Revenence (Novella 2): Dead Tired

by M. E. Betts

  The sadist sneered. "I don't believe it," he said. "What? You're gonna turn me around, pull my pants down and use that thing on me? You'd have to be crazy to wanna follow through on something like that. Go ahead, I dare you."

  "You got more balls than I woulda thought. I didn't say it would be a savory task," Adrian admitted. "But you, or at least your buddies, have...." He paused, the next words coming out almost as verbal projectile vomit, his dark eyes gleaming. "Forced yourselves on my little girl. I guess I'm feeling a little rapey right about now, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Fair is fair, right? Eye for an eye."

  "You're fucking crazy!" the sadist screeched as Adrian advanced toward the sink, his voice shrill and his eyes open wide, the irises in the middle surrounded on all sides by a wide margin of white.

  "Aren't we all a little crazy?" Adrian replied, grinning. "I know I am."

  As the sadist panicked, flailing his right arm up wildly. Adrian knelt down onto the cool tiles with one knee and twisted the arm behind him, grabbing hold of his wrist. With the other hand, he formed a fist, catching the sadist in the left jaw and knocking him momentarily senseless. He moaned while his eyes rolled upward, trying to regain his focus.

  Meanwhile, Adrian clutched the sadist by a left front belt loop, seizing a handful of the waistband and lifting him back onto the counter before flipping him onto his belly. He didn't seem to have much fight in him, and Adrian presumed that it was because of the substantial blood loss. He mused silently that he had better work fast. He grabbed the sadist, then plunged his hand into his interior pocket and taking out a small hunting knife. In lieu of fumbling with the sadist's belt and the fly of his pants, he decided instead to breach the thick denim by blade. He poked the gut-hook-tipped end through the fabric, then slid upward with the inner curve, neatly slicing until he had created a slit in the garment that started beneath the testicles and ended just below the waistband. The entire process, from flipping the sadist to raising the anusing tool to the orifice, took only around ten seconds.

  "Hush now," Adrian said in a muted tone, regarding the sadist in the mirror beside the sink as he spoke. "Don't worry, it's safety orange. But let's not talk about that, let's talk about the rest of your gang. Where they headed?" He decided he would first ask a question to which he already knew the answer, to test the metrics of the sadist's truthfulness.

  After a moment of hesitation, the sadist responded. "South," he said, his voice steadily weakening. "Toward Dallas. Just please don't use that thing on me. I promise you, I'm done for."

  Adrian shook his head. "Listen, fella," he said, dangling the implement against the face of the sadist, "I ain't here to listen to no stories."

  "Fuckin' kill me already!" the sadist implored, his eyes losing focus as he continued to bleed out at a steady click.

  "I will," Adrian said, "I promise. After you start talking sense."

  "Amarillo," the sadist spat out. His eyes lost focus. "Man, I'm thirsty."

  "That's better," Adrian said. "Is my daughter alive?" After a moment of silence, he reminded the sadist again of the torture he could inflict. "This can take longer than you think, and I can make every second a living hell for you." He yanked on the sadist's jeans, bringing the implement down toward the substantial tear in the garment. "Celia--is she alive?"

  The sadist still didn't immediately respond to the question, causing Adrian's face to fall and his temper to rise, fearing the worst. As he prepared to use the instrument in his hand, he noticed the other man's lips moving via his reflection in the mirror.

  "What's that?" Adrian asked, coming in closer.

  "She was," the sadist whispered, staring blankly into space. "Last I knew."

  Adrian produced his wrecking bar, looking into the mirror as he raised it and dropped the wedge end down onto the sadist's skull, putting him out of his misery. He performed a quick search of the sadist's inventory, yielding nothing worth taking other than some ammunition, then pulled the wedge free and left the bathroom.

  Stepping out into the sun-drenched late summer air, Adrian made his way slightly southeast, to the alley where his motorcycle awaited. As he straddled the bike and started the ignition, he mused that it was a shame that he hadn't found any unused sticks of dynamite on the sadists. He sped southward down the road until he reached the entrance ramp that lifted him up and onto US-40. He tore down the highway, his face inert and his dark hair pushed back toward his skull from the wind.

  As he approached the edge of the city, beyond which he glimpsed green stretches of former farms spanning to the horizon, he saw through his left periphery a dark, vague figure darting out from the eastbound lane and crossing the grassy median. He snapped his head to face the unknown figure, readying for a fight and injuring his neck in the process, only to find that there had been nobody there. He sighed, reaching up with his right hand to rub the twanging, traumatized tissue deep inside his neck. He was pretty certain that he had caused himself at least moderate whiplash, and for nothing.

  "So I'm seein' ghosts now," he lamented aloud. He knew he was severely exhausted, on the verge of shutting down, and yet he still had around 250 miles to go before reaching Amarillo. He was also beginning to doubt that he would successfully intercept his daughter before she reached the settlement. He supposed it was both good and bad that he would pass through virtually nothing other than unattended grassfields and farmland in the interim. It was good because it was more likely to spare him the unwanted fights and time-consuming traffic pile-ups around which he had to detour. It was bad because it was likely to be mind-numbingly monotonous, and he was unsure how he would keep his mind sufficiently engaged to stay awake and alert.

  As he probed into the featureless countryside, he wondered how far ahead the group of sadists were able to travel after leaving their two ill-fated associates behind in Oklahoma City. To help pass the time, he whistled as he drove, doing whole songs if he could help it as a way of stretching out the seconds into minutes. His white-knuckled fingers clutched tightly around the handle bars, whistling more loudly as he thought of the last sadist he had killed, not so far back in Oklahoma City. He shuddered and focused his eyes on the road and his ears on the sounds around him, including the sound of his own whistling, while the sensations of the experience attempted to replay in his mind, his eyes, his ears and his fingers.

  "Let's think of something else," he mumbled aloud, removing his right hand from the handlebar for a moment to slap the corresponding thigh. He racked his brain for happy thoughts, or at least distracting ones. He focused his recollection on the last sexual encounter he had gotten to have before the dead had arisen.

  Her name was Brittany, a former friend of Rachel and the only woman with whom Adrian had had sexual contact since the split with his ex-wife. Brittany had sought Adrian's attention after catching her husband and Rachel in an affair.

  "It's you and me, cowboy," Brittany had whispered drunkenly in Adrian's ear as they left the local bar back in Kentucky, arms interlocked while they headed to her nearby apartment after a night of heavy flirting and drinking. He remembered the feel of her breath in his ear and on his neck. Twenty minutes later, he had felt the same breath on his nether regions.

  As he sped through the lifeless, post-zombie Oklahoma countryside, Adrian's anatomy responded as he found himself lost in the memory. Although it was neither the time nor place for sex, Adrian found himself inexplicably and inconveniently aroused. While it wasn't the first time it had happened since leaving Kentucky, this time was particularly intense and insistent. He focused his gaze on the road ahead of him as the sexual encounter continued in his mind.

  He went back to whistling, trying to dismiss the thoughts that taunted his tired, discontented soul. He knew, on a rudimentary level, that the sexual thoughts were instinctual, tied to survival of the species. However, he also knew that it would be some time before he had the opportunity to engage in coitus, or even relieve himself of his arousal.

  "Unfair," he told himself, shaking
his head. "Like I don't have enough on my mind already. Least it should help keep me awake, though."

  He reached into his inner vest pocket, where he had stashed a gas-station packet of peanuts. He tore open the plastic with his teeth, pouring the salty, Cajun-seasoned snacks into his mouth as his eyes continued to watch the road before him. The strong flavors picked up by his taste buds were a welcome distraction. He finished the bag, tucking it into his pocket to dispose of properly at a later time, as his grandmother had taught him. Apocalypse or not, the habit stuck.

  He found himself in a more relaxed state of mind as his thoughts moved away from sex and touched on his father's mother, the woman who had served as his primary maternal figure after the passing of his own mother as a young child. Though she had been a petite woman, she had a voice that was warm and husky. In addition to teaching him not to be a litterbug, she had taught Adrian everything he knew about old-school weapons, particularly early revolvers. Adrian remembered the first time she had allowed him to hold one.

  "You're big enough to understand now, Adrian," she had said as he lifted a revolving rifle from a rack, raising and aiming it the way he had seen both his grandmother and his father do. "You ever point a loaded gun at someone, you best be aiming to kill 'em."

  He had taken the advice to heart. In his family, guns were never treated as play-things. To shoot a fine firearm could be exhilarating, to be sure, but they never considered it to be "fun". It was an attitude he had passed down to Celia, who at twelve was steadier, more calm and trustworthy with her weapon than many full-grown adults.

  Adrian whimpered suddenly, his chest convulsing with sobs. He roared above the thundering of his engine, "She's worth so much more!" His face contorted further. "She's worth more than all of them put together!"

  He glanced down at his odometer, noting much to his frustration that he had traveled just over twenty miles since leaving Oklahoma City.

  A delirious laugh rippled up and out of him, another round of sobs on its heels. He began to panic, wondering if he could even stay awake for long enough to reach the Texas town that was, he now accepted, his destination.

  He thought of a woman back in Afghanistan, a woman with honey-colored eyes that implored him to help her. He and his unit had been sent to make repairs on a tank that had broken down outside of her village. Her daughter had been kidnapped by a marauding group as they passed through the village, already weakened by a Coalition-led missile attack. He thought of the look in those amber orbs as he was forced to tell her that his attention was urgently needed elsewhere. Compounding matters was the fact that he was ordered to maintain radio silence at the time, and so he was unable to call for assistance. With time being the only real factor for Adrian, there was nothing he could do for her. The group who had taken her daughter captive were small-time, just bottom-feeding opportunists who intentionally prowled in the shadows of the primary target, the much more high-profile Taliban. The latter group was the primary concern, as he explained to the tearful mother before him.

  "There's an American base about 2 miles up the road," he told her, pointing northward as he prepared to embark to the south. "That's where the survivors are supposed to be. A truck came through."

  "Truck come while I look for my daughter," the woman pieced together in English, her expression one of disbelief. "And so I am still here."

  "I'm sorry, but I have an emergency I need to see to," Adrian said as he began to maneuver the vehicle around the woman, who had planted herself in the middle of the road prior to flagging Adrian down. "You're gonna need to make your way to that base, pronto."

  He remembered the look in those eyes as he had pulled past her, the way her shoulders had heaved in despair as she turned to begin the long walk to the base toward which Adrian had directed her.

  Adrian couldn't help but think, both at the time in Afghanistan and years later as he drove through abandoned Oklahoma, that his grandmother wouldn't approve. As he drove in pursuit of the escaping, setting sun, his elongated shadow stretched out behind him and trailing to the east, he shook his head and let his expression slip from guilt down to full-blown self-loathing.

  "I earned this," he sneered, "when I let that woman down."

  "It wasn't by choice," said a sudden, familiar voice to his left. "It was war, man."

  Adrian let his eyes wander leftward before he turned his face. From the corner of his eye, he saw a figure with dark skin, riding atop a silver Honda motorcycle. Before he turned his head, he could already tell that the figure was facing dead ahead.

  As his face turned to meet his gaze, his suspicion was confirmed that the rider joining him was Christopher, the friend he had left behind in the Middle East. He and Christopher had gotten so close, and been through so much as a pair, that Adrian truly felt as if he had lost half of himself as he made his way through Kandahar Airport alone, preparing for the flight that would return him to his home country. His gait was stiff due to the shrapnel wounds, still healing, that ran shoulder to foot on the left side of his body.

  He remembered the first time he had dealt with a true racist upon returning home. It occurred at a local bar, the same one in which he had, just the week before, engaged in a session of heavy petting and kissing with Brittany in a semi-darkened corner.

  Upon walking into the bar the next week and seeing Lee McMahon of local infamy, Adrian had wanted to leave, spinning to exit the threshold through which he had just entered. His friend had convinced him to stay, though the fact that he and Adrian were already quite inebriated didn't hurt. Although the town was small, small enough to classify as a rural unincorporated village, it nonetheless hosted three bars along the main strip where the gas station and diner were situated.

  Adrian and his friend were hitting the third such establishment when they ran into Lee, who was seen and heard slamming a shot glass down onto the counter. Upon being coaxed by his drinking buddy toward a table in the far corner of the room, Adrian had known the night wouldn't end well.

  It hadn't taken long before Lee embarked on an aggressive diatribe tinged with various flavors of prejudice and laced with a heavy sprinkling of profanity. It culminated in volume and fervor as he honed in on his contempt for African-Americans, a demographic for which he reserved the bulk of his self-righteous umbrage.

  Minutes after entering the bar, Adrian found himself outside, staring Lee down as they prepared to fight. Their anxious friends looked on, attempting in their own intoxicated states to verbally talk the two men out of the intended altercation.

  Adrian disregarded their words. In his mind, he heard only the hateful remarks made by Lee inside the bar. He saw only Lee's smirking, sadistic expression interspersed with flashes of Christopher, his body in pieces as he died a slow, painful death.

  The blows dealt by Adrian to Lee's face left the latter man disfigured for the following several days. Although the patrons inside the bar were aware of the altercation, none elected to call the police. The reason was that Lee made everyone uncomfortable, even others of a similar mindset to his own.

  As Adrian raced down the highway, traveling through southwest landscape that was relatively unchanged from its pre-zombie state, he was unsure of what to make of the apparent apparition beside him. He glanced to his left again, confirming that Christopher's ghost was still there, riding alongside him.

  "War," he echoed, snickering and shaking his head as he locked eyes with his surprise riding companion. "Christopher, you don't know the half of it. That, that was war. But this--this is war, you know?"

  "I'd gladly go through it with you, brother," Christopher said, "if I only could."

  "I know you would," Adrian said, turning to face his friend. He found himself, however, alone once again.

  He choked back his tears, but it was of no use. A fraction of a second later, his chest was heaving and producing full sobs. He was filled with vengeful hate, and yet no substantial portion of it was directed, at the moment, toward the undead. Here he was, in the zombie apocaly
pse, with his hatred for the terrorists, both old and new, outshining his hatred for the zombies themselves. He thought of the latter demographic more as a force of nature.

  He continued to meditate on his rage as he followed on the heels of his daughters' captors. He rode and internally stoked the fires of his imminent wrath, actually able to distract himself from how painfully long and slow-going the journey was.

  After some time, he saw a town ahead, straddling both sides of the road. It seemed to be the most substantial population center he had encountered since leaving Oklahoma City. A mile or so later, he spotted a sign informing him that the town that lie just ahead was Elk city. The sign also told him that Texola, which sat just inside the Oklahoma/Texas border, was forty miles away, and that Amarillo was more than one-hundred miles further.

  As he came closer to the edge of town, Adrian's ears detected the unmistakable sound of several dozen motorcycles, revving their engines for no good reason as they passed through a narrow space. Adrian placed them on the far side of town, based on the sound and how it carried, though it was a guess.

  He probed into town, riding between rows of buildings to either side of the road. He had planned on taking 40 south, going around the outside perimeter and avoiding most of town altogether. He instead opted to take the alternate route through the heart of town in pursuit of the sadists.

  Upon entering the town, he was hit by a gust of wind being channeled down the main strip. It smelled of exhaust from vehicles pushed to their brink without an oil change, and likely little oil at all.