This is the End (Book 2): Not Dead Yet (20 page)

I’d questioned Chloe about the drugs a few days before only to be shut down.  I wanted to tell her the truth about where I’d come from but telling her meant telling everyone and I didn’t think I could do that.  At least not yet.

My dreams were plagued by ocean breezes and the smell of coconuts, only to wake and see the darkness of our cell.  No one had been able to come up with any sort of useful plan on how to get out of here yet and all we could do was wait until they decided to do something with us. 

What they didn’t know was that by keeping us here they were letting us heal and get stronger which was bad news for them.  Of course we had no idea who “they” were or how many of them there were, or what their agenda was.  I seriously doubted they intended to keep us here forever; that would be a waste of food so they must still be trying to figure out what to do with us as well, which was a good thing.  That meant they hadn’t been expecting to find us, thus they couldn’t have a solid plan for us.  Of course, they could by now, considering how many days they’d had to sit around thinking about it.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew footsteps were closing in on us and the sound of metal scraping against metal had my full attention.  I looked up to see the leader of the men who’d taken us and the ogre standing in front of our cells.

“Which one of you is Angie?”  The leader asked, looking back and forth between what I was assuming was Penny and myself. 
Aw fuck
.

I took a deep breath, leaned forward and raised my hand a bit, nodding in his direction.  He looked at me, then at the ogre.  The ogre started opening our cell so I started to get to my feet.

Standing, I brushed the dirt off my butt and waited calmly.  The ogre approached, holding a pair of handcuffs.  I turned around and put my hands behind my back, waiting for him.  After being in the dark so long, I wasn’t about to fight against my chance to breathe some fresh air for a change.

He locked the cuffs and grabbed my arm, turning me around and dragging me out of the cell.  I met the scared faces looking at me from the cells and just gave everyone a half smile and a wink so they’d know I’d figure something out and come back for them.

Neither of the men said a word as they led me down the dark little hallway and up the narrow staircase.  The leader swung the door open and a burst of fresh night air hit my skin giving me goose bumps and making me want to cry from relief. 

Reaching the doorway, I paused and inhaled deeply.  The night sky was clear and filled with enough stars to give an astronomer a lifetime’s worth of work to do.  The ogre yanked my arm and I started to walk again.

Floodlights were scattered around the perimeter of the property at all the guard stations where men kept watch.  It kind of felt like a prison, if prisons were large farm houses.  The ground was soggy and soft beneath my feet which felt strange after pacing around cement for so many days.  The night air was cool on my skin but I welcomed it and mentally steeled myself for whatever the fuck was going to happen next.

They led me around the front of the farmhouse and I thought that’s where we were going, but we continued past it.  There was a large barn in front and to the side of the house and that appeared to be our destination. 

As we got closer, I could see it was pretty well lit and there were several men standing guard by the door, which was never a good sign.  No one said anything as we approached, they just stared at me; some in disgust, others out of curiosity.  A feeling of definite foreboding raced down my spine and I wished more than anything I had my machete and Jack with me.

Straightening my shoulders, I stood as tall as I could and made sure to meet the eyes of any man who was willing to look at my face.  Committing them each to memory, we stopped as the door was opened and I was temporarily blinded by the sudden bright light spilling out from the inside.

The Ogre pushed me through the door before my eyes fully adjusted but I could make out the shapes of empty horse stalls running along the walls and the hayloft in the far back.  Just up ahead was a man seated at a table surrounded by guards and someone else tied to a chair.

I was pushed into a chair near the table and the cuffs around my wrists were looped into the chair back, preventing me from going anywhere.  Before I could object, more cuffs were placed around my ankles, shackling my feet to the bottom of the chair which really meant I was stuck.

Shaking my dirty and ratted hair out of my face, I looked up at the guy who’d been sitting and was now standing in front of me.  He was maybe late 60’s with a full beard and average height.  His hair and beard were white, which paired with his white button down shirt and black slacks just made him look like business causal Santa.

He took his glasses off and cleaned the lenses on a handkerchief he’d pulled from a pocket and put them back on, stuffing the fabric back in his pants before meeting my gaze.

“You must be Angie,” He said with a smile, crossing his arms behind his back and rocking back on his heels.

Without a word I just raised a single eyebrow at him.  The Ogre smacked the back of my head and shouted, “You will answer!” in a deep southern drawl.

Running my tongue across my teeth to make sure none had become dislodged at the blow I cleared my throat, “Yes, I’m Angie,” I bit out between my teeth.

“Wonderful! I’ve heard so much about you and your…
special situation
.” The old man smiled revealing a mouth full of mismatched ivory and gold teeth.  Ok, business casual gangster Santa it was then.

I was genuinely confused at his words; there was no way he could know about the injection, so what else could he be referring to? “If you mean the fact that I haven’t had a cigarette in the last 6 days and am starting to get cranky, then you’d be right,” I answered, still wondering what the fuck was happening.

He laughed at that.  Not just a chuckle, but a deep belly laugh; the kind you hear from drunk people or someone really high.  Or just plain crazy.  God I hoped he was just drunk. 

“Ah, a sense of humor to boot, you will be most useful, yes.”  With that he pulled his chair closer to mine and sat, crossing one leg over the other knee and pulling a can of chew tobacco out of his shirt pocket.  He held it out to me in offering and I shook my head.  Shrugging, he placed a wad in his mouth and put the can away.  “A nasty habit, I know.  But the world doesn’t afford us much luxury anymore so one must take what we can when we can.”  He leaned forward and stared at me for a long moment.  “Do you know who I am?” He finally asked.

“Santa?” I asked.  Before the ogre could strike me again, the man shook his head and motioned for him to stand down.

“I’m the Preacher and this is my compound.  You’re on my land and God has brought you to us so that we may survive and rebuild.”  My stomach didn’t just drop, it spiraled all the way down until it oozed out from underneath my toenails and formed a puddle in my socks. I could deal with the government, but overzealous religious types were worse than clowns.

“No offense, sir,” I started, trying to sound as calm and rational as my fear would let me, “But I have no idea what you’re talking about and please just let me and my friends go.  We didn’t mean to end up on your land, our plane crashed in a tornado and we just want to leave, we don’t want to hurt anyone or take anything from you.”

“Mm, yes.  Nasty business, tornadoes.” He stroked his beard and looked genuinely thoughtful about the tragedy that is a tornado.  Holy fuckbirds this guy was nuts and we were all going to die is spectacular ways. “Angie, have you found Christ?”

“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to be looking for him but if you’ll let us go we will go out and absolutely start searching and report back when we do.” I knew sarcasm wasn’t going to help me, but I couldn’t help it, sometimes words just fell out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them.

The ogre made another move to strike but the Preacher held up his hand.  “I understand you were at the Alamodome and you were injected with something that has made you immune to zombie bites, is that true?”

Swallowing hard, “Ho-how did you know that?” I stammered. Blood was pounding through my veins so hard at his words I half wondered if I was literally going to explode.  How on earth could he have possibly known that?!  Did he torture Jack or Earl into saying something? If he had, surely they would’ve said something in the days we’d been locked up…

The Preacher nodded to someone behind me and I turned to see a few men pick up and carry the man tied to a chair over to us and sit him down in our circle.  They removed a burlap sack from his head and I almost passed out.

“Austin! You’re alive!
How?!”
He looked a little worse for the wear but sure enough, sitting next to me was Austin Adams.

“I’m sorry Angie, I-“ before he could say anything else, the man who’d removed the sack from his head thrust a gag in his mouth, cutting him off mid-sentence.

I turned my incredulous stare back to the Preacher waiting for an explanation.

He looked amused at the exchange for a moment, waiting until the gag was secure before continuing. “Austin here is kin to one of my men and came from San Antonio with tales of government conspiracies, experiments and another survivor who’d been injected.

Son of a bitch!!
Austin had been injected too, that’s why he’d been so quick to stand between the zombies and me; he knew the he wouldn’t die or turn if one bit him.  I didn’t bother hiding the betrayal and astonishment from my face as I looked again at Austin.  His eyes plead with me silently, but I didn’t hear any of it.  His face was covered with fading bruises and it looked like he hadn’t slept in a few days but he was alive.  I was glad he was alive but also pissed the fuck off that he didn’t tell me he’d been injected too and that he’d told these people who I was.  Maybe he’d found out we’d been captured and thought telling them would save me.  I doubted it though.

Turning back to the Preacher, I met his gaze without flinching, trying to quelch the rage that was threatening to spill over.  “What do you want from me.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s not what we’ll get from you, it’s how you’ll help us.  With you being immune, you and Austin here will make the perfect bait whenever we need to hunt.”  The Preacher’s words had me picturing Austin and I hanging by our feet from trees while rabid dogs vyed over our flesh below. 

I couldn’t imagine a more “worst case scenario” than this.  “I’ll help you willingly on one condition.”

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“Let my friends go.”

Shaking his head, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, my dear, but I tell you what, how about I make their stay a bit more…
comfortable
?”

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

The Preacher stood and stretched, spitting his tobacco onto the barn floor.  “I’ll let them out of the cells and put them to work around the farm.  They can sleep with the other help and as long as they do what they’re told, no harm will come to them.”

I glared up at him with as much hate as my eyes could possibly transmit across the space between us, hoping my hatred would manifest into laser beams toasting this guy.  “Absolutely no harm.  And if you or any of your men even
try
to touch one of those girls in any sort of inappropriate manner I will personally rip your testicles from you and feed them to a zombie while you watch.”

He looked startled at my words before giving a light chuckle.  “You’re a very colorful girl, Angie.  We have a deal.”  With that, he sauntered off into the night, leaving me and Austin still sitting in a semi-circle and tied to our chairs.

One of the men removed the gag from Austin before they all left, closing the door behind them and leaving us alone.

“Angie I-“

“Shut the fuck up, Austin.  I don’t want to hear it.” I turned away from him.  I wiggled around in my chair, trying to scoot it away from him, but the damn thing was metal and may have actually weighed more than I did.

“But Angie-“

“I SAID SHUT UP!” I screamed at him, spit flying from my lips and splattering his face.  The anger that had been welling up fell from my eyes in tears that coursed down my dirty cheeks and all I could do was try to breathe.  I wanted to kill him; I wanted to break the cuffs and strangle him with my bare hands for getting me and my friends into this mess.  He just stared at me like a beaten dog; his misery and regret palpable.

He didn’t try to say anything else, just looked at me.  Just like that the wind was let out of my sails and my shoulders slumped.  I was too tired and worn down to be angry at him right now.  The only thing I could think about was what would become of us and how we were going to get out of this clusterfuck.

Several hours passed and I was awoken to a bolt of sunlight shining in my face.  Cracking open an eyelid, I saw a group of men come trooping into the barn towards us.  The noise must have woken Austin too because he was now just as awake and alert as I.

“Rise and shine ladies, time to catch us some dead folk,” the first man said as he came over and started to uncuff us.  I didn’t have the will to fight so I just sat still as they removed the cuffs from my wrists and ankles and stood slowly.  Every muscle in my body absolutely hated me from sitting in the chair so long and there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t ache.