Teeny nodded at O’Reilly as he took over holding the gowns in place on Laudner’s neck and shoulder. The women moved out the door to be met by the two behind the reverend and saw that there were two others hiding in the hallway. They grabbed them and tied their hands behind their backs. While getting herded down the hallway, they heard the door to the room they had been in slam. Daring a glance over her shoulder, Teeny saw one of the reverend’s men slide a piece of metal through the door handle to trap them inside the room.
When they got to the ledge leading outside, they saw the truck that had the cross and the ambulance they had arrived in running and waiting for them to load up and go. Teeny could feel Rocky starting to panic as much as she was, starting to fight against the men now. But they didn’t have a chance of overpowering them as they were forced into the back of the ambulance with food that had already been loaded.
As they sped away, she saw Tin appear at the ledge and scream to the heavens.
MONK’S HILL CHAPEL
The ambulance ride was very uncomfortable. They were made to lie face down on the floor of the trauma compartment. Three of the reverend’s men rode back there with them. One of the three was one of the two who were always close to the reverend.
Jerrod was his name, and he was the only one of the three who wasn’t chattering about how they were going to celebrate when they got back to what they were calling Monk’s Hill.
One of the others, whom they were calling Charlie, slapped Rocky’s ass and proclaimed, “Those are some child-bearing hips.”
Rocky kicked at him. “Keep the fuck away from me, creep!”
He laughed. “Well, Sherm, looks like we’re going to have to teach this one some manners.”
Teeny rolled to face them and spoke calmly. “Keep your hands to yourself, or your big boss man will hear about how you are treating us.”
That seemed to affect him because he laughed again, but it was a nervous laugh.
That was when the one named Jerrod spoke. “She’s right. Keep your hands off of them. The father will give us guidance when we reach Monk’s Hill.”
_______
When the ambulance finally stopped, the men jumped out and left Teeny and Rocky in the back. They heard the other truck pull up as the doors were closed.
“Teeny, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. We just have to hope that Tin and Jax can find us before anything bad happens.”
Then the back doors swung open, and there was the reverend with Jerrod and Hector at his sides.
“Can we expect that you ladies can walk from here? Or shall we carry you over our shoulders?”
Teeny and Rocky both gave him stone cold stares as Teeny commanded, “You need to untie and let us go, Reverend Trudeau.”
He just replied with a matter-of-fact tone, “God has told me that we must repopulate the earth with his sheep. We can’t do that without females.”
He gave them a thin smile and repeated, “Walk or carry?”
They both said “Walk” at the same time.
While they were headed through the huge doors on the front of a plantation-style mansion, they noticed dozens of men, all looking at them as if they were roast beef and they hadn’t eaten in days.
The reverend stopped and asked one of the men on the front porch about damage from the storm. The women were herded past everyone and up a set of stairs leading to a second floor, where doors lined a hallway leading off in both directions. Moving left, they were led to a door, and, just as they turned around to start asking questions of Jerrod, the reverend caught up with them. “Jerrod, please remove their bindings.”
Rocky cringed as he cut off the thin nylon cords.
They rubbed their wrists as Rocky demanded, “What the hell do you think you are doing? This is kidnapping.”
The reverend frowned at her. “Don’t you know what is happening? It is the Rapture! God is calling the faithful to his flock and punishing the sinners to roam this purgatory as the undead. Those of us who are left to do his bidding must repopulate the earth with believers.”
All that Rocky could manage to say was “What?”
Teeny was shaking the feeling back into her hands. “So rape isn’t a sin?”
He looked at her with confidence. “No one will be raping you, young lady. You will help us start the human race over of your own volition.”
Rocky gritted her teeth. “No way, Johnny Cash. I’d rather scoop my ovaries out with a melon baller.”
The reverend smiled a thin smile again. “You will both stay in this room for now. Please be respectful, as it was my mother’s.”
Jerrod pushed them into the room, and, when the door clicked shut, they heard something being wedged against the door handle. The doors on the old home swung out to the hallway rather than into the room like modern homes.
Teeny walked to one of the two windows in the room, and Rocky soon joined her. They both watched the front courtyard, where they had arrived just a few minutes earlier. The reverend and Jerrod walked out underneath the windows and looked up at them. The man in black said several words to Jerrod and then walked away in the direction a building that looked like a small chapel. Jerrod pointed and barked some orders to several of the men milling about near the house, and they all ran off to carry out his orders.
Teeny pushed back the curtains when Jerrod moved back toward the house. The windows were nailed shut. She and Rocky tried to force them open, to no avail. They would have to wait until Tin and Jax came to save them.
Teeny said a silent prayer as she watched the reverend enter the door of the chapel. Please, God, don’t let this be our life.
_______
Isaiah crossed himself and entered Monk’s Hill Chapel. Most of the blood from his father and brother had been cleaned off the dais. He made his way to the front and knelt in front of the altar and the depiction of the Crucifixion. He prayed silently for several minutes and then raised his face to heaven and spread his arms wide. “Lord God, help me understand your will.”
After several minutes of silence, a familiar voice sounded behind him. “You know he will send the demons for them.”
He didn’t look at her. He just kept his face up and arms wide.
“They will not procreate willingly.”
There was a long silence. Isaiah almost turned to where his mother’s voice was coming from when she spoke again.
“God’s edict will be followed. You will obey me, my son.”
“I will obey, Mother.”
There was a long silence, and when he turned to look, no one else was in the chapel.
_______
“We have to look like we are reluctantly cooperating, Rocky.”
Teeny was pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed where Rocky had laid after searching the room for hidden exits and weapons. None of either could be found. They must have purposefully been searching for women survivors. With dozens of men and no women, they would be at one another’s throats soon.
Rocky stared up at the canopy over the bed. “I’m not going to be letting any of those scumbags fuck me, Teeny.”
Teeny walked over and stared out the window at the purple twilight with tears in her eyes. “We both have to do what will give our people the best opportunity to save us, Rocky.”
Rocky sat up in the bed. “You can’t be thinking that we should cooperate in that way.”
Teeny turned away from the window to look at Rocky. “I hope that we do not, but we have to make them think that they are breaking our will to resist. We have to be in the best situation possible to help aid our escape. Being locked up in this room will make it all that much harder.”
_______
There was the sound of the wedge being removed and a light rap on the door. Neither answered the knock, but Jerrod came in without invitation anyway. “Father has sent me to bring you t
o dinner.”
He held out his right hand toward the door. Teeny noticed for the first time that his right hand had several fingers that looked as if they had been broken and never reset to straighten them.
When she looked at the hand and then his eyes, he pulled the hand down and explained. “The father had to teach me humility, and I am the better for it. That is why I never had them set, as it is a reminder of my sins.”
Two other men were waiting in the hallway and several others at each end in case they tried to make a dash for freedom.
As they descended the stairs, the smell of the food made Teeny’s stomach growl. She definitely wasn’t going to go on a hunger strike. She had the will to do a lot of things, but not that.
They were guided into a large dining room that had to be thirty feet long and almost twenty feet wide. A score or more men were in the room, standing around talking with drinks in their hands. When they stopped in the doorway, all the men stopped what they were doing to stare. More than a few had a predatory smile on their faces.
The silence was broken by the deep baritone voice of the reverend. “Gentlemen, we are being rude.”
He walked to one of the chairs next to the head of the table and pulled it out. “Teeny, you can sit here.”
She strode over to sit in the offered chair. “You can call me Dr. Lisandro.”
“So be it.”
He walked to the chair on the other side and pulled it out. “And what shall I call you, young lady?”
She walked over and sat in the chair. “You can’t call me. I have standards.”
He gave her one of his now-familiar thin smiles and moved to the chair at the head of the table but stood in front of it rather than sit down. All of the others moved to their chairs around the table and sat. When everyone was settled, he rang a bell that was on the table next to him, and two old women and two old men started filing in with trays of food. After several return trips, the four stood at the walls on both sides of the room.
The room was lit by candles that were set on the table, so the four servants’ faces were hidden by shadow. The women couldn’t tell if they were doing it because they wanted to or they had to. Looking for allies, if there were any to be had, was essential in their situation. Teeny decided that if anyone would help them, it would be those who were being used and abused.
The reverend stood and said his prayer over the food, and they all ate. Teeny and Rocky rebuffed any attempts to engage them in conversation, even from the reverend.
PLANTATION
Tin and Jax rushed back to the exam room, where they found O’Reilly sitting atop Laudner with Rocky’s samurai sword poised above the man’s face. They stood and watched as their longtime friend opened his eyes and growled up at O’Reilly. O’Reilly slammed the blade down, destroying his brain. After Laudner stopped struggling, he dropped the sword to clang several times on the hard floor. He rolled off the body and scooted over to sit against the wall with his head in his hands. “We’re going to kill them all, right?”
When he looked up at the twins, he had no doubt that it was exactly what was on their minds. After locking stares with the twins, he got a sharp, piercing pain in his head. “Aaarrgh! Fuck, that hurts.”
Marty grabbed the spray bottle that Teeny had used to spray the chomper and handed it to O’Reilly. After the pain receded enough for him to notice, he looked up at the gauze-covered face. “Do we know what this will do to me?”
“Teeny’s theory was that we need to cure you of axola before we can cure you of the rabies.”
O’Reilly’s eyebrows went up. “Theory?”
“The RabAvert will stop working, and your brain will swell. We also theorized that at that point, you would become like Anderson.”
“What about my enhancements?”
“Unknown.”
O’Reilly stared at the bottle as he swirled it around for a few seconds. “How much should I drink?”
“I don’t know. Just drink the rest, I guess.”
“OK. Here goes.” He guzzled the liquid down and sat there for a few seconds with a sour look on his face. “Jesus, Jax, your blood tastes like—”
He stopped suddenly and shook his head. Then his whole body started quivering more and more until it turned to spasms and then convulsions.
Marty shouted at Tin and Jax as they stood there watching their friend. “Hey, idiots, hold him down and keep him from hitting his head on the floor. I have to give him another shot of RabAvert.”
They shook themselves out of their stupor and grabbed his arms. Marty stabbed him in the belly with the syringe and squeezed. The convulsions receded to quivering again, and he opened his eyes.
“What the hell are you guys doing? Let me go. And you, back away from my junk.”
“I told you once, sweetheart. You are not my type.”
They let his arms go, and he moved his hands to his head again. “My head—it doesn’t hurt like it did, but it still hurts.”
Marty touched his forehead. “You’re burning up. It’ll take another couple of doses of the RabAvert to kill the rabies.”
O’Reilly looked up at Tin and Jax and was starting to say something when his eyes rolled back and he started convulsing again.
“Hurry. We need to get him to an ice bath quickly. His temperature is spiking from the rabies.”
Marty led them with his limping pace toward the therapy room. He opened the door and pointed at Tin first and then Jax. “You get some cold water going, and you go get some ice for the bath. I’m going to get an IV with an anti-inflammatory.”
_______
O’Reilly’s fever receded, and they moved him to a bed across from the pharmacy. After watching as Marty hooked up all the bells and whistles to monitor his vitals, they sat down in the same room and discussed what they needed to do to get back Teeny and Rocky.
“I saw some signage that pointed toward the Trudeau Plantation at the corner where we first saw him. I’m sure it won’t be hard to find,” Jax said.
Tin looked down thoughtfully for a few minutes as Jax continued. “Let’s blast in there and kick some South Carolina ass!”
Tin looked up, shaking his head. “We need cooler heads, Jax. We don’t know what we are charging into yet. He could have more men than what was with him here. They were probably on a supply run.”
Jax’s jaw clenched as Tin continued. “And don’t forget they have guns. We have an ax and a replica sword.”
Jax growled, “But they could be doing anything to the girls.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I want to get the girls too, but if we charge in there and get ourselves killed, what good would it do?”
Jax relaxed in his seat again and nodded his head at his brother. “We need to get close enough to reconnoiter the place and plan the rescue. We could use some weapons first. I have a feeling that there are more guns than they showed us. Trudeau has a major God complex and feels like he needs to control everything, including those.”
Tin paced across the room a couple times before he looked up at his brother and Marty. “Jax, we go in tonight to look at their operation from a distance. Tomorrow night we rescue the girls.”
There was a groan from the bed. Marty, who had been listening attentively from the corner of the room, moved over to look at the machines that were beeping away at a now-steady pace. O’Reilly started to sit up, and Marty pushed him back down. “You can’t get up yet, sweetie.”
O’Reilly opened his eyes to slits and looked at the gauze-faced man. “Who hit me with a brick? And don’t call me sweetie.”
Marty pushed the blankets up to shoulder height. “You were touch-and-go for a while, swe…asshole. Your fever would have caused brain damage or even killed you if it had gone unchecked for any longer, though you don’t have a lot to damage in the brains department, swe…asshole.”
“I feel like I have a hangover from a week-long binge.”
After gently laying his head back on the pillow, he spoke to Tin and Jax. “I heard some of what you were saying. How many hours before dark?”
Marty was the one who spoke first. “Oh, you aren’t going anywhere for at least twenty-four hours. We need to get you some food, anti-inflammatory, and RabAvert into you before you’ll be any good to anyone.”
Tin moved over to the side of the bed. “How do you feel? Still enhanced?”
O’Reilly grabbed the steel bar at the side of the bed and twisted with as much strength as he was able. It bent and popped off of one of the supports before he groaned and let go.
“I’m still strong. What do you think, Marty? Will the enhancement drugs in my system kill me now?”
Marty shrugged at first and then said thoughtfully, “There’s a good chance that it’s part of your DNA now, so all of your organs are beyond being damaged by the steroids.”
He looked up at Tin then. “But that’s conjecture without testing.”
Tin looked down at his friend. “Get some rest, Tommy. We’ll take a look and see what can be done to get Teeny and Rocky back.”
He paused for effect. “I’m sure we are going to need you at 100 percent to get it done.”
_______
Tin and Jax approached the edge of the encampment that was formerly Trudeau Plantation. It had been transformed out of necessity to keep the wandering dead from just happening into the places where people who were alive spent their lives now, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, barbed wire, and posted guards to resist both the dead and the living.
Jax climbed the tree at the east of the property and pulled some Spanish moss to camouflage himself enough to stay for an extended period. Tin moved to the west side of the property and did the same.
There were at least forty men who came and went. All of the activity was focused on the main house, so Tin assumed that the girls would be held in the building. It looked to have twenty-five or so rooms, with all of the bedrooms upstairs. They would either be up there or in the cellar.
Origin Z Page 25