Seven hardcore biker men dismount and take over the camp as if they own it. Ellsberg surrenders his rifle, being outgunned and knowing Brock would be useless in a firefight. The bikers confiscate the weapons and ransack the backpacks.
“You’re a well fed group.” The biggest biker shoves Ellsberg to a bench seat. “And with plenty of ladies, too.”
“Diesel, check this bitch out.” He yanks Willie to her feet. “Bitch ain’t got no hands,” waving Willie’s stump at his leader.
“The soldier’s still playing protector of the weak.” He shoves Brock next to Ellsberg, “And plenty of women to share.”
One of the bikers grabs Sarah and bends her over the table. He slaps her ass cheek three times. “Soft. Plenty of cushion for the long ride.” He runs his hand between her legs still on the outside of her jeans. The bikers laugh. Tears well in Sarah’s eyes.
“You want one, Xeo? You can ride her. Hell, you’ll never touch the bed.” Diesel grabs Karley by her neck and hair. “This one doesn’t look too well used.” He mashes Karley’s face against the table top. The metal groove pattern imprints into her skin.
Xeo plucks Sarah by her hair and unbuttons her pants. He reaches his hand into her panties and whispers, “You’re going to like this.”
Sarah feels tingles as much as she doesn’t want the impending rape. What he does with his fingers feels pleasurable. She fights hard with herself. She tries to make the good feelings leave her mind.
She can’t.
It feels too nice to be touched. She now has this new understanding for women not reporting a rape. No matter what has been forced upon her, no matter how bad she doesn’t want this or this man, he makes it feel so good deep down she doesn’t want him to stop. She understands why some women don’t report it.
No. This is rape! She jerks away. He slams her down. No matter how it feels, she doesn’t want this. Sarah struggles to break his grasp.
Diesel isn’t so nice to Karley. He jerks and tears at her pants, shredding the fabric until he has exposed her ass. “She’s a peach, boys.”
With the same gentleness he saved Emily with, he wraps the duster coat around Olivia, keeping her from seeing the inflicted trauma on her mother. He takes the small gun from his boot.
Click.
He flicks the safety off.
“Anyone you don’t know walks toward you, you just point and pull back on this trigger and no one will hurt you.” He puts the gun into her hand wrapping her fingers around the handle.
Tears cover her face. She knows her mother’s screams of protest and fear. “Will you save my mom?” she blubbers.
“I need you to be brave for me. And I’m going to save everyone.” He switches his M&P to the Beretta holster. From the sound of the bikes, he’ll need all sixteen shots. “You have to stay here.”
Olivia nods yes.
“If you want to pleasure yourself then take me. I’ll do whatever you want.” Willie stands, presenting herself. Diesel shoves her to the ground. Willie lands on her arm nubs as if she were a dog.
Diesel yanks her back by her hair.
“I like it rough, but you’re a little weak,” she taunts the biker with an invitation. Willie has spent the last few months constantly being brutalized. She’ll handle one more day of abuse if it prevents Karley from experiencing what she’s been living.
Karley attempts to hoist what’s left of her panties up with just one hand. Diesel yanks Willie’s head hard enough he could have snapped her neck. “You look a bit used up, slut.” He shoves her back to all fours. “You’re the miserable house dog everyone kicks.”
Diesel draws the pistol from his belt. “Only one thing to do for a mongrel like you.”
Bam.
Bits of brain and blood splash onto Karley’s face. Diesel kicks Willie’s body over. “Girls with no hands are useless.”
“She still had a mouth.”
“Shut up, Steele. You going to wipe her ass for her?” Diesel asks.
“She’s still warm if you want to pump the two holes she’s got left.”
Bobbi jumps back in her seat, bumping into Leah. She wants to flee. Something holds her in place. Diesel grabs Karley’s panties so hard he lifts her into the air and flings her into the dirt before they tear off. Her skin peels back from where the seam cut against her skin. Karley pleads not to be violated.
Turmoil consumes Brock’s reasoning. Witnessing his love’s assault demands retribution on her honor. Unable to curtail his emotions…
Slam.
Ellsberg’s arm crashes across Brock’s chest to prevent him from saving his wife.
“Well, this one’s important to him.” Diesel glares at Brock. “She your old lady?”
Brock stands. “She’s my wife.”
“She’s a whore. She’s going to moan for each of us.”
Brock lunges at Diesel. Ellsberg grabs him before he gets two feet, slamming Brock into the dirt. “He’ll kill you,” the major warns. “And he’ll still rape her.”
“I’ll rape her on top of your bloody corpse.”
“I doubt it.” In full gunslinger mode, Emily’s savior calls from the middle of the highway ready to protect his group. “Why don’t you face me?”
“What are you supposed to be, some kind of hero?” Diesel sneers.
“I think he fancies himself a cowboy. This ain’t High Noon,” Steele taunts.
“And I ain’t your Huckleberry,” Diesel spits.
“Cultural classic, but if you’re making me out to be Earp, remember he was never wounded, not once in any gun battle he was ever in.”
Diesel rubs his grizzled chin, having stepped onto the road. “You know, you seem intelligent, why don’t you just walk away?”
Two bikers back Diesel up on the road.
“You’re hurting the people I promised to protect.” The morning sun hangs over his left shoulder.
“Then I did you a favor. Handless girls would only get you killed.” Diesel snaps his fingers and Steele drags Bobbi to the road. “This girl needs constant care. Maybe one handed she’ll do all right, but she’s just a walking corpse who hasn’t died yet.”
He wonders if Brock and Ellsberg are capable of handling the three men watching over them. Xeo keeps his hands on Sarah so they have to dispatch two quickly. Now Bobbi has become a makeshift shield between him and his quarry.
“How about I just kill this one, have my way with the white bitch and you all go on your way. Hell, I’ll even leave your weapons. I wouldn’t leave any able bodied person defenseless out here.”
How much time does it take to weigh major decisions? It should take more than the hundredth of a tenth of a second it took to make up his mind of what to do let alone how he will handle it. In his mind, it goes down. The M&P discharges in rapid succession. Short of the time between controlled trigger squeezes reverberates like full-auto machine gun burst. He shreds Diesel with the first four shots. Each bullet strikes his body missing Bobbi completely. The next four bullets are shared by the two men on either side. The next shot splinters Steele’s skull. He hits two more guarding his group, leaving only the one holding Sarah for Ellsberg to deal with. He puts a bullet into each dead man’s skull.
But in his mind and the reality of his decision to draw doesn’t take into account the poor thought processes of everyone else involved. His M&P flashes with the first shot before Diesel’s weapon clears his holster, but not before he jerks Bobbi into a human shield. With his skill the first bullet shatters the brain pan of the biker on Diesel’s right. Bobbi faints. Her now dead weight shifts Diesel off kilter sending his first shot wide. Giving Ellsberg the two seconds needed for two bullets to kill the biker on the left. Military training has educated him to people surviving one round. Steele has his pistol out. He pauses for an order to fire.
Ellsberg dives low for the biker nearest him. Brock makes a mad dash for Karley. Leah drops to the ground covering her face. Sarah stomps on the foot of her captor with all her weight, breaking one of his
toes.
Diesel fires.
Miss.
Struggling to hold the unconscious Bobbi keeps Diesel off balance unable to shoot straight. He releases the handless girl.
Poor choice number one.
Bobbi may be falling through the air to the ground alive, but she still acts as a shield. Emily’s savior aims and shoots the biker nearest to Karley putting a slug into Steele’s arm and not his gun one. Diesel’s next slug impacts the black vest he wears under his duster.
How many miles per hour does a bullet travel? At about twenty feet has to mean the velocity… Understanding the math has little to do with the rib shattering pain the .45 brings to him. The movies would show him flying about twelve feet backward but in reality bullets don’t blow people back. He actually takes the full impact and remains standing. However, his ability to return fire becomes impossibly impaired. His arms flail and the next shot misses Steele completely.
Brock scoops Karley into his arms. She struggles to yank her shredded panties over her bottom. Ellsberg struggles for the gun. Sarah yanks the weapon from her molester who is hopping around on one foot. Knowing enough to aim, she jerks the trigger until it dry fires.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
He should be dead. Outgunned by the last two bikers.
He fires.
Diesel fires.
Steele fires.
THE ABILITY TO track game is the new important learned life skill since the fall of civilization. Danziger tracked dozens of criminals, but not in the manner a hunter tracks a deer. Now he must learn the latter and quickly.
Millions of dead are easy to follow. Many drag limbs or shuffle-step as they gait forward. They make no effort to cover their footprints or snapping of plant life leaving behind trails of rotten blood. The dead stink—mixtures of road kill skunk, rotten meat and shit.
There might be other defecating smells, but rot overwhelms them all.
People, on the other hand, backtrack over footsteps, taking care not to break off leaves from trees and even avoid loose soil. Humans are cunning animals, capable of remaining hidden from those still alive. The growing army of walking corpses weed out the living, but they are unreliable, easily distracted bloodhounds. Better to search for clues a living person leaves behind.
Careless means dead.
It was careless to split from Tom two days ago. The man’s walking straight toward the herd that decimated the caravan. Tom feels he must help retrieve survivors. Tom needs someone to help him until his arm heals. Tom believes Levin went south.
Statistically, Levin went in a southerly direction, but Danziger has to be sure. This trail could be gone by the time Tom finds any survivors from the caravan, if he does at all. And he knows which direction those people went even if their tracks get washed away. Not this set. One quick shower and he’ll lose them. There’s no BOLO warning on this guy. If he doesn’t find him he’ll be free to murder again and again.
Danziger kneels at the footprint of a small shoed person trailing into a makeshift campsite. Scattered among ravaged supplies these poor souls never expected danger would come from a fellow survivor. The detective rifles through the pockets of what used to be an old man. He yanks a cell phone from one of the pockets. Danziger holds the power button with no results, as he expected. Unzipping his vest pocket he slides out a portable quick phone charger.
Phones—the new wallet photos.
Danziger rolls the cylindrical charger in his hand. Gleaming at the dead man’s pictures could reveal if these dead were a part of his family. Maybe give the detective an idea of the girl with her own daughter’s murderer. But the missing girl will look just like his own child. Serial killers tend to kill the same person again and again. So whatever his motivations, Levin extolls his reprisals on blonde fourteen-year-old girls.
They had been lucky enough to escape the herd, and their discovery of a good spot to rest should have kept all four alive. They had a tent and small campfire to cook with. Not enough to attract attention, but enough to have a warm meal.
Danziger chucks the uncharged phone against a tree. Plastic shrapnel rains on the scattered backpacks. He won’t waste precious power. Knowing they were family won’t help his pursuit. It won’t change his next task. Scooping up a metal telescoping hiking pole, Danziger positions himself over a young girl – too young to have caught Levin’s eyes – with a chest wound. He drives the pole into her forehead. Sparing her the return doesn’t spare Danziger from the act. He kicks her backpack. Three My Pretty Pony DVDs scatter. The DVDs took up space where an extra can of beans should have been carried. He takes the stuffed bear from the pile of supplies and places it in the dead girl’s arms.
Somehow preventing the rest of the family from becoming walking corpses weighs less on his conscience. Any useful supplies were picked over by Levin, including a fourteen-year-old, blonde, blue-eyed girl—his perfect target. Even with the world ending people cannot fight their nature, and the nature of a serial killer remains.
Danziger examines the ground around the campsite. Whoever killed them made no effort to hide the drag marks the girl made as he forced her to go with him. Her death has to be special to appease Levin’s masochistic desires. This poor girl has to die in his ritual manner. The same way Danziger’s daughter endured. Mom, Dad, Sis...they didn’t matter. But this girl. This girl has to die like all the other girls. Like Danziger’s own teenage daughter. What he did to her…
Danziger will visit upon the killer: righteousness. No court and no jury, he will bring justice to a man the new world has forgotten about. Surviving the plague takes precedence over criminals of the old world. Not for him. His daughter will get the justice she deserves no matter what.
Snap.
Twigs crackle under movement. Danziger eases toward the noise. One of the family members might have returned from the dead. Near the camp a second girl more to Levin’s taste crawls toward him. Red blood blossoms from her back signaling life remains in her.
Danziger futilely presses tattered clothes from the ransacked supplies against her back.
Mewing, she coughs. “He killed them.”
The cop in him inquires, “Who?” The answer doesn’t matter. Even if it’s not Levin she won’t live long enough to give him enough information about the killer. He squeezes her hand.
“Do you have a name?”
“Aleydis.” She spits blood. “He took…my friend.” Her face drops into the dirt.
He keeps his grip on her hand. Her warmth hastily ebbs away. Danziger drives the pole into Aleydis’ skull before reanimation can occur.
With no one to cut the grass, the trail remains easy to follow. He sprints down the path. Stop.
The rules of the world have changed but not for Levin. Danziger asks himself, does he know he’s being pursued by someone who knows who he really is? He left this trail. A wide, unquestionable trail. Running straight down it would be foolish. He pushes the hiking pole along the ground checking for trip wires.
It slows his progress. His prey has eluded capture for years. Seventeen girls before the apocalypse were accredited to Levin’s scoreboard. Eight or nine were dead before anyone recognized they had a serial killer, not that serial killers are as rare as believed. Police hide facts to prevent the press from connecting murder cases together and placing hundreds of people in panic mode. No police department wants scrutiny over serial killer investigations. Just like beachfront economies never want people to understand how many sharks actually swim along the beach. It’s bad for tourist dollars.
Somehow in shadow of what was once accepted as civilization, Danziger doubts many serial killers perished. In fact, this brave new world has become a breeding ground for the depraved. He halts.
The patch of smashed grass catches his attention. The killer dropped the girl. He uses the hiking pole to pick a shoe out of the grass. He took off her shoes. Danziger wonders if she realized Levin was a danger to her and tried to run from him. Most people don’t have the calluses built up on thei
r feet to go without shoes. She wouldn’t be able to run fast if she did break away again.
Shoes.
The parted grass trail leads on. The girl’s barefoot. It will slow Levin and decrease their chance of running. The ground turns dry. In the dirt patches the girl’s tracks reveal that they staggered. The kind of wobble a person has when they’re handcuffed or their hands are bound behind them.
Forced to travel slow is better than Danziger could have hoped for. Levin needs a place to perform his lengthy depraved acts. He pushes the thoughts from his head. The idea that his own daughter screamed and called for him to come save her overwhelms him. His own baby girl, so small when she was born he could hold her in just one hand with only her legs hanging over the palm. His baby girl called and called for Daddy and he didn’t save her. How betrayed she must have felt as she took her last breath, knowing Daddy had lied when he said he’d always protect her.
Not these two girls. These girls he will save. He will put a stop to this killing. No matter what else happens. No matter if a thousand dead mouths rip his flesh, he will end this. He will end the Blonde Teen Slasher.
The path extends into a field with a lone barn resting in the center. Danziger ducks back into the tree line. The building has one strategic advantage. It gives anyone inside clear sight of approaching visitors from all directions. The dilapidated structure looks to have more rotten boards than sound ones. It has long since outlived its usefulness as a storage facility. Still, it was built in the days when people took pride in what they constructed, and built to last.
Danziger doesn’t question this location for Levin’s hideout. He has to determine how to get to the barn unseen. If the floor loft remains intact then it would be perfect to hide and prevent the corpses from reaching Levin. People dare not stay too long in one location anymore. The buildup of the undead becomes overwhelming, but a few nights’ sleep in a secure position would be welcome.
Darkness might be his best option. Risking crawling through the grass at turtle speed would be detrimental if a corpse were to stumble upon him. He’d have to shoot it giving away his location. With no electricity and a half moon, night provides cover. Danziger had no idea just how dark night really was until there were no more street lights, or even the ambient light provided by…well, even cell phones light up a room compared to no electric lights at all.
No Room In Hell (Book 1): The Good, The Bad and The Undead Page 21