One man’s fingers dug into my upper arms, pinching the skin under my armpits. Hands trailed down the curve of my back, reaching around my pants, searching. My body vibrated with nervous energy as my throat closed. I clenched my muscles and hardened myself. I could barely get air into my lungs. Fingers poked into my pockets, lifted up my shirt, and explored every crevice. I never once felt like I had a chance of escape, their arms unrelenting.
A man hauled me over his shoulder, my face hitting his muscular back, my ass in the air near his ear. I wanted to pull my shirt down to cover my midriff. I wanted to fix my pants that had slipped low enough to show my butt. It was stupid since those were probably the least of my worries, but I hated being vulnerable. Hated the dirty taste it left in my mouth. Before I had the chance to wiggle, my arms and ankles were zip-tied together.
The man carrying me walked through my hallway. He acted as if he knew my home, each step confident. He pushed through my rickety, old screen door. It crashed shut behind us, and I heard another man’s feet catch and a bang from behind me.
“Fuck, Jim. You shut the damn door in my face.”
“Oh, screw off. Hold your own damn door.”
Suddenly, my captor, Jim, stumbled forward, and my head slammed against his back. His arms tightened around my waist. It made me squirm with disgust. I wished he’d just drop me to put me out of my misery. Even though without working arms and legs, I wouldn’t get far.
“Where do you want her?” Jim asked.
“Put her in the middle of the back seat, and I’ll sit next to her.”
A different man’s finger traced the outline of my hip and rose up to my face, pausing along the way at my breasts. He felt the curve of my waist. He squeezed my nipple through my shirt, and I screamed, my throat burning. I choked as tears rolled down my face. His other hand got lost in my hair and tugged my head backwards with a snap. I screamed again as loud as I could, but my voice turned scratchy, the first signs of losing it. Someone slapped me hard. My cheek ignited, a sharp fire where his palm connected.
“Let me go!” I struggled in Jim’s arms, yelling and kicking. I knew that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t be freed. I bucked my hips and thrust my shoulders forward, hoping to flip over and at least stand alone. Hope seemed like a distant memory.
Jim pulled me down off his back and grabbed onto my shoulders. He squeezed them so hard I knew they would bruise, deep purple fingerprints in my skin. He tugged me against his body and lifted me, jerking me around whatever way he chose. I felt like a rag-doll, flailing around.
My right ear pressed against his chest as he settled me, his heart thumping steadily like a drum. His arm snaked behind my head, holding around my shoulders a little too tight, and his other arm reached under my knees, lifting me in one quick thrust.
“Just get in the car before you get yourself hurt,” Jim whispered, his voice hushed. His arms released me into a low-to-the-ground seat. I tried to twist my head so the blindfold would fall off, but it was pointless.
I ran my hands along the seat and felt a cold, firm leather. The car rumbled to life as one of the doors shut from the front. I became more aware of my lack of sight. I had no idea how many men were there, or what they looked like. The edges of the fabric bit into my temples.
I tried to sit up, squirming and rolling, but it became impossible without my arms. A loud bang against the car jolted me, and I quieted my panting, trying to listen to what was going on. Nobody else had gotten into the car, and it didn’t feel like we were moving yet.
“Get in the other car and meet us there.” It was Jim who spoke first.
“I want to play with the lil’ lady.” The deep voiced man was farther away than Jim, probably standing near the door to my house. Jim’s heavy-booted foot stepped towards where I was.
“Get in the other car.” Jim’s voice grew angrier by the second, the gruffness returning. Another bang against the car, like a body being shoved against the metal. I felt around the seat with my hand, trying to find a weapon. I might have had only a few seconds alone, but I would utilize them to my advantage.
“What the fuck is your problem? This is what we do now.” The man with a haunting voice was painfully close to me now.
“Guys, just relax,” another man said, his voice completely foreign and new.
“I’m pretty sure if I were you, I’d listen to me.” Jim exhaled, and I pictured him about to charge with his fists raised. “Now get in the other car and get the fuck out of here.”
For a moment, there was just heated silence. It vibrated through the air like invisible smoke. And then another punch. I jumped at the noise. My heart thumped loudly, my body shaking in fear. My hands found the felt of the floor and my fingers crawled in search of something to use as a weapon. The man in the driver’s seat mumbled under his breath, something about hurrying this along, I gathered.
The back door of the car shut: a warm presence appeared beside me. I was fully laid out across the back seat, vulnerable to any attack. The man brushed against my exposed stomach, lifting me so I was sitting up. I pushed my feet against the floor to get away.
“Drive to the house.” It was Jim’s voice. For some reason, I felt relieved that it was him and not the other guy. My body relaxed at the timbre of his voice. I wasn’t sure if it was the mere fact that I knew Jim’s name or what, but he seemed like a lesser of two evils.
“Got it.” The driver’s voice was quiet, soft, not menacing like most of the others. The car fell to comfortable silence and I tried to come up with the best case scenario for the situation I had gotten in.
I believed everyone had good in them, including these men. It was a naive philosophy. Frankly, almost everything else in my life I assumed the worst, from people to situations to the meaning of life itself. I had met a lot of different people in my twenty-four years—from neglectful foster parents, to abusive siblings, to grimy bosses, to seedy old men on the bus.
But I truly believed that good overpowered evil. These men had to have some soft side or else I was screwed. I latched onto the hope that I could find the weakness and use it to get myself out of there.
Hands touched my shoulders, and I flinched. I pushed myself until I was pressed against the side door, my head tilting in an awkward angle against the low ceiling. The seat sunk down, indented from his weight as he hovered above me. His breath trickled over my face, and oddly enough, it was minty and not unpleasant like the others.
“I won’t hurt you.” He sounded sincere, but I didn’t believe him. I wasn’t that deluded. He was too close to me, too comfortable being so close. My stomach spun. “What’s your name?”
I didn’t want to answer at first. But I figured if he knew my name, maybe he’d be less inclined to kill me or hurt me. I normally hated pity—people’s initial response when they found out I was in foster care all my life. But I’d take it today to save my life.
“Lana.”
I used to do this in my foster houses when needy teenage boys tried to screw around with me. If I acted all innocent, and got them to feel something and like me as a person, they’d usually feel guilty and back off. Guilt was another emotion to play off of—strong enough to change perceptions. But I had a feeling Jim wasn’t at all like a teenage boy and wouldn’t be easily swayed.
Jim’s hands found my face, and he gently lifted the fold off my eyes. The hard fabric scratched against my forehead, making it itch. It took a moment for me to see again, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. Jim scooted backwards and sat at the far end of the bench seat, putting a few feet of space between us. My eyes darted around the car.
It was an old Honda going by the logo on the steering wheel. The interior was black with black leather seats. There were only three of us in the car: the driver, Jim, and me. Yet, the tension in the air made it feel cramped.
The car bounced as we ran something over, and I jerked to the side, my face connecting with the glass window. I groaned and pulled back, my nose throbbing.
Out
side, deep purples and blues painted the sky twilight. Red fires with black tendrils of smoke lit up the landscape. It had only been a week, but I didn’t even recognize our location.
Dozens of bodies littered the side bike path of the two-lane road. My normally simple neighborhood was now the center of a war zone. The contrast between eight days ago and now was startling. What had I missed?
I knew if we went north, we’d run into the center of Hartford, and if we went south, there’d only be woods for miles and miles. I stared at the dying landscape and figured we were headed south. Trees grew denser the longer we drove, some snapped like toothpicks, others burnt to a crisp. Circles on the ground were charred black, dead bodies the only consistency.
I finally tore my gaze from my foreign surroundings to Jim. He stared out of his window, so I could only see his profile. His way-too-large-for-his-face nose looked as if he’d broken it a few times, crooked at the bridge. Dark brown hair faded like a marine and was short on top. The darkness of the evening shielded his eyes. His lips pouted, like he was thinking about something hard and then, as if he could feel my stare, his eyes cut to mine.
No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t look away—he captured me. His eyes were a deep, royal blue that I could swear I’d never seen before in a man. They were deep and emotion-filled. They held me, pulling me, begging me not to look away. I felt my forehead wrinkle as I stared at him. This man had kidnapped me from my own home. He grabbed me hard, tossed me around, and now here I sat, just staring at him. He shook his head and turned away, looking out the window. His hold on me broke.
I could only see the man in the driver’s seat in the rear view mirror. He also had dark hair and dark eyes, though his were a simple, milk chocolate brown. I was sure he saw me staring, but chose to ignore me. His brows furrowed as he stared out the windshield, his eyes hard as stone, focused.
“Where are you taking me?” I found my voice, tucked away in the depths of my gut.
“It’ll be easier if you don’t know,” Jim whispered.
“Easier for who?”
Jim stared at me now, his body rigid, his back perfectly straight. Smudges of brown and black and red caked his dirty cheeks and sweaty neck. His clothes were ripped at the knees and around his wrists. It looked as though he hadn’t showered in days, or even since the start of this disaster.
“You, Lana.” Jim shook his head, his eyes darting to the driver. I didn’t understand his incomplete sentence. Then I remembered my initial question and cocked my head to the side. I wondered who this strange man was. I couldn’t quite get a read on him.
“Hey, Kev. Pull over for a second.”
Kev obliged. I couldn’t see much on the road, the streetlights off. No other cars came from either direction. Jim pulled a knife out from his back pocket and sliced the binds from my ankles. He grabbed the zip ties around my wrists and dragged me out of the car, my hands aching. My wrist bones felt like they may pop out at any second, my shoulders aching.
“What the hell!” I yelled as he pulled me behind a huge tree, about ten feet from the car. It was too dark to see past the line of trees around us. Random lights filtered through that did nothing to help me deduce where I was.
“Listen here and listen good because I don’t know the next time we’ll be alone. I promise I will not hurt you, and you have no choice but to believe me.” I tried to object but he placed his hand over my mouth, pressing my head against the bark. I glared at him, and he let his hand drop.
“Those guys from before, that guy in the car, they will hurt you. I don’t know where you’ve been hiding, but things have changed. You’ll be safe with me…for now.”
“What’s going on?” My voice ricocheted through the otherwise silent night. The sky was tainted red. The heavy air washed over me, smelling like death and sulfur. Someone screamed not too far away, and Jim’s hand came right back to my mouth. He shushed me and I reached for him, holding onto his waist, afraid he might leave me alone.
“Shit, you were too loud.” Jim reached around me and pinned me to the tree behind us. My spine painfully pressed against the unforgiving bark. He spun back around and pulled out the same knife, his back to me in a protective stance. He quickly sliced the ties around my wrists. I shook my arms. I was free…
“Take this.” Jim pushed a long handled knife into my hand—different from the one he cut my binds with—and I stared at the glistening silver edge.
“What do you want me to do with this?”
“Use it if you have to.”
“But—”
Someone jumped out towards Jim from the woods in front of us. I reached for Jim and held onto the back of his shirt so he didn’t leave me alone out here. The man had his hands raised and clawed towards Jim as he walked. His feral voice cried out, moaning. The man didn’t move fast, but he came out of nowhere, surprising us and catching Jim off guard. Jim ducked and grabbed the man by the base of his neck.
He lunged forward with his knife and shoved it into the man’s eye. I didn’t have time to see if it was red or not. Jim inserted it it all the way to the handle. He pushed the body away from us. Warm blood squirted onto my face and my hands, all up and down Jim’s torso, and seeped down into my slippers. The body fell lifelessly to the ground at our feet.
Jim turned and faced me, his eyes surveying my body up and down. He must have seen the shock and horror on my face. “Don’t you dare scream now.”
He took my head between both of his blood-stained hands while his eyes bore into mine. His thumb rubbed traces of blood off my cheeks. He wiped his tainted finger on his cargo pants.
“You just killed someone,” I muttered still in shock. How was this happening? Why did that man even attack us? Was he one of the monsters? I looked from the dead body up to Jim and back again. I dropped the knife to the ground, my hand shaking uncontrollably as pure confusion wrapped around my throat.
“You really have been hiding this whole time.” Jim shook his head and took both my shoulders in his hands, making me square up to him. His eyes held me in place. “That person had the virus. It’s the living or the infected now.”
“You’re lying. The government is killing the monsters. The soldier said we were safe during the day. It’s only the ones with red eyes you should kill.” I trained my eyes to the ground, replaying the words on the radio. It was an attack. A bombing. They said to wear gas masks but I assumed it was because of the nuclear waste.
“North America was attacked with a bio-toxin. It affected about fifty percent of humans right off the bat, turning them into these rage-happy monsters. The rest of us are infected, but it just doesn’t change us—yet.
“That person I just killed had the toxin in his system. He’s a weapon of whoever did this. If we don’t take them out, they take us over. I’ve seen it happen. It’s kill or be killed. And trust me, those things kill in a nasty way.”
I stepped away from Jim, but every move I made, he countered.
“Where are you taking me?”
“We have a protected house just outside the city. There’s water and supplies. But you and I aren’t staying long.” He turned so his back faced me. “I should’ve gotten out faster,” he mumbled under his breath as he ran his hand down his face.
“You regret finding me?”
“Yes, Lana, I do.” His blue eyes found me again, and I sighed. My mind raced so fast, I couldn’t even comprehend half of what floated around. I started to get dizzy. “These guys…they’re brutal. I’ve seen what they do. They’re fucking savages. This life is a game, and everyone’s playing for keeps. People have gone mad. All kinds of people.”
“Then, let’s go right now.” I grabbed onto his biceps and pleaded with him. I didn’t want to go back to their house. I didn’t want to see the pain that was consuming Jim’s eyes. I had seen enough in my life. I didn’t want to face anything else. I lived a life of simplicity. I had run away from my demons and started fresh. I couldn’t do this again.
“We don
’t have any supplies. We would be dead in a day.”
“We can find supplies. Come on. Let’s just go. Please, Jim. You’re my only hope.” Tears fell from my eyes. My body shook with sobs that wracked through my insides. I dropped my head in my swollen hands and cried. Jim’s warm arms circled me. I flinched backwards and stepped away.
“Kev would know if we ran. They’ll track us. It’s safer for you to play the part and we can leave tomorrow night.” He tilted my head back and looked down at me. “You’re mine, and I won’t let anyone touch you. Can you trust me?”
“I’m yours? You don’t know me at all. You kidnapped me!” I spun around and dragged my hand through my tangled hair. “This is fucked up. You know that, right?”
“This entire world is fucked up now. There’s no government, no order. People are running around killing each other for sport. If you think you can survive alone, then fine, run.” He waved out his hand towards the dark woods. “Go,” he dared me, his eyes boring into me hard.
“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone in my house?” I slammed my fists against his chest as my body vibrated with anger. Why me? Didn’t I deserve one fucking break in life? Nothing ever worked for me. He grabbed onto my wrists, holding me in place. I stared up at him, pleading.
“It wasn’t my call. That’s what happens now. You’re lucky you weren’t found earlier. Lana, you have to trust me here.”
“I don’t trust anyone but myself.” I wriggled, but his grasp stayed firm.
“That’s good. But you have to listen to what I say and do exactly what I tell you. Otherwise, you’ll end up dead or fucking those guys.”
“I’d never do that.” I frowned in disgust. I shook my head. There was no way they were going to get that far. I’d kill myself. I’d rather be dead than used and abused by a group of savage men.
The Last Legacy (Season 1): Episodes 1-10 Page 3