Dark Apocalypse: A Post-Apocalyptic Family Saga

by Gabriel Alexander

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t know,” Thomas said.

  “It’s okay,” Simon continued. “You couldn’t possibly know. Then, two years ago, the former rebel leader died and… well, you know the rest. This new one got greedy, he wanted more of our food and water per month and… here we are, with no place to stay and me blaming myself for the complete destruction of my town.”

  “We promise you,” Julie said, “that we will get the bastard who did this and we will make him pay for what he did. To you, to me, and to Thomas. We will not rest until we do so.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m gonna have to ask you not to kill him right away. Save some for me, okay?”

  They all laughed and continued to eat.

  ***

  They were walking for a few hours, but the sun wasn’t up yet. They themselves didn’t know where exactly they were heading, but they knew it wasn’t a good idea to stay in one place for too long. The rebels were out there, somewhere, and it would have been just a matter of time before they found them. They had to keep moving, if they wanted to stay alive.

  The woods were thick and dark. Their torches were not helping either. They illuminated a few feet, but that was about it. They had no idea what lay ahead of them. They could have been heading toward an entire platoon of rebels, without even knowing.

  Occasionally, they would hear the sounds made by the animals of the forest. A bird would chirp, a wolf would howl at the moon above, a mysterious animal, maybe a hedgehog, would rustle the leaves next to them…

  Suddenly, as he took a step in front of him, Thomas felt something coiling around his foot. Then, he felt himself dragged and lifted upwards. He dropped his torch and gun on the ground and was now swinging from a rope, upside down, tied to a tree.

  “Help!” he started yelling. “Please, help me!”

  “Holy shit!” Julie said, seeing her brother hanging from the tree. “Don’t worry, Thomas. I’ll cut you down from there. Just hang tight.”

  “Very funny!” Thomas said.

  The rope was too high in the air for Julie to reach it with the machete, so she had no choice but to take her weapon and try to aim at it. But the fact it was swinging made that impossible.

  “Shit, I can’t get a clear shot,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You can start by putting your guns down,” a voice from behind them said.

  Simon and Julie turned around and saw seven men, all of them looking very grubby, with long beards and long, tangled hair and dirty, torn rags on them. They were holding torches with one hand and their assault rifles in the other. Simon and Julie, in their turn, didn’t yield and were aiming their weapons at them as well.

  “Who the hell are you?” Julie asked.

  “The ones who are gonna kill you right now if you don’t drop your weapons,” one of the men said.

  “Not if we kill you first,” Simon said.

  “This one’s got big cojones,” one of the men told his comrades. “In case you can’t count, pal, there’s seven of us and only two of you. Well, three, if you count your buddy hanging in the tree over there and who can do exactly nothing to help you. We’ll kill you way before you can manage to pull the trigger. Right now, the best thing for you to do is to obey us and drop your fucking weapons before we fill your asses with led.”

  They hated to admit it, but the dirty sons of bitches were right. They outnumbered them. They couldn’t possibly shoot all of them, before at least one of them could open fire on them and waste them. So, they had no choice. They put their guns down and their hands up.

  “That’s the spirit,” one of the men said, after Julie and Simon put their weapons down.

  “Manuel, cut the guy loose!”

  “Yes, sir!” the man said, before pulling a knife from a sheath on its waist. Then, he went behind the tree Thomas was hanging from and cut the counterweight. Thomas fell down on the ground. He got up, removed the rope from his foot, and put his hands up as well.

  “Tie their hands behind their back, Manuel!”

  The man did exactly that. He took a rope from his belt and tied Thomas’s hands behind his back. Then, he moved to Julie.

  “Who are you, people?” Julie asked, while her hands were being tied behind her back.

  “Oh, no, dear,” one of the men said. “The real question is who are you?”

  “We’re just passersby. We mean no harm to anyone. Let us go,” Julie said.

  “Oh, no, no, no, honey. You were passersby. Now, you belong to us.”

  “We’re not gonna be your slaves,” Thomas said.

  “Slaves? Who says you’re gonna be our slaves?” the man said.

  Thomas noticed a cleaver hanging by the guy’s belt. Then, it hit him.

  “Shit. This is exactly what the cannibals in Buffalo were carrying around their belts. We’re not gonna be their slaves. We’re gonna be their lunch.”

  “What?! Their lunch?!” Simon asked.

  “That’s right, pretty boy. We will boil you, season you, and then eat you piece by piece. Nothing of you will go to waste. Not even your two dicks, cunt or assholes. We’re not picky. We eat everything. Well, there is something that we will not eat: your bones. But not to worry. We won’t throw them away either. We’ll give them to our dogs.”

  “You fucking sadistic savages!” Julie yelled.

  The man punched her in the face.

  “Shut up, cunt!”

  He then pointed at one of his men.

  “Jim, get their stuff and let’s go!”

  ***

  Finally, daylight came. But it was no comfort for Thomas, Julie and Simon who were being forced to walk for hours by their captors. They were exhausted, hungry and thirsty and the cannibals were keeping all the water for themselves.

  Eventually, Julie couldn’t go any further. She collapsed on the ground, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. One of the men started kicking her in the gut.

  “Get up, bitch! Get the fuck up!” he yelled, while kicking her.

  “Don’t you hit my sister, you goddamn animal,” Thomas said, before running toward the man and kicking him in the nuts. The guy collapsed instantly, in excruciating pain.

  The other six men pointed their weapons at Thomas.

  “Get on your knees!”

  Thomas didn’t comply.

  “Now!” the man yelled.

  Thomas got on his knees. Then, the six men, minus the one he attacked, surrounded him and one of them hit him in the gut. Thomas fell on the ground and the men kept hitting him with their legs for about a minute, before they eventually stopped. Then, one of the men grabbed him by the hair, and lifted his head up.

  “That’s for misbehaving. Try such a stunt again and the next time we kill you. Do you understand?”

  Thomas was quiet.

  “Do you understand?” the man yelled in his face.

  “Yes, I understand.”

  Good. I’m glad we understand each other. Now, get the fuck up and keep walking. Come on! Up! Up!”

  Thomas complied after being released from the grip.

  “Please… don’t hurt my sister. She needs some rest. We all do. Please, let us rest a bit.”

  “No. You will rest when we get to the camp. Keep moving!”

  “You know,” Thomas said, “you said we’re gonna die anyway. That you’re gonna eat us. So… why do you threaten us to kill us if we don’t do as we say, if you’re gonna kill us anyway?”

  “Because it’s up to you when you die,” one of the men answered.” You can earn a few more moments of life until we get back to camp, or you can die right here, right now, for misbehavior. You understand, genius? Now get going. The break is over. Move!”

  They had no choice but to comply. They started walking.

  ***

  About thirty minutes later, they reached the cannibals’ camp. Filthy, torn tents, placed one next to the other, men, women and children wearing torn, raggedy, dirty clothes, most of whom were dirty themselves and their teeth looked like th
ey were going to fall any minute, and, on one corner of the camp, three dead bodies were roasting above a fire. A man with a fork went to one of them and pierced it.

  “It’s done!” he yelled.

  At the very next second, tens of men, women and children started running toward the dead body, with plates and cutlery in their hands. When they reached next to it, they started cutting it into small pieces and putting it on the plates.

  “Dibs on the heart,” a man yelled.

  “Fuck you!” another one yelled. “I got dibs on the heart.”

  The two started punching each other.

  Thomas, Julie and Simon were disgusted by the sight, and they almost felt like throwing up. Thomas was quickly reminded of what almost happened to him and his parents twenty years ago, in Buffalo. He hoped he will never encounter such specimens of pseudo-people in his entire life, ever, but the reality in front of his eyes showed him that his wish didn’t come true.

  Their captors took them to a large pen, filled with other prisoners. One of the men opened the gate.

  “Get in!” one of their captors commanded them.

  They got in and their captors closed the gate behind them. Then, they walked away quickly.

  A cannibal came close to the pen and looked at the new “acquisitions.”

  “My, my,” he said. “We’ve got fresh meat for today.”

  He leaned on the fence and looked at Julie.

  “Well, aren’t you a pretty one? I can’t wait to devour you. Your flesh looks tender and soft. I particularly like your tits. I’m gonna eat both of them in one fell swoop.”

  “You better stop looking at my tits, you twisted psychopath,” Julie told him.

  “Or you’ll do what?”

  “Or I’m gonna kill you.”

  The cannibal started laughing. When he finished, he said:

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sure you’re gonna kill me from behind this fence.”

  He laughed again, and then left. Thomas, Julie and Simon sat down next to a tree.

  “I fucking hate fate,” Simon said.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Thomas asked.

  “Fate, Thomas. I hate it. You see, I always thought that the rebels would kill me. That one day, a rebel’s bullet will hit me in the head or heart and… well… bring me the end. But it seems that fate wanted otherwise. Apparently, it wants me to end in the bellies of some goddamn cannibals.”

  “We’re not gonna die here, sir,” Julie said.

  “Hello? Our hands are tied and we’re locked inside a pen, in the middle of a camp of cannibals. There’s no way we can escape this.”

  “Hey… remember that back in the truck, I managed to untie my hands and kill all the rebels in the truck with us? I think I can do it again. As a matter of fact, I’m working on it.”

  “Quiet!” a man from a group of cannibals approaching the fence said. “Stop talking.”

  He pointed at a man in the group.

  “You! Open the gate!”

  The man complied. He opened the gate and the group entered the pen.

  “Get back! Everybody get back!” a man who was better dressed said, while the others pointed the guns at the prisoners. He looked at everybody in the pen and after some careful research, he pointed at a young woman, aged about thirty.

  “Her! Bring her!’ he said.

  Two men went toward the woman and grabbed her by the arms. Her seven-year-old boy started screaming next to her, while grabbing her dress and trying to pull her back.

  “No! No, mommy, no! Please, don’t take my mommy! Don’t take her, please!”

  “Get back, you little weasel!” one of the men who grabbed the woman said, before punching the kid in the cheek. He collapsed on the ground, crying in pain.

  “No!” the woman yelled. She pulled herself out of the two’s clutches and kneeled in front of her little boy.

  “It’s okay, Bobby.” The woman said. “Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you so much. Don’t forget that, okay? Mommy loves you.”

  “All right, the tearful moment is over,” the leader said. “Grab her and let’s go!”

  The two men grabbed her again and pulled her out of the pen. Then, the leader pointed at one of the men.

  “Grab the pike!”

  The man ran off and returned with a sharp pike. Then, the leader pointed at two of the men and told them:

  “Hold her still!”

  The two grabbed her and were holding her tightly. Then, the leader took the pike and aimed it at the woman.

  “Oh, my God, kid, don’t look!” Julie told her boy.

  “Mommy, no!” the kid said, between the tears.

  “Mommy loves you. Remember that, Bobby!” the woman screamed at her boy.

  The leader than stabbed her with the pike in the rectum and didn’t stop pushing until the pike came out through her mouth. Blood started dripping from her mouth and rectum like a river. The body collapsed on one side.

  “Put her above the fire!” the leader ordered.

  Two men grabbed from both sides of the pike and put them on the shoulders. They then took the body to the fire and put it above it.

  “Mommy, no!” the kid said, crying.

  “Fuckin’savages,” Simon whispered.

  ***

  It was dark. The moon was up for a long time. Julie knew that this was the moment to act. She finally managed to loosen her bonds. Then, she headed toward Thomas, who was leaning on the tree, asleep.

  “Thomas! Thomas, wake up!” she whispered, while shacking him gently.

  Thomas slowly got back from the world of dreams.

  “What is it, Julie?”

  “The whole camp is asleep. Now it’s time to make our move. Wake the others.”

  Thomas got up and woke up Simon, who was also asleep next to him.

  “What? What is it?” Simon asked.

  “The camp is asleep, sir. It’s time to make our move,” Thomas said.

  “Move? What move? What are you talking about?”

  “Just follow my lead, sir,” Julie told him.

  “Oh… okay.”

  Julie then told Thomas and Simon:

  “I think I saw where they took our guns and my machete. I’m gonna climb the fence and go get them. Then, I’m gonna open the gate and cut everyone’s bonds. Then, we run like hell.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Thomas said.

  “Okay. I’ll be right back,” Julie said.

  After saying that, she headed toward the fence and started climbing it. Once she reached the other side, she started walking carefully. She managed to reach the other side of the camp and entered an empty tent. There, in the very back of it, her machete and her Kalashnikov, plus Thomas’s Kalashnikov and Simon’s M-16 and their three pistols were placed on the floor. She took the weapons, got out of the tent and headed toward the pen again. Once there, she took her machete and cut the gate chains. She opened the gate and entered. Once inside, she cut Thomas,’s Simon’s, and everybody else’s bonds and gave Thomas and Simon their weapons.

  “All right, everybody,” she said to the others, “now let’s get out of here, quietly.”

  She opened the gate and got out, followed by Thomas and Simon. The three stood next to the gate and signaled the other prisoners to get out. All the prisoners started getting out, quietly.

  “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to us,” one of the prisoners told Julie.

  “Yeah, you’re welcome,” Julie said. “Keep walking! Go, go!”

  The woman kept walking, so did the rest of the prisoners.

  Suddenly, however, a cannibal got out of the tents. And the minute he walked out, he saw the prisoners out of the pen and heading deep in the woods. With no hesitation, he started screaming:

  “Wake up! The prisoners are escaping. Everybody wake up. The prisoners are escaping!”

  Julie saw him and put three bullets in him, before he could scream some more. He collapsed dead on the ground.

  But it was too late. The evil w
as done. All the rest of the cannibals started getting out of the tents, with their assault rifles in their hands. As soon as they saw the prisoners trying to escape, they started firing at them.

  “Shit!” Thomas said. “Everybody run! Run now!”

  The prisoners started screaming and running, while Julie, Thomas, and Simon started firing at the cannibals. The cannibals started firing back and they hit a few of the prisoners, wounding three and killing about ten. Five cannibals were hit by Thomas, Julie and Simon, collapsing dead on the ground.

  “Run!” Thomas told Simon and Julie. “Run now!”

  The three started running, along with the rest of the prisoners. Back in the camp, the cannibals armed themselves with assault rifles, pistols, and torches, and they started following the prisoners. As soon as they gained on them, they started firing in their direction, some hitting a few prisoners, while others hitting nothing but the ground and the trees around them.

  Julie, Thomas and Simon hid behind some trees and started firing back. Julie hit two cannibals with her first burst, Thomas hit three and Simon no less than six. The cannibals then fired back, but they hit nothing but the trees behind which the three were taking cover. Then, the trio fired back, hitting one cannibal each. They then started running, with the cannibals’ bullets whizzing next to them.

  “Over there,” Thomas said, pointing at a tree. “We can climb it.”

  The three headed toward it and started climbing it. They reached up top and took positions on a long branch, which seemed strong enough to hold all three of them. Beneath them, the cannibals were still running after their prisoners.

  After a few minutes of standing on the branch and making sure that the cannibals passed them, the three eventually climbed down.

  “Wow, that was a close one,” Simon said.

  “Yeah, couldn’t agree more,” Thomas said. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Thomas!” Julie said.

  “Yeah, sis, what is it?” Thomas said, turning toward her. He noticed that she was holding her hand on her left side of the body.

  When she removed her hand, he pointed it at Thomas and Simon, who saw blood on it. Then, she collapsed on the ground.

  “No! No, no, no, no,” Thomas said, before crouching next to her and taking her in his arms. “No, sis, you don’t get to do this to me, you hear me? Don’t you do this to me.”