A Broken World

by Andrew Lauck

  As I got close enough to see inside, I found myself eye-to-eye with the man I assumed was Robert letting in the breeze and enjoying the misting effect that created. With no time to think, my body reacted instinctively and lunged forward through the open window. I collided with Robert and we both fell to the ground with a massive thump, causing me to send a silent prayer for the audio cover of the rain.

  Robert was no pushover, though, rising to his feet quickly and tackling me back down. He landed a punch into my exposed gut as I caught myself and drove a knee toward my ribs, but I brought down my elbow and blocked the attack. I guess Robert was Dawes’ right-hand man for a good reason.

  Before his knee had time to touch down, I wrapped my arm inside and pushed him backward while spiking his back heel off the ground. He fell backward into the kitchen sink and I saw blood smear on the counter before he went down. Robert rolled over and attempted to stand again, but I jumped on top of him and closed his windpipe in a sleeper hold with my elbow angled around his throat.

  The one problem with a sleeper hold is if the guy is a big son of a bitch that can pick you both up after a head injury, which Robert apparently was, it becomes a pain in the ass to maintain the grip. He grabbed my arm and threw us backward into a wall repeatedly, leaving me unable to defend myself because I had my arms locked around his neck. I brought my knee up into the back of his neck and pulled my forearm against his throat with all my might, feeling his grip on my arm loosen. In seconds, he collapsed to the floor, and I bent over to rub my back. I could tell that fatigue was beginning to set in as my lack of sleep over the past week was catching up with me.

  Unfortunately for Robert, though, for once I wasn’t the guy laid out on the floor, and in this case payback was a six-foot, pissed-off, badass on a mission. Yeah, the poor bastard was about to tell me everything he knew and then some.

  Chapter 22

  Robert’s House

  I stood in front of the chair as Robert slowly began to wake, impatiently twirling a knife I grabbed from his kitchen. He saw my feet and looked up to meet my gaze, grinning.

  “You escaped.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement, so I nodded. “I knew you would; tried to tell Dawes but he wouldn’t listen. He seemed to think that you would end up as just another zombie wasting away in the bowels of our game.”

  “Well, Robert, I would love to listen to you bitch about your problems, but I’m kind of on a deadline, so here’s the deal. Also, I see Dawes was nice enough to give you my things. Thanks for returning them to me.” I waved my arm lazily in the direction of the next room where I had found my pack on his table; I removed my Sig and holstered my weapon with a satisfying feeling. “Now, I’m going to ask you a question, you’re going to give me the correct answer, and then I’m going to have mercy and kill you.” He laughed.

  “I’m not telling you shit, man, and as a point of interest, killing someone isn’t much of an incentive.”

  “See, you say that now, but by the time I’m done, you’ll think otherwise. Personally, I hope you beg like the last guy, but I’m not picky. Oh, and feel free to scream. No one will hear you over the storm.” I grinned and moved toward him. Bending down, I knelt next to his chair and slapped my knife flatly across his arm. “Now, where is Dawes keeping Katherine?”

  Robert just glared at me, his face remaining stoic. If he could have sat there leaning back with his arms crossed, he would have. Based on his reaction when he woke up and his control in the face of potential torture, I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere with psychology. Robert had either a military or martial arts background, and I wondered if I had in fact underestimated him earlier.

  “Well, I know you won’t talk to me if I go with the rules of every good guy ever. That shit never works, because good guys have too many restrictions and rules and morals. The best I could do is kill your patience until the storm passed and your friends came and killed me. Unfortunately for you,” I leveled my stare with his, “I don’t care about that anymore. You would not believe the shit I’ve been through this past week, and it just keeps coming.” I sighed and stood up, walking toward the counter, and looking out into the dense darkness. “The only thing worse than evil men is the indifference of good men,” paraphrased from my favorite film which made the situation clear. Kat was in danger, and I needed to make up my mind on how far I was willing to go.

  I turned and went to him, stopping next to his right arm. I brought the knife up and looked at it for a second, mentally preparing myself for what I was about to do. Robert just glared at me, his eyes going from my lack of facial expression, to the knife and back again. My hand was completely stable and my breathing was calm and controlled as I guided the blade underneath his thumbnail and dug the knife slowly back to rest under his cuticle. Robert started grinding his teeth in pain, but I didn’t care. I pried the blade up at an angle and took the nail with it as I stood up and flicked my blade clean.

  “This all ends when you tell me where Dawes is holding Katherine.” I took my time with his index finger before moving to the next one. I could see he was starting to break inside, his face wearing the pain like a mask. Minutes passed as I worked on him, removing the nails on his right hand before going to his left. Once that was done, I stood up and took a deep breath.

  Robert panted between gritted teeth and eyed me angrily, causing me to laugh.

  “Sorry, Robby, but looks can’t kill. Having your body broken one bone at a time, however…” I trailed off, bringing my boot up and slamming it down on the side of his shin. He cried out, and his body jerked as I moved down to grab him by the throat and force him to look at me.

  “Dammit, Robert, tell me where she is!” I reached around and grabbed his outstretched middle finger, snapping the knuckle backward, and eliciting another yell from Robert. I took a step back and drove the knife straight down behind his kneecap, twisting the blade deeper into his skin and feeling the steel carving against the hard inside of his kneecap. Blood covered his leg and he screamed in agony, but I didn’t let up. I knew that I had to be relentless to get what I needed out of this guy, because he looked like he had been through some shit of his own. I pulled the knife out and brought my fist down on the wound repeatedly, taking a second between each hit to prevent his body from shutting down completely.

  “Robert, I swear if you don’t tell me where Dawes has Katherine, I will start to cut on things that don’t heal.” My mind was strangely focused as I stood over this bleeding man like a judge over the damned. After a moment of waiting, I bent down and made to ram the knife into his groin. Robert yelled out, “No!” and I pulled back at the last second, laying the knife on his left leg and kneeling in front of him.

  “I’m only asking this one more time before I start chopping like Gordon fucking Ramsey, Robert, and I sure as shit won’t be cutting up a carrot. Now,” I leaned in and felt my lips tighten into a line, “Where is Katherine?”

  “They’re keeping her in the basement of the store.” As if he sensed my next question, he hastily added, “The manager is guarding her. You’ll the need the key in my pocket for her chain.” I squinted at him, checking to see if he was lying, and finding him to be telling the truth. Still glaring at him, I rifled through his pockets and withdrew the key. “Now, you’re going to let me go right?” Poor wording.

  “I am going to let you go, Robert.” I stood up and walked back around the corner, returning with a bottle of liquor. “Straight to Hell.” His eyes widened as recognition struck, and he jerked back and forth in his chair.

  “But I told you everything I know!”

  “That’s true, but I thought of something, Robert.” I unscrewed the cap and took a drink before flipping the bottle upside down and letting the contents pour onto his clothes, seeping into the open wound on his leg and eliciting another cry of pain. “The rules I mentioned before only applied when the good guys still had hope; faith that humanity could change. But the truth is, people don’t change, Robby. Bad people just keep doing evil,
because that’s all they know, and good people will always get caught in the cross-fire. If I let any of you live, you’ll just find a new place to do this and kill the next good person that’s somehow managed to make it that far, and I just can’t stand idly by and let that happen.” I walked over and pulled a box of matches from a drawer in the kitchen that I had scavenged after Robert was unconscious. Striking the match and watching the tip ignite, I looked up at him from across the flames and saw his fear as the light danced across the shadows on my face. “Say hello to Bill when you see him.”

  I dropped the match onto his lap and watched in apathetic indifference as the flames spread rapidly across his body, engulfing him in the brutal fire. Places on his body where more alcohol had flowed flared up and the resulting flames licked at his flesh and causing his screams to be drowned out by the crackling of his peeling flesh. The sight reminded me of wallpaper spiraling backward from summer heat.

  Ignoring Robert’s cries of anguish, I turned around, grabbed my pack, and walked out through the front door into the calmness of the night. The rain pelted me as I made my way to the store with only one thought on my mind. If Dawes had touched Katherine, I swore to myself I would find a way to make him pay.

  Chapter 23

  Knowing the bell would sound upon my entrance, I ran inside the store with my rifle at the ready. As the early warning system went off, from the corner of my eye I saw the manager stand up, and I turned. The rifle bucked, and the bullet left a hollow opening in place of the man’s left eye socket. I cocked the lever and ran through the store, throwing open the basement door, and taking the stairs beyond three steps at a time.

  There were two rooms across from each other at the far end of the hallway, one with the door slightly ajar. I checked inside briefly, but the smell of rotting flesh and death overwhelmed my senses and forced me to leave. Turning around, I whispered a prayer that only God could hear and pushed the door open. A slant of light flooded the cramped room and painted the surrounding interior in a pale wash.

  It took me a moment to make out, in a distant corner of the room, the thin figure lying on her side facing away from the door. A chain was attached to her ankle, and I could see chafing as well as several bruises all along the visible parts of her body. Her shirt was torn in places that fueled my body with rage, but I had to get her out before I could find the bastard responsible.

  “Katherine?” I whispered quietly, trying not to scare her. When she didn’t move, I took a few steps closer and tried again. Suddenly, she jolted up and swung her arms at me while shouting various threats. One hand got a lucky strike in and scratched me, but I caught her arms and met her face. “Katherine, it’s me. It’s Eric, honey.”

  Recognition played across her face, and she fell into my arms in a hug. I couldn’t help but smile and hug her back, thanking God she was alive. Still, time was of the essence, and I needed to get her out before the rain stopped. I drew her back and placed my hands gently on her shoulders.

  “Kat, I’m going to take you out of here okay? Matthew’s waiting with a car, and he’s going to drive the two of you away.” Her eyes clouded up with tears, and she started to whimper, “No.”

  “I promise I’ll meet up with you after I finish up some things here. I just can’t let Dawes get away with this, or he’ll keep doing it to people like us.” It was apparent that she didn’t want to be anywhere without me, but she nodded in understanding and we moved out of the store after I unlocked the chain with Robert’s key.

  I led her toward the edge of town, and we crossed over the dune to find Matthew waiting by the car. I helped her into the back seat so she could lie down and closed the door, pulling Matthew aside.

  “Go straight to the garage, kid, and keep her safe no matter what.” I walked over and slid Bill’s rifle into the passenger seat. “If I get there and you’ve hurt her—”

  “I won’t touch her, sir,” he interjected, not wanting or needing to hear what I’d do.

  “Good idea.”

  “What are you going to do to Dawes?” he asked as he opened the driver-side door. I looked at him across the roof of the car.

  “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it, kid. I’m going to give Dawes exactly what he deserves.” With that, I waited for him to drive off with Kat before making my way back to the town. Between being lied to, hit in the back of the head, thrown in the game, and having Katherine taken away, I only had one thing left to do: I was going to the town, and I was going to kill them all.

  Chapter 24

  All Hell Breaking Loose

  The storm was beginning to let up, but that didn’t stop me from walking straight down the main street. As I passed by Robert’s house and saw the fire had spread to cover the interior, I grabbed a nearby rock and broke a window. The flames exploded outward, and the house came to life with a massive roar of oxygen being swallowed by the heat. As the building ignited, I walked into the shadows of the next house over and observed a crowd gathering. I slid the Sig out of my holster and ejected the magazine, shielding it from the rain and checking that Robert hadn’t removed my bullets. All thirteen rounds remained, so I replaced the magazine and calmly walked to the store.

  I remembered seeing a gas can earlier, and I grabbed it. As I made to leave, I passed the razor that I had forgotten before. I guess everything does happen for a reason; I just wish it didn’t have to involve the girl. I left the store, gas can in hand, and approached the crowd from behind. If I had to guess, I’d say there were about fifteen people in all. It was a split-second moment of hesitation, holding their lives in my hands. On the one hand, the store owner earlier had been scared as if he was being forced to play the part, but on the other hand, they all stood by and did nothing while Dawes and his crew ran wild with power. Regardless of what happened to me in the game, the fact that no one tried to help Kat made the decision for me.

  My heart was stone as I tossed the can of gasoline among the people and drew my Sig. A few of them had time to turn and give me a mixture of pleading and surprised looks before my finger squeezed the trigger, and I felt a wave of renewed heat wash over me as a mixture of blood, limbs, and assorted bodily chunks flew in all directions. The few people on the edge of the blast got blown into the fire from Robert’s house, and I heard their cries mix with the creaking foundation. One person ran out of the house, flames clinging to his body, just before the beams collapsed and the screams from inside the house ended. The screams of the human torch filled the night, but I put a round in his head to end the suffering, doing the same with those caught on the edge of the blast that rolled around in the sand bleeding and crying for help.

  I moved over to the last person—a woman writhing in pain. She clutched her arm where the hand was missing, a burnt stump gushing blood all over her blouse. Her eyes looked up to mine just before I lifted my Sig and brought the night back to nothing but the soft patter of rain.

  Katherine assures me that I’ve got a lot of humanity inside me, but at that particular moment, I felt nothing. I left Robert’s burning house and walked calmly toward Dawes’ manor. I wasn’t sure if everyone had been engulfed in that explosion or not, so I kept my Sig out in my left hand. My eyes caught movement in the window above before the door opened in front of me, and a guard tried to raise his rifle. Over time, my reflexes in this new world have adapted, and I barely have to think something before instincts take over anymore. The next thing I knew, my Sig was up, and the guard fell backward with a smoke trail blazing through the new hole in his skull.

  My muddy boots on the extravagant carpet seemed wrong on some level of etiquette, but I continued up the stairs and down the hall that Bill had shown me so long ago. As I stepped toward the door, I heard a muffled click and threw myself against the wall to my right. A split-second later, the door exploded outward, and I saw Dawes standing with a sawed-off shotgun.

  “Why are you doing this?” he yelled in furious disbelief. Apparently, the concept of his world crashing down again was snapping what
little sanity he had left. “We only do what’s necessary to our survival! I’m sure after a time even you would have come to accept cannibalism as a means to the end. I used to be like you, unwilling to compromise my beliefs, until I realized you can’t live like that anymore. Just wait! One day you’ll come to a cross in the road and have to make the decision between survival and doing what is right, and you’ll make the same choice I did!”

  “I’m nothing like you.” I raised my Sig and fired, watching Dawes’ shotgun fly from his grip as his arm jerked back. I charged forward and tackled him, crashing through the window beyond and landing in the mud and rain below. Dawes landed on his back, and I heard something crack, but the son of a bitch was tough, and he rolled to try and escape. My hand latched onto the back of his neck and slammed his face into the mud, holding him under as his body bucked.

  Repeating this process and taking my time, I waited until his body had no more fight left in it and hoisted him up onto his knees.

  “You know what your biggest mistake was, Dawes?” I leaned in and reached under both his arms, holding him in a full nelson. His head began to lull to the side. “Well, actually you made two. First, you pissed me off, and two, you fucked with Katherine.” With that, I shoved my knee into his spine and effectively broke both his arms with a sickly crack.

  As Dawes fell forward and passed out from the sudden overwhelming pain, I walked back inside and brought his carpet outside to wrap his broken body in. His head remained sticking out of one end, and I stood waiting in agonizing patience for him to regain consciousness. I know I could have just shot him in the head, but I needed to emphasize my point after coming so far.