“You don’t even give a shit if we find her or not.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it, Zach.”
“I don’t know that, Blake, you’ve only shown an interest in fucking her.” That was the last straw. I knew Zach was all fucked up over losing Lex, but he was barking up the wrong tree.
I stood up fast, knocking the chair I was sitting in over.
It caused a loud banging sound that had everyone looking up and over at us.
“I love her just like you do. I want to find her just as much as you do,” I hissed.
“Bullshit. You only think you love her.
You came back and found her with me and suddenly you can’t have her. You wouldn’t have left if you really loved her.”
“Fuck you, Zach.”
“And you brought that goddamn bitch with you and ruined everything…just like everything else in your fucking life,” he kept going on.
I knew it was wrong. I knew Zach was out of his head. Everything happened in slow motion. I saw red and the buzzing of my anger was a palpable presence in my gut. I reached out and grabbed him by the shirt and jumped over the table on top of him.
He blocked my first punch, but I got a good one in for the second shot. But my satisfaction at landing one was short lived as he got momentum and flipped me off of him. I landed hard on my back with an
oomph
and then he was on top of me. One hit had stars exploding across my vision, but I kicked up and delighted in hearing his groan when my knee connected with soft flesh.
Too soon Romeo and Martinez were on us, dragging us apart.
Expending that much energy felt so good, the adrenaline was pumping through my veins again. I was doing something. I felt back on my game and I wanted to tear someone’s head off. From the look Zach was giving me, he felt the same way.
I couldn’t help myself.
We were such goddamn idiots that I started to laugh.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he called.
“That’s why you keep me around,” I panted and he started laughing with me.
Just like that, Zach and I were alright again.
ALEXIS
“Get her in the car, Clem,” the old woman spat. I couldn’t tell who was in the room I had been pushed into or where I was. It was disconcerting. I needed to orient myself, but there was no way to get my bearings with this stupid bag over my head.
I heard footsteps move toward me and a shadow fell across my face. I could see faint shapes through the light material. The shape reached for me and I was flung off my feet and thrown over the big man’s shoulder. His hand planted firmly on the back of my thigh. He let out a nasty little chuckle as he groped me.
Who knew Deliverance was a documentary?
“Ma, you didn’t put no undies on this one,” he gurgled.
“No need for them, get her in the car, don’t you touch her,” she scolded.
His lumbering steps shook me as he strode through the house and then out the door, slamming my head accidentally into the door frame.
“Whoops,” he laughed.
I was going to kill him. It might not be at this time, but I would kill him.
He slipped once on the steep stairs that led to the ground and I had a sickening feeling we would crash down the stairs and I’d get my neck broken because his fat ass would fall on top of me. But he regained his footing and the cloth over my head worked itself loose so I could make out where I was. It was one of the many fishing camps that dotted the area. Each one looked alike, so there was no real way to pinpoint my exact location. Fishing camp was putting it lightly though.
These things were huge and palatial with more amenities than you would have at home, the wealthy southern Louisianian’s alternative to a beach house.
I barely glimpsed it, but from what I could tell we hadn’t even left Chef Menteur, which led directly into New Orleans East.
If I could get away, I could easily make it back to the compound.
He threw me without ceremony into the backseat of a large Cadillac and licked his chapped lips as he looked down at me. The bag had fallen off my head completely and my dress had ridden up when he dumped me on the seat. Without the use of my hands, I was forced to try and wriggle on my side to get it back in place, but it was a useless task.
I tried to ignore him. He was just looking.
There was no harm in looking. I could ignore this.
I could do this.
I glanced over his shoulder to see another man coming down the stairs with Clara draped unceremoniously over his shoulder.
She was dressed in a similar too small and too tight dress. There was a huge bandage wrapped around her thigh and a bright red stain pooled on the white cloth. She was still bleeding,
good.
The man pushed her a little more gently into the car than the other idiot had with me. I had to scoot quickly out of the way so she wouldn’t sprawl on top of me. I tried to convey all the hate I could muster in my glare as I locked gazes with Ugly Number Two as he peered in the backseat taking in my state of undress. All he did was chuckle, entertained by my defiance.
“Now, you girls better get along back there, ain’t no time for another cat fight,” Ugly Number One said. The old hag had called him Clem, but Ugly One was more fitting. He leaned into the car and smiled his broken smile at me, his yellow teeth dripping with what I assumed was chew.
Could he be more of a stereotype?
“You gotta let me go,” Clara whined. “Bring me to the compound. I’ll show you where it is. They’ll pay you for us; they have plenty of food.”
I kicked out and hit her bad leg making her cry out in pain and begin to sob.
The fucking bitch hadn’t learned her lesson. She was ready to sell out the entire group just to save her sorry ass.
“You think they’re gonna pay to get your ass back? Maybe just so they can kill you. Keep your fucking mouth shut. You even hint at bringing them to the compound and I’ll kill you before we get there,” I hissed. Clara whimpered and glanced in my direction.
Her eyes were huge and panicked. I almost felt sorry for her, a
lmost
.
“She already done told us where ya little compound is, slut. When we get rid of you two, we’ll deal with your men. Bet my words, ya hear?” Ugly Number Two threatened.
I fell silent, not because I thought these two half-wits and their genius of a mother could take the compound, but I knew they would cause trouble. Fucking Clara, I might just kill her anyway. If I wasn’t headed for the same fate I would almost be gleeful that she was about to get sold as a living, breathing sex toy.
ZACH
I slept for maybe four hours before I was staring at the top of the bunk, a million scenarios going through my head. I needed a plan, I needed action. I needed to be out there looking for Alexis.
With about three hours of night left, I got up and went to my office and began to pace. I was going to wear myself ragged if I didn’t settle down. I had a large office, enough for a desk and a sofa, some bookshelves, and my gun safe. Before Z, I had collected guns and I kept my most prized possessions in this safe. I hadn’t touched it since the shit hit. None of the firearms were practical, an old Belgian Derringer, a vintage Claywood, impractical shit that I thought was important a year ago.
I had been focused on so many things that in today’s world were inconsequential and frivolous. I had put so much stock into it, thinking it was important, thinking it made me a person of worth. Today none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was Alexis.
I didn’t know if I had a sick imagination or I had just seen too much evil shit in my lifetime, but all I could do was imagine what was being done to her o
ver and over again.
It was like a fucking freak slideshow in my head.
She was a tough girl.
She could handle herself, but there was only so much you could do when you were outmatched and outnumbered.
Every scenario I conjured up was nastier and more violent than the last. I couldn’t just sit here. I had to do something. I couldn’t stand to be in my own head.
I heard footsteps in the hall and pushed away from my desk as if I had been caught doing something wrong, like my terrible thoughts would be evident in the air around me.
Blake walked into my office and sat on the sofa that was at the other end of my office, the sofa that only a few days ago I had taken Alexis on.
She had looked so beautiful bent over…
Enough of that.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said in greeting. “The only thing we can do today is run patrols. We can take it up and down 90. They have to be somewhere around here. I say we push it all the way up to Pearl River and then head back down, just look for any activity or signs of life. We’ll come across them at some point.”
“I’m glad you’re so confident,” I replied wearily.
“What else am I supposed to be? Should I be feeling sorry for myself, sitting in the dark with my pants around my ankles like you?”
“My pants are not around my ankles,” I scoffed.
“C’mon, let’s get moving, it’s almost dawn. Just you and me, we’ll find her. The rest of the group can rest up and protect the compound while we search.”
I didn’t believe him, but I followed him out of the office.
ALEXIS
We were closer to New Orleans East than I expected. We must have been right outside of the urban area where the ‘burbs met the marsh.
I had assumed we were near Slidell, but we were still within Orleans Parish. If we didn’t run into any issues, we would be in Lakeview in about an hour.
They took Chef Menteur until it intersected with Michoud Boulevard, a sparsely populated area that boasted a NASA production facility. The two Uglies wound their way through a few neighborhoods, but nothing moved and only the occasional Z could be seen shuffling across a lawn or down a sidewalk.
Clara remained quiet except for a few sniffles and hiccups sporadically interspersed for effect. She was pushed up against the door as far away from me as possible and every bump they hit she would whimper and look at me all scared.
I hope it hurt.
“A little more than you bargained for when you came up with your big scheme to dump me on the side of the road,” I whispered.
She just hiccupped a sob in response.
She was no fun
. I didn’t want to think about what was about to happen to us. I thought it would be better to distract myself with a little Clara torture. If all she did was cry though, what good was that?
“Quiet, you,” Ugly Number One turned around and glared at me. I wanted to flip him off so bad, but my survival instincts said don’t poke the dumb bear. And it didn’t help that my hands were cuffed behind my back. I only managed an eye roll, which he didn’t even notice because he had turned back around.
I chose to just turn and stare out the window instead of engaging the idiots. We were now pushing past the outskirts of my usual territory. Our group had never ventured this far from the compound and it was surreal the changes that had happened in only a few short months.
They made a left on Lake Forrest Boulevard pointing us toward the west. I barely recognized the area.
The last time I had been out here was during high school when we volunteered to clean up the New Orleans Nature Center area for service hours. The center was now overgrown and looked like a forest in the middle of the city.
The grass was burnt from the winter, but the weeds were almost as high as a house.
The Z activity had picked up and now packs could be seen milling about and some started chasing after the car. Ugly Number Two had to swerve to avoid a large pack and luckily the street was wide enough that he managed this. If it would have had stalled cars clogging it, we would have been screwed.
New Orleans East hadn’t fully come back from Katrina when Z hit. The area had been devastated like most of New Orleans, but before the storm it was a depressed and crime-ridden area so people were slow to return. Before Z hit, there were still many neighborhoods that had three to four abandoned houses and overgrown lots to each occupied house.
This was good for the dead population, fewer people, less Z’s, but there was still a large amount of people in the area when the shit hit. Most of the residents were poor, without transportation and unable to evacuate.
They had probably holed up and died by the hand of their neighbor or loved ones. As we drove by, the dead pushed at windows, locked inside of their houses forever.
When we turned down Haynes Boulevard and passed up Millionaire’s Airport, entering the main New Orleans area, I knew it would only get harder for us from here on out. We were now in the denser populated areas with more houses, more habitation, more zombies. Shit could get nasty.