Decimated: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Taken World Book 3)

by Flint Maxwell

  But he would tonight. At dinner. Yes, tonight was the night, and if they said no, if they disagreed with him, he would pick them up and throw them in the trunk and take them whether they liked it or not.

  The wind howled that night like some dying thing. About a week ago, they’d moved into the ruins of Ironlock’s front receiving area, one of the few mostly intact parts of the prison. It didn’t protect them from the cold air as much as the cars did, but it did offer them more room. Once they got a fire going, it wasn’t bad at all. Plus, if there were any monsters out there, the rubble and stones and debris would block the glow of the flames from their sight well enough.

  So far, the only thing howling this night remained the wind.

  Jane was roasting hot dogs over the flames in the fire pit. The others—Regina, Grease, Tyler, and May—huddled around the fire, sitting on broken stone bricks. Brad was up and looking out into the darkness. Logan leaned against a freezing wall. He wore a rough blanket over his shoulders, which fit more like a scarf across his bulk than anything. He had found an unbroken bottle of whiskey and now he drank from it. The booze helped his nerves, because for some reason, he was nervous.

  “You want one, Logan?” Jane asked, holding up a hot dog charred black.

  It made him think of the bodies he’d found in the cell blocks. He shook his head.

  “Logan, you gotta eat. You can’t just drink whiskey all the time. That’s not healthy.” Jane was frowning at him, giving him her best disappointed, motherly look.

  He turned away.

  “Why can’t he?” Grease called out. “Nothing wrong with booze, especially now. Plus…more food for us, right?”

  “You’re in good spirits tonight, Grease,” Regina said.

  Grease shrugged. “Eh, I’m alive. I’m sitting around a warm campfire with some food and drink. I don’t ask for much in life, but this is much more than I could want. Maybe a beer or six to wash the dogs down; that’d go nice right about now. That’s it.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it,” Regina said.

  “I could go for some hot chocolate and a space heater,” May said. She looked dreamily off into the distance with a smile on her face.

  “Ooh, hot chocolate,” Jane said, grinning. She passed another hot dog down the line, and Tyler took a bite out of it. “With the little marshmallows,” she qualified.

  “And a big scoop of whipped cream,” Tyler added.

  Grease leaned back and laughed. “Now you’re getting it. What about you, big guy? What could you go for?”

  All eyes were on Logan. Even Brad had turned around.

  Logan took another swig of the whiskey and smiled. He walked over to the fire and sat next to Jane and Regina, putting his arm around both of the women.

  “Nothing,” he said, because what he really wanted, he couldn’t say.

  He couldn’t say he wished for those he’d lost at Ironlock to be alive and healthy; he couldn’t say he wished the world had gone back to some semblance of normality, because it would never happen. He might as well save his breath.

  So instead, he said, “I got everything I need.”

  “Bullshit,” Brad said. “Bullshit, Logan.”

  “No, I’m good. I’m alive and I have my wife and closest friends. I’m grateful.”

  “Me, too,” Tyler said.

  “Same,” Regina added.

  “He’s right,” Jane said. “We should be grateful.”

  The others nodded and mumbled their assent. Even Brad gave in. Then things became quiet for a long moment; the only noise was the wind whining through the cracks in the stone.

  Then Logan cleared his throat. “We need to talk about the future. Where we’re going, what our plans are.”

  The others looked at him with what he thought of as fear, and that hurt to see on their faces.

  “I know, I know,” he continued. “It’s scary. But we’ll be running out of food and water soon, and the weather is only going to get worse.”

  “Worst winter we’ve ever seen in our lives,” Tyler agreed.

  “I don’t know about that,” Jane said jokingly. “I’ve lived in Northeast Ohio my entire life. Winters really—”

  “Suck balls,” Grease finished for her.

  May, Logan, and even Brad nodded their agreement.

  “That’s a way to put it, I guess,” Jane said.

  Logan offered his best smile, though he didn’t find much of anything funny these days.

  “What are our plans then, Logan?” Tyler asked. His tone wasn’t mocking; if anything, it was curious. He sat with his arm around May, protecting her and trying to keep her warm.

  “I say we go south. To a beach, where it might be warmer in the winter.”

  The others stared at him, unsure.

  “South? To a beach?” Grease repeated. “That’s a mighty long way. What if the monsters are still out there?”

  Logan shook his head. “If they are, then they’re dying.”

  “Government decided to cut their losses, remember?” Brad said. He came closer to the fire. The way the flames danced casted dark shadows across his face. “They saved the important people and bombed the rest.”

  “They fumigated while the owners were asleep in their beds,” May whispered. “Yeah.”

  Brad snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Right.”

  “Hate to say that I agree with Brad here,” Logan said, “but I don’t think the monsters will be our biggest concern anymore.”

  “It’ll be getting food and someplace warm,” Regina chimed in.

  “Exactly.” Logan looked around at the small stockpile of food and bottled water they’d been able to scavenge from the ruins of the storeroom. It wasn’t much to begin with, and it was getting smaller by the day. “I say we have about two weeks’ worth of food and water—and that’s only if we really spread it thin between us. The campfire cookouts will have to stop.”

  “Ah, Logan’s no fun,” Grease said, waving a hand.

  Logan glared at him, and Grease’s waving hand came up with the other one in a gesture that said ‘I’m innocent’.

  “I’m joking, of course, big guy,” he chortled.

  Ignoring Grease’s banter, Regina said, “So what is your plan then, Logan? I can tell you have one.” She looked at Jane. “He has a tell, doesn’t he? It’s the way he knits his eyebrows together.”

  “He’s a terrible poker player,” Jane agreed.

  Logan said, “Well, I don’t really understand the rules…” Then he shook his head. They had to stay on track.

  “I’ll teach you sometime,” Tyler offered.

  May cleared her throat and gave Tyler a kind of surprised glare.

  “Maybe May can teach you,” he corrected cautiously. “I’ve never met a better Hold ‘Em player in my forty-plus years. Back at the big red house, us three—her, Bachman, and I—used to play for those little peppermints; you know, the ones next to the toothpicks you could get at restaurants? May would clean us out about three times a week.” He chuckled.

  “Uh, thank you,” May intoned.

  “I’ll take you up on it…after we find a place with four whole walls and a roof,” Logan said.

  “We ain’t gonna get very far in the Humvee,” Grease said, as he swiped a hand up his hair. After the fires and the bombing, his ‘do didn’t keep the same style as before. He no longer resembled a young Travolta; like the rest of them, he just looked like a refugee in his shabby clothes and dirty, burned skin.

  “I know,” Logan said. “That’s why we take the Ford. Less room, yeah, but it’ll get better mileage, I think. We can siphon the Humvee’s tank, and the Toyota’s. That should give us enough gas.”

  “Then what?” Jane probed.

  She was always good at poking holes in Logan’s plans. She’d claimed countless times before that she was only doing it out of love.

  “Well, then we’ll hopefully find a place to fill up.”

  Grease raised his eyebrows as he rose from his
brick seat. His bad leg still caused him some pain, which was evident by looking at his face, but he was moving a hell of a lot faster than he would’ve on crutches, and that was good.

  Sticking a hand into his breast pocket, he pulled out a pack of Kools. He fumbled with the matchbook, mumbled, “Ah, fuck it,” and lit the cigarette from the flames of their campfire. With the cigarette jutting from his mouth, smoke curling out of his nose, he said, “That ain’t much of a plan, big guy. We go until we can’t go anymore? What if we can’t find any gasoline? What if there’s bands of roving mutants out there looking for fresh meat? What if the monsters ain’t as dead as we think they are?”

  Logan shrugged. “I figured we’d cross that bridge when we get to it…if we ever get to it.”

  A smile appeared on Grease’s face. The cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth rose with his grin. “Ah, what the fuck? Why not?”

  “I don’t want to keep moving,” May said in a voice so small it was almost a whisper. “Ever since my mom and little brother died, I haven’t done anything but move. A few months at Bachman’s, a month here, and now what? I have to move again and try to find another place? I think we can build this place back up. Like my grandma always said: It’s got good bones.”

  “Broken bones, sweetheart,” Grease said, blowing a cloud of smoke her way. She fanned it out of her face with her good arm, the bad one still in a sling and all but useless. “Plus, I don’t like how close it is to Cleveland and Stone Park. Tyler’s got me all riled up about nuclear fallout and radiation sickness.”

  “No one’s vomited or had bloody diarrhea,” Jane said. “I think we’re good for now.”

  Grease looked like he was about to vomit at the mention of ‘bloody diarrhea’.

  “Not much we can do about radiation. If the bombs went off all over the world, I’m pretty sure we’re rightfully screwed either way,” Tyler said. “I don’t know the exact details of the bombs they dropped, how many kilotons and whatnot, but I know we’re doing all right here. For now, at least.”

  Regina looked up and met Tyler’s eyes over the fire. “I don’t wanna be here. It isn’t healthy, living in my husband’s tomb. As much as him being gone hurts, I know I gotta move on.” Then she looked at the bruised sky, visible through a few gashes in the ceiling. “God is with me. He’s with all of us. Wherever I go, He’ll be there, too.”

  May was scowling. She looked like a child who hadn’t gotten her way, and it struck Logan that she really was just a child. Too young to be dealing with this kind of crap. He felt bad for her; he felt bad for all of them.

  But she’s still here, Logan, his mind said, and so is everyone else, and so are you. Let’s keep it that way. They need you as much as you need them.

  Tyler noticed May’s sulkiness and spoke up, but she cut him off before he could say whatever was on his mind.

  “Shouldn’t we put it to a vote?” she asked. “Seems like the fair thing to do.”

  “That sounds good,” Logan said.

  They voted. The outcome was five to two in favor of moving on.

  May shook her head, her face tightening up. “I’m scared,” she said in a small voice. “What if it’s worse out there? No—not what if. I know it is.”

  “Honey,” Regina said, “you are here for a reason. God has a plan for you. I’m sure of it.”

  May exhaled and inhaled deeply. She looked around at the ruined corridors that all converged on this one spot, the courtyard of Ironlock.

  “Seven is a lucky number,” Logan said. He looked at May. “A card shark like you should know that. Two? Five? Not so lucky. We need each other. We need shelter. We need food and water. We need to start focusing on a fresh start.”

  May looked back at him, rage and sadness simmering beneath the surface of her features.

  Tyler was nodding. “He’s right, May. We should go. There’s nothing here for us anymore. Ironlock is a graveyard. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a place out there that isn’t.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. “Fine,” she said.

  Logan stood. “It’s settled, then.”

  7

  Leaving

  The first day passed in a blur.

  Then the second day went, too.

  The time they were scheduled to leave was pushed back slightly as they siphoned more gas out of the truck and into the Ford. Initially, the Ford wouldn’t start. Tyler mentioned the electromagnetic pulse, and declared the car was done for, that all of the cars in the area were done for.

  But Grease shook his head and said, “Ain’t nothing I can’t fix.”

  He did just that, too. Something with a solenoid or carburetor…who knew for sure? The internal combustion engine was a mystery to Logan.

  Food was packed into the back of the Escape and secured with bungee cords for safekeeping; there was no telling how the roads would be out there.

  “You ready?” Jane asked Logan.

  He was standing just outside of the SUV’s driver’s side. The others were already inside. Grease sat in the trunk with all the supplies so he could stretch his bad leg out. Regina was in the front seat; Brad, Tyler, and May were in the back, and Jane would soon join them. They would be able to squeeze together pretty easily, considering how thin everyone was.

  “I think so,” Logan said. “I’m nervous,” he admitted in a low voice.

  “I’m not,” Jane whispered back. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. The touch of her lips gave him chills. “You’ve done so well. They want to follow you, and when they didn’t, you convinced them to.”

  “Let’s hope it won’t be a mistake.”

  Jane shrugged. “We couldn’t stay here. You’re right. They all know that. Having all those dead bodies still stuck in the rubble, the ones we couldn’t bury, gives me the creeps.”

  “Me too,” Logan said.

  “No, a big guy like you getting the willies?” She parted her lips in a mock expression of surprise, then laughed and kissed him again, turning and crowding into the back seat next to Brad.

  Logan got in the driver’s side and pushed the starter button. The engine purred to life, and the gas gauge showed they had a full tank. The GPS on the touch screen in the middle beeped, the words [Searching for Signal] flashing across it in red letters.

  A signal wouldn’t be had, nor would they need one. The survivors knew to go south, like the birds in the winter.

  So south they went.

  8

  Bullies Never Die

  One thing Logan hated more than anything else in the world was bullies. And before he’d gotten big, bullies had flocked to him like flies to a corpse.

  The first time he’d ever been bullied, he was thirteen. It had started with verbal jabs, but one fateful day, it had escalated.

  Boy, had it escalated.

  The first time Logan ever fought back went like this:

  He’d been chased through the forest by Joe Millard. Joe was fifteen and still in the eighth grade. He had a tattoo and wore a long, dangling black earring. He and his buddies liked to smoke in the parking lot of Lion’s Park, part of the Cuyahoga Valley.

  Logan usually went to the park after school because he liked to birdwatch—a hobby that hadn’t followed him into adulthood. It was the middle of October, but the weather had been pretty nice for the past week, and the birds hadn’t flown south yet. Still, the park was typically empty, and Logan liked it that way.

  When he’d arrived that day, Joe Millard and his goons were smoking Marlboros and laughing. Joe spotted Logan walking across the grass, keeping off the concrete, his bird books clutched against his side, and his binoculars dangling around his chest. The laughter stopped.

  “Hey, Bird Boy!” Joe called.

  Logan ignored them, like he usually did. He was tall for his age, but because of his height, the weight just wouldn’t stick to his frame. He barely weighed over a hundred pounds.

  “Bird Boy, I’m talkin’ to ya!”

  Logan was near the path, maybe a doze
n steps away. He sped up his pace.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a puff of smoke escape Joe’s nostrils. Then the teen had pitched his cigarette, not bothering to stamp it out, and crossed the lot toward Logan.

  A terrible fear stole over him. Paralyzing fear.

  “Hey, fuckface! You think you can just walk away from us, from me?” Joe shouted.

  Logan risked a glance back. Joe was closing in on him, going from a jog to a sprint much too fast, and then he was on Logan, pushing him in the back.

  Logan’s binoculars flew up and hit him in the face; hit him so hard that he thought he felt one of his teeth give in to the force of the hard plastic, and chip. The Big Book of Birds skittered into the brush, and then Logan’s mouth was full of cold dirt.

  “Speak when spoken to, boy,” Joe Millard taunted.

  His goons were laughing, crowding around Logan like trees, their shadows blocking out all light. Logan felt as if he had fallen down a well with no means of getting back up.

  “You here to watch the birds, huh?” Joe asked. His voice was tinged with humor. “Huh, weirdo?”

  The others continued to laugh. There were four of them in total, all older and bigger than Logan, if not in height, then in weight and muscle mass.

  Logan didn’t answer. He should’ve, and this dawned on him when he turned his head and saw the first steel-toed boot coming right for him. It belonged to none other than Joe Millard himself, and it had come with as much force as a bullet train, plowing into Logan’s ribs.

  There was something like a crack in his side, and he was sure Joe had broken one of his bones or ruptured an important organ, but never wound up finding out. He did not tell anyone about this beating, not his teachers, his uncle, or his other friends. What the hell could they do, anyway? Getting Joe Millard into trouble didn’t matter to him. The guy was always in trouble. All it would do was piss him off more, and if Logan thought he’d had a bullseye painted on his back before…