“We had no idea this was your territory. We just wanted to re-supply. Look, we’ll leave what we took here and go. You will never see us again.”
“I can’t let you go. You’ll tell others about us. You’re coming with me!”
“Like hell,” Thomas said.
The girl pointed her M16 upwards and fired three shots. Then, she pointed it at them again. Julie got scared and started crying.
“I’ve got more than enough left to waste all four of you in a second. Unless of course, you do as I say. Start walking!”
The four had no choice. They started walking.
As they were walking on the road, the girl suddenly said:
“I heard you two saying each-other’s names. You are Bill and Sophie. But I don’t know your names.”
“I’m Thomas and this is Julie. And what is your name?”
“I’m Sierra. It’s a pleasure.”
“I would say “likewise” but I would be lying,” Thomas said.
“Don’t worry. If you will cooperate, nothing bad will come to you.”
“And where exactly are you taking us?” Sophie asked.
“You will see in a moment.”
About half an hour later, they reached a giant brick wall, guarded by four men in four towers on each side of it. At the middle of the wall, a metallic gate opened, allowing them to get in. Inside, four more men were waiting for them.
“Hey, Sierra!” one of them said. “Brought more manpower?”
“As you can obviously see.”
“And all by yourself. Good job!”
“Thanks!”
The four kept walking at Sierra’s gunpoint. Their bones were shaking, not knowing what was going to happen to them. Julie was squeezing Teddy so hard, she could have torn it any minute. She just couldn’t stop crying.
“Shut her up or I will. And she won’t like it.”
“If you touch her…” Bill said.
“You’ll do what? There are three of you, her not included, and five hundred of us. Calculate your odds, geniuses. Now tell her that everything will be okay and she has nothing to fear if she will be a good girl. Pray that she stops crying, or else I will relax her with an easier, faster way, which is a piece of led in her brain.”
“Everything will be okay, honey!” Sophie said. “Just relax. We’ll be just fine!”
“You promise?” Julie asked with lack of confidence.
“I promise.”
“Where are you taking us?” Thomas asked.
“Well, aren’t you Mr. Question Man?” Sierra said, cynical.
“We have the right to know.”
“So you do. I’m taking you to our leader. He will decide what to do with you.”
“You said nothing bad will come to us,” Sophie said.
“It won’t, if you show him the proper respect.”
They kept walking for about five minutes, during which time they could see that something was wrong with the people in this community. Even though it looked more decent than the previous town, the people in it seemed to hide some sort of sadness in them. Almost no one was smiling. The atmosphere was so tense, you could cut it with a knife. Some people had huge bruises and wounds on them. And you could read in their eyes that they wanted to escape that place the first chance they got. They realized they will not like this place.
They arrived in front of a white mansion, three floors high. They approached the door and two guards positioned themselves in front of them.
“It’s okay, guys,” Sierra said. “I’m taking them to Nick.”
“Go ahead, then,” one of the guards said, before stepping aside.
“Keep moving,” Sierra told them, while still pointing the gun at their heads.
When they got inside, they found the interior to be pretty decent. Not a single particle of dust on the furniture, and the walls were intact and uncracked.
“Upstairs,” Sierra said.
The four started going up on the stairs. There, they found three doors, two sideways and one in front of them.
“The one in front,” Sierra said.
Bill opened the one in front of them. When they got in, they saw a man, aged about thirty to thirty-five, with short, brunette hair, brown eyes and wearing a black shirt sitting behind a desk. He seemed to be checking some documents.
“Hello! Please, come in!”
The four complied.
“Sierra, you may go,” the man said.
“Yes, Nick,” Sierra said, before exiting the room and closing the door behind her.
“My name is Nick Daniels,” the man said. “The leader of this community.”
He put the documents down on the desk and looked at the people in front of him.
“Please excuse the mess on my desk. Documents were a pain in the ass before The Alignment, not to mention after it.”
“My name is…”
“I don’t give a shit what your name is. In fact, let me get right to the point. As of this moment, you are my slaves. You will do exactly what I say, how I say, when I say. If you do not, you will be killed. And I don’t mean with a bullet in your head. I mean by starvation and water deprivation. So if you don’t want to feel the effects of starving to death, you will obey me by the letter. You will enjoy cleaning the outhouses, cooking for the town, reaping the crops, and, if I want to, letting me fuck you, mommy. Do I make myself clear?”
“You are one sick bastard,” Thomas said.
That’s strike one, young man. You see, insulting the leader is a serious offense in this community. It’s a no-no. Two more strikes and it’s the hunger for you.”
He got up from the chair and headed toward the window.
“Of course,” he continued, “there is The Resistance. A pesky group of people who think they can do what they want and try to oust me. They’ve been freeing some of my workers through underground tunnels and took them deep in the woods, away from here.”
He turned toward them.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know who the leader is or who are the members. They have their secret codes to recognize themselves with, codes which I couldn’t decipher. Needless to say that if you identify some of its members or, better yet, the leader himself, I will make sure you will be repaid like kings.”
“All right, we’re outta here,” Bill said. He went toward the door, but just as he was about to open it, Nick yelled:
“Sierra!”
The redhead opened the door and pointed her M16 at them again.
“Please escort this wonderful family to their quarters,” Nick said.
“Who the hell do you think you are, to toy like this with us?” Sophie asked Nick.
“I’m the leader of this community and from now on, you are my property. Sierra!”
“Got it!” the redhead said. “Let’s move, people!”
Sierra took them in front of an old, white house with one floor. She opened the door and let them in.
“Good night,” she said.
“Fuck you!” Thomas said.
“Oh, you will like me, pretty boy. Trust me.”
“I highly doubt it.”
“I don’t.”
She then closed the door.
The house was pretty clean on the inside. White walls, clean wooden floor, intact furniture. It was quite the paradox: a clean house with good conditions, except for the fact that they were forced to live in it. Not that they wouldn’t have taken it willingly.
“That’s a pretty clean house,” Bill said.
“Yeah, well at least they take care of their prisoners,” Sophie said.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Thomas said.
They climbed the stairs and saw two doors at the end of the hallway, one to their left and one to their right. Thomas went to the one on the left.
“This one is locked,” he said, after trying to open it.
“Then I guess we have no choice but to share this room together,” Bill said, pointing at the door to their right.
He th
en opened the door, and they saw just one bed in front of them, opposite to a window on the right. Between the window and the bed, there was a dresser. Other than that, the room was completely empty. It was pretty small too, fit for just maybe two people.
“We will be a bit cramped tonight, kids,” Sophie said.
Bill sat on the bed and said:
“I can’t believe this is happening to us.”
“Well, you better believe it,” Sophie said.
“Shouldn’t we try to escape?” Thomas asked.
“They have tons of guards on the walls. We wouldn’t make it,” Sophie answered.
“So we’re stuck here forever, huh?” Thomas said.
“Of course not,” Bill said. “We’ll think of something, just… not now. Now I have to clear my head.”
“Okay,” Sophie said. “Before anything else, let’s make ourselves comfortable. Let’s take off our clothes and put them in the dressers.”
They started to undress and when they opened the dressers to put their clothes inside, they found a whole collection of old books and magazines.
“Well, at least we’ve got something to do tonight,” Thomas said.
They took advantage of the little light they still had at their disposal and started reading. Bill read “The Iliad,” Sophie was reading Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Julie found a magazine with stories for kids involving anthropomorphic animals and Thomas was carefully studying a “Playboy” magazine.
When the sun eventually gave way to the moon, they lit a cigarette lighter to keep reading. And they kept reading for about four more hours, until they all finally decided to close their eyes for the day.
***
The doorknob made a loud squeak when it was pushed. Then, the door opened quickly. Two guards, one with one eye, the other one huge as a basketball player, entered their room. One of them hit Thomas, who was sleeping on the floor next to Julie, in the gut.
“Wake up, you maggots! Wake up and get to work!” the guards started yelling.
Bill and Sophie awoke.
“What the hell is going on?” Sophie asked.
“Wake the fuck up, you fucks! It’s time to go to work!” one of the guards yelled before hitting Sophie in the hip with a baton.
“Don’t you hit my wife, you fucking...”
Bill was hit in the mouth with the baton.
“Why are you doing this? We didn’t do anything,” Thomas said.
“Exactly!” one of the guards said. “Which is why you are going to work. Stand up and move. Now!”
The four stood up and got out of the room, being pushed by the guards once they crossed next to them.
“Sir, what do we do with the little one?” the one-eyed guard asked the other one after exiting the room.
“Take her to the school.”
“Yes, sir!”
One of the guards took Julie in his arms and went down the stairs.
“Mommy! Mommy, I’m scared. Where am I going? Mommy!”
“Leave her alone, you bastards!” Sophie yelled.
The other guard hit Sophie twice in the back with the baton and yelled:
“Shut up and move!”
Thomas, Sophie and Bill went down the stairs and out of the house. Then, the guards took them to a huge valley where lots of people were working at a potato plantation. What they saw there made their heart pound. Hundreds of people gathered potatoes under the strict supervision of about eighty to one hundred guards who, from time to time, pushed them and even hit them when they saw them slowing down or stopping from what they were doing. All the workers had wounds on them and they had hunchbacks. They were also extremely sweaty and they were moving with difficulty.
They stood next to a parcel of land which seemed to stretch for about one to two miles. Next to them, there were about thirty more people.
“Stop right here,” one of the guards told them. “This will be your parcel. The job is simple: you take the potato, put it in the bucket, take the bucket full of potatoes in the barn, dump it, and then come back and start over. You will do so for the next eight hours. Come on, people! Let’s work!”
The two guards left in different directions; one went forward, the other one went left toward different parcels. They both hit a few unfortunates on their way, after seeing them stop.
“This right here,” Bill said, “is called slavery.”
“Yes, Bill, that’s true,” Sophie said. “But until we make a good plan, we can’t even think about trying to escape.”
“Well, I don’t intend to be a slave.”
“Me neither, but didn’t you see how well guarded their walls were? It’s obvious they thought about those who would try to escape. We’re going to need a flawless plan to get out of here.”
“That could take months. I already hate this hell hole.”
“Me too. But trust me when I tell you it will be worth the wait.”
Suddenly, Sophie felt a heavy baton on her back. A guard hit her.
“Leave the chatting for some other time and get back to work, you lazy bitch.”
Bill stood up and looked the guard in his eyes.
“Hit my wife again and you’ll regret it, you bastard.”
“Oh, will I, now?” the guard said, after making two steps toward him.
Sophie stood up between them and looked at the guard.
“It’s okay, sir!” she said. “It’s okay. He is just nervous, that’s all. He is not used to this. Please… it’s okay.”
The guard then looked at Bill.
“Talk to me like that again and you will regret it, you maggot.”
He turned his back on them and walked away.
Sophie looked at Bill.
“If you want to escape, trust me and play along.”
***
Julie’s heart was pounding. If only Teddy was with her. But she couldn’t grab him before the two bad men took her from her room just when her sleep was at its greatest. She didn’t know where the big, scary man was taking her, not to mention what will happen to her at the destination. She wanted her mommy, daddy and older brother next to her, but she was now in the company of a bad man with possible bad intentions.
They eventually reached a big, red building made out of wood. It had poisoned ivy growing on top of it and it had this aura of eeriness to it. Once inside, Julie could see that it was full of stuff she couldn’t understand: large, round things painted mostly in blue, but which also had green, yellow and brown things painted on them, drawings of similar things on the wall, plus writing. Lots of writing, that she couldn’t understand. The guard took her in front of the door and opened it.
“Get in!” the guard told her.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“You will see. Now, get in before I hit you.”
Julie had no choice but to step inside. Anything to avoid a beating.
Inside, there were more kids who apparently were waiting for someone or something. They were sat behind desks, and their eyes betrayed their fear. They had notebooks, crayons and pens in front of them. It was still dark outside, so the room was illuminated by nine candle lamps hanging from the ceiling, which emphasized their terrorized faces.
The guard closed the door behind Julie and walked away. She was left standing confused in front of the rest of the kids.
“Sit down!” a boy told her. “If she sees you standing up, especially in front of the class, your ass is pudding.”
Julie ran behind an empty desk and sat down. The boy who talked to her was sitting down in front of her. He turned around and approached her again.
“I’m Lucas,” he said, after reaching his hand toward her.
“Julie!”
They shook hands.
“Nice to meet you, Julie!”
“Nice to meet you too! What’s going on here?”
“Hell is about to come to Earth. And Satan himself is about to come to us. That’s what’s going on.”
“What’s Hell? Who is Satan?”<
br />
“You’re about to find out.”
“Quiet!” another girl said. “I think I hear something.”
Indeed, footsteps were coming from the hallway. Everybody tensed. The footsteps grew louder and louder. Suddenly, they stopped in front of the door. A blonde woman with glasses entered the room. She was dressed completely in white. All the kids stood up.
“Good morning, class!” she said.
“Good morning, Miss Neeve!”
Julie sat back down. The woman saw her.
“Why did you sit down?” she asked her on a rough tone.
“Please, Miss Neeve,” Lucas said, “she is new. She couldn’t possibly know.”
“Oh, you are new?” the woman said. “No problem, then. Sit back up. We’re not sitting down yet. Not before we say the Ode to Nick. Everybody ready?”
“Yes, Miss Neeve,” all the kids said.
“Okay! You may proceed.”
All the kids started saying at the same time:
“Praised be Nick! Praised be Nick! He is our care-giver, our beloved leader, our saint, our savior. When there is something on our mind, he listens to us. When we are hungry, he feeds us. When we are thirsty, he lets us drink from the purest springs. When we are cold, he gives us the warmest clothes. Blessed be him! Blessed be him! Long life and long health may he have. Praised be him, now and forever. Amen!”
“Very well!” the woman said. “Now you may sit down…”
“Julie.”
“Julie, right! Now you may sit down, Julie.”
Everybody sat down. The woman went behind the desk and sat down as well.
“What was our homework for today? Let’s see… who knows?”
One of the kids raised his hand.
“Yes, Anthony?”
“We had to describe leadership in our own words on one page, Miss Neeve.”
“Very well. Let’s see who did his homework.”
All the kids raised their hands. All except one.
“Why didn’t you raise your hand, Gus?”
“I… I…”
“You didn’t do your homework.”
The poor kid’s eyes filled with tears and fear. He knew what to expect.
“Yes, madam, I admit I didn’t.”
A wave of rage engulfed the woman’s body.
“Get your ass in front of the class,” she said, on a rough tone, after standing up from behind the desk.
Dark Apocalypse: A Post-Apocalyptic Family Saga Page 3