Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (25 page)

Jules could tell something was different with Danny. He should have been scared or at least worried, but all he appeared to be was distracted. She needed Danny to be there with them instead of wherever his thoughts had taken him. Didn’t he know that? She looked at him, trying to see more of his face in the sparse illumination. She cocked her head this way and then that, but the shadows were too powerful.

Finally giving up, Jules chose to lean against Danny’s chest again and hope the security his presence had brought in the past would return. She was feeling a new fear this time but it was just as real and just as terrorizing.

The only other thoughts to which she was able to retreat were wondering where those mean, scary men had taken Alec. They had grabbed Claire and pulled her away by her arms, dragging her behind them like she was already dead. Alec was led away on his feet like the other children, but he had been separated from Jules and the other kids when they had gotten through the cars on the highway. When he protested, one of the men hit him in the face and on his back and on his.... The image of Alec’s beating was too painful for Jules to consider. The end result had seen Alec thrown into one car while Jules, Danny, Nikki, and Paul were all led to the truck in which they were riding.

Jules just couldn’t figure out what she and the others had done that was so wrong. Why were those men so mad at them? She thought that maybe the building in which they had been sleeping was the army men’s house and they were just angry that she and the others were there, kind of like the Three Bears. She couldn’t remember what had been Goldilocks’ fate, but she was pretty certain she got away. That was the solitary shred of comfort and hope to which she clung;
Goldilocks got away.

Alec, meanwhile, was sitting in the back seat of a Humvee between two large, malodorous men. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut and was becoming the color of eggplant. The blood had stopped oozing from his nose, and a fair amount had dried and crusted above his upper lip, forming what appeared to be a rust-colored mustache. His hands were bound in his lap but his ankles, unlike Claire’s, were free. No one spoke to him. In fact, no one spoke in the vehicle at all. On occasion, the static from the CB radio in the dashboard would crack with distant voices, but none of it made any sense to Alec.

He stared at his lap, afraid that any wandering his eyes might do would solicit another pounding to his temple or the back of his head. He wondered where DB and Della were. He thought he saw a body near their building as he was being pulled and dragged away, but wasn’t certain if perhaps that was another person Claire might have shot.

Alec retreated into the shell from which he had only recently started to emerge. The retreat didn’t require any real effort on his part. His will obligingly ceded ground until he had none at all. He merely retreated beyond the depth of his skin, turning down the volume on all of his senses as he did. His withdrawal was hastened when one of his abductors struck him on the back of his head. He leaned forward slightly until all that he could see was the dark, wiry carpeted Humvee floor. He stared so long and so intently that his eyes strayed from focus and threatened not to return, which Alec did nothing to discourage. When he did finally look up, his vision had become blurred and dark.

He was detached enough that he didn’t feel the next handful of random blows to his skull. The final, an elbow to the bridge of his nose, had started anew the gush of blood from both nostrils, which coursed down across and around his lips and dripped in long, gooey strings of dark crimson from his chin. He made no attempts to stop the flow of red.

Neil was learning that the problem with bluffing about torture is that sometimes, when your bluff has been called, you have to be willing to torture to keep the bluff going. Neil was contemplating this unfortunate reality as he drove them all south on the Seward Highway.

The silver Dodge Ram truck had been thankfully left unmolested by the fleeing militiamen. It sat with the keys still in the ignition, seemingly waiting for their return. Neil cast a single, longing look toward the pile of stones covering Meghan’s body off the road a bit, but wouldn’t spare the time to run over to her. He needed to ask her for advice. He had been robbed of both her and Dr. Caldwell’s point of view in just a handful of days and he was beginning to feel a little blind and disoriented, like a boat without a rudder.

There wasn’t time to contemplate next steps however. The sustained shooting had obviously attracted the unwanted attention of the herd of zombies that had been wandering back and forth along the Seward Highway. They were starting to appear in small and large groups along the Portage Glacier Highway and were threatening to overrun the road and restrict any attempts to escape. There was no time to dawdle.

Neil, Emma, and Jerry climbed into the front seats while Della and their terrified and bound prisoner took their seats in the back. They had plenty of gas and daylight, so Neil was confident they could get to where they needed to be. The only problem was that Neil didn’t know ultimately know where they were going. He had a fair idea about the general area but it didn’t go any further or deeper than that. He was going to need some more specific directions eventually, and that’s where his problems really began.

It was fairly evident their young, scared prisoner would not willingly share the location of the militia camp. He hadn’t said a word since his little exchange with Neil and didn’t appear as if he was going to be talking any time soon. They were at a stalemate of sorts, but there were other distractions, like getting on the trail of their kidnaped friends.

They found themselves on the run again; this time toward something rather than away from it. It was running, but it felt different. This kind of running was agitated and aggressive. With the growl of the truck all around them, they began to feel like predators, perhaps a pack or a pride, on the hunt.

Lucky for Neil, the rhythm of the road passing under his tires had always had an enchanting effect upon him. Today’s drive was no exception.

The gentle vibrating buzz touched him from his toes to his eyeballs, massaging and relaxing the tension that seemed to plague all of his joints and muscles at once. Like a boa constrictor coiling itself tighter and tighter around its prey, Neil’s tension was a formidable force. It resisted its utmost, but the soothing sensation subdued the constricting energy and banish it to his memory. The reprieve was welcomed with a quiet satisfaction across Neil’s face.

And lacking any road music to accompany the drive, their soundtrack was the persistent but understated chorus of rubber on pavement. The warm refrains were distant kin to the mesmerizing words of a hypnotist.

Under such conditions was the closest thing Neil ever came to experiencing Zen. His mind wandered without scope or direction. He merely
was
. There were very few other times in which he could so totally lose himself in such empty but complete existence. He was an empty vessel for thought and experience during those brief moments. Neil’s thoughts were as untamed and free as a Joyce novel diving headlong into stream of consciousness.

There was really no point in his trying to control or direct his musings. His thoughts quickly became a raging and unpredictable surge which gradually became a parade of faces: Grandma and Grandpa Jordan, his boyhood friend Doug, Dr. Caldwell, a random zombie with its weathered gray skin and hungry snarl, Danny, his mom and dad, his boss sitting in his enormous leather office chair as if it were a throne, and between each random image he caught glimpses of Meghan. Her smile held no judgment or accusation. She was as lovely and as missed as spring.

Along with Neil in the front seat sat Jerry and Emma, who seemed to share in Neil’s quiet reverence. No one spoke. Words, for all of them, seemed so intrusive and out of place, like trespassers.

In fact, the only sound that any of them made, with the exception of the occasional deep breath or throat clearing cough, was Della and her soul piercing humming. Her songs never had lyrics but they all seemed so full of meaning and purpose. Next to her, seemingly lost in the drifting melodies of Della’s tune, the militiaman, restrained with duct tape and cable ties, sat and awaited his fate.

Neil chanced a glance at him in the rearview mirror and was struck with how young he seemed. He was no militiaman; he was a militia boy, scared and alone. For Neil, the boy was his only link to Danny, Jules, and Claire. Their prisoner was unable to hide the fear lurking in his eyes. It has been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul and in the soul emotions are pure and deep. And it was quite obvious to Neil that, despite the boy’s resolute but calm facade, the prisoner was terrified about his immediate future.

Neil couldn’t remember a time when he had ever been feared. He was always the likable guy, even in sports. His friends and co-workers all considered him an affable fellow. His wife might have had a different description for him, but her opinion was tainted to say the least. Neil was worried that perhaps he wasn’t the best person to be playing the hardened tough guy. It just wasn’t in his nature to be that guy. He tried to think of ways to get the information from him, but his grasp on his thoughts drifted again with the overwhelming din of their movement on the road.

Emma knew why Neil looked worried and distracted. She could see that he was contemplating his next move. She could almost see him torturing himself the way that Meghan always said he did when he made decisions. He wasn’t really a tough guy to figure out; perpetually dissatisfied with himself and still trying to prove to himself that he was capable.

Emma had known other guys like that in her life. They were usually the nicest men but also the least likely to be attractive to her. She didn’t much care for the melancholy, but she accepted it. It was just part of the package. When all was said and done, she knew that she and everyone else could count on him. She knew that Neil would, if asked, step up and use every means possible to get the information they needed.

It was because she knew that they could rely upon Neil’s willingness to be the “Man for all Seasons”, that she decided she was going to do the dirty work. She started thinking of little tortures with which she could start. She could beat the man with one of their bats. She could break his fingers. Cut him; burn him. If they let her, she was pretty certain she was capable of all of this because she could envision it in the first place. There was a time, not too long ago, that she abhorred violence on television or in movies. Violence was just something that she didn’t feel necessary to make a part of her entertainment lineup. She didn’t sign petitions to ban violent video games nor did she tell others what to watch, but she didn’t typically see those kinds of movies either.

Times had definitely changed and so had Emma. And it wasn’t just that she was considering torturing another living being. The problem was that she was considering ways in which to torture another living being to maximum effect, and no objection was forthcoming from her psyche. Emma hadn’t become psychopathic; she wasn’t looking forward to hurting the kid sitting in the back seat with Della. It was just something that needed to be done and she was perfectly willing to do it. At least that was what she was trying to convince herself to believe it.

Emma pivoted in her seat and took a long look at her quarry. She wondered if it would escalate to include shooting him. Where should she shoot him so as to hurt and possibly maim, but not kill? She thought to herself that she shouldn’t shoot him in the leg or foot in case they needed him to be able to walk. Of course, if she shot him in the foot, he wouldn’t be able to run away. She looked the scared kid in the eyes and he immediately looked away, sending his gaze to the passing trees along the side of the road.

But Della caught Emma’s eyes. The big black woman seemed to fill the entire back of the truck, but still looked comfortable. Della cast her big yellow eyes to the left and then the right, looking at the backs of Neil’s and Jerry’s heads. Like a tennis serve suddenly hitting the net, her eyes dropped when they came back to the middle and stared back into Emma’s eyes. It was clear to both of them what Emma’s intentions were, to which Della started to hum another low, soulful song that sounded as if it had first been sung by Nefertiti’s head priestess on a pyramid somewhere near Giza and Della had been there to hear it.

Satisfied but a little unsettled, Emma turned back around. If it came to it, she was certain that she could do whatever was necessary to learn where her friends had been taken. She looked back out at the road and let Della’s song wash over her.

The car lurching to a stop was preceded by an agitated series of chirps on the radio. Despite this early warning, Claire, apparently unprepared, rolled from her supine position on the back seat onto the floor. Without the use of her hands, Claire’s tumble was painful and solicited a grunt.

The car’s driver, Howard, heard her discomfort and said, “Serves ya right. What the hell were you think’ pissin’ in my car! Dumb bitch!”

Under her breath, Claire muttered, “Fuck you, redneck!” She’d do more if she could, but wet underpants was her current limit. It was the discomfort of having wet undergarments that had prompted her to lie down in the first place. She was hoping her clothes would dry but the smell would persist.

Instead, Howard, upon noticing the rising pungency, had simply opened the front windows and permitted the cold air outside to fill the car’s cabin. He’d turned on the heat, which warmed and comforted him but did nothing for her. Regardless, Claire knew that the foul odor would be hard to dispel from the seat’s fabric for some time to come.