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

by Flint Maxwell

  Tyler looked at the gun like it was a live snake. He shook his head and put a protective arm around May. Jane took the rifle instead without a moment’s hesitation. This dampened the fear in Logan’s stomach, replacing it with something like anguish. She wasn’t meant to hold a rifle or any weapon. But that was the way the world was now.

  He stepped out of the SUV. He held the pistol at his side, put his other hand in the air.

  “Get down and stay down,” he told the others.

  Brad and Jane got out of the vehicle as the other four ducked in their seats. Brad held his handgun almost nonchalantly, like it was a cell phone and not a weapon of death. Jane didn’t care for charades. She clenched the rifle so tight, little blue veins stood out on her forearm, but she wore a snarl on her face. She was ready to kill, despite the fact she wouldn’t be able to; not with the rifle, at least.

  Behind them was the forest of dead and dying trees. The road bandits walked closer, making their semicircle tighter with each step. Logan, Jane, and Brad were shielded by their open car doors. The barriers wouldn’t offer much protection, but they were better than nothing.

  A moment of pure disbelief came over Logan. Joe-freaking-Millard. How is this possible?

  In the back of his mind, he supposed that Millard had never gotten out of Northeast Ohio; the courts probably wouldn’t let him. But still, in a way, this was almost as shocking as aliens coming through diamond-shaped portals to ravage planet Earth. Almost.

  In the middle of the bandits’ semicircle, Millard smiled. It was a terrible smile.

  Blackened teeth, grayish gums. He was deathly skinny, the kind of skinny Logan associated with meth addicts. There were red and purple splotches on his neck. Even though the weather was cold and getting colder, Millard wore a sleeveless biker’s jacket with a flaming skull stitched over the left breast. His jeans were as dirty as his greasy, slicked back hair, and riddled with holes. They hung loosely from his jutting hip bones.

  Next to him was a man with a bad burn across his face. It was dark purple and looked to be in dire need of medical attention. Logan wondered if this man had been close to one of the nuclear blasts. If so, he was lucky to still be here. He wore an oversized white t-shirt with a faded Canadian flag on it, and held an M-16 rifle.

  A woman stood next to this man, and she was missing part of her upper lip. Her teeth were glaringly white, fixed in a snarl that would never disappear. Her hair was a bird’s nest. She wore a flowered dress and, over it, a heavy winter jacket. There was a hole in the jacket, so whenever she moved her arms, white feathers floated out from the lining.

  The road bandits, save Millard, were pointing their weapons at the Ford.

  “Sorry, friends,” Millard said. His voice was gravelly, much deeper than the one belonging to the punk who’d kicked the shit out of Logan in Lion’s Park. “You gotta pay the toll if you wanna come this way.”

  Logan stepped forward. Still he had not raised his gun.

  Millard stood on his tiptoes, trying to get a better look inside the SUV. Logan hoped he didn’t recognize him…

  But at the same time, he wanted him to recognize him.

  “Whatcha got in there?” Millard asked. He looked to his right, at the man with the burn across his face. “Go see, Carter.”

  The man moved forward, and Logan raised his weapon. “Not another step.”

  Carter stopped, looked back the way he’d come.

  Snarling, Joe Millard said, “You gonna listen to him or me? Remember who gets you food and pussy, Carter! They ain’t gonna shoot you. Look at ‘em. Fresh meat. They’re just babes lost in the woods!”

  The others laughed in a wheeze.

  “Sorry, Worm,” the man with the burn mark said to Joe and then faced forward again and kept walking.

  Logan’s hands were shaking; Brad and Jane looked back at him, wanting some sign.

  Worm? he was thinking. Then “Worm?” he asked aloud.

  “That’s right, buddy!” Millard-Worm shouted back. “I’m Worm. You probably heard of me.”

  Logan started chuckling. It sounded insane in the cold, whistling wind. So insane that Carter stopped about twenty feet from the Ford.

  “I know you, and your name isn’t Worm!” Logan called out.

  The others looked at their leader. The woman with the missing upper lip raised the side of her mouth in what Logan thought might be confusion.

  “You’re Joe Millard. A junkie from Stone Park, a town about twenty five miles south of here,” he continued.

  Something on Millard’s face changed. The cocky attitude vanished in the blink of an eye. He was a cat, playing with a mouse, but the mouse had just bitten back.

  “Yeah, I know you. I recognize that face. Hey, ask him how he got that scar.” Logan pointed at the white scar above Millard’s eyebrow as he addressed the other bandits. “Go ahead, ask him!”

  Jane said out of the corner of her mouth, “What the hell are you doing, Logan?”

  She wouldn’t know Millard. Not really. He had been on his way out of the high school by the time Jane and Logan entered. She had heard the stories, of course, but that was completely different than actually seeing him.

  No one asked Millard about the scar, but the woman was looking at it intensely. Millard must’ve felt her stare, because he whirled on her, removed a pistol from under his sleeveless leather jacket, and pulled the trigger.

  The thunderclap of the shot was loud enough to crack the sky.

  A glut of blood exploded from the woman’s neck. She gripped her hands around the wound, and her eyes widened, taking up most of her face. She fell to her knees. More blood rolled down her shirt. Wheezing, gasping for breath, she lurched forward and landed on her stomach with a muffled thump.

  Inside the Ford, May whimpered, and Tyler said, “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”

  “Go ahead!” Millard yelled. “Go ahead and look at my scar, Carter. You’ll end up like Helga if you do!”

  Carter turned his head away.

  Once the shock of what had happened dissipated, Logan laughed again. Millard had never been very smart. The game was three on two now, Logan’s team in favor.

  Shaking, Millard swiped a hand—the one spotted with Helga’s blood—through his stringy hair. He took a deep breath.

  Logan felt as if he were looking at a piece of dynamite, its wick burning and getting shorter by the second. He couldn’t believe this thing was Joe Millard; yet, at the same time…he could.

  “You the one who gave me this scar? I guess that would make you Logan Harper, huh?” Millard said.

  Logan said nothing, only stared at him, his gun raised, from where his body was hidden behind the Ford’s door.

  “Funny how life brings us back together. How long ago was it, the day I kicked your scrawny ass in the park?”

  “A while,” Logan answered.

  Jane and Brad were looking at him in total confusion.

  “Hm. A while is right. You know what I tell bitches about this scar?” Millard chuckled.

  “You certainly don’t tell them a kid you outweighed by fifty pounds threw a rock at you after you and your dumbass friends kicked him when he was down. I can guarantee that,” Logan answered.

  That black smile again. “You’re damn right. I tell ‘em I got it in a bar fight. Then I always say ‘You should see the other guy,’ and they eat it right up.”

  Real original, he thought, but Logan said nothing. Neither did anyone else. All that could be heard was the echo of the shot rolling through the empty world, and May’s hyperventilating sobs.

  “Well, well, guess you won’t be having to pay a toll now, will you?” Millard said.

  Jane visibly relaxed, letting her grip on the rifle slacken. But Logan knew better; Millard wasn’t that kind of guy. He wished to God that bullets would fall from the sky. Or that a bolt of lightning would strike at Millard’s feet.

  “Because I don’t want your shit,” Millard continued. “I want your lives.”

&
nbsp; No bullets or lightning came from above, but all hope wasn’t lost. Not yet.

  Behind them, from in the trees, a rustling sounded.

  Logan’s heartbeat, already hammering, kicked into overdrive.

  Coming from the woods was a monster.

  10

  Attacked

  The oncoming monster resembled the most terrifying wolf any of them had ever seen. There was one point when, as the hairy thing blurred past the Ford, Brad thought it was a wolf. Until it crouched on its hind legs and then sprang forward like an Olympic long jumper.

  The scent of its rot was in the air; that scent was not from Earth, Brad knew all too well. He wished he had ammunition. Hell, even a knife.

  Instead of a full coat, the thing’s body was covered in patches of fur. In between the patches were odd shapes of burned and blistered skin. Its face was elongated, almost into a snout but not quite. Teeth protruded from lips as black as anything. Teeth that would put those of a great white shark to shame. The image that popped into Brad’s head, at the thought of getting clamped between those jaws, was that of a hot knife going through butter, as clichéd as that may have been. Avoiding that at all costs was priority number one.

  Instinctively, he dropped to his knees as the beast tore through the air. It hit the SUV’s door hard enough to rock it on its hinges. Brad rolled out of the way.

  Please don’t let them be hit or hurt, he thought crazily about those in the Ford.

  Everything was happening so fast. He wasn’t prepared.

  When is anyone ever prepared? Never.

  And that was the truth.

  A scream came from the road, where the assholes were. The dead woman, Helga, who for some reason was missing most of her mouth, was the wolf monster’s first target. Her corpse crumpled beneath its weight as it came down on her. Large claws dug into her chest and ripped.

  A stream of gunshots followed from the one named Carter. He was now to Brad’s right; had the man been thinking straight, he would have realized he had a clear shot on all of them. His M-16 blasted in Brad’s direction, but wasn’t aimed at him. Brad found himself screaming, but the sound couldn’t be heard over the roar of gunfire.

  Worm, too, took aim, but not at the wolf. His shots thumped into the body and the hood of the Ford, spraying in every direction as he tried to kill Brad and the others. There was a pop and a hiss of steam, followed by a rattling. The smell of leaking oil was pungent.

  The wolf pummeled Carter like a professional linebacker. Carter, a big man in his own right, skittered across the highway and came to a crashing stop at the barrier of junked cars, dead. The wolf pivoted smoothly. From its mouth dripped red blood and a grayish foam. Its eyes were a crazy yellow, as bright as the nuclear blasts Brad had seen in his dreams. Those bright eyes skimmed over Brad and the others—assessing the threat, probably—and then settled on the main man, the one Logan had been talking to. Like he knew him.

  But no, that would be crazy, Brad, he thought. How could Logan know a guy who calls himself ‘Worm’?

  He did, though. Somehow.

  The man called Worm dropped, as did his rifle. He pulled the pistol free again and his shooting hand was fast. Three shots came from his gun, back to back to back.

  The wolf cried out in surprise more so than in pain. Black blood dribbled from the wound. Its tough hide held up surprisingly well against what Brad was pretty sure was a .357 Magnum. The weapon stopped the wolf for the moment, but Worm didn’t bother finishing the job. Maybe he was smarter for that, but he certainly wasn’t braver. He fled, hiding behind the piled-up cars.

  Brad had to hand it to him: he was pretty fast.

  The Bible that Regina had given Brad to help with his nightmares was gone, burned in the fires of Ironlock. That was unfortunate; he figured he could really use it right then. The leather and the thin pages gave him much needed comfort.

  The wolf looked over its shoulder. It was limping, leaking a black sludge from the wounds Worm had put into it. Sniffing around, slobber and snot spraying from what constituted its nostrils, it came upon the bloody remains of Helga, picking up where it left off, oblivious to the living survivors of Ironlock. It grabbed her body with its clawed, almost reptilian paw and dragged her across the median and into the woods.

  For the moment, no one moved, no one even blinked. Brad wondered if he was even breathing.

  The wolf came back shortly after, but it wasn’t alone. With it were two smaller wolf-like creatures. Brad’s stomach sank.

  The smaller wolf-things dragged Carter’s body into the woods. The corpses of Helga and Carter had left long, bloody slime-trails in their wake, like demented red carpets.

  Still, Brad and the others waited another two minutes before they felt comfortable moving. The big wolf and the offspring had gone long ago.

  Logan was the first to get up. Brad admired him for that, because he himself felt frozen to the road.

  “Is everyone okay?” Logan asked.

  May was sobbing uncontrollably in Tyler’s arms, where they were burrowed on the backseat floor.

  Tyler said, “Yeah” as he held up a thumb.

  Grease said, “Fit as a fiddle.”

  “Regina?” Logan asked.

  She didn’t respond.

  Brad’s chest tightened, felt like one of the wolf monster’s claws was latched onto it. He darted around to the other side of the Ford, his shoes crunching on the blown-out glass.

  No, he thought. No, God, please don’t let her be hurt.

  She sat slumped in the front seat.

  “Regina!” Brad shouted, not caring about the monsters.

  Slowly, she turned her head and faced him. Her eyes were bulging and shiny with pain. One hand clutched her left side beneath her coat, right below her heart. The smell of singed leather and burned cotton was thick inside.

  “Hey, hon,” she said, her voice strained and laced with pain. “I-I think I got shot.”

  Brad shook his head, back and forth, back and forth. His own eyes became shiny, stinging with tears. A lump formed in his throat, so large he couldn’t speak…maybe could never speak again.

  Logan and Jane were on the other side of the Ford. Tyler and May now sat properly in the backseat, but leaning forward. Somewhere behind them, Grease’s face floated in the darkness of the trunk. All of their faces, their bodies, seemed hazy, like the fog of a dream you can’t remember when you wake up. The surrounding trees, the blood trails, the highway, the junked cars—all of it was a blur.

  Jane squeezed Brad’s shoulder, guiding him away from the door so she could open it. When she did, Regina’s right arm flopped out. Blood rolled down her fingers, staining the light skin of her palms.

  Logan put his arm around Brad, who was useless against the man’s strength. It didn’t matter; Brad felt like a scarecrow right then… A strong gust of wind could’ve blown him away, and part of him hoped it would.

  Distantly, he heard Jane say, “Stay with me, Gina. Look in my eyes. Keep them open. Keep them open.”

  “She’s gonna be all right,” Logan was saying in Brad’s ear. “C’mon. She’ll be okay.”

  But deep down, they both knew she wouldn’t be. Not in this world. Not the way it was now.

  11

  Regina

  Over the distant sound of the Ford’s sputtering engine, Brad heard footsteps. It was Jane. She came over to Logan and nodded, motioning Logan off to the side.

  “No,” Brad said. “You can say it in front of me.”

  Jane grimaced. The words that left her mouth looked like they physically hurt her. “She’s not going to make it.”

  Her words hurt Brad, too. They felt like a stab wound to the heart. Since his mother had died, during his time in Ironlock, Regina Johnson had become a kind of maternal figure to him.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood. The bullet must’ve clipped an artery. I don’t have the tools or the medicine to help. All we can really do is make her comfortable,” Jane continued.

  Loga
n bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. How familiar those words were. Hadn’t Logan told Brad that Regina said the same thing when Devin was crushed?

  The others were out of the SUV. Grease hobbled over to them, while May and Tyler rested against the Ford, Tyler’s arm resting on May’s shoulders.

  As Jane wrapped an arm around Logan’s waist, Brad left the two of them and headed for the driver’s side of the Ford. If Jane wasn’t going to do anything, if no one else was either, he would.

  He climbed into the seat. Regina’s eyes were fluttering open and closed. Her mouth was puckered in pain, and the cab of the Ford smelled like blood and death. A terrible smell.

  “Brad?” Logan called. Footsteps on the road. Logan stuck his head through the shattered window. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting her help.”

  “The SUV’s done for, man. Tyler already tried.”

  But Brad didn’t believe him. He stamped his foot down on the brake and pressed the ignition button. There was a cough, then another cough, and then the engine sputtered and wheezed and made no more sound after that.

  “It’s busted,” Logan said.

  “No,” Brad insisted. “No.”

  Suddenly, he felt a cold hand on his. Regina’s. He turned to face her. She looked gray.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart.”

  “No.” It was all Brad could say.

  “Y-yes. It’s just my time to go. That’s a-all.”

  Out of the corner of Brad’s eye, Jane appeared and guided Logan away from the window.

  Regina continued. If ever words were painful to speak and hear, they were these. “My t-time to go.” A weak smile. “That’s all right. I’m…I’m gonna see Dev again and I’m g-gonna finally meet God.” Her foggy eyes looked off in the distance, through the starred windshield, at the dead trees crowding the highway. They were looking in that direction, but they weren’t seeing them. Her mind was elsewhere; perhaps already in her Heaven.