This Rotten World (Book 3): No More Heroes

by Jacy Morris

  "I never said anything about killing," she said defensively.

  "Didn't you?" He opened his eyes then, ignoring Diana's beauty. "You know, your name is appropriate. Diana, goddess of the hunt. You've been hunting me since we got here haven't you? You've been hunting down the perfect weapon to take out your father."

  She turned and faced him, shaking her head. She was flustered and sputtering denials, but Izzy pressed onward. "You say you don't want us to kill your father, but that's exactly the situation you're setting up here. What did you think? That you would hand over all this information, and we wouldn't do something about it? That we'd keep playing this game your father is playing? Just how stupid do you want me to think you are?"

  She stood then, her fists on her hips, her breasts jiggling invitingly. She glowered down at him imperiously and said, "I was trying to help you."

  "By helping yourself."

  "Yeah, so what? My father... my father is going to get more of us killed, just as he's gotten the majority of us killed already. He needs to be stopped."

  "Have you no love for your father?"

  "He lives in a fantasy world. He is stuck in a reality where he was in control, he was in charge, and everything worked according to his plan, but the world doesn't work like that. He doesn't need to die. He just needs to know he's not in charge."

  "I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." He hated to use the cliché, but when the shoe fit... something something.

  Then Diana did the oddest of things. She sat upon him and wrapped her arms around him. She smiled. "Listen, all I'm trying to do is keep more people from dying. My father, he is one man. He is a dinosaur, large, cumbersome and completely unsuited for this world." She grabbed him down there, one arm still wrapped behind his neck, and slipped him inside her.

  "Do you always talk about your dad when you fuck?"

  She slapped him then, and then she was gone. He caught one final glimpse of her backside as she bent over and grabbed her clothes, and then he was left alone, on the cold tile floor. He leaned his head back against the wall and dozed for a bit. Oh, well. It had been nice while it lasted.

  Chapter 14: Last Breaths

  The black man's trail was easy to find. He took big steps, and he was heavy. Reed followed the trail for a while, and then it became even easier. He spotted the wounds on the tree bark quickly. They were fresh, the wood underneath a bright yellow. He followed these signs for a while, and then they just disappeared.

  He scanned the ground, noting the disturbances in the undergrowth. Someone else had joined up with the black man. There were a lot of signs to track, so it was fairly easy to see which direction they had gone. He noted that once his two targets had met up their path was less meandering than it had been before, almost like they knew where they were going.

  When he stepped out onto the gravel road, he spotted two distinct sets of footprints, confirming that the black man and the pregnant lady were both together. He also knew where they were going. They were going to the old lady's house.

  He smiled to himself as he walked casually down the lane. He remembered her. He remembered her pleading, her nasty wrinkled face begging him to leave her some food. In the end, he hadn't. He had taken everything she had, even sitting on the kitchen counter to eat a good majority of the food in front of her. He had laughed with a full mouth as the old lady had cursed him. Such a vile string of swears from such a fragile old lady. He had thought about hitting her, maybe strangling her for her impertinence, but in the end, leaving her without any food had been an even better punishment.

  For days after that, he would visit her house, watching from the woods with his hand down his pants, doing the dance that he loved so much. He watched her waste away, and when three days had passed, he crept closer and watched her as she lay on the couch in her living room, too tired to get up and try and find food. He had tapped on the window, his pants around his ankles, and all she had been able to do was wave a weak arm at him, middle finger extended. What great fun it had all been.

  He wondered what type of fun he would have with the couple that lived in his house now. He thought of it as his now. He had earned it with his cleverness and cruelty. That he was clever was never in any doubt. He knew he existed on a plane far above most people, and that was before everyone had started dying.

  At first, Reed had been scared. In his mind, he saw this new plague as something biblical, but when they had killed Dez's parents and nothing but good things seemed to happen, he understood then that there was no God. This was no plague sent upon man to punish him for his wicked misdeeds. This was just nature gone wrong. He was thankful for that. The only thing that had ever kept him from being an even more wicked person, and he knew he was wicked, was the fear that there might be something after life, some place where he might be judged for all the things that he had done.

  Reed didn't want to be judged. He had already experienced enough of that in his life. Going to prison, going to the mental hospital up at Ridgewood, those hadn't been terrible experiences. It was the judging that he had found so painful. He still remembered the faces of everyone in that court room as he had been sentenced for his crimes. Fat faces, pale faces, disapproving faces. If he could have found every one of them, he would have shown them what he thought of their judgment. How dare they judge him? Who were they? They were nothing, just as everyone in this world was nothing, just sacks of meat for his own entertainment.

  He knew he was wicked, but he loved the way the word sounded, and whenever he found himself in the middle of one of his experiments, he would say to himself, "This is wicked," over and over again.

  The thought of his wickedness made him hard, and as he inched across the washed out road, hugging the side of the mountain, his erection scraped uncomfortably against the rocks. Somehow, this only made him harder. He stepped across the gap and then went to find who was living in his home. He wondered if this was how the bears in Goldilocks felt as they approached their house only to find that little tart sleeping in their bed. Oh, what wicked things he would have done to Goldilocks.

  He hit the road that led up to the front of the house. He smiled as the footprints continued up the driveway. He disappeared into the fringe of trees and underbrush that encircled the home. He knew his way around there well. He had watched the old lady for some time before making his presence known.

  On the backside of the house, he spotted the black man digging a grave. He frowned a little bit. That means they had found his surprise and killed it. He didn't like the thought of someone undoing his work. He had toiled a long time to make that lady what she was. Who were they to come along and undo all of his hard work?

  He pulled his rifle free and suppressed a giggle. He held the gun up and took aim. His sight danced in front of the back of the man's head. "Boom," he whispered, smiling from his vantage point in the woods. It was that simple. All he had to do was pull the trigger, and job #1 would be done.

  But he didn't pull the trigger because that wouldn't be any fun. It would be downright boring. Sure, there would be a splash of blood, and his rifle would crack like thunder sent down by the gods themselves, but then it would be over.

  He let his rifle fall, suspended on his shoulders by its strap. He pulled a buck knife from a sheathe tied to his leg. The knife was shiny. It had been a gift from his brother. He had used it for all sorts of things, but he had never killed a black man with it. He departed from the trees, his stomach filling up with that good feeling, the feeling of doing something wicked. This was a wicked thing he was about to do, and he would gladly add it to the list.

  He thought briefly, in a moment of clarity about the time before he had discovered his wickedness. Reed hadn't always been bad. It was the drugs that had done it to him. Never in his life had anything come close to the euphoria he felt with every new drug he discovered. When he was wasted out of his mind, it was like disappearing from reality altogether and existing in a completely different dimension. The memory of the joy and
exhilaration he felt when he was on meth was something that would never leave him, but he had overcome that addiction, not through any means or willpower, but through the lack of product. He had never been much of a chemist, and with the way the world was now, he doubted he would ever get another taste of that wonder drug.

  That was ok though. He had found something else, something that gave him the high that he so desperately needed. He had found his wickedness, and as he approached the black man from behind, he smiled a wicked grin, his knife glinting in the sunlight.

  He was two feet away when he heard a voice say, "Uh-uh."

  He froze, his knife hanging uselessly in the air.

  "Drop the knife," the voice said. Reed turned to see the woman standing there, her hands gripped around a silver handgun. The darkness at the end of that barrel seemed huge, like a cave that he could get lost in, and for a brief moment, he wanted it. He wanted that cave to burp fire at him and burn him to a crisp. He just smiled at the lady, taking note of her stomach and the bump of pregnancy that was so obvious there.

  Then he saw the woman's eyes, and he thought, Here too is a wicked person. And he fell in love instantly, the way mad men do.

  He dropped to his knees and held his precious buck knife out to the wicked woman the way a peasant might offer a king the last of their food because they knew the only other option was death.

  "I said drop it." Her voice was like chewed gravel. Her eyes were smoldering pits, but her hands were steady, unflinching. She had no fear of her gun. She had become friends with it a long time ago. He could see that as plain as he saw her pregnant belly. He let the knife slip from his hands, and then he was tackled to the ground by the black man.

  He let all of this happen. He was having such a good time. When the black man was done, they had him dressed like a turkey and left him lying on the cool grass of the once manicured lawn.

  His prey stepped off to the side, out of earshot, and they had a quick discussion, about what to do with him. They finished their conversation and returned to him, ready to carry out whatever little plan they had come up with.

  "Why shouldn't we kill you now?" the pregnant woman asked.

  "Ask him. He knows the answer."

  "That's the main guy's brother," the black man said.

  "So?" the woman asked.

  "So if you kill me, you can be assured of two things. My brother is going to come looking for me, and he's going to kill anyone that doesn't give him the answers he wants. And your friends back at the compound? They're going to die too, but not before we have a little fun with them."

  "Why are you out here?" the woman asked.

  "I was just doing a little reconnaissance, checking out some of these houses. Then I saw that guy there, and I thought I better see who our new neighbor was."

  "You saw me back at the compound," Mort said.

  "Yeah, but you had your back to me. It doesn't pay to make assumptions these days." The pair looked unconvinced, so he said, "Look. I had a rifle. If I wanted you dead, I could have just shot you."

  "You're so full of shit, I'm surprised your teeth aren't brown," the woman said.

  Reed laughed. That was a good one. He would file it away for a later day. God he loved that woman.

  "So what do you suggest we do?" the woman asked.

  "First, tell me your name." It was a simple demand, but he had to know the name of the angel he had the pleasure of addressing.

  "My name is none of your business."

  "My name is Mort," the black man said.

  "I don't care about your name," Reed replied. "You're nothing to me, but you," he said addressing the lady, "you're something else entirely. I must know your name... or you can just kill me now and see what happens."

  The woman glared at him with those eyes, those wild soulless eyes of fire. "My name is Katie."

  Reed nodded. It was a good a name. "And the child, have you picked a name out for the child?"

  The woman's arm fell to her side, and the rage and fire was gone from her eyes instantly. It was as if one person had been replaced by another. Reed didn't love this new woman. There was nothing there to love. Oooh, she was as damaged as damaged could be, but every bit as wicked as the woman she had been before.

  "Why would I name something that isn't even alive yet?"

  "Are any of us truly alive anymore?"

  The woman kicked him then, hard in his ribs. The pain was intense, and it shot through him. He felt something he hadn't felt since the day this had all began, and Old Lady Bronson had come to feed on his brains. He felt fear. He felt powerless, and he hated this new woman, wishing that the other would come back.

  "We're not here for your philosophy, you little freak." The cold woman, the woman of ice, cocked the hammer of her gun, and she squatted down beside him. Mort looked on with concern, and Reed could see the fear in his eyes. Through that fear, Reed knew that Katie was fully capable of killing him right now. She was a wicked lady indeed.

  "Please, make her stop," he pleaded.

  Mort stepped forward and placed a hand on Katie's shoulder. She shrugged him off violently, pushing Mort away. Then she squatted down and poked the barrel of the gun painfully into Reed's eye. He screamed in pain and she pressed it slowly and forcefully into his eye. "If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them," Katie said. "Or else, I'd just as soon take my chances with your brother."

  "You'd lose," he said.

  "I don't give a fuck," she said back, cold and quick, so that Reed knew that she meant it.

  Reed screamed in pain as the barrel pressed deeper into his eye until he thought it was going to burst. "Stop! Stop!" he screamed in panic. "We can make a deal! I'll make you a deal!"

  And just like that the pain was gone. A dull ache shot through his eye, and when he opened it, a black shape floated in his vision, but he could still see.

  "This isn't a fucking game show," Katie said. "So you show me the door that the good prize is behind, because if you show me a deal that sucks, we're going to go right back to making your life unbearable."

  Reed could see how uncomfortable Mort was with this all, but he knew that Katie was the real power here. She was the one that was calling the shots, but he hated Mort more because he just stood there, watching Reed's abuse. Tears fell from Reed's eyes, and he hated himself and the others for it. No more crying, he thought, but he couldn't stop.

  "I was sent to kill you," he said referring to Mort, "and I was supposed to bring you back with me because you're pregnant."

  "Kill me? But why?" Mort asked.

  "I don't know," Reed said, and in truth, he had never really questioned the order. He had just seen another opportunity for his wickedness. "They don't need you. Maybe they think you'll talk the others out of staying. I really don't know."

  "I'm not going back with you," Katie said.

  Reed nodded through his tears, snot dripping from his nose and onto the emerald green blades of grass in front of him. "You don't have to. If you let me go, I'll go back and say that I did the job. But you have to stay hidden. When your friends are healthy, I'll come find you, and you can all leave together. I promise!"

  "What's to stop you from going back there and telling your brother that he should come out here and kill us?" Katie asked, waving her gun in Reed's face.

  "Look at me," he pleaded. "I'm a total fuck up. I can't go back and let my brother know I failed. I just can't."

  Katie nodded, and Reed felt hope for a second, and then he felt nothing as she blew his brains out.

  "Jesus," Mort said.

  "Grab his rifle," Katie commanded, and Mort did as he was told. "Finish burying the woman, but leave this one alone. I have an idea."

  Mort didn't argue with Katie. Something about the man had made her snap, and he knew better than to argue with her while she was like this. She left and went inside the house. Mort left Reed's corpse lying in the overgrown grass and walked over to the grave that he had already dug for the woman. He continually looked over
his shoulder as we finished the grave. That gunshot could have been heard for miles. If there were any dead out there, they could arrive at any moment.

  Katie appeared with a gardening tool in her hand. It looked like a small, handheld version of a rake.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Don't worry about it," she said. He turned his back as she squatted over Reed's body and began mutilating his face with the metal rake.

  With no ceremony, he shoved the woman's body into the grave and then worked as fast as he could to fill it. When he was done, they rushed inside as the first of the dead appeared at the edge of the forest. The monster was broken and twisted, its fingers and arms sticking out at jaunty angles as if it had experienced some sort of fall, and he knew that he was seeing one of the dead from the highway. He wondered how many more of the dead had survived the tumble down the side of the ravine.

  It was going to be a long night.

  ****

  Chad heard the gunshot. It sounded like it was a mile or two in the distance. He couldn't quite place it. The canyons and trees made it hard to pinpoint the source. He waited a few minutes, sitting in the inner courtyard of the compound and listening for another shot. His mind spun with possibilities. Reed had been successful. Reed had died. Someone else was out in the woods. All of these possibilities had him on edge.

  When he couldn't stand sitting there any longer, he stalked up to the watchtowers and relieved Dale. Dale, thankful for the break from staring into the forest for hours on end, headed into the compound, and Chad took up his watch. The trees swayed gently, and he kept waiting for Reed to appear. As the sun began to go behind the trees, someone brought him some stew. It was made from things they had grown themselves, along with the last of the venison from their last kill a few days earlier.

  It was good and filling, and as he licked the last bit of stew off of his spoon, the sun disappeared behind the trees. The dead were here now, and rather than kill them, Chad was forced to disappear behind the barricade. They pounded on the wooden gate. They pounded on the trailers. The people in the compound had a harried look about them because death itself knocked at the door. Chad poked his head up over the wooden railing of the watchtower and scanned the faces of the dead, looking for his brother. But he wasn't there. He was missing.