by Brown, TW
“We need to move.”
“But we just got settled,” Caroline protested.
“Yep. And it sucks, but I don’t want to be anyplace near that settlement. I’m not suggesting that they would do anything, but here are the facts. We killed some of their people.”
Caroline glanced up to the loft where Ronni was supposedly sleeping. “And what about her? You think that she will be happy with this idea?”
“I’d rather her be a little unhappy than a lot dead.”
“You really think that it will come to that?”
“You are asking me to make that call based on a small outpost that has an undead totem pole in the town square where they mount the heads of all the people that they execute.”
Caroline sat there for a few minutes, sipping on some lavender tea sweetened with just a hint of the honey that they had been so excited to find. Chad stared at the fire and let her come to her own conclusions despite having made his already.
“Crap,” Caroline hissed.
Chad nodded. “You see?”
“They made it a point to say that they had the heads of every single person that they have executed on that totem, didn’t they?”
“A number of times.”
“I guess we start packing.”
***
“They took Alana!” Selina wailed.
Jody ran out the back door to where Selina stood on the porch, one hand outstretched and pointing to the empty swing. He eased past the woman who was nearing hysterics as she began to call their daughter’s name over and over in between ragged sobs.
Walking across the yard, he kept his eyes on the ground. It was still early in the morning and there was a hint of dew on the grass. He had no trouble following his daughter’s footsteps as she hurried out to her swing like she did almost every morning. He had joked that she would be out on her swing in the pouring rain.
At least it was a joke until the morning he went outside to find her doing exactly that as thunder boomed and the sky dropped buckets of water in sheets that were almost too difficult to see clearly. When asked why she had done such a thing, Alana looked at her mother and father like they were crazy.
“It’s warm outside. You say we should save water and so I was swinging while I took my shower,” Alana had explained as if that might be the most normal thing in the world.
As he neared the swing set, he felt his heart leap to his throat. The back gate had been opened. However, it was the second realization that chilled him to the core. Alana had walked right over to whoever this mystery person was and left willingly.
“She knew you,” Jody whispered.
Unfortunately, that did not honestly eliminate that many people. The community was still small. However, Jody had a hunch that Alana knew this person very well. She would not walk away willingly with just anybody. That shortened the list considerably. It also gave rise to a very frightening question.
How far out of touch had he become with the people?
Spinning on his heel, he walked back to Selina and put his hands on her shoulders. “I want you to go inside and stay here. She might have run off after a…” His voice faded as the lie turned to ash in his mouth. He knew damn well that was not the case, and so did Selina.
“This is because of that trial, isn’t it?” she sniffed.
“We can’t be sure—” he started, but she cut him off.
“Don’t try to lie to me, Jody. It is all anybody talked about for months. And then to have the verdict come down to you making the final vote? It was almost like the jury set you up to be the fall guy.”
“Those men did something horrible. I could not simply buy into the ‘our-word-against-theirs’ argument. I saw with my own eyes what had been done to that one young lady, Angel. Jan was within her rights to demand that she and her people be compensated for what we did.” Jody felt all of the turmoil resurface.
It had been several months since the trial had concluded. Yes, it was true that Danny had been mutilated. Hell, it was unlikely that he would ever walk without the use of at least a cane. Still, his people had stormed in and not only killed several individuals, but then there had been the animalistic beating of the woman by Margarita. Later, it was additional testimony by Bill Pitts stating that George Rosamilia had joined on the beating in addition to cheering and inviting others to “get their licks in before somebody like Rafe shows up and spoils the party.”
It had been for that reason alone that Jody had cast the deciding vote to exile the pair. In truth, he had believed it long overdue. But that was another thing that he was struggling with at the moment. He had been feeling for some time that George had replaced him in Danny’s life as a friend. Could it really be something as simple as his petty jealousy that had caused him to cast that deciding vote that sent the polarizing couple outside of the walls?
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Jody gave Selina a squeeze and then went to answer it after telling her to stay put. He opened the door and was momentarily puzzled when he did not see anybody. Then he spied it. On the bannister of his porch was a small box with a red bow.
He stepped over to it with caution and found that he could scarcely breathe for fear of what he would find if he opened that box.
Holding it in his hands for several seconds, he finally gave in and peeled back the wrapping paper. He could hear Selina’s sobs from where she remained on the back porch. Looking up and down the street, he noticed that it was strangely quiet and devoid of any activity. For a sunny morning like this, that was more than a little peculiar.
Holding his breath, Jody opened the lid of the box. He was slammed with a simultaneous rush of relief as well as the crush of dread. He’d expected something horrific inside that box; something that would likely send him plunging into stupidity and despair in equal measures. He could be honest with himself and admit that he had figured to discover a finger or something of that nature.
What he found sent a message equally clear, but without him having to consider the possibility of the pain and torment that his child might be experiencing. Jody plucked the lock of hair from the box and tucked it into his breast pocket.
Then, without a word to Selina, Jody walked upstairs and began putting on his gear.
***
The following is an excerpt of a diary found in a small trading outpost just south of Old Seattle.
Entry One—
My name is Adam, and I hunt the living. I am an avenger of those who fall prey to the dregs of humanity. In a world stripped of almost all law and order, the pecking order is often established painfully and with no regard for those who are not deemed strong enough to fend for themselves.
In the Old World, women fought for decades to reach some semblance of equality. The zombie apocalypse erased all of that in a very short time. It is like the implosion of a building. A few charges in the right spots can erase any memory of the past in the blink of an eye.
I don’t imagine that I will ever be recognized for what I do. Honestly, I don’t care. If I am even more honest, I will guess that there are those who think I am as much of a monster as some of those I hunt. After all, I debase and commit acts that most would call torture.
I know that this man that I have hanging upside down from an old pine tree would think that. He is bleeding out slowly. About an hour ago, he begged for me to just kill him. I wonder if he heard those same words from his victims. I wonder if he cared as little as I do right this moment.
The man hanging from the tree looks like he has been painted blood red from about his shins all the way to his recently shaved head. I had to shave his head because it gave me more surface to work with.
I should probably clarify at this point. The piece of human waste hanging from the tree used to get off by kidnapping young girls and bringing them out to his cabin where he had quite a harem building. He was one of those guys that you used to see in the Old World that ended up on the news because some poor girl that he abducted and then raped unti
l she eventually became pregnant would escape. Then the cops would raid the house and find three or four other poor girls that had been missing for who-knows-how-long all kept in a basement.
This guy might have been doing this since before the zombies and never got caught. I know that one of those poor women was close to thirty and didn’t even know that the world had ended. She was kept in a shed all by herself and will probably never be able to adjust.
I took all of the girls to a village on the edge of Lake Sammamish and dropped them off. I don’t deal in rehab, just rescue.
Anyways, by the time I got back, the guy had finally woken up from the dose of poison that I’d hit him up with when my arrow punched into his thigh. He was smart enough to keep quiet since I basically left him tied upside down and naked from a tree.
Once I searched his cabin and found his food, I sat down to a nice meal. Every so often, I would get up, walk over to the guy and just cut a slice into him with the straight razor that he had on a shelf. This is probably a good time to explain that this was apparently the method this creep used to discipline the women if they stepped out of what he considered to be the line. This is also what he used to end the lives of any male children that these girls gave birth to during their captivity. I know this because of what is under the cloth on the table in the cabin. It was that discovery that made me choose how this creep would die.
It didn’t take long for him to start answering me when I asked him to tell me everything that he has done with every single victim he has kept in this cabin. However, it took him a while to admit to the murder of those poor babies.
I had to make him stop talking at one point. It wouldn’t do any good for that bastard to see me in tears. But seriously, how can you not hear something like that and not feel that lump in your throat grow? It took all I had in my power not to just slit the guy’s neck and be done with him. However, that is not my way of doing things.
Don’t ask me why, but I think it is vital to make them speak their crimes aloud and hear just how vulgar they sound when not being done in secret. I have no idea if it really matters or makes a difference, but with as many of these creeps as I have ended after reducing them to tears as they recount the horrors they inflict on others while simultaneously getting a little of that dropped on their own heads, I sleep easy at night.
One of these days, somebody will get the drop on me and I will be gone. But until that day comes…the victims have one person who is out there trying to make the world a little safer one piece of human filth at a time.
2
Missing a Geek
Catie stood in front of the metal surface that had been polished to an almost mirror-like reflective surface over the years. It was still a bit blurry, but not so much that she could not see a bit of her reflection. Her hand immediately went to her belly where the child grew within her. The slightest bulge was just starting to make itself apparent.
Her naturally curly blond hair was hanging limp, mostly due to not having been washed in several days. Her blue eyes were starting to dull and she had to attribute that to the fact that she was surviving on a very minimal diet. It was enough to keep her going, and that was about it. She needed to find a place to stay…soon. Looking around, she had to consider that perhaps this might be as good of a place as any. There were definite signs of the living occupying this area that she could spot with little effort.
There had never really been anything significant about the town as far as Catie was concerned. She had not spent her life wondering what it might be like to walk the streets or famous train tracks. Yet, for no reason other than the name had been on a dilapidated and bent sign one day, Catie now stood in an overgrown turnaround drive that had likely once been a destination for field trips and family outings.
“So, this is the Chattanooga Zoo,” Catie said with false cheer as she patted her belly that was just now starting to show a bump where the child inside her grew.
In response, a dried husk of a zombie lifted its head from some weeds and opened its mouth in a pathetic mewl. With hardly a glance, Catie drove the metal spike-tipped end of her walking stick into its head and continued on to the shade of what looked like an old watch tower or stilted hut. She reached the cool of the shade and began to question her plan to head south as she sought someplace to settle in so that she could have her baby and give them both a decent chance of survival.
She knew very well how brutal even the mildest of winters could be if a person was not well situated to deal with it. Add in the fact that there would be nothing to scavenge like there had been in the old days. She needed to get situated and scour the area for any sorts of the numerous edible wild growing plants as well as bag a few animals and get the meat cured and dried. It was a lot of work, none of it glamorous, and certainly nothing she wanted to attempt when she was deep into her pregnancy.
She held out the slimmest of hopes that she might find a nice little community, but her experience was that people had settled away from anything remotely resembling a major population center. And while Chattanooga would never be mistaken for New York or Los Angeles, it had still boasted enough people to merit heavy military response and a massive but losing war against the undead back when the scales had not yet tipped over to offer the world she now knew.
“Pssst!”
The sound came from behind her and to the left. On pure instinct, Catie spun and hurled one of the throwing knives she kept in little notches across her vest. She had the second one out and was already in the process of refining her aim when the girl threw up her hands and dropped to her knees.
“I ain’t holding no weapons!” the girl yelped.
Catie paused and examined the stranger. She guessed the girl to be in her early teens. Her dark skin was set off by the red shirt and pants she wore. Her head was shaved and shone in the sun as it reflected the light sheen of perspiration that coated her skin. She had dark eyes and full lips that looked cracked and ragged in stark comparison to how pretty she was.
“You need to get out of the open before the patrol comes,” the girl hissed, waving Catie to where she stood at the edge of what had probably been a manicured hedge, but was now a tangled mess of new growth and old death.
She was about to decline when she heard a loud whoop and the sounds of shouting coming from—Catie glanced at the sun and oriented herself—the south; it was to the south of her current location. She wanted to be cautious, but something about the girl made her think of somebody she knew and suddenly missed.
Rose, she thought, and just as quickly, shoved the thought aside. Hurrying to the dense but scraggly foliage, Catie had to twist and turn to work her way into the towering and dense bush. She was just about to ask the girl what was going on when a dozen men came on the run across the cracked and overgrown asphalt that might only last another few years before it was absolutely covered by the unchecked vegetation.
She clamped her mouth shut and held her breath as the closest of the men jogged by no less than ten feet away. With as little actual new growth as this particular bush offered, any real inspection would absolutely reveal her location and that of the mysterious young girl.
At last, the men were gone; their ruckus indicating that they were now on the trail of something…or someone. Catie turned to the girl and used an arm to clear a few of the brown, dried branches from between them so that she could get a better look. There were a few scrapes and cuts on her face from having dove for cover so hastily. Also, now that she was this close, she could see a single thin scar that ran diagonally across the top of the girl’s head.
“What are you doing out in the open?” the girl broke the silence. However, it was the way she spoke that piqued Catie’s interest. It had been a while since somebody had talked down to her. Also, now that she was speaking in a tone above a whisper, her deep drawl was very noticeable.
“Not from around here,” Catie said with a weak smile and a shrug.
She wanted to play the poor damsel-in-distress role fo
r the time being. There was no need to advertise that she was a more than capable killer who could be almost as lethal with a weapon as without.
“No kidding?” the girl scoffed.
“Who were those guys?” Catie ignored the sarcasm.
“They call themselves the Beastie Boys.”
“Not very original,” Catie muttered.
“They run all the territory from the tracks to the west up to Ridge Road and from the old Parkridge Hospital on the south to where the Montague Village compound takes over,” the girl explained despite Catie having already told her that she was not from around this area.
“That’s fine, so then why are you here?” Catie asked.
The girl opened her mouth and then shut it with an audible click. She eyed Catie with a suspicion that had not been there a few seconds ago. After a moment’s pause, she pushed back a few steps and planted her hands on her hips.
“Who are you really?” the girl asked.
“My name is Catie.” She let that hang in the air for a moment before she decided to ask a question of her own. “And what is your name since we have not been properly introduced?”
“Kalisha.”
“Well, Kalisha, I guess I am going to ask you to point me in the best direction out of here.”
“You might want to wait until closer to dark. The Beasties don’t usually run around much at night.”
Catie considered the thought, and then shrugged. “Not like I have anything to do or anyplace to be. Maybe you could fill me in on why exactly you are out and about in this area if it is such a no-man’s-land.”
The girl dropped her gaze and some of the defiance slipped from her shoulders, causing them to slump just a bit. When she looked back up, the last thing that Catie expected to see were the tears brimming over the cusps of Kalisha’s dark brown eyes.
“They took my little brother.”
***