“Walk!” a deep voice commanded.
They maneuvered me through a scratchy hole in the towering barbwire fence. The hole had never been there before, so I was sure they’d cut it themselves, with wire cutters or hacksaw.
The truth of my horrible predicament slowly dawned on me: I’m being kidnapped.
With every second that passed, I was being taken farther from my friends, my family, maybe even led to my death. My stomach clenched. What do they want? A million motives for their crimes crossed my mind. In such a crazy world, it was impossible to apply logic and reason, and nothing ever made sense.
Max was dead, and I needed to be there for my sister. I couldn’t even imagine the pain she was going through, and I was still in shock and grieving myself. I felt numb and discombobulated, and I had no idea who was kidnapping me or if Jackie and Asia were okay. I had no idea where my brother and sister were. I had no idea where I was being taken, by whom, or why. Worst of all, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know.
We walked through the city, and as we trekked along, I tried to memorize my footsteps. It was of little help, because I really had no idea where we were at any given time, and went through many twists and turns on the thirty-minute walk. Suddenly, I felt a kick to my gut.
“Let the games begin,” said the voice I recognized as the redhead, followed by a sinister, cackling laugh.
The sudden pain of the kick made me gasp. I tried to catch my breath as the bag was taken off my head. The gag was taken off. Jackie was still there, wearing a horrified look on her face as they held a gun to her head. She was handcuffed too. We were surrounded by a bunch of armed thugs who looked like they all had been pumping iron at the gym for months.
“Let the girls go!” I demanded, as if I had any authority over them. “Just take me.”
They laughed.
“Just let me see if Asia’s okay,” I said.
“She’s fine. If she wasn’t, we wouldn’t have wasted our time carrying her. No sense in hauling dead wait around, is there?”
My gaze darted to the bullet-pocked walls, and my heart began to pound wildly. I worried that they had led us there to shoot us. What’s with the firing squad? I thought. Why not just shoot us back there, at the apartment? And who are these jerks anyway? More of Z’s men? Did his brother recruit them?
A skinny guy knocked me to the ground with another surprise kick. The others laughed as my handcuffs were loosened.
In a fit of rage, I stared up at him and scowled, but I was glad they were taking their anger out on me and not on Jackie or Asia.
“Get up!” said a guy with short, spiky hair, pointing his gun threateningly at my face.
I thought about knocking the gun out of his hands, but we were sorely outnumbered, and I knew that was a very bad idea. I was pretty sure his friends would shoot me if I tried to retaliate, and I had to play it smart. I jumped to my feet and tried to make a last-ditch plea. “Please,” I begged. “I’m just trying to survive, like you. Save this crap for the zombies. We humans need to band together.”
“Band together, huh?”
“Yeah, man. Just let me and my friends go. We should all be on the same side.”
“Sorry, pal, but that ain’t gonna happen.”
“You can have our weapons,” I said. “They’re all yours.”
He laughed. “If I wanted your pathetic little squirt guns, I coulda taken them all back at the apartment building. This ain’t armed robbery, you little punk.”
I knew there was more to it than that, and I had a sneaking suspicion they all had something to do with Z.
Z. That name caused me nothing but trouble.
He had hardwired his followers for retaliation, payback, aggression, and revenge. I feared they wanted to torture us, to pay us back for their leader’s death. Their thirst for revenge wouldn’t be quenched until Max and his entire city was destroyed. They’d already killed Max, but they wanted each and every one of us dead. They had no compassion, not even for women or children. They just wanted us gone, and they were happily ready to slaughter us. They wanted the city of Fairport for themselves and nothing was going to stop them.
“You’re with Z, aren’t you?” I asked.
“This is all about revenge, isn’t it?” Jackie chimed in. “How can you back up a murderer? For your information, I’m glad Z is dead, and I hope that psycho burns in Hell! If you’re working with his brother, I hope you all burn in Hell too.”
The man stared at her hard, clenching his teeth. I wasn’t sure how to get his attention off of Jackie, because she had certainly riled him up, like smacking a cobra. We were surrounded by his buddies, and that made me nervous, especially when they scowled at us, revealing multiple cavities and missing teeth.
“You can’t have Fairport,” Jackie said. “But we’re willing to share if that’ll keep the peace.”
“Shut her up,” a man said.
A bag went over Jackie’s head as they threw her in a van. The back doors opened and a man called for them to bring Asia over. The guy with the bushy hair carried her over and placed her inside.
“Please let the girls go,” I begged.
I had tried to be relatively polite, and that hadn’t worked, so I needed a new tactic; I figured intimidation was my only chance to beat the odds, something Lucas had taught me and had often successfully employed himself. “If ya take out the leader,” he’d told me, “the others will scurry into the alley like cockroaches.” That would give me and Jackie the perfect opportunity to run and take Asia with us. We could easily lose them, since we knew our way around the city better than they did, and there were plenty of places to hide in the abandoned buildings.
I eyed the jerk who was looking me up and down. I had no idea what they had planned, and I sure didn’t want to find out. I hoped he was their leader, because nothing would instill more fear in them than taking out their alpha. It was psychological warfare, and while I usually didn’t condone violence, we had to survive at all costs. That was the harsh reality of the new, cold world we now lived in.
The bully rubbed his bushy beard as he studied me. “Can you fight without a weapon?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope,” he spat.
“Then try me,” I said confidently. I’d learned a lot about fighting from my brother and Lucas, and with my hands alone, I could produce a dozen painful strikes. I could use four fingers as a spear, use my thumb as a hook, or use my downward fist like a hammer. I could even curve all four fingers into a claw that could wreak a lot of havoc when raked across the eyes or other sensitive parts of my opponent.
“You sure are a cocky one, aren’t ya, boy?” he asked, scrunching up his face. “Thing is, you’ll get over that real fast when I knock your puny butt into the Twilight Zone. I’ll kick you unconscious, punk.”
It then dawned on me what he really wanted: a street fight that he thought would make him look tough in front of his cronies. He was nothing but a hoodlum in the mood for a pissing contest. The man unleashed his fist, and I stepped back, causing his weak punch to miss my jaw and brush, mouse-like, against my shoulder. With the first strike, he’d already humiliated himself in front of his goons, and I had to stifle the urge to laugh. Frustrated, he shoved me.
Suddenly, the natives were restless, all riled up. While he didn’t seem to be much of a threat himself, I knew things could get really dangerous if they all joined in and started pounding me. Like the dogs they were, they had a pack mentality, and I needed to break that up. They felt safe and protected in their little clique, but I would put an end to that. The key was to make them feel vulnerable, pathetic, and weak. I could tell by their scowls and the hatred in their eyes that the situation was going to turn violent, but I had to be the aggressor and take down their alpha to prove to them that they didn’t have a chance. No matter how outnumbered we were, our pack was stronger than theirs.
The guy standing in front of me was scrawny. He reminded me of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo and he didn’t
at all look like a leader of any sort. The only thing big about him was his mouth, and he continued spouting off insults. His big talk was a bit intimidating, but I didn’t let that affect me. Even if I didn’t come out unscathed, I would come out victorious. I had to, for my life, Asia’s, Jackie’s, and even Val’s depended on it. For all I knew, Nick was depending on me too.
I stood sideways and kept my hands up to protect myself. Lucas had taught me that most strikes of any force could still be blocked or weakened, but I knew things could also get deadly pretty quickly when rage, overinflated egos, and a touch of insanity was involved. I had to end the fight as quickly as possible. No punch or kick could be wasted; every single one had to be delivered to the weakest part of my opponent’s body. I closed the distance between us as quickly as possible, moving in too close for him to lash out with a strike.
He rolled his eyes at me. “You know what I think? I think you’re a piece of—”
Before he could finish the insult, I took him down, making an example of him. It felt good to introduce him to the concrete, but he flipped around and easily escaped my grasp. I elbowed him and kicked him in the knee, then delivered some close-range punches. I fought him using every sneaky trick I knew, from elbow and knee strikes to disabling chokes. In a flash, I dragged him to the ground. I struck my opponent in the gut before he knew what hit him, and knocking him off guard gave me a distinct advantage. While he was disoriented, I delivered one last blow, and his eyes, dumbfounded, fluttered shut.
Footsteps suddenly echoed from behind me, and I spun around to meet the gaze of two of his angry buddies. Without wasting a second, I attacked the skinny guy to the left, delivering a brutal, bone-snapping kick to the side of his knee and a breathtaking punch in the groin. His eyes began to water, and he cried out in agony, sounding like some sort of wild animal in labor.
The other buddy came at me hard and fast. The next thing I knew, we were struggling for position, in a standoff and staring one another down. We locked arms, and he shot me a furious glare with cold, glaring eyes. My plan for him wasn’t working, and I had to quickly re-strategize. I lifted my arm and quickly threw my hand under the man’s arm, into the sweaty, yellow-stained pit of his disgusting, oily shirt. I slid my hand up his chest to his throat in an effective takedown technique. I located the notch at the base of the throat and simultaneously put my other hand behind his neck. I pressed my fingers deeply into his throat while pushing him toward the ground, and he fell, choking and gagging like a fish out of water.
Another guy suddenly grabbed me. I turned and threw him off me, immediately going on the offensive. We wrestled and pummeled one another with a barrage of punches, blows, jabs, and kicks. I needed to take him down fast, before another idiot jumped in. My brother had taught me all about pressure points, so I summoned up Nick’s lessons and jabbed my enemy with a double-finger eye gouge to temporarily blind him, then delivered a well-executed strike to his nose. He screamed in pain as his eyes filled with tears. I finished him off with a hook kick my big sister had taught me; it worked every time, and this time was no exception.
In an instant, more guys surrounded me like sharks in a feeding frenzy. I didn’t know how I’d take so many on, but it was a do-or-die situation. If they were going to kill me, I would die fighting and take a couple with me when I went.
“Show’s over,” said a man in long black coat, applauding. “Man, this guy’s gonna fit in real well around here. Nice find, fellas.”
“Let us go,” I insisted.
The man walked over as another guy grabbed my hands and twisted my arms behind my back. He smiled and punched me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. “Nobody tells me what to do,” he said, patting me on the head. “I’m the leader here. My name is Kirk. That was some fight, kid. You’ll make a great champion.”
“Kirk,” I said, struggling to breathe, “these idiot friends of yours hit my friend Asia with a bat. She’s unconscious. I need to know she’s all right.”
“We’ll take care of her.”
“Can I see her?”
He ignored me and looked at one of his men. “Just get them to the compound,” the leader snapped.
Again, the burlap bag went back over my head before I could even respond, and again I had no idea what they had in store for me.
Chapter 10
My hands were bound behind my back, and I was thrown into a truck. My shoulders were aching from the uneasy angle I was sitting in, but I tried to contemplate what to do next. It was hard to think with all the noise of the rattling, bouncing truck. My adrenaline was pumping, and my heart was pounding as we drove for what I estimated was about two hours.
“Take off his hood,” Kirk finally said. “He has no idea where he is now. He’ll only see that we’re behind the compound walls.”
I looked around and saw that we were not the only people who had been kidnapped. The other captives looked just as stunned as I was. Jackie blinked, dumbfounded, and Asia was still blacked out.
The leader patted Jackie on the shoulder. “Bet you’re wondering what’s going on, aren’t ya, honey?”
“Yeah, but I’m not your honey,” she snapped. “Why don’t you fill us in?”
He laughed, then looked at the guy with the spiky hair. “Get them out of here.”
Just like that, we were herded out of the van and marched into a building, with the goons shouting at us and prodding us around like cattle. When a man dragged off Asia and Jackie a different direction, I went ballistic.
“They’ll be fine,” the man said, “but if you don’t cool your jets, I’m gonna shoot them myself...after I have a little fun with the curvy one.”
I bit my lip, trying to calm down, because I wanted to break his neck. I had no idea what we were doing there, and I expected one of Z’s brothers to walk in at any time. I knew there was no way they were going to let us live. Ultimately, we would die there unless we came up with some sort of escape plan. Our only chance was to outthink our stupid kidnappers.
My handcuffs were loosened, and some other guy roughly shoved me into a room. I fell down on a smelly foam mattress that was lying on the floor. A few seconds later, others were tossed into my cell. Our captors murmured outside the door, and I tried to make out what they were saying, hoping for a clue as to what was going on and what intentions they had for us.
“What’s happening?” asked a blond guy with dirty, matted hair.
“Shh,” I said, placing my ear against the door.
“What are they saying?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
He leaned back against the dirty, mildew-covered wall. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and was muscular and fit. I knew he’d be a valuable asset in getting out of that nightmare.
“I’m Marcus,” he said.
I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Marcus. Just wish it was under better circumstances. I’m Dean.”
“It is what it is. These are my buddies, Lewis, Elliot, Toby, and Theo.”
We all exchanged handshakes and fist-bumps.
“What could they possibly want with us?” Toby asked. He seemed the most freaked out of all.
“Do you know Z?” I asked. “Are you with his people?”
He cocked his brow. “Z?”
“Yeah. He is...er, uh...was a madman in charge of a gang that attacked the town where I was staying. We killed him in self-defense during a battle at a hospital. I think his brother wants revenge.”
“We just drove into the city a few days ago. There weren’t any zombies, so we figured it was a good place to rest for a few days. These guys came in and just snatched us out of there, without a word as to why.”
“They left my mother, elderly aunt, grandma, and four children,” another man said. He took off his jacket, exposing the tattoos that laced his bulging arms. “So why did Z’s guys kidnap us? We’re not on either side.”
“Because you were in the city he wants,” I said.
“Wrong place, wrong time, huh?”
“I’m afraid so. You were in what he considers his territory, so that makes you his enemy.”
He shook his head. “I knew we shoulda kept going, but the kids were so tired.”
“But why didn’t they bring the kids and the others here?” I asked. “Did they leave them, uh...alive?”
“Yeah. They didn’t lay a finger on them and just took us.”
“Something doesn’t make sense. Z and his men had no mercy, no pity. They left no survivors and enjoyed torturing people.”
“Maybe they just wanna make an example out of us,” Lewis said. ”Maybe they just didn’t want to hurt women and kids.”
“You don’t know Z’s gang like I do,” I said. “They don’t care. They’ll kill everyone, young, old, male, or female. They enjoy making everyone suffer.”
“Then what’s this about? Does it have anything to do with this Z guy, who sounds like a real freaking nightmare, or is it something completely different?”
“It could be anything,” Theo said. “We’re clueless, and they obviously love keeping us in the dark.”
Marcus looked at me intently. “If this isn’t Z’s guys, any idea who they are and why they want us?”
I blew out a long breath. “Well, I’ve seen it all, from making us fight zombies in an arena to, uh...cannibalism.”
“Cannibalism? As in...people eating people?” Toby said.
“Yep, unfortunately.”
“You mean, besides the zombies? You’re talking about actual living humans chowing down on other humans?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “It happens.”
“Yes it does,” Elliot said. “I’ve seen it before.”
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