Alone (13 page)

Trish flinched uncomfortably.

Tom smiled and started to lead her down the clearing towards the warehouse.

Tony watched as Tom led Trish down the clearing.

He saw where both of the guy’s hands were. He could see this clearly because he was directly behind them.

Tony was back in the tree line in the high grass about a hundred feet behind where Roy and his friend had brought Trish out of the woods and into the clearing. He had made himself a blind out of stalks of the tall grass and brush.

He had figured they would come back to the same spot as yesterday.

He figured since he was using the walkie-talkie to talk with Roy, he could be anywhere and they wouldn’t know. If they asked him to show himself, he would just stay he was in the shadows back inside the window and he could see them well enough. He would tell them he could see them well enough to shoot at them from where he was. That should end any further discussion of them wanting him to show himself. Besides, they weren’t concerned about him being where they could see him. All they were concerned about was where the food was. They would be happy to have him stay back inside the window because it would make it that much easier for them to pull another fast one. Tony knew that was the real reason they were here.’

He watched as Tom led Trish closer to the warehouse. Then he saw Debbie slip out around the far corner of the warehouse. She slid along the side with her back against the wall and then ducked back into the large door way overhang of the large doors at the front of the warehouse. She was carrying a branch and two large clumps of the tall grass. The same thing that they had used to stuff Trish’s clothes yesterday.

He watched as Tom led Trish down to where the other girl was standing.

When they reached the girl, the guy roughly snatched the hat off of Trish’s head and put it on his own head.

Tony stared at Trish. What happened to her hair?

He was tempted to put a round into Roy’s ass as he saw the girl and Tom pulling the black sweat suit off of Trish.

The girl pulled down her pants as the guy pulled the shirt up over Trish’s head.

The girl grabbed Trish and started to lead her along the wall of the warehouse and disappear around the corner.

The guy quickly stuffed the grass down the pant legs of the sweat pants. He slid the shirt down over the branch and sat the clothes against the bottom of the large door under the door overhang.

Tony about died when he saw the guy put what looked to be a black wig on top of the clothes. He knew it couldn’t be a wig. They had cut off Trish’s hair.

If he would have looked down from the window, with the scarecrow back under the door way overhang, it would look like Trish was actually sitting there.

Tony could have set a trap and taken out the two guys if he had wanted to, but that wasn’t what he had wanted to do today. Today he wanted to see what Trish’s part was in all of this. If she was in on it, then he would do what he had to do to make sure they either didn’t come back or were not able to come back. But if Trish was a victim, he wanted to help her. From what he saw today, he doubted very seriously that Trish had willingly given up her clothes and her hair for a few cans of food. Especially because Trish knew if she came back by herself that Tony would give her whatever she wanted.

He watched as the guy who was now wearing the hat that Trish had been wearing, struggled to carry the four cases of food back across the parking lot to Roy.

When he reached Roy, Roy took two of the cases and they turned and disappeared into the woods.

Tony knew this was what would happen. He knew they would try to steal more food from him today. He knew they would grab and run.

But today, Tony was where he could follow them.

From where he was hidden, he had gotten the answer to his first question. Trish was a victim too. They were using her to get food from him.

Somehow they had discovered that Trish was coming here by herself and getting food from Tony.

Now he intended to get some more of his questions answered.

Tony needed to know how many more of them there were. The first day he saw Roy and his buddy. Today he saw one more, the girl. There could be more of them. Before he decided to do anything else, he needed to know if there were any more of them. If there were more, how many?

He also hoped to find a way to rescue Trish if he could.

He had liked Trish. He couldn’t understand why she was the way she was. Now he thought he understood.

Of course that didn’t mean that Trish would want to be rescued. Maybe these people were her family. Maybe she would want to stay with them no matter how badly they had been treating her. He had seen this kind of thing happen before. Tony had a cousin Bob. Bob’s mother decided one day she couldn’t handle Bob anymore so she dropped him off at his grandparents. He was then raised by his grandparents. Bob’s Mom didn’t live too far away. She had had three more kids after she abandoned Bob. He saw his mother and his siblings often, but was never allowed to go home again.

Tony would have thought Bob would have hated his mother, but the opposite was true. Bob would get angry with anyone that ever said anything bad about her.

Tony let his thoughts drift. “I wonder whatever happened to Bob?” He thought before his mind got back to his current problem.

Trish could feel the same way. Especially since there weren’t many other people left alive. Her family, no matter how bad they were, would be all she had left to hang on to.

Tony decided all he could do was give her the choice. “Hopefully I can give her the choice.” Tony corrected himself. After he followed Roy and the others to see where they went, he might find that hoping to rescue Trish would not be an option. He might find it would difficult to just get himself out of this mess. He would see.

Tony had given Roy and the others a few minutes to put some distance between them. He had watched and listened to see where they went.

Tony quietly crawled out of his hiding place.

He moved slowly in the direction he had seen Roy and his friend go when they left carrying the cases of food.

He started to follow.

He soon saw motion in the trees up ahead of him.

He crept closer to follow them.

As he started to catch up, he would hide behind trees and brush so he wouldn’t be spotted and give them a few minutes to move on.

As they were getting further away from the warehouse he could hear them starting to talk louder.

“They are getting louder because they think they got away with another fast one again today. They’re feeling a little cocky. Good, go ahead and get careless.” Tony thought.

He could hear the voices and laughter getting louder.

Except for Trish, they had put the gag back over her mouth to be sure she didn’t try to yell out. Her hands were tied behind her back. If they were her family, Tony couldn’t believe anyone could treat family this way. He couldn’t believe someone could treat a complete stranger this way.

Whoever these people were, they were a real piece of work. Tony needed to be careful.

Chapter 16

“I can’t believe he fell for this twice!” Tom laughed as he struggled with the two cases of cans into the beginning of the last field before they would reach the house.

“Between the door way overhang, the clothes and the hair, I’m sure he thought he had her today.” Roy grinned. “I told you that dumb ass would go for it again.”

“Do you think we can do this again tomorrow?” Debbie asked as she shoved Trish from behind. Trish stumbled and almost fell on her face, but was able to catch herself before she fell and landed on her knees in the grass. “I would like to get some more of those donuts.”

“Yea and maybe a case or two of the Doritos I saw him get her the other day. I love Doritos.” Tom added.

“I think we can do a hell of a lot better than a few cases of food.” Roy laughed. “I want to get in the warehouse and see what he has stashed in there. I want everything that’s in that warehouse.”

“How are we going to do that?” Tom asked. “I don’t think that guy is going to want to trade us anything after getting burnt two days in a row.”

“We’re done trading.” Roy laughed as he walked up behind Trish as she sat on her knees in the grass. He kicked her in the ass. ”Come on Bitch, get your ass up and get moving. These cans are heavy.”

“What do you mean we are done trading?” Debbie asked. “How are we going to get him to give us more food?”

Tom smiled and gave Trish a creepy grin. “If we are done trading, what are we going to do with her? If you’re done with her maybe I could…”

Roy interrupted before Tom could finish his sentence. “Oh we’re not done with the little bitch yet. In fact, I have a very important job for her. We are going to use her for bait.”

“Bait?” Tom replied sounding disappointed.

Trish looked up horrified as her eyes got larger. She had seen Roy chop up a dead rabbit they had found by Dunbar Creek to use for bait. She knew he hated her and wanted her out of the way, but she had never imagined he had hated her this much.

“We’re going to use her for fish bait?” Tom asked.

Roy laughed. “In a way.” He looked at Trish who stared up at him as she began to tremble with fear.

“I like that.” Roy stared at Trish. “But not like that, at least not yet.”

“Then bait for what?” Debbie asked.

“I was thinking we could take her and stake her out in that clearing in front of the warehouse. We could do that in the morning before it gets light out. We could hide out and wait for that dumb ass to spot her. He will probably think it is a trap and just stay in the warehouse and watch for an hour or so, but eventually he will come out to get her. If we are patient, we can wait until he comes out, then we have him.” Roy laughed. “After an hour or so, the dumb ass will think we just put her there for him because we were sorry for ripping him off and just wanted to make things right.”

Debbie started to laugh. “You should have been a shrink or something the way you can figure out what people are going to do. But do you really think he will risk coming out for her?”

“I’m sure he will.” Roy smiled then his smile turned to an ornery grin. “If not, the next day we could stake you out in that clearing in those little pink undies of yours.”

Tom brightened up and he shouted. “We wouldn’t have to wait very long before he would come running out to get some of that!”

Trish blushed. “Those bastards.” She thought as she watched Roy and Tom laughing. Debbie beamed at what she took as a compliment.

Then as Trish watched them all laughing she thought. “Roy and Tom could probably empty out the entire warehouse while Debbie was showing Tony how grateful she was for him coming out of the warehouse to rescue her.”

“What are we going to do to the guy when he comes out?” Tom asked.

“Kill him of course.” Roy answered coldly. “We can’t let him go. He might try coming back to get revenge. In fact we get rid of him and this bitch at the same time. Then the three of us can move into the warehouse. That way there will be more for the three of us.”

Trish started to sob loudly. She looked up at Debbie as tears ran down her face. “You would let them do that to me? I’m your sister!”

“You’re a pain in my ass is what you are.” Debbie glared at her. “You’ve always been a pain in the ass. I don’t know why Mom even kept you. She should have drowned you in the bath tub when you were little.”

Trish continued to sob as she hung her head.

Roy laughed as he watched the interaction between Trish and Debbie. “Let’s get this stuff back to our place. I’m getting hungry.”

Trish struggled to get to her feet before Roy decided to kick her again. That was her only motivation to get moving. The others were anxious to get back so they could eat. Tom couldn’t stop talking about eating the vegetable soup. Debbie wanted Spaghetti-O’s. Roy would eat a little of everything. Trish knew at best she might get something if anything was leftover, but since she they were talking openly about getting rid of her tomorrow, she doubted she would get anything at all.

The best she could hope for was that the others would eat so much that they would all just fall asleep and leave her alone.

Trish started to walk slowly. She knew they would take her back and tie her up in her corner. At least that was all she hoped they would do to her. Debbie made it clear that she could care less anymore about what happened to her. The only reason Roy and Tom hadn’t treated her any worse than they had was because they didn’t want to upset Debbie. If they kept Debbie happy, Debbie kept them happy.

Trish let out a deep breath and thought. “Why am I even wasting my time worrying about it? They are going to do whatever they want. There isn’t anything I can do about it. Unless I can figure a way to get away in the middle of the night, it won’t matter anymore.”

Trish kept her head down and studied the ground in front of her as she walked. Maybe she would see something she could use to cut the ropes they would tie her up with. A piece of glass or an old nail, anything!  If she saw anything she could pretend to fall and maybe she would be able to hide it in her hand. When everyone else fell asleep maybe she could get herself free. It wasn’t much of a plan, but she couldn’t think of anything else. In her present situation she didn’t have many options. She also didn’t appear to have much time left to work with.

They all started walking again and weren’t more than about twenty feet into the high grass of the field, when Debbie screamed. She dropped the rope that was tied around Trish’s hands and ran back to Roy. Roy was still at the tree line and had just picked up the two cases of cans that he had been carrying back to their place at the bed and breakfast. Roy looked at Debbie as he heard Tom shout. “Oh Shit!”

As Roy turned towards Tom to see what was spooking the others he saw it. About fifty feet away and coming at them from the trees at the edge of the field on their right was one of the dead.

Roy set his cases back down on the ground and laughed as he studied the lone walking dead creature coming towards them. It looked like it had been a boy that was maybe ten years old when he had died. He was about four feet tall and weighed around seventy-five pounds. A few small patches of red hair stuck out from the gray skin that covered his head. It wasn’t moving very fast. It was struggling with a determined purpose as its black eyes stared directly at them as the creatures jaws opened and closed.

Black thick liquid poured from the things mouth as it groaned and growled as it moved. The left arm hung limp from the shredded remains of the blue shirt that partially covered the upper body. Blood stained blue jeans were barely hanging from the creatures hips. Part of one of the lower legs bones protruded through the left pant leg below the knee. Some kind of metal rod was sticking up from the bare right foot.

When Trish realized Debbie had dropped the rope that bound her hands behind her back and everyone else was looking at the zombie, she saw her chance and began to run.

Roy stopped laughing as he noticed motion on his left and glanced to see if more of the dead were now coming from that direction too. He saw Trish start to run. “Tom, go bring that little bitch back here.” Roy yelled.

Tom had been staring nervously at the creature, still holding the two cases of cans and didn’t realize Roy had spoken to him.

“Tom Damn It!” Roy yelled louder, finally getting Tom’s attention. “Go bring that bitch back here.”

Tom looked around dazed for a minute, then saw Trish running towards the woods. He looked around frantically to see if there were more of the dead around.

He calmed down slightly when he realized there was only one of them.

Then he realized he was still holding the heavy cases of cans. He quickly sat the cases down and darted off after Trish.

Roy laughed as he saw Debbie hiding behind him. “Don’t tell me you are afraid of that little thing?”

“They give me the creeps.” Debbie replied, her voice shaky. “Besides they don’t have to be very big to kill you.”

Roy grinned as he picked up a three foot long branch that he saw lying in the tall grass a few feet away from where he was standing. He held the branch out in front of him as he walked towards the groaning creature.

When he was within a few feet of the creature, he started poking it with the stick, pushing it back to keep himself just out of its reach.

“Come on you dead bastard!” Roy shouted and taunted as he circled the dead creature. “What’s the matter? Am I too fast for you?”

“Come on Roy, quit playing with it and just kill the thing!” Debbie yelled.

“You want to smack it a few times?” Roy chuckled.

“Just kill it, Please!” Debbie pleaded. “I hate it when you do this.”

“I thought you liked everything I did?” Roy laughed as he swung the branch, hitting the back of the zombie’s legs, causing it to fall to the ground. His eyes lit up as he watched the little zombie struggle to get up. “At least that’s what you told me last night.”

“Be serious!” Debbie continued to plead. “If the damn thing even scratches you, you’re dead.”

Roy poked the creature when it had almost made it back to a standing position. He laughed again when it fell back to the ground.

The entire time, the creature’s black eyes glared at Roy. It’s groaning grew louder.

Roy was circling around behind the creature to poke it in the back when Tom’s voice got his attention. “Sounds like the little guy is getting pissed off!” Tom said half laughing as he struggled to catch his breath.

Roy looked at Trish standing beside Tom. Tom was holding the rope to keep her close. Her legs and stomach were covered with dirt and green grass stains. Dried blood streaked across her left leg from where she had scratched her leg when she fell. When she ran into the woods, the rope hanging from her tied hands got caught on some brush and caused her to lose her balance. With her hands tied behind her back she couldn’t grab on to anything to steady herself and she went down hard.

“Looks like you just dragged her through the field?” Roy grinned.

“Nah. She did that to herself.” Tom smiled. “Her rope caught and she fell on her face. I picked her up and brushed her off the best I could.”

An evil grin spread across Roy’s face. “Bring her over here.” Roy ordered.

Trish eyed the zombie lying on the ground next to Roy, struggling to get to its feet. Her eyes grew wide with fear as Tom pushed her next to Roy and the creature.

“So you like to run?” Roy smiled as he took the rope from Tom.

Trish shook her head no as she stared first at Roy and then at the zombie.

“I think you do.” Roy said as he was doing something to the end of the rope he was holding.

Trish froze in her tracks when she saw Roy had tied the end of the rope into a loop. She tried to pull away, but her small frame against Roy’s bulk, it was like a mouse trying to move an elephant.

Roy pulled her over to the zombie that was now standing, and tossed the loop he had tied on the end of the rope over the zombie’s head. “Maybe a little ‘dead weight’ will keep you from trying to run away again!”

Roy laughed as he walked over next to Debbie and Tom.

They all watched Trish.

She screamed as the zombie reached out its only functioning arm to try to grab her. Trish tried to pull away, but the rope only let her move six feet away from the creature. When it held out its long arm, it was only three feet away from her face.

Trish moved, but the rope pulled the zombie right along with her. She screamed again and jerked away from the lunging creature’s attempt to grab her.

The sudden tightening of the rope caused the zombie to fall to the ground. Trish stopped and looked down at the creature. If she had shoes on she would have tried to stomp on its head, but in her underwear and bare feet, that would not be a good idea.

Then Trish realized she had another problem. With the creature on the ground, the angle of the rope changed and had shortened the distance between her and the creature’s frantically waving out stretched arm. Instead of being three feet from Trish’s head, the creatures arm was now only two feet away from her ankles.