Haven From Hell (Book 4): Alcazar Prison, page 11
part #4 of Haven From Hell Series
“I’m from Riverwood. Get me back there and the doc can fix me up.”
I began to set up a few surgical instruments, “Where were you from before there?” Like I was trying to make him more comfortable with small talk.
“New Orleans. The cops drove us out. They were a bigger gang with bigger guns.”
“Oh, I dunno,” I said, “I see you all got a bunch of M16’s right here.”
“We picked them up from a private amoury in Mississippi. It was easy,” he gasped in pain at my pointless probings, “some survivalist nut must have made the collection before turning zombie.”
“Huh,” I continued, “I would have thought that you would have gotten them from some military base, the way every single one of you seems to have an M16.”
My victim gave a shudder of pain, “No way, man, those places all crawl with zombies. Half of them are near or in cities, too, and all that gunfire would attract even more attention. Only the guys on patrol get the good stuff, everyone else has to make due.”
“What can you tell me about a recent attack made on someplace to the south?”
He answered, “You’re from there? Well that figures. A scout, Harry, found your hideout, so Reagan sent some boys to kill a few of you, you know, to make a point, and take over. They’re overdue and we haven’t heard back. How did things go?”
“Things went well. Why don’t you guys try and get along with the natives a little better? It wouldn’t kill you to grow your own food, ya know. It really wouldn’t.”
His reply was, “It’s the law of the jungle, man. That’s what Reagan says: ‘It’s the law of the jungle.’ We never had nothin’ and now we have whatever we can take.” How disappointing.
“Don’t you have families? Think of them. Do you want them growing up to be a bunch of bandits like you?”
He didn’t give it much thought. I hadn’t thought he would, but if he had I might have actually tried to save him. He did say, “Some of us got women and kids, but not me. Reagan has a whole family. Wife, kids, even his mom. If he thinks we’re doing okay then we must be. We’re the new bosses. We crack the whip and they all come runnin’.”
I could see he was beginning to flag so I moved on to an important question, “Speaking of which, when do you you get your food supply from Marshville? On what day?”
He gave me a curious look but clearly couldn’t see the harm of furnishing such useless information, “Thursday. It comes in on Thursday. Corn and potatoes.”
“Sounds delicious. Do you know the food truck driver? And what about all the other towns?”
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Writing a book?”
I pretended to pull a bullet out (really it was a pebble) and dropped it into a little pan. “I’m a curious person. Look at it this way: tell me what I want to know or the deal’s off and I leave you here to die.”
He looked a bit upset when he realized that we probably weren’t going to become lifelong buddies, but he still couldn’t be bothered to lie. Uncle had trained me very carefully in reading micro expressions, especially those relating to the telling of lies, and even more especially in those who were experiencing extreme pain. He was the best.
By the time I had learned all I could about the current geopolitical reality of the region and begun to explore the wider world (that bit about New Orleans had me curious), my ‘patient’ was fading fast. Since he’d been so helpful I gave him another shot of dope to ease his way into eternal damnation. I wondered if the transition would be a shock. I guess I’ll never know.
My next course of action was to keep my word. I quickly pithed the corpse and sewed up all the wounds. Then I dragged the body back to the pickup truck and left it in the road, before setting an improvised explosive device inside the cab. I put it under the seat and set it to detonate as soon a someone sat in the driver’s seat. Pretty funny, huh?
I also wrote out a nice letter and addressed it to ‘Reagan’, hoping that it might have some influence on enemy morale. It began,
My Dear Mr. Reagan,
‘Now this is the Law of the Jungle-as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back-
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.’
I mention this by way of an introduction regarding your judgment. It has come to my attention that you pride yourself on living in accordance with the Law of the Jungle, a Law you clearly do not understand. I shall enlighten you.
Firstly, you are responsible to maintain an acceptable level of personal hygiene and temperance. In this you have failed,
‘Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply but never to deep’
Secondly, stealing food from farmers is hardly the way of the Wolf and not at all in accordance with the aforementioned Law of the Jungle,
‘The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a hunter-go forth and get food of thine own.’
Thirdly, you have failed to keep a proper peace, as it is written,
‘Keep peace with the Lords of the Jungle-the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear.’
And yet you have not done this, and were driven from your city of origin as a result, yet learned nothing. For this sin the True LORD of the jungle is most wroth and has sent his servant, even me, to be your judge. I know that you have sinned greatly for ‘If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you,’ as you will soon learn.
Fourthly, you have intruded upon the homes and hearths of your fellows,
‘The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home,
Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come.’
Fifthly, you are a murderer,
‘But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man!’
I shall now, in the interest of space, skip ahead past all of your various trespasses regarding Cub-Right, Lair-Right, Cave-Right, etc. and get to the point,
‘Whether you hide in heaven or on earth: I will drag you down from the spinning spheres; I will toss you in the air like a lion. I will leave no one alive in your realm; I will burn your city, your land, yourself. If you would spare yourself and your venerable family, give heed to my advice with the ear of intelligence. If you do not, you will see what God had willed.’ And my advice is this: run. Obey it and you will be allowed to flee like a whipped dog in fear of its cruel master. Fail me in this and you will have served up yourself, your family, and your people as a feast for my spirit.
Sincerely, Gideon Storm, Judge of the Americas and Agent of Divine Retribution
I penned that and pinned it on the dead dudes chest. It took so long that by the time I was done I saw another pickup truck coming my way. I hurried off into the woods and waited for them to stop. Curious as I was to see who they might be, I had a sneaking suspicion that only one band were allowed on the road in those days.
The second pickup truck stopped and another six guys got out. They went over to the dead man with a note pined to him and bent over to read it. Another couple of them kept a close look out, just in case some agent of Divine Retribution should happen to be lurking nearby deciding whether or not he should shoot them all. The literate fellow proclaimed, “We need to show this to Reagan,” thus dooming them all.
With the allegiance of the men no longer suspect, and understanding them to not be highway travelers, but highwaymen, I opened fire immediately. The first two I killed with a single bullet and the other four took one bullet apiece. One of their number actually attempted to take cover behind the truck’s door. I thought that was funny since those things aren’t exactly bulletproof. I finished off the remaining zombies with Polly and Abby, making sure to save a head for later.
I was tempted to sit around and wait. I mean, if that piecemeal approach to brigandage was the best that they could do, then I might just be able to kill them all without the need to resort to wholesale slaughter. I do have a conscience. But no, that wouldn’t work, eventually someone would figure out such a simple plan and act to oppose me accordingly.
After checking to see that my missive remained legible I decided to add the entire Law of the Jungle as a post script, followed by,
Post Post Script: It has recently been pointed out to me that you, Reagan, being the subject of an inferior upbringing, may have utterly no knowledge of the true Law of the Jungle. Therefore, I have made a point of highlighting the salient passages in regards to yourself. Perhaps if you apply yourself to studying them with a heart of penitence you will not be eternally damned when I end your time on this earth. I wish you a blessed afterlife.
The whole thing seemed a bit of a blatant goad to me, but then again, I was dealing with a simple criminal mind. Most criminals, being of an inferior intellect, are easily angered, so it seemed wisest to keep things as straightforward as possible. Besides, I like to write letters.
From there I got all my stuff back together, slashed the tires of the most recently come truck and punctured its fuel tank, dragged the body with the note to a safe distance from what I hoped would be a super cool explosion, sterilized all my surgical equipment, and then pushed Blue off road through the woods. No more brigands showed up to interrupt me.
Making my way through a forest with a bike and rickshaw was not as easy as it sounds. Also, the trail I was leaving could be followed by a blind man. It didn’t help that Tracer seemed to feel the need to pee on every stump and exposed tree root. Only once did I have to use the road and that was because I needed to cross a brook using a bridge. It was a risky move but I was pretty sure that no one saw me.
It was nearly sundown before I got into position overlooking the main housing of Riverwood. By climbing a tree I was able to get a better look around. Right off I noticed that one whole neighborhood had its own fence in a feeble attempt to keep the zombies out, and all the houses had boards over their windows. They also had a new made water tower with a windmill driven pump right next to it. I was guessing that they got both of those ideas from Marshville, to the south. I thought that it was nice to see the water tower technology catching on. The whole town of Riverwood looked like a massive sprawl, considering its original small population of under fifteen hundred souls. There was a huge group of baseball diamonds, a golf course, a park, an upscale housing district as well as two tract housing neighborhoods (one quite small), and a fairly big commercial district. All of that was now given over to plowed cropland. At one time Riverwood must have been something of a cultural center for the region. Too bad I was going to have to mess it up, but a promise is a promise.
Chapter 8
With Sol shedding the last of his occidental rays over the treetops, I hoisted Blue and the rickshaw high into the trees and buried all my bombs. I wanted to do a little up close snooping before I got too serious about blowing stuff up. It wouldn’t do to burn and blast too many relative innocents if I could help it.
By the time I had the perimeter of Riverwood directly before me, I noticed a change in the atmosphere. Tracer noticed it as well. Someone was whistling. At night. In the woods in a world full of zombies. I just had to check that action out. I mean, who could possibly be that stupid?
As we made our way I couldn’t help but notice the bright gibbous moon wending its way over all the earth, like some malignant tumor seeking to spread its blight and death on all beneath its baneful beams. I took it as a hopeful sign, and gave the Lady a thumbs up for striking a favorable mood. After all, somebody always has to die, right? If I got lucky it might even be me.
Tracer and I moved north through the trees and deeper into the wood that surrounded the town. Eventually we came upon the source of all the infernal racket. It seemed that there were a bunch of dopes wandering around in the woods all whistling some cloying pointless tune, like some giant whistling-in-the-dark symphony, only dumber. There were a hundred of them at least, men and woman, and they all had flashlights. Many had walkie talkies, as well, making me think that they must have had access to a bunch of battery chargers, with some sort of concomitant electrical generation device.
In the rough center of the musical discordance was a small band of five stumbling people, blundering along, carrying a sixth person between them. The sixth person was an older man who had clearly been wounded. It seemed to me like some kind of sick hunting game; I hate that sort of thing when other people do it. Clearly the little group in the center were the intended prey, and the big inharmonic group surrounding them were getting ready to move in for the kill. I found the lack of sportsmanship absolutely disgusting. Maybe I would have felt differently if it had at least been funny.
The little group finally stopped attempting to run, no doubt realizing that they were surrounded and their end was nigh. One of their number, a woman, stood proud and shouted, “Come on you cowards! What are you waiting for!? You think your so strong, but your nothing! God sees you! Your every deed will be held to account! You will never escape judgment! ‘It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!’” Then she brandished some piece of firewood around over her head. It took me a second to realize that the tinder was supposed to be understood as some kind of weapon.
I wasn’t quite sure she understood just how serious her situation really was. If it were me, I would have faded into the woods and killed them one by one, leaving zombies in my wake. That whole face- them-head-on thing can’t be reasonably expected to work when outnumbered by scores to one and only armed with a tree limb. Then I got it: that was her last words speech.
For last words it was okay, I guess, but I would have said, ‘...it is a fearful thing...’ because that’s how I roll. Anyhow, for me the show was over and playtime had begun.
Due to my intention of merely scouting, I had left both my rifles with Blue, but had brought both bow and sling. I thought that it was really convenient how everyone was bearing a light source and traveling in small groups of would-be murderers, or even going it alone. While the whistling increased in volume and the mob began to close in on their victims I started putting arrows into whatever noisy sucker looked like he needed it the most. Too bad I only had twenty arrows.
My very first shot killed a woman who was in the back of her little group. A straight shot right through her heart, from behind. No one noticed. Everyone was focused on the prey in front of them while no one was keeping a look out for the predator in their midst. I made sure to keep Tracer close by my side so as to not make the same mistake.
The next arrow was a bit more ambitious. I put it into a man who was moving with purpose toward the new friends I was trying to make, who was about thirty yards away. The shaft took him in the side, I believe piercing both lungs. After that I got more aggressive.
By moving around I was quick to put an arrow into any lone hunter; anyone hanging back from a group was a favorite target, too. It didn’t take long for the dead to begin to do what they do. Look at it from their point of view: who would you rather kill? Some whistling fool with a flashlight right in front of you, or some guy twenty yards away you could hardly see? Then came the joyous chaos. Oh how I love that Chaos! The running, the screaming, the shooting and shouting. And all the while little old me moving through the darkness having the time of my life. Uncle always said it was paramount to enjoy one’s labor; ‘Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works.’
As I capered about, sending death hither and yon, casting arrows into the bosom of evil, and generally having a good time, a panicked looking brigand suddenly rounded a tree in my path. I noticed that he had a zombie following closely behind him, but because those things are so slow it seemed unlikely that the brigand would be caught. I decided to even the odds.
First, I winked at the man-hunter, then I spun him about and pushed him back into the zombie’s waiting arms. It was hard to do because he was so much bigger than me and I had to keep ahold of my bow, but the look of shock on his face as those cold undead hands found him was more than worth the effort. Unfortunately, there was no time for me to really enjoy the show as I needed to move on to my next target.
Carpe diem, or in my case, carpe noctem. All was life and peace for those few precious moments that make life such a joy for me, before my sense of responsibility brought me back to my senses. It seemed that one of my new made zombie allies was intent on molesting that brave and verbose woman who was brandishing a broken stick. I couldn’t have that.
All around me the brigands were falling back, attempting to regroup and assess the situation. That meant it was time for us to leave anyway. I drew and threw Polly into the back of the offensive zombie’s skull and then ran over to the tiny group which I’d been endeavoring to assist.
All six of my new friends focused their attention on me with an undisguised suspicion. Bad move on their part. While they were busy taking my measure another zombie was moving up behind one of their number, a man standing in the back who was still trying to hold up his end of their injured companion. No sooner had I picked up Polly then I had to throw her again. She flew past a couple of people, missing them by inches before embedding herself in the brain of Mr. Sneaky Undead.
“Greetings, friends, and felicitations,” I began; for who could be a better friend to them in that moment than I? Only God. “Perhaps we could continue our introductions in a more benign setting, more conducive to the free exchange of ideas, a place less inclined to the massacre of the innocent.”
I motioned for them to follow and we picked up the pace. After a hundred yards of bumbling through the woods I had everyone stop so I could take a look at our wounded friend. He had two broken legs, simple fractures of both tibia initially, but significantly worse for wear. All this dragging him around was not going to end well for him if we didn’t come up with some better way.
