Zombiekill (18 page)

“I can’t very well fuck you right now, can I? If you bleed out in the garden you could change right when I’m—well, you know.” Butcher sat up and took the knife away from Rilla’s throat. “So here’s what we’ll do. Verity can see to your wounds. I’m sure she can stitch you up. When you’re better, we’ll see if you’ve come around to my way of thinking. Me and Tad have been waiting a long time for someone like you to come along. Conan, well he’s a little different. He prefers his women a bit younger. It’s not my cup of tea, but who I am to argue with him? I think he and Victoria will get along just fine.” Butcher got up and stared at Rilla. He put the knife back in his jacket and scooped up the gun. He pointed it at Rilla. “Well. You want to come inside or stay here and talk to Attwood a little more?”

Rilla had no choice. If she fought back now, then Butcher would kill her. If she didn’t go with him, then she would surely bleed to death. The only way out was to go along with him. For now.

Rilla raised an arm. Her head swam with pain, and her leg was numb. She felt cold and scared. “Take me inside. Take me to Verity.”

“And you’re not going to fight me anymore?”

Rilla shook her head. The night sky was suddenly blacker than she remembered, and she couldn’t see the stars anymore. “I just want...”

As Rilla passed out, Butcher looked up at Attwood and sighed as he wiped his bloody nose. “Looks like it’s just me and you, buddy. Want to give me a hand getting her inside?”

Attwood’s dead body twisted around, but the nails held it firmly in place on the cross. His teeth clacked together, and he uttered a low moan.

“Is that a no?” Butcher reached down for Rilla and put his hands under her body. He lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder. “Fine. I guess it’s just you and me then, girl. Verity would tell me you ain’t good for nothing, and I should feed you to the wolves. I reckon there’s some use in you before we get to that.”

Underneath the moonlit sky, Butcher carried Rilla back to the house. Verity would have the younger girl tucked up in bed by now and would be able to stitch up Rilla’s cuts. Then they would finally be able to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day, and Butcher didn’t doubt he was going to need all the energy he had.

CHAPTER 11

It occurred to Charlie as she curled up into a ball that the dogs might kill them all, but would they
kill
them all? There was no doubt in her mind that her father was dead. She knew that Schafer and Magda were dead, that Jeremy and Lyn were dead, and that the dogs would eat large parts of their bodies. There was nothing she could do about that, as much as it horrified her. It was undignified and undeserved. But what if they came back? What if Kyler or Schafer came back? If they found her, they would kill her too. There was no way she could repel any attack from a zombie; certainly not one from her father. How could she kill him? How could she defend herself against anything? The cage was small and cramped, and the wire mesh cold against her skin. As she backed up into the corner, she stared down the long dark tunnel through which she had crawled. The dogs’ kennels led directly into the garage, and now she could hear them yelping and barking and running around, having killed everyone. The darkness was absolute. Blood and sweat kept dripping into her eyes, and even though she blinked it away, she knew she was covered in it. The smell of her body was like a beacon to them, and she knew it probably wouldn’t be long before the dogs finished up and returned for her. What would she do then? How could she get away from them—from any of this? Her left arm was numb, the bone broken, and the skin a shredded mess. She was bleeding badly, and the bites to her leg stung as she brought her knees up to her chin. She tried to control her breathing and focus. She had to focus on finding a way out. If the dogs returned, or if those men did, then they would finish her off one way or another.

One thought kept racing through Charlie’s mind:
Why
? Schafer had offered to help. He and her father had both been able to help, they all had. They were of no threat, and yet those men had taken in only Rilla and Victoria. It made no sense. The house offered protection from the dead, from the world that offered only death, and yet they had been turned away. Charlie hated them all. She hated everything the world had become, at what those men had become, and what had made them that way. Was it the corpses and the zombies that had twisted their minds into such hatred, or had they always been that way before the walls went up? Charlie was beat. Mentally and physically she just felt like curling up into a ball and giving up. Her energy levels were at zero. Charlie lifted her right hand to her face and gingerly felt along the tear in her cheek where one of the dogs had ripped it open. A hunk of skin flapped around loosely, and when she touched it the raw nerve endings sent shockwaves of pain to her brain.

“Fuck.” Charlie rested her head back against the metal cage. She kept seeing Schafer in that last moment before he succumbed to those dogs. She kept seeing his face and hearing his pleading voice.

‘
Get away from here. Get Rilla
.’

He had been a tough man; maybe as tough as her father. Yet those creatures had still taken him down. What chance did she have when they discovered where she was? Could she get away? Was it even possible?

Charlie drew in a lungful of oxygen and almost retched. The air tasted of shit and rotten meat. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, and she knew she had to find a way out. Staying here meant certain death. If the dogs didn’t get her, then the infection would. Her cuts ran deep and needed treating. She ran her hand over the wire and began to search for an exit. The kennel was in complete and total darkness. She felt around, and the wire cage was no more than four feet high, yet stretched as far as she could reach. Along the bottom of the cage ran a gutter. It was full of stale water and discarded food. She had hoped to find an exit of some kind, perhaps another lock or opening where the dogs got out for exercise. But she found nothing, and knew she was going to have to move. She inched forward and winced with every movement that sent shuddering waves of pain through her bites and mangled left arm. Using the wire for support, Charlie dragged herself forward, staying close to the edge of the kennel. The ground was cold and damp, and her clothes became sodden as she crawled slowly forward.

‘
Get away from here
.’

She wanted to stop, to rest, to grieve, and let the dogs take her into oblivion; yet something drove her on, and inch by painful inch she managed to crawl the length of the cage. In the corner she found the wire was looser at the base and she could even wiggle a few fingers underneath. The concrete was cracked, and she guessed that the dogs had attempted a breakout and dug the ground away. The gutter led to a drain in the same corner, and she ran her hand over the grate. It was slimy and dripping with the dogs’ waste. Charlie slumped back against the wire. There was no way out, no secret door, no passage to anywhere else; she could hear the dogs barking and waited. It wouldn’t be long before they found her. Was the best she could hope for a quick death? She remembered the dog she had half blinded and the others that had attacked her. She remembered how they had attacked so viciously. It wasn’t their fault. Butcher had clearly trained them to behave that way. He probably tortured them, and they didn’t know any different. He had raised them to be killers and done a good job of it.

Suddenly Charlie heard a creaking sound coming from down the tunnel. One of the panels was lifting up, and as it swung back into place, she heard the unmistakable padding steps from a dog. One of them was coming back already. She heard panting and wheezing, and then the footsteps stopped. It had realized she was in here in its home.

Charlie held her breath and waited. She waited for the inevitable attack and curled her right hand into a fist. Her left arm was useless, and the hand was a mess. But as she sat there waiting to die, she knew she could put up a fight, maybe even try to blind another dog. She vowed she would fight to the end and not give in. Would Schafer give in? Had her father given in? Had Rilla meekly surrendered to these evil men? No, they had fought back. It dawned on Charlie that not only could she do the same, but that she should do the same. Why should she be forced to die like a pig? Why should she let some evil bastard take everything from her—take her family, her friends, her life? Charlie brought her fist up to protect her face as the invisible black dog came closer. She was going to fight if it took her last breath.

‘
Get Rilla
.’

A growling sound came from somewhere up ahead, and Charlie tried to find the dog but it was impossible. Her eyes found nothing. The cage was devoid of light. The dog was closer. She could smell it just as she knew it could smell her.

“Come on then, you bitch. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Charlie pushed herself back into the corner of the cage and prepared to fight. As she did so, the grate beneath her legs moved. She had dislodged it from the opening below, and she realized she was sat almost directly above the drain. The huge dog was running now and barking. Quickly, Charlie turned over and pulled at the grate. She sensed there was still time to remove the drain cover and perhaps slip into it and avoid the dogs. It could be a way out, but as she removed the drain cover she felt the slavering jaws of one of the dogs rip into her back, and she screamed in pain.

The dog ripped open a huge chunk of her shoulder, tearing through her clothes and skin as if they were made of feathers. Charlie screamed and brought the grate up with her hand, cracking the dog over the head with it. She didn’t know where she had connected with the beast, but it seemed to stop it, even if only for a moment. The pain surging through her back was indescribable, and it felt like she had been hit by a truck. She lifted the grate again and held it in front of her face just as the dog attacked again. Its jaws snapped at the metal and clamped around the grate, threatening to pull it from her grasp. She knew that if she lost it then she would not physically be able to stop the dog. Charlie roared at the dog to back off and pulled the grate from its mouth. Before the dog could back away, she smashed the heavy grate over the dog’s head again, and it yelped in pain. Charlie knew she had hurt it and whipped the grate through the air again, hitting the dog once more on the top of its head. She became aware that the dog had fallen to the ground just in front of her feet. She could hear it breathing and whining pitifully.

“That all you got?” Charlie smashed the grate down on the dog’s head again and again and again. She could feel the bones in its head breaking, and the soft fur eventually gave way to the hard ground. She obliterated its head completely, and when she was sure the dog was dead, she dropped the steel grate. Her arm ached and yet it wasn’t over. The barking from the other dogs was still echoing down the tunnel from the other room, and she didn’t have the energy to fight more of them. If they attacked all at once, she would have no way out and knew there was only one chance now.

Charlie climbed to the lip of the drain and reached down. The walls were wet and oily, and she couldn’t reach the bottom. The opening was about two feet across, just about wide enough for her to squeeze through. There would be no going back, and she had no idea if it would lead anywhere, but she knew if she waited any longer, then the others would come. She pulled herself over the lip and lowered herself head first through the opening. The foul smell was worse than up top, and she kept her mouth closed as she lowered herself into the drain. It was better to breathe through her nose than have the taste of it in her mouth.

With her right arm in front of her, Charlie felt her waist on the lip and reached out. The ground was still not within reach and she was going to have to drop and hope it wasn’t far. She wriggled forward and closed her eyes as she pushed off. Better to die quickly by falling and breaking her back than being savaged by those dogs.

When she landed at the bottom of the drain all the breath was knocked out of her body. Every bite and cut on her body seemed to protest and scream in rage at her, and her back stung as if a thousand bees had attacked her at once. The fall had only been two or three seconds yet it had felt much longer. Falling through infinite blackness, Charlie had landed at the bottom of the drain and not managed to break her neck or anything else. There was a good four or five inches of water at the bottom of the drain which had softened the landing. As she sat up, Charlie heard the dogs above her scrambling around the top of the drain. If they were brave enough to come down, then they could have her. She knew they were unlikely to, but wasn’t sure. They had obviously discovered their fallen comrade and were sending an uninterrupted series of loud barks down the opening to her.

“Yeah, well what are you going to do about it?” Charlie listened to the dogs, but none of them were stupid enough to venture down into the drain. They could probably squeeze through the opening to get her if they wanted, but they also didn’t really need to. They had eaten well and were suspicious about the unusual opening in the cage where their waste went to.

“That’s what I thought, cowards.” Charlie propped herself up and tried to figure out what to do next. The dogs were behind her now, and as long as they stayed up in their kennels she was relatively safe. Still, she didn’t want to sit around in a trench full of waste for long. The smell was so powerful and enveloping that she felt overwhelmed by it. What with the loss of blood and shock, she knew that if she stayed where she was, then she was liable to pass out. And if Butcher found out where she had gone, then she was certain he would have no problem in making sure she never got out. It was too risky to sit it out and wait. Nobody was going to come to her rescue. Nobody even knew she was there. It was so hard, though, so hard to fight it. Charlie’s head swam and she felt dizzy so she leant back against the wall for a moment. How could Kyler leave her like this? It wasn’t fair. Why did he get to go first? He was the fighter the strong one; Charlie missed her mother, and as she waited for the dizzy spell to pass heard a song begin to run through her head.

‘
All I feel is the distant wind as you turn your back on me
.’

It was the same song she’d played in her head when Kyler had killed that crow. It used to be her favorite song, and now it was just plain irritating. It reminded her of her old life; of what things used to be like before the corpses took over the world. It reminded her of home, of Kyler, and even her mother. Maybe that was why her head had chosen that song at that time. Maybe that was exactly what she needed to be reminded of.

Sighing, Charlie sat up. She could do nothing, or she could do something. Slowly she began to crawl along the drain. She had no idea where it led or if it would just be a dead end, but she had to do something. She reached an arm up after a few feet and found the roof above her closing in. As she crawled forward another few feet she found the walls getting narrow very quickly, and she banged her throbbing head against the roof. Something with a lot of legs scuttled down across her head and into her hair. She didn’t care. The old Charlie would have screamed, but it seemed pretty insignificant if a spider wanted to take refuge in her dirty hair. It was as her head began to pound that she realized she had lost her father’s fishing cap somewhere. It had most likely come off when the dogs had attacked, and there was no way of retrieving it now. Bizarrely, she felt guilty for losing it, as if she owed it to her father to get it back, but there was no way she was going back up there.

Charlie pressed on in the darkness and the barking of the killer dogs faded away. She heard the occasional drip of water, but nothing else came to her. She didn’t know if she was headed to or away from the house, but it didn’t matter. All that was important was that she kept moving. Her body ached and told her to stop, but stopping meant death. She knew that. She knew that Schafer was right about one thing. She had to get away from here.