Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) (10 page)

Before she left, she handed over her rifle. She then turned around and walked out.

The man picked up the rotary phone and dialed Tyler. “She just made the drop,” he said, then hung up the phone.

The rest of that day went as any other did. Tori reported to the guard shack to take a look at that week’s guard duty assignments. Tori was assigned to the night shift in the back southeast perimeter this particular evening, but had no further assignments after that. It was unusual to only have one assignment for the week, but she shrugged it off as an oversight. Since she was going to be up all night, she decided to go to bed early so that she could stay awake through the night.

2245 Hours

Night shift came early for Tori; she barely slept that evening. Had she known in advance that she was going to work the midnight shift, she would have scheduled herself a different routine for that day.

Tori was walking towards the armory, where the guards were required to check out their duty weapons. She had a routine of being fifteen minutes early because early was on time and on time was late to Tori. That was just the way she was wired. The Marine Corps instilled certain things into her that she could not undo.

On her way to the armory, she took her usual trek. Nothing was out of the ordinary except for one of the comments made by one of the other night-shift guards.

“Have a good night, Tori,” he said as he met her on the walk. She didn’t reply to the man. He had never spoken to her before except for the late night card games when he was fully liquored up with courage. She simply looked at him and locked eyes with him as he walked by. He had a weird smirk on his face. When she had turned back forward, she had no time to dodge the impact of the hard metallic shovel that caught her across the face. There was a deep sting, a hollow-sounding
tong
sound; then she passed out.

When Tori woke up, she was in her own bed. She jumped up and realized it was late morning. She had a painful migraine, which caused her to grope her head. She realized that the previous night’s experience wasn’t a bad dream; it had really happened. The way she remembered it was that she was on her way to guard duty on the midnight shift and that she was attacked and knocked out. Her face was tender and hard to touch without flinching. She walked to the washroom and looked into the mirror. On her way to the washroom, she could tell that she had been sexually assaulted. She was tender in her female parts, and the fact that her pants weren’t properly fastened was another hint.

The mirror revealed a much-bruised face and forehead. She walked back to the bed and sat down on it. It was her time to rethink this whole situation.

Tori didn’t want to leave the apartment that day. She felt that if she didn’t, things could get much worse for her. Instead, she had an internal dialogue going on with herself and justified pretending that nothing had happened by acting normal and carrying on about her business. She didn’t bother with reporting to the guard shack. She knew by now that it was all a setup.

They gave me one last duty to take me by surprise. They knew I wouldn’t make it to my post and probably had a replacement set up for me already. They didn’t give me any more duties because they didn’t want me to possess any guns after they had their way with me. They knew I would kill them,
she thought. The quiet woman at the washboard came to her recollection.
Patsy—I need to talk to Patsy,
she thought.

Acting afraid and timid wasn’t in Tori’s nature. She was a realist and understood perfectly that she was outnumbered and definitely outgunned.

Tori bided her time and waited another day before she left her apartment. She was free to walk to and fro as she pleased, as long as it was within the community. She wasn’t allowed to go on resource patrol or to handle anything related to guns. Her captors knew she was unarmed, but they also knew she was dangerous. She noticed that the men were now roaming around the community with guns on their hips. The whole thing was a ruse to get Tori to turn in her weapons.

Every third day, at 11:00 p.m., a group of unarmed men would enter her apartment and she would resist them. Each day they left her with reminders bruised into her skin.

Daily, she would venture outside and watch as the resource patrols left the community. One of the men was on her Harley routinely. She knew the man’s name. It was Brad number two. He was with the men that found Tori and allegedly saved her from certain death. What she didn’t know at the time was that the men that saved her were saving her from one death and introducing to Tori another kind of death—self pride. The men tried taking it from her every third day, but each day she would fight back. This went on for nearly a month. She was patient, more patient than they knew. They didn’t know about Tori’s malevolence. It was her capacity for great violence that drove her desire to be a Marine, and it was going to be that same tenacity that would drive her survival instincts.

Patsy was sitting in front of her apartment, washing clothes. It wasn’t until Tori took a closer look that she saw it was all men’s clothing. There wasn’t a single feminine clothing article except a glimpse Tori got of a small girl’s skirt. When Patsy saw she was being watched, she tucked it away into the bottom of the wash trough.

“Patsy, isn’t it?” Tori asked as she took a knee next to her.

The lady went back to washing the clothes. She stopped scrubbing for a moment to look back at Tori. It was clear that she was examining her bruises. She was covered in them. Her face, neck, arms, wrists, knuckles—everything.

“You mustn’t talk to me,” Patsy whispered.

“I’m not afraid.”

“I am,” Patsy responded, then went back to scrubbing.

Tori reached down into the water and pulled out everything. The wet clothes fell onto the ground like a pot of soaked noodles. There, lying in the tangled mess of wet clothes, was a little girl’s skirt.

“Where is she?” Tori asked.

“Please stop, she’s my daughter.”

Tori was filled with rage. She stood up so fast that she almost became dizzy.

“Where is she?” Tori asked again.

“She’s with Tyler, but it’s pointless. He’ll kill us both and her agony will live on without me.”

Tori knew the situation was grim. She had a great deal of apathy for pain and punishment where it was due, but this was a little girl that Tori didn’t even know was in the community. She put her apathy away and traded it for empathy.

“You listen to me, Patsy—we’re going to get your girl back,” she said, but the woman was crying and picking the clothes up off the ground and replacing them into the water trough as though she couldn’t hear her words.

“Are you so jaded that you’ve accepted this as her fate?” Tori said.

The woman stopped scrubbing, then looked up at Tori.

“My dear, you, me, and my little girl are the only females in this community. We are a precious resource that they will fight to keep under submission. You are young, fresh, and attractive. The sooner you stop resisting and accept this as the norm, the happier you will be.”

Tori was taken aback by the comment. “You’re weak, Patsy,” Tori said. Not trusting the woman, Tori lied to her and said, “But I get what you’re saying. I don’t want to hurt your little girl. I’ll stay out of it.”

Tori started to walk away, but then turned back. “I’m just curious, what is her name?”

“You’ve already spoken it once,” she answered, then went back to scrubbing.

Tori rehashed the dialogue. “Jade? Is it Jade?”

The woman didn’t answer and Tori walked away.

On schedule, the three men entered Tori’s apartment.

“What’s for dinner, Tori?” one of the men asked. The sound of boiling water and the smell of hot oatmeal filled the place. The door locked behind the third man.

“Come on. You do this hide-and-seek game every time,” the second man said.

The lighting was dim; candles lit the apartment.

“Nice touch, Tori. I’m glad to see you’re at least taking baby steps,” the third man said as the room flickered under candlelight.

The sound of a loud
tong
came, followed by a
thud
sound from behind the men. The first two men turned around to see Tori running with a shovel past them. The third man was out on the floor. They reached to grab her, but she was quick and slender. She had the edge for speed and dexterity. She maneuvered past them and made it to the kitchen, where she grabbed the pot of boiling hot oatmeal and threw it into the face of the first man. He yelled and grabbed his face, ducking out of the way for the second man to lunge at Tori. By then, she had regained her balance and thrust the sharp edge of the shovel into the second man’s throat. His windpipe was severed and he dropped to the ground, trying to secure his airway with both of his hands.

Tori walked up to the man that was rubbing his face and hit him as hard as she could with the back of the shovel. He went limp and Tori turned around to finish off the second man. She thrust the shovel into the side of his neck and opened his jugular vein. She slipped and fell on the arterial spray, but picked herself up. She walked over to the other two unconscious men and did the same to each of them.

She patted down each of the men and found keys to their homes. They had no weapons on them, as they were most likely secured in their apartments or in the armory. Moments later, Tori was sneaking out of her apartment and letting herself into her violators’ apartments. She found a Kimber 1911. It was shiny like Bubba, but it wasn’t her pistol. Being a woman of strong principles, she felt an absolute desire to get her own pistol back, but first there was a mission she had to complete.

Midnight

Tyler was fast asleep with an eleven-year-old girl in his bed. His arm was over her, as if he were trying to maintain his control over her whereabouts. The girl was also fast asleep. She was facing away from Tyler with her face towards the wall. Behind him, standing at the edge of the bed, stood Tori with a stainless steel Kimber 1911 9mm pistol dangling at her side. On the nightstand next to his bed was a similar pistol. She took it and tucked it away in her back.

For the next few moments, Tori calculated the risks of shooting him in his sleep and escaping the community on foot against the cost of saving the girl’s life. She reasoned that the girl’s innocence had already been stolen from her, but Tori was a woman of principles. Scruples didn’t govern her in such a sense that they dominated her will to survive. Tori was willing to sacrifice her own life to save what was left of the girl’s. She didn’t know if there was any hope in that; all she knew was that there was no hope if she didn’t try.

Tori grabbed a couch cushion and pressed it over Tyler’s face. It startled him and he awakened, but it wasn’t in time to stop the 9mm from entering his skull and putting an end to his short struggle.

The little girl sprang up after being awakened at the sound of the gunshot. Tori silenced her by saying, “It’s okay. My name’s Tori, and I’m here to take you back to your mom.”

The little girl climbed over Tyler’s dead body and Tori grabbed her hand. The two of them walked outside into the cool night air. There were several men standing outside, but none of them stopped her. They were looking past Tori at the heads of the three men Tori had left on the front porch of Tyler’s place before she had entered the unlocked window.

Tori delivered the girl to Patsy and said, “Take your girl and get out of here. This is no life for either of you.”

Tori went back into Tyler’s house and reported to the armory not long after. She knocked on the door like she always had, and the peephole slid open. When the armorer saw Tyler’s face, he opened the large metal door. He was shocked to see Tori holding a gun to his face with her right hand. With her left, she dropped Tyler’s head.

“Surprise,” she said, and shot the armorer.

“I’ll take these … and that … and that, some of that, and definitely that,” she said out loud as she swiped his keys and collected Bubba, her Remington, plenty of ammunition, and an M4 carbine. She figured nobody was going to stop her if they hadn’t already. She used the armorer’s keys to lock up the armory, and the last anybody saw of Tori was when she headed away towards Brad number two’s house.

Day 1

A sharp pain pierced Tori’s side, causing her to reel in pain. The sudden movement caused more pain. Her temperature was high enough to kill her; if not for a high threshold for pain, the agony might have killed her, too. A couple deep gasps for air and Tori passed out again.

Rushing in from the other room, a lady in her seventies heard the cry and came bustling along the hardwood floor to the stranger’s bedside. The young lady in the bed couldn’t have been any older than thirty, she would often think as she nurtured her. She used the back of her sensitive hands to feel the young woman’s face and forehead. “You’re burning up, child,” she said aloud, as if having a one-way conversation. She took a damp washcloth and dipped it in a bedside pan of water to freshen the wetness. She squeezed the excess water out to the best of her ability. Her hands were arthritic and lacked the strength she once had in her youth.

“Well, this will do,” she said as she patted the young lady’s face. “Ah, to be young again,” she said. A lonely monologue was just what the lady needed to help her feel like she wasn’t so alone. Having a stranger in her bed was a new experience for the elderly woman. This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill situation for her. It was unique and required a tender touch.

The woman took the damp washcloth and dipped it back into the water one more time. She wrung out the water and neatly folded the moist cloth into a perfect rectangular shape fit for the woman’s sweaty forehead. The elderly woman then walked over to her rocking chair and sat down. Her breathing was shallow and labored. It was the run from the kitchen to the bed. There were no doctors or hospitals to care for the elderly lady. Life insurance, health insurance, hospitals—they were all things of the past. There was no one to care for her and no one to treat her ailments. She was diagnosed years earlier with a sickness that the growing government refused to tend to any further. Nationalized healthcare had run its course, and it crashed when the economy crashed. For the elderly woman, each move required labored breathing. That meant fast movement could be fatal for her.

Built onto her back porch, she had a greenhouse that provided for her. It required her attention on a daily basis and gave her a hobby that she enjoyed. She loved caring for things, anything that had life to it: plants, animals, people—she was a nurturer, plain and simple. So when she found Tori in her backyard with a gunshot wound to her chest, it gave her new purpose.

1 Day Earlier

Kathleen was gently rocking in her hand-carved wooden chair. Her husband, then boyfriend, had made it for her in the 1980s. They were both in their twenties when they met at a Sonic restaurant. Kathleen came rolling out on her roller skates and smiled at a cool-looking man in shades. He had brown hair and was driving a booger green Ford Pinto. It wasn’t his ride that impressed Kathleen, it was his personality. Yeah, he looked cool in them shades, but he smiled back at her and they hit it off that day; his name was Benjamin. They married in 1988 in a Baptist church. He was a Christian and went to church every service. Kathleen loved that about him, so much so, that she went with him every service.

Later the next year, Panama was invaded and Ben wanted to join the Marines. They refused to take him because of his asthma. After that, he scored a job at an auto parts store, working for $3.80 per hour. It worked for them because he had inherited a home in the country that belonged to his grandfather. They moved into it and didn’t have to worry about mortgage payments, just property taxes.

In 1993, they had a son. In 2014 he joined the Marines and was killed by an improvised explosive device. The IED not only killed Ben and Kat’s son, but also took the lives of two of his son’s best friends. Their son, Chris, always talked about the East Coast and how he loved it there. So Ben and Kat decided to have his remains buried at Arlington National Cemetery with his comrades. The trip would be two hundred miles. It was what Chris would have wanted, so they made the arrangements.

Ben retired in 2029 and in 2030, at the age of sixty-nine, Ben lost his struggle with asthma. The government had tightened its control of healthcare, and he just couldn’t afford the rising costs of insurance. In his last will and testament, his request was to be buried in Virginia, as close as possible to his son. He wasn’t a veteran because of his health condition. Ben’s brother, Bill, made the arrangements and took care of everything. After the funeral, Kathleen never heard from Bill again.

Kathleen’s rocking chair was a testament to Ben’s handiwork, like his grandfather, who built the house she still lived in to this day. On these long quiet days, she would rock back and forth and think on these memories. With the presence of a sick woman in her bed, the days seemed longer as she anticipated her consciousness.

“RICHARD!” the young lady called out, waking Kathleen from her sleep and startling her into an episode where she couldn’t breathe.

“Oh dear,” Kathleen called out as she stood from her rocking chair. The crochet hooks and the project she had been working on fell from her lap onto the floor. She ran over to the lady in the bed and checked the condition of her fever. “You’re still hot, you precious thing.” Kathleen went through the regimen of dipping the wet cloth into the bowl of water before squeezing out the excess and folding it neatly upon the sick woman’s forehead. Curious about the condition of the hole in the woman’s chest, she opened the gown and saw she was bleeding through it.

“It’s time for new bandages, sweetie. I hope I don’t hurt you,” she said as she fetched new linens to wrap her in. “I know these aren’t sterilized like the fancy hospitals used to do, but they’ll have to do.” The woman went to work on the lady’s bandages and began to wonder who Richard was. “That’s the first time you’ve called out to Richard. Who is he to you? Is that your boyfriend? Your husband, or maybe your brother?” she asked. She knew there would be no conversation between her and the woman, but it made her feel good to have company again, even if she couldn’t hear her words or answer her questions.

Day Two

It was sometime after midnight, in the early morning hours, when Tori’s haunting dream came back to visit her again.

“CHARITY! AMELIA?” Tori called out in a nightmarish scream from the bed she was on. It startled Kathleen, who came running to the lady’s rescue. Out of breath and finding it hard to breathe, Kathleen arrived at the lady’s bedside and caressed her face and forehead. She began talking to the woman in a soft voice.

“It’s okay, my girl. It’s okay. Go back to sleep. Shh, shh, shh,” she would say to the hot-feeling woman. She shushed her back to a calm sleep and stroked her hair. All the while, she couldn’t breathe. She slowly backed up to the rocking chair and sat down on it and relaxed herself until she had regained her calmness and her breathing eased.

The sun came shining through the window with a soft and warm glow. It shined on Tori’s face and gave her the appearance of an angel. Kathleen loved to watch the sun come up, but she especially loved to watch the sun touch the skin of this beautiful but enigmatic woman that was lying on her bed. She took in the moment to bask in her young beauty and admired her long brown hair. Kathleen didn’t falter at the chance to brush it. She pulled a hairbrush out of the nightstand next to the bed and brushed the woman’s hair. She looked at her closed eyes and could see she was deep in some dreamland in a faraway place. Her eyes were darting back and forth beneath her eyelids. Tori was back in Belleville, and Amelia was brushing her hair. “You’re doing good, baby,” Tori said aloud. Kathleen stopped brushing and Tori’s eyes stopped moving.

“My goodness, I think you’re coming to,” Kathleen said. She took the wet washcloth and dabbed Tori’s head. That was when she felt her fever was gone. A smile spread across Kathleen’s face. It was the first time she had smiled in months.

“You take as long as you need to rest up,” Kathleen said.

Tori’s eyes popped open and she jumped up out of the bed. The surprise scared Kathleen, who lost her breath and fell backwards. Fortunately, she tripped and fell back into her chair. Tori was also stumbling. She had not eaten in days, and the sudden rush to her feet made her dizzy. She fell over and hit her head on the nightstand. She went into a fetal position on the floor, and Kathleen rushed to her side.

“Are you okay, my dear?” Kathleen asked.

Tori didn’t answer the woman, but took notice that they appeared to be alone in a small house and that the elderly woman had strenuous breathing.

“Forget about me, how are you?” Tori asked.

“I’m fine, beautiful, I’m just a little sick. I’ll be okay in a minute.”

Tori helped the elderly lady back to her rocking chair and aided her into position.

“It’s a funny thing,” the elderly lady said.

“What is?”

“I’ve been nursing you for three nights and two days, and here you are, helping me to my rocker.”

“Who are you?” Tori asked.

“Oh, I’m just an old woman who loves a little company.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in Virginia, sweetie. Not too far from D.C.”

“I don’t remember you, should I?”

“I found you just outside of my house. You have a serious wound. It looks like a bullet hole, but I can’t be certain. I think it passed through, unless you were shot twice.”

“I was shot once,” she said, looking down at her bullet wound. Tori had a nightgown on that was open in the front. When she noticed her indecency, she quickly closed it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even know …”

“It’s okay, dear. It’s just us ladies here.”

“You’re alone here?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. My husband left me nearly three years ago.”

“I’m sorry. Men can be a real rip.”

Kathleen giggled. She caught that Tori assumed her husband had left her to go somewhere else. “No, I mean he passed away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry again.”

“Child, there’s no reason to be sorry for everything. The things I have said, you don’t have to be sorry for misunderstanding. It was I who misspoke.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how is it you take care of yourself out here?”

“I live on the vegetables that are growing in my greenhouse. My sweet Ben built it for me. He worked wonders with his hands.”

“Ben was your husband’s name?”

“Yes, and my son’s name was Chris.”

“Where’s he?”

“He passed away in Iraq.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, his vehicle hit a mine or something.”

“What branch did he serve in?”

“He was a proud Marine.”

“I’m a Marine, too.”

“Are you now? I thought you had some military in you. You’re a tough girl, a real fighter.”

“If you only knew.”

“Knew what, dear?”

“How much I’ve been fighting. If I told you, you would probably make me leave now.”

“Did you fight for selfish gain?”

“No, I fight to survive.”

“Well, my girl, I fight to survive too. You do what you have to do, and I do what I have to do. It’s the way things are.”

“How many people have you murdered?” Tori asked.

“Murdered
or killed
?” Kathleen asked. “There’s a difference.”

“I used to know a guy that talked like that. He was a preacher named Rory. He used to talk about all the factors that went into his choices. Those factors made up his mind. I don’t know how he came to those decisions so quickly. To me, it takes too much time to calculate. I’m more concrete in my choices. If you try to take my property or my life, I’m going to kill you to save myself.”

“Well, I think that’s what your friend was talking about. Those are factors that have to be considered before taking a person’s life. In today’s age, our belongings keep us alive. If we lose them, we could die. They’re worth fighting for.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

Tori had forgotten her manners, it had been so long since she had a use for formality. “I’m Tori, by the way.”

The elderly lady smiled again. “I’m Kathleen.”

One Month Later

Tori and Kathleen had become like mother and daughter for the next month or so. Tori went out and did some hunting on occasion, and Kathleen would cook up the meat. The house was situated deep in a Virginian forest about eighty miles from Arlington National Cemetery, and Tori never saw another living person for the duration. It was the perfect place for Tori to settle into and introspect. She was tired and ready to redefine her ambitions and goals.

She deeply missed her husband, Richard, and her two daughters, Charity and Amelia. She would often have nightmares that relived the events of December 1, 2032. Kathleen would be there to awaken her and reassure her that it was just a bad dream.

Kathleen had become Tori’s everything: her mother, her sister, her best friend, her confidante. All those things felt good to Tori. But there was an inner calling that kept punching its way through her newfound life. It was a deep desire to kill predacious people. The calling felt like a gaping black hole in her heart that no amount of bloodshed could close. Tori always ignored the feeling and would often zone out into the great beyond, but Kathleen would be there with a soft voice that lured her back to reality.

“We live in the here and now, Tori,” she would say.

Kathleen knew her time with Tori was coming to an end. Not because Tori was feeling a powerful urge to flee into the dangers of the new world order, but because Kathleen was dying. She could feel it in her body; with each breath, her lungs were getting harder and harder to expand. She never told Tori that she had cancer. Tori knew she had a condition that made it hard for her to breathe, but she assumed it was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD as they called it. Kathleen never desired to make Tori worry for her by sharing with her the condition she suffered from, as she could see Tori already had a terrible weight upon her with the death of her husband, two daughters, and countless friends.

Tori would hear Kathleen’s soft voice and return from the bad memories. She would give a smile to Kathleen to acknowledge the respect she had found in such a kind woman, a woman unaffected by the changes of the world other than her ongoing condition that couldn’t be remedied with medicine. In that sense, Kathleen was a victim of the new world. But she was not a victim of the interpersonal evils of mankind.