Motioning my head past the clearing, “There’s a farmhouse up ahead.”
Donny squinted in the direction I’d indicated and spit on the ground. He scratched his chin and nodded before turning back to the others. “House up ahead, let’s go.”
He pushed me into Austin, which I took as my cue to keep walking. Austin raised his eyebrows at me and I just shrugged. It wasn’t like we had a whole lot of choice; I just hoped we were alone out here.
Wiping my forehead on my shoulder for the umpteenth time, I started trudging through the brush towards the house. I wanted to keep an eye out for anything I could use to cut the ropes when they weren’t looking and escape, but if I did, what about the others back at the compound? I wasn’t about to leave Jack and the kids behind, but I wasn’t too keen on being used as bait, either.
A sagging front porch was coming into view, which wrapped around what I was sure used to be a house before it was condemned; or at least I hoped it had been condemned; anyone trying to live there would’ve been out of their minds.
A section of the roof had collapsed on the side of the house where a branch had fallen on it; must have happened in the storm. It was dead quiet except for the sound of mine and Austin’s careful footsteps, the rope dragging through the pine needles behind us and the heavy boots of the men following.
I looked over my shoulder at Donny, who nodded towards the front door with his head and aimed his gun at me.
Taking a deep breath, I put one hesitant foot on the bottom step and bounced a couple of times to make sure it would hold my weight. Once I was almost certain I wasn’t going to fall through the stairs, I continued up the few feet to the top, cringing at every creaking board the whole way. Peeking at Austin from the corner of my eye, I could see him holding his breath with every creak, too. Apparently I wasn’t alone in being scared shitless.
Reaching the top of the landing, I paused and waited for the others to catch up. Feeling vibrations in the floorboards, I looked to Austin to make sure I wasn’t crazy, but the color draining from his face was a dead giveaway that we were definitely not alone.
Bracing myself, I barely had time to steady myself before the front door was flung open and a zombie was barreling out the door right for us. I waited for it to get closer, trying not to gag at the rotting flesh falling as it ran. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and most of his chest cavity was exposed, leaving a horde of feasting maggots in clear view.
When he got close enough to reach, I fisted my hands and swung at his face as hard as I could as Austin kicked his knee sideways, causing his femur to shatter and the zombie to crash to the ground.
Looking down, I noticed the zombie beared a striking resemblance to a guy I used to sleep with who turned out to be a colossal asshole. Seeing Jacob’s likeness leering up at me from the ground fanned the flames of old anger and I couldn’t help but raise my knee and stomp down on the half-detached jaw of the zombie, effectively crushing what was left of his skull. I pulled my foot out of its cranium and stomped down a few more times just for good measure.
“I think you got him…”
I looked up at the amusement on Austin’s face and blew a stray curl out of my eyes as I shook the brain matter from my sneaker. Looking back down at the face that was so familiar, I felt vindicated. “Serves you right, dick.”
Austin’s eyes got wider as he just stared at me.
I met his gaze without hesitation. “Reminded me of someone.” I shrugged and continued wiping bits of gore from my shoe onto the wooden banister and waited for the guys at the other end of our leash to catch up.
Donny ran up the stairs and stared down at what was left of the zombie. He whistled with mild appreciation before jabbing me with his rifle and nodding towards the door that was swinging half of its hinges.
I shot him a death glare and stepped over the corpse, making my way slowly into the house. I could hear the foundation settling, but that was all. There was no movement inside save for whatever critters had been hiding and waiting for the corpse to drop which eased the tension in my shoulders a bit.
Austin and I stopped in the middle of the small main room and listened for a moment just to be sure, but there was nothing. “We’re alone,” he said, looking to Donny.
We continued to stand there as Donny and his men piled into the tiny hut and proceeded to ransack the place. To be fair, it was already a disgusting mess, so it wasn’t a huge loss to watch them break the couple of pieces of furniture left and bag up the few canned goods that had been hanging around the cupboards.
I looked down and shuddered slightly to see a giant spider race across the floor too close to me for comfort. I wanted to laugh at myself for not batting an eye when a rotting corpse seething with maggots gets close but a spider still freaked me out. There were apparently some fears that even an apocalypse couldn’t quite cure me of.
Just as I was starting to get even more bored, the guys finished up destroying what they could and taking anything salvageable and before I knew it, Austin and I were being pushed back out the door into the unforgiving sunlight.
The rest of the day carried on much like the morning; slow and hot. We’d found a few other homes to scavenge, but the bounty wasn’t huge and I was grateful. I was tired and hungry and wanted a shower so bad I considered stripping naked and praying for rain.
We were herded back the compound and I let out a huge sigh of relief as the tension somewhat drained from my shoulders. We’d lucked out and hadn’t been attacked by anything Austin and I couldn’t handle tied up without weapons, but I knew our luck would run out at some point.
They brought us back to the barn and untied the ropes, locking us into separate horse stalls. A woman I’d never seen before came in with bottles of water and food. She looked a little younger than me, but was so thin and frail I wondered if they had to anchor her down when it got windy.
She didn’t say a word to either of us, just handed us our food and water without meeting our eyes and crept quietly back out. There were bruises on her neck in the shape of hand prints and I grew fearful for my friends. If any of these fuckers laid one hand on Chloe I would personally disembowel every last one of them.
I sat down in a pile of hay at the back of the stall and opened the water. The bottle wasn’t sealed and the water wasn’t exactly clear, but I would take what I could get at this point. It had a gritty taste to it, like stale well water that had been sitting for a few days and it was sort of warm, but I drank every last drop anyway. She had left a bowl of what looked like it was supposed to be stew, but with no meat it was like a runny vegetable soup. I dipped the hard crusted bread into the bowl and shoved it into my mouth, trying not to think about how awful it was.
My stomach hurt so much from hunger I almost gagged on the food as I choked down what I could. It felt like being in a bad prison movie and I wondered when they’d bring out the striped uniforms to complete our ‘chain gang’ ensemble.
After I’d eaten enough to prevent my stomach from eating itself, I pushed the empty bowl away and lay down on the wooden floor. There was hay scattered around and it was dirty, but the wood felt cool on my too hot skin so I closed my eyes and tried to calm my mind.
Watching the sun make its way across the sky through the cracks in the walls, I tried not to throw myself the epic pity party I so desperately wanted and instead focused on how the fuck we were going to get out of here. The compound was well fortified against zombies, which meant getting out with the whole group was going to be a bitch. The only thing I could think of was starting a riot, which likely would end up in the untimely death of at least one of us, if not all.
Rolling onto my back, I crossed my arms under my head and watched the dust motes weaving through the air. In general, my life had always pretty much sucked, but this took the cake. At least Sarah and I had gotten away pretty fucking fast after Javier had tried to kidnap us, but this was a situation I wasn’t sure I would be able to get myself out of. I knew I had no chance of talking my way
out; not with my mouth at least so that left someone else in group to suddenly get creative. I just hoped they were faring better than I was.
“Get up.” I rolled over, startled at the voice and looked up to see the Ogre standing at the door of my stall with a rifle.
“I said get the fuck up!” He growled even louder, eliciting a sigh from me as I slowly rolled my tired body to my feet. The sun was down so I figured I’d slept around 3 hours and my stomach was rumbling again.
Once I was standing, he opened the door to my stall and proceeded to place shackles on my wrists again. “I have to pee,” I said as he struggled with the clasp.
The Ogre looked startled at my omission and I could see a panic on his face as he looked around, trying to solve this dilemma. He finally just looked at me and grunted. “Hold it.”
“Fine, but if I pee my pants, it’s on you, buddy.” I grumbled as he yanked the chain to push me in front of him and guide me out of the barn. I cast a look over my shoulder to see Austin’s face peering at me from over the door on his stall and my stomach did a nosedive at the fear in his eyes. Well fuck, that couldn’t be good.
“Where are we going?” I whispered over my shoulder at the Ogre who just jabbed my ribs with the barrel of his rifle to keep moving.
The night air was cool on my skin which only made the layer of dirt that much more uncomfortable. Seriously, I’d sell my soul for a shower. We shuffled through the grass and I started to get curious when I realized we were headed for the main house.
He pushed me up the stairs onto the patio and waited for the guy at door duty to swing open the heavy wooden door. I put a cautious foot inside the threshold, pausing to listen for anything about to attack, but all I got were hushed whispers somewhere nearby and the steady heartbeats of the Ogre and the doorman.
We walked through the large foyer and into what could have been a cozy sitting room, were it not for the creepy religious paraphernalia ordaining the walls. A large crucifix complete with a bloody Jesus hung proudly over the mantle which only made me shudder. The artist had done a damn fine job of making the whole thing so realistic the blood dripping down his forehead looked wet. You could see each rib protruding beneath the bruised flesh and I wanted nothing more than to throw a sheet over the thing and never look at it again. I was going to have nightmares about that piece for the rest of my life.
Tearing my eyes away from the gruesome sight, I looked to the left to see the Preacher calmly reading a Bible on a wingback chair near the fireplace. The Ogre pushed me into the loveseat adjacent to the chair and I shot him yet another dirty look before turning my attention to the Preacher.
He didn’t look up, just continued to read; stopping only to turn a page every few minutes. He looked just as tidy and clean as he had the previous night and I became jealous. Here I was dirty and starving and he looked like he’d just eaten a large glorious meal only to retire to his study with a glass of brandy and a book for the evening. I wanted to reach over and strangle the life from him with the chains around my wrists but somehow managed to bury my anger and instead checked out the rest of the room.
My gaze returned to the floor just as fast after catching sight of the various taxidermy animals and other, smaller crucifixes adorning the walls. The whole room made chills race down my spine so hard I briefly wondered if I’d just cracked a vertebrae from revulsion.
“Have you found God yet, Angie?” I looked up, startled at his sudden words.
“No, but if the Devil showed up right now and offered me a shower and a toilet, I’d be hard-pressed not to make a deal.” The Ogre backhanded me hard enough my neck cracked and I wanted so desperately to stab him with a crucifix as I wiped the blood now oozing from my lip with the back of my hand.
The Preacher held up his hand, “Leave us.”
The Ogre nodded and left the room without looking up from the floor.
“Fine way to treat a guest,” I muttered sarcastically still wiping up blood from my lip.
The Preacher placed a bookmark in the bible and set it on the table next to him, picking up a dainty teacup and taking a sip as he studied me. His face gave away nothing, which made it really fucking hard to tell what his exact plans for me were. His heartbeat remained steady and calm, which only further cemented my suspicions that he was truly and genuinely batshit crazy.
“You may not believe now, but you will. You’ve been chosen.” He set the teacup down and crossed hands softly in his lap, peering at me from over the brim of his glasses. He still looked like Santa and part of me wanted to sit in his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas while the other part wanted to smash the teacup and slit his throat with it.
“Chosen for what?” My curiosity got the best of me and I decided that playing his mind games was more interesting than sitting in the barn.
“To live, apparently. Which means you must have a purpose.” He looked surprised that I’d asked; like I should just automatically understand his brand of crazy.
“No, I was picked to be injected with a poison no one knew the effects of because I was nosy. There’s nothing prophetic about it.” I knew this conversation was going to be taxing, so I leaned back into the cushion and closed my eyes.
“What was your profession before the End Times began?”
The End Times. Not The End of Times, just End Times. I liked it. “I worked with computers.” Normally when people asked what I did I just told them I was in IT, but somehow I doubted this guy would understand that.
“Ah. I’m told you fought well today, did you have training in that as well?”
I opened my eyes and met his curious stare. “No.”
He nodded in understanding. “I see.”
“Do you?” The sarcasm and bitterness dripping from my tongue was thick enough I almost choked on it.
The Preacher looked shocked at my anger. “Why yes, I do. I can already see that before this you had a nothing life that was going nowhere. You’ve probably come from a world of fornication and drugs and sin and now you’ve been given a second chance to Repent.” He smiled softly and knowingly at me, which only made every hair on my body stand up. This guy took the creep factor to a whole new level.
“You don’t know my life,” I mumbled, looking down at my hands in my lap. One of my nails had cracked and I was immersed in picking at it rather than look at him.
His soft chuckle made me cringe. “In time, you will come around. For now, I think we should make your stay a bit more…hospitable.” I looked up, surprised and curious as to what he meant by that, but before I could ask, he yelled for the Ogre.
“Take our guest up stairs and give her to the females.” The Ogre grunted in acknowledgment and grabbed my arm brusquely, pulling me from the sofa and pushing me out of the room.
I wanted to stop and ask what the plan for me was, but he was already dragging me up the winding staircase to the second floor, which only filled me with dread. I started to hyperventilate as we reached the top of the landing but didn’t have time to fully panic before he shoved me down the hall and into an open room. I fell through the doorway and to the floor just in time to see him slam the door after me.
The room was bare save for a tiny bed, a bedside table and rickety old rocking chair. A single lantern lit the place from the table, casting as eerie glow against the faded and peeling wallpaper. Of course another horrific crucifix hung above the bed which only made me want to track down whoever decorated the place and give them a bad Yelp review.
I looked up when the door on the other side of the room was cracked open to reveal the same woman from earlier. She shuffled quietly into the room and didn’t say a word as she started to pull me to my feet. The shapeless dress she wore hung off her bones and dragged on the floor, only revealing her small, bare feet in glimpses.
She pulled me gently into the room she’d emerged from and I nearly wept at the sight of a large and decrepit looking bathtub with a few feet of water already in it and a small stool sitting next to it.
> Reaching down, she grabbed scissors from the table and started cutting my clothes off me. I started to pull away; I loved these cargo pants; but she shook her head hard and me and darted her eyes towards the door in fear.
I took that to mean if I made a fuss we’d both be in for terrible time so I resigned myself to saying goodbye to my beloved pants as she continued cutting. When I was down to my bra and panties, she put down the scissors and pulled a key from a ring tied to the belt on her dress and unlocked me.
Rubbing my wrists where the metal had caused blisters, I didn’t fight as she pulled off my panties and bra and motioned for me to get in the tub. Under normal circumstances being naked in a nonsexual way in front of a complete stranger would have made me uncomfortable, but considering how many times it had occurred in the last week or so, I was alarmingly starting to get used to it.
I put a foot in the tub and almost fell back out at the shock of cold water on my bare skin. I looked to her pleadingly and without a word she motioned for me to continue. Her expression was apologetic enough, which gave me the courage to just do it.
Once both feet were in, I held my breath and sat down fast, the air leaving my chest on a gasp from the chill. The muscles in my thighs started to quiver, which only caused a chain reaction and moments later every muscle in my body was shivering so hard it caused violent ripples in the water.
I crossed my arms over my chest in a vain attempt to stay warm and watched as she picked up a pitcher, dipped it into the water and poured it over my head. The cold was such that I wondered briefly if I would actually fracture something from shivering. I tried to focus on something, anything else as she bathed me.
Just as I was sure I was going to pass out from hypothermia, she rinsed the last of the foul smelling soap from my hair and helped me stand. It was harder than it should have been; I was so cold my legs didn’t want to work but with her help, I managed to climb out of the tub and snatch the towel from her hands so fast I scared her.
This is the End (Book 2): Not Dead Yet Page 17