Zombie World (Zombie Apocalypse #3)

by Hoffman, Samantha

  We head in the direction Reese says the building is in, and it isn’t until we’re nearly alongside it that I can finally tell it’s a building. The outside wall is white, and it looks like Reese is right. The wall has been built right into a small hill, which means the hill has probably been dug out and the rest of the building is either inside or under the hill. If it’s a serious kind of survival bunker, it may be both, with some kind of entryway and living quarters securely below the ground in case of emergency.

  Reese pulls on the handle and the door opens. He grunts from the effort, and the door squeals. He steps back and shines his flashlight into the doorway, looking for any sign of life. When nothing moves, he looks back at me. “Come on.”

  “Should we call out for him?” I ask. I’m not so sure I want to set foot inside this bunker. It looks more than a little creepy, and there’s no telling what might be down there. Maybe the owner booby trapped the entire place. We might end up blowing our heads off or getting impaled on something!

  “We can, but I wanna take a look around. His footprints lead up to the door so he’s obviously inside somewhere. But there’s no telling what we might find once we’re down here. A serious bunker like this is bound to have supplies of some kind, unless Trey has used them all up while hiding out in here.”

  “I wonder what he even does out here,” I say quietly, stepping through the open doorway after Reese. “He’s so far out of the way out here. Is he that desperate for solitude? Or is he doing something he doesn’t want anyone back at the house to know about?”

  Reese grimaces. “We’ll just have to wait and see. I hope he’s not doing anything too bad out here.”

  “Well I can’t think of anything good he’d be doing out here,” I whisper, tightening my grip on my weapon. “I mean, maybe he just wants some alone time without prying eyes, but I seriously doubt it. From what we know of him, he’s got a serious temper and no conscience to speak of.”

  Reese holds up his hand and I fall silent, stopping beside him without another word. He brings his weapon up, and I try to listen for whatever it is that’s made him stop. Finally, I hear movement of some kind, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. It sounds like metal chains clanking together, and I feel my stomach clench painfully. The only reason chains would be moving like that is if something moving was on the other end trying to get away.

  Reese looks at me, his expression steel and fierce. “Stay close to me, and if I tell you to run, turn around and bolt for the entrance as fast as you can.” Before I can even object, he silences me. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll be right behind you. Promise.”

  I believe him, and it gives me the courage to follow him into the next room of the bunker. It’s a spacious living area with a table and benches, along with two fold out bunk beds against the far wall. An ugly patterned rug covers most of the hard floor, and I see three separate doors leading off in all different directions.

  I have no idea how big this place is or how many people it might hold, but as of right now, this place is obviously being lived in. There are empty jars strewn all over the place, lining shelves and cluttered in the nearby corner, all bearing Mary’s tender touch. I wonder if they know that Trey has been siphoning food from their stockpile to bring out here. Why would he feel the need to steal from them? They give him all the food he could possibly need.

  The rattling of chains comes from our right, but I’m not in any hurry to rush through that door and find out what’s behind it. And apparently neither is Reese, because he heads for the door on our left first, motioning for me to follow closely behind. I fall in line behind him, bringing my weapon up as he grabs the door handle. He looks back over his shoulder at me and I nod uneasily. Just like with the shed, he’s letting me be the first one through the door.

  As Reese silently counts down, I tear my eyes away from his face and focus on the door. My palms feel sweaty inside my gloves and they’re beginning to itch. My heart races in my chest, pounding away like massive drums. I don’t know why I’m so nervous all of a sudden. I don’t know if it’s just that this place has a kind of creepy atmosphere with how deserted it feels, or if it’s because Trey is still missing and we have no idea what might be taking place down here.

  The door yanks open and I shine my light inside the room, holding my gun as steady as I can in my other hand. The soft beam from my flashlight illuminates the tiny room easily, and my eyes widen as I take in the horrific sight before me. Before I can help it, the flashlight slips from my grasp and clatters noisily to the ground, startling Reese as he stands behind me near the door.

  “Sam?” he whispers fiercely. “What is it?”

  My hand trembles and I know that even if I had to shoot something, I wouldn’t be able to aim straight. I force myself to move forward, entering the darkened room even though all I want is to turn and run in the other direction. I hear Reese hesitantly follow me inside, stopping only to pick up my dropped flashlight. When he comes up beside me to hand it back, he stops dead in his tracks, and it nearly falls from his grasp. “What the hell?”

  There are more chains in this room, just like in the shed before this. Chained to separate sides of the room are two young girls, probably not much older than Hannah. The thick chains hang from high above us, ending with some kind of collar tight around their necks to keep them from moving from one end of the room to the other. I can’t see their faces since both girls are staring down at the floor, and I can’t even tell if they’re alive or not since neither of them are moving at all.

  “This is what he was stealing the food for,” Reese says gravely, his voice low and heavy.

  “Are they…” I stop, unable to finish the thought. Tucking my weapon into its holster on my thigh, I drop to my hands and knees, crawling forward until I’m almost touching foreheads with this girl. Slowly, my hand reaches out and touches the clammy skin of her forehead, wiping back a chunk of grimy hair from her face so I can get a look at her. Her skin is so pale and it looks like it has been stretched over something far too big, to the point where it looks ready to be ripped to shreds by her sharp cheekbones.

  As my hand gently cups her face, her eyes flutter open, and I almost gasp. “She’s alive!”

  Reese immediately goes to the other girl, crouching down and gently touching her face. I force my attention back to the girl in front of me, and I lean in so she can get a good look at me. Her eyes are hazel in color, more brown than green, but they look so dull and lifeless. Her lips are chapped and torn, bleeding from tiny cracks throughout both the thin top lip and fuller bottom one. Her lips part, revealing dirty, stained teeth, one of which is missing in the very front.

  She’s wearing a dirty tank top and a pair of underwear, but nothing else. It’s freezing in this room and I can’t imagine how tired and cold they must be. All down her arms and legs are puckered scars, some newer than others, still bleeding and red. There’s bruising on her inner thighs, and I blink back tears, trying not to picture the hell these poor girls must have gone through.

  Her mouth moves, as if she’s trying to speak, but I can’t make out what she’s trying to say. Her eyes widen a bit and she tries again, this time actually managing to make some kind of noise. “W—” Her voice gives out and she begins to cough, and it finally registers what she needs. Quickly, I bring out my canteen, undo the top, and hold it to her lips. She isn’t strong enough to lift her own head, so I do it for her, tilting it back just enough to help the water pass through her lips and down her throat.

  She gulps thirstily at it, as if she hasn’t had anything to drink in days. Judging by how cracked her lips are, it wouldn’t surprise me. I pull the canteen of water away from her lips, trying not to feel too guilty at her whimpers of protest. “Not too fast or you’ll make yourself sick.”

  Behind me, I can hear the other girl gulping down water from Reese’s canteen. Looking over my shoulder, I catch Reese’s eyes. “What are we going to do? They’re chained to the wall and I don’t see a key anywhe
re, do you?”

  “We might have to go back to the house, get the others, and come back.”

  “Reese!” I whisper furiously. “We can’t just leave them here. We still don’t have any idea where Trey is. What if he comes back and gets rid of them when he realizes someone was here?”

  “I could stay here with them while you run back to the house,” he offers. “That way the girls aren’t left alone, and I can certainly handle Trey if he decides to show his face.”

  “H-he’s here.”

  I look down at the girl in front of me. She’s got her chain pulled as tight as it will go so she can be close to me, close to the life-saving water I’ve offered her. “What?”

  “H-he’s here.”

  “Trey?” I look back at Reese. “He must be in that other room with the noises coming from it!” A horrible thought strikes me, and I turn back to the girl. “Are there any other girls here? What’s going on in that room?”

  “It’s his p-playroom,” she says, looking down at the floor.

  “Playroom?”

  “It’s where I keep my toys,” Trey says from the open doorway. A sneer crosses his face, turning his features into an ugly mask that’s much different than the carefree guy we were introduced to.

  Reese is on his feet in an instant, but he stops when he sees the gun in Trey’s hand. It’s pointed subtly at my chest, and I can see the indecision on his face. Can he raise his weapon and take the shot in the time it takes Trey to react and pull the trigger himself? I believe Reese could do it, but I already know he’ll never run the risk of getting me killed. He’ll try to find some other way out of this situation, one that doesn’t put all of our lives at risk.

  “I’ve found a couple of stragglers on the farm from time to time, and I do my best to lure them out this way. Once I get them here, I chain them and bring them down to my playroom where I can have all the fun with them I want. They don’t feel any pain, so I can do all sorts of things with them.” His eyes flick to the girl still chained near my legs. “These two aren’t as resilient. But they’re good for other things.”

  Everything fades away until there’s nothing but red, and my hands clench into deadly fists. Before I even know what I’m going to do, I’m on my feet and rushing at him, catching him by surprise. I slam into his shoulder, spinning him away from the doorway and sending the two of us crashing to the floor. The gun goes off and I hear it hit the ceiling somewhere above us and ricochet. Trey’s hand lashes out, connecting with the side of my face with so much force I roll off of him and hit the wall.

  He’s on his feet as Reese comes to my aid, and the two raise their weapons. The end of Trey’s weapon is nearly touching Reese’s chest, while Reese has his aimed a little bit higher, threatening to blow a hole in Trey’s forehead, effectively killing him twice with one shot so he doesn’t have a chance to come back and endanger us again. “Sam, are you okay?” he asks, never taking his eyes from Trey.

  “I’m fine,” I say, getting to my knees. My face hurts and I’m sure there’s going to be a bruise later, but I can’t think about the pain right now. I open and close my mouth, trying to stretch out the muscles in my jaw so they don’t knot up. “What are we going to do with him?” I ask, bringing my weapon up. With both of us against him, his chances of getting out of this just plummeted, and he knows it.

  “I don’t know yet, but what the hell were you thinking?” he hisses. “You could have been killed!”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I admit. “But just listening to him talk was going to drive me crazy. I’m sorry.”

  Trey clears his throat. “Listen up. I’ve got a good thing going here, and I ain’t gonna let the two of you ruin that for me.”

  Reese snorts. “You think you’re gonna get away with any of this? The second we get out of here, we’re going back to the house to tell Evan what you’ve been doing. He’ll toss you out on your ass, and you can’t survive without his supplies. That’s if we don’t kill you first,” he says darkly, eyes narrowing. “Monsters like you deserve to be put down like rabid dogs.”

  “Good luck with that,” Trey says, taking a step back. Reese and I raise our weapons higher but he doesn’t stop. “It’ll be kinda hard to put me down,” he says with a sneer, “while the two of you are trapped down here until you starve to death. Nobody will ever find the two of you.”

  “What makes you so sure you’re getting out of here?” I ask, taking a step closer as he takes a step back.

  He swings his weapon over until it’s pointing at my chest, but I refuse to take my eyes off of him or show him even an ounce of fear. My knees feel like buckling and my heart is racing a hundred miles an hour, but he probably thrives off of the fear of women and I don’t want to feed into it.

  Without warning, he lowers his weapon to the floor and pulls the trigger. The sound is like an explosion in this underground enclosed space, and Reese and I duck for cover as Trey turns and flees. Reese manages to fire a shot of his own, and I hear Trey curse, but he doesn’t stop. He makes it all the way to the entrance and the door slides into place, leaving us alone underground with two girls that we have no idea how to help.

  “Where does he think he’s going?” Reese asks, getting to his feet. He offers me a hand, and I take it gratefully. I’m not sure I can stand on my own at the moment, and I take a quick second to look for any sign of injury. Reese and I both seem to be fine, but that’s more than I can say for the two girls still chained to the wall. “Sam?”

  “I’m fine,” I say absently, feeling the urge to chew my thumbnail as I think. “How are we going to get these girls out of here? We don’t have time to search for a key.”

  “We might not have to. Maybe they know where he keeps it.”

  Reese ducks back into the room, and I can hear him talking quietly with the girls, trying to get any information he can out of them. I peek into the darkened room and see Reese softly talking to the girl that I first went to. Her lips are moving, but her voice is so soft I can’t make out what she’s saying. But Reese seems to understand, since he nods his head. He puts his hand on her shoulder gently, but she flinches away from him as if he’d just tried to strike her, and he removes it immediately.

  “We’ll be right back. We’re gonna get you two out of here, okay?” To me, he says, “It’s in the playroom.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “He wanted her to be able to see where he kept it. I guess it was just another way to torture her.” He shakes his head in disgust, his lip curling back. “I knew he was trouble right from the start, but I never thought it’d be this bad. We have to get back to the house, and soon, or there’s no telling what might happen.”

  He heads for the playroom door and I follow along, but a thought crosses my mind. “Reese, how the hell are we gonna get them back to the house? They’re probably half starved, dehydrated, and most likely hypothermic from the cold in that room. Not to mention they’re half naked and probably don’t have any snow gear.”

  He pauses with his hand on the playroom door. “We might have to leave them here while we handle Trey, and come back with one of the vehicles. Or maybe Evan has some kind of cart to help them get around the property. I doubt they walk from one end of the pasture to the other everyday, not with his leg in the shape it is.” He looks back at me again. “You ready for this?”

  I bring my weapon up. There’s no time to do a careful, slow sweep of the room like back in the shed. So Reese yanks open the door and steps through, his weapon raised, ready to take out any zombies left. I’m through the door right behind him, coming up on his side so we can watch each other’s backs.

  The playroom looks like an even more twisted version of the room where the girls are being held. Chains hang from the ceiling, bolted to the wall so his toys can’t pull their way free and eat him. There are currently two zombie guests in his playroom. One is chained to the far wall, and the other is strapped down to a long table, reminiscent of Dr. Richards’ experiments. I shudder just lookin
g at them, wondering what horrors Trey committed while locked away down here.

  “There’s the key, hanging on a hook.”

  I follow his gaze and see a key ring looped over a hook on the far wall. “We’ll have to take that zombie out before we can get to it.”

  “Not a problem,” Reese says.

  I let him take out the zombie with a single shot to the head. He grabs the keys, stopping only to put a bullet in the forehead of the zombie strapped to the table. I try not to look at its sawed off legs or ripped out teeth. Reese rushes out and I follow him back to the other room where the girls are waiting for us.

  The girl on the opposite side of the room has a dull, lifeless look in her eyes that I’m not sure will ever go away, but the girl closest to the door that I gave water to has a feisty look in her eyes that makes me think she’ll be okay with a little time and tender love and care. Maybe Mary and Evan will take care of these girls when we leave. They might be able to have a good life on this farm, especially if we succeed in getting to Detroit.

  Reese drops to his knees in front of her and tries two keys before he finds the right one. The padlock opens and he undoes it, pulling the collar off her neck and allowing her to fall forward. He catches her, easing her down to the ground gently before going over to the other girl. While he finds her key, I kneel in front of the now free girl and give her a tentative smile. “My name’s Sam.”

  She looks at me, her eyes naturally wary after being down here alone with Trey. “Molly.”

  My grandma had a dog named Molly.

  I offer her my canteen of water again, and she takes it eagerly. Her sips are slower and less frantic this time, maybe because she’s strong enough to drink for herself and doesn’t have to worry about getting enough before I take it away from her. When she finally gets enough water to drink, slurping down the last with a loud smack, she looks at me again, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving. “Do you have any food?”