I placed my knife at the base of his finger. It was just then that the guy started to mumble through his gag. I cut off his finger and he let out a yell and his eyes started to water. “What was that? I didn’t catch what you said before you started screaming. Did you want to answer my questions now?” He nodded.

  I took the gag off and he started babbling, “I was gonna tell you, man. I was gonna tell you before you took my finger. I was gonna tell you.”

  I smiled coldly, “Yeah I figured but I decided you needed to feel what getting a finger cut off felt like so you would be less likely to lie to me. So, where are they?”

  “They’re in the woman’s locker room in the E.R.”

  “Are they guarded?”

  “Yeah.”

  “By how many?”

  “Just one.”

  “How many?” I repeated.

  “Just one, I swear.”

  “Where does Sergeant Shepard stay?”

  “I don’t know man.”

  I shook my head and grabbed his broken index finger and lowered my knife. “No, no…” I removed the finger.

  “Where?”

  He started to cry, “He’s using one of the offices near the E.R. as his room.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never been there. I swear man, I swear,” I grabbed another finger. “No man. I swear. I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said crying.

  “I believe you,” I said putting away my knife. “I’m going to gag you again and I’m going to seal your wounds. It’s going to hurt but it needs to be done. Ok?”

  “Yeah, ok.”

  I heated the iron until it was cherry red “Ready?” He nodded. I pressed it to his first severed finger and he started to squirm. “Hold still,” I barked and he calmed down. I reheated the iron and took care of his second finger. “Now, your arms going to be tied again and I’m going to talk to the other guy. I want you to be quiet and only speak when I let you. Ok?” He nodded.

  I walked over to the unconscious guard and slapped him, “Wake up sunshine. Wake up,” I slapped him again and he came around. “Good morning,” I said giving him a predatory smile. I repeated what I had told the other guard about what I was going to do to him. “If you don’t believe me then I want you to take a look at your friend over there. Can you see his hand? Notice the missing fingers? Now you know I’m not fucking around. So answer my questions.”

  He was a little tougher to crack than the first guard. He seemed to draw resilience from the fact that the first guy broke so quickly. I took off three fingers and broke the rest. In the end, he told me what I wanted to know and confirmed what the first guy told me. “Why didn’t you just tell me what I wanted to know? It would have been much easier.”

  “Fuck you, you piece of shit.”

  I laughed, “Now I don’t feel so bad about doing this.” I bent down and slit his throat. He died with a look of shock forever etched on his face. Blood gushed across his front and I stood to look at the other guard on the ground. His eyes were wide as dinner plates and he started to inch his way away from me. I could only imagine the image I projected, having just killed a man in front of him and now walking towards him with a large bloody Bowie knife. “You see, if I hadn’t come along I know what you planned to do to my friends. And just by looking at your tattoos I know that you aren’t innocent. How many people have you killed? How many women have you raped, how many times have you lied, cheated and stole? This is more that you deserve.” I knelt next to him and placed the knife to his throat. He was crying again as I slid the blade across his carotid artery and let his blood spill. I wiped t
he blade clean on his shirt and sheathed it.

  Jason turned away from the scene and vomited, splattering his dinner on the ground. “Dude!” he said wiping his mouth.

  “Let’s go,” I said, fighting back the bile rising in my own throat. I swallowed hard, focusing on what we still had to do. We hurried to take out the rear guard. I didn’t bother with trying to get information out of them, I had what I needed so I just took them out with my bow. They were holding their flashlights so I could estimate where their heads were. The bow was silent and the two dropped without a sound. We took their radios so we could listen in on their chatter and dragged their bodies to the side of the road. We broke a car window to set off the alarm for our distraction and waited in the darkness.

  “Base to Delta…Delta come in… Delta where are you? Hey, Carlos where you at man? Carlos. Shit. Base to Echo.”

  “This is Echo, go ahead.”

  “Echo, check on Delta. We’ve got an alarm near Delta and they’re silent.”

  “Wilco.”

  “Sounds like Cole taught them some radio lingo,” I whispered to Jason.

  “Sounds like it. Which team do you think is Delta?”

  “I don’t know but we’re about to find out.”

  It took a couple minutes but we soon found out that Delta was the team guarding the cars. I took three out in quick succession with my bow while Jason slits the throat of a third. We were like deaths shadow, quick and quiet. I was glad to see Jason had rid himself of all hesitation.

  “Now for the tricky part,” I said before using one of Coal’s radios. In my best accent, I said calmly, “Delta to Base.”

  “Go ahead Delta.”

  “We might have a couple Z’s to take care of and it looks like Carlos took off. There’s an empty bottle of booze over here, they’re probably off drinking. Could you send another team over?” I waited and held my breath. If this didn’t work I didn’t know how we could lure the other team away without raising, even more, suspicion.

  “Copy that Delta, we’ll send Bravo over. Make sure you clean up and get Carlos’ ass back here. Cole’s gonna kill him.”

  “Wilco Base,” I clicked off the radio and let out a heavy sigh, “Holy shit, I didn’t think that would work.”

  “Yeah but you pulled it off, man.”

  “I can’t believe it worked. Ok, let’s get these bodies hidden, we only have a few minutes before the next team shows up.” We got the bodies hidden and waited for Bravo team to arrive. We took out two and I quickly closed the small distance between me and the remaining member of Bravo. I put my knife to his throat and said, “Do you want to live?” he nodded slightly. “What’s your name?”

  “Andres.”

  “Ok, Andres, I want you to take out your radio and call base. Tell them that you’ve tracked down Carlos and the Zs. Tell them you’ll return in about five minutes.”

  “O… ok, whatever you want. Just don’t kill me.”

  “Just do as you’re told and you’ll be fine,” Andres relayed my messages as calmly as he could.

  “You ok Bravo, you sound a little excited.”

  “I’m good Base, just a little winded.”

  “Copy that. Expected ETA, five minutes. Base out.”

  “Good job Andres. Thank you for being so cooperative,” I slid my knife across his throat and let his body fall limply to the ground, “Ok Jason let’s get inside and find the girls.”

  Using the cars in the street for cover we crept closer to the hospital and saw that the guards on the roof weren’t even keeping an eye on the street. Even with the threat of Walkers and some of their men missing they didn’t care. We could have practically strolled through the front door covered in neon lights and firing our guns in the air and they probably wouldn’t have reacted. I knocked an arrow and told Jason to watch my back. I figured that everyone inside was asleep because the halls were empty. We quickly made our way to the locker rooms in the E.R. and I prepared to take out the guard that was supposed to be stationed there. The only thing was, there was no one around. “What the fuck,” I muttered, “Ok, stay in the hallway and keep watch. If anyone comes, duck inside.” I slung my bow and pulled my knife. I could be fighting in close quarters and so my bow would be useless. Quietly opening the door I inched inside. It was fairly dark, the only light coming from around the corner. I heard muffled whimpering and some chuckling.

  “Oh come on, gimme a little kiss,” I heard a cruel voice say followed by a muffled cry. “Sarge said we can’t touch you yet but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun. Come here cutie.”

  I rounded the corner and saw a man standing over Christina. On the ground near her was Sarah, bound and gagged. I could see her eyes filled with rage for the bastard toying with Christina. As I crept closer her eyes shifted from the towering figure to me. Her eyes widened and I saw the rage bleed from them. It nearly broke my heart when a single tear rolled down her face. I lifted my finger to my mouth, signaling her to remain silent. As I got closer, moving as silently as I could, the man took a knee and leaned over Christina’s bound form. “Come on honey don’t you wanna play?” Christian started to cry even more and I felt something snap. Up until now, I had been calm, following my plan to the letter but now, now that I saw this animal attempting to hurt my friend, I lost control. The guy turned to look at Sarah, “Oh don’t worry sweetie, you’ll get a chance to play too.” She must have glanced in my direction because the guy quickly stood and turned to look at me. The Bowie knife I held in my hand was designed by Jim Bowie to be an all-purpose weapon. It had a guard for fighting, what was known as a Clip Point for stabbing and was perfectly balanced for throwing. I knew I had to react quickly so I flicked my knife and sent it spinning. It landed with a wet thump into the guys right shoulder. “Motherfucker,” he growled. I ran forward to press my advantage but even with a blade in his shoulder he was a quick and trained fighter. As I went for him he charged me. He threw a left hook at me, his right being out of commission, and I used my right to block, unfortunately, my momentum kept me moving forward. I hoped to get clear of him but instead of continuing forward he pivoted and transferred his momentum into a partial round kick and clipped my left knee, sending me to the ground and onto my back. I felt pain blossom in my leg and I let out a small grunt. “You’re that little fucker who showed up earlier aren’t you? Well, I just want to thank you for sending these sweet little bitches my way. I’m going to have fun with them.” I glanced at Sarah and then back to the guy. “Oh,” he said laughing, “Does that one mean something to you? I’ll take care of her after I kill you.”

  “Fuck you,” I growled.

  He laughed and charged me. I was still on the ground and he leveled a kick straight at my head. I caught his leg and twisted his ankle, taking him to the ground with me. He let out an animalistic growl and beat a fist against the ground before rising to his feet. I was up too, keeping most of my weight off of my injured leg. With a yell, I went after him. I aimed a right jab at his head but I was blocked by his left. This effectively stopped my punch but brought me inside his guard. Ignoring the pain in my knee I brought it up and planted it squarely in his crotch. He was brought to his knees by the intense pain and was gasping for breath. A shot like that would have driven all the air from his lungs. Normally I would have stopped here, he was more than likely done, but like I told you, something snapped and his comments regarding Sarah only fueled my rage. I grabbed him by his hair and lifted his head. I punched him directly in the jaw with my left and sent him to the ground on his side. I kicked him hard in the stomach with my right leg, the pain was long forgotten. I knelt next to him and pulled the knife from his shoulder. He let out a yell of pain but I muffled it with my hand. I looked into his eyes as he realized he was going to die. “What was that about killing me, asshole?” I stabbed the knife between his ribs and into his lung. “You’re going to drown in your own blood you fucking piece of shit.”