The End Time Saga (Book 2): The Breaking Read online

  “Gimme that. It says here, retard, that he is a Count… Er… Counterterrorism Division,” the thin man said.

  “What’s a Division?” the fat man asked. He scratched his head with dirty fingers.

  “I dunno, the opposite of multiplication, you idiot. It’s a badge. He’s a fucking cop, Chuck.” He turned to another ambusher. “The only good pig is a dead pig, right, Henry?” the thin man said, kicking Mark with a tan boot. He sneered at his fat friend.

  “Stupid cops. Give it back, Casey. I found it. It’s mine,” Fat Chuck said, grasping for the badge. Casey held it out of his reach and threw the badge back to him.

  “Never heard of ’em anyway.”

  Two gunshots rang out in the forest.

  “A bunch of Devil spawn comin’ dis way,” called out another man in hunter’s camouflage.

  “Get our new friends into the cars. Bobby, hop up in the mover. Puck is gonna be real pleased with this take.” They were herded into the back of a smelly minivan. Bloodstains soiled the off-blue seats.

  Casey pushed Nelson in the back, Steele’s .40 Sig P226 pointed at the soldier’s spine.

  “Hey, Ash. We got one too many prisoners for the van. Whattaya wanna do?”

  Ash shrugged her shoulders. “Eh, shoot that Army guy. You know they’re always trouble.”

  Nineteen-year-old Private Nelson Bonds grimly eyed Casey. Casey pointed Steele’s handgun at Nelson. Tears formed in the corners of Nelson’s eyes. One fell down his smooth cheek, but he looked defiantly ahead.

  “Turn away, soldier boy,” Casey said. Nelson held his gaze. “I said turn away.”

  Nelson refused his command.

  “Are you some kinda stupid?” Casey put the gun to Nelson’s forehead.

  “Hehe, look at how dumb he is,” Fat Chuck giggled, jowls trembling.

  Nelson looked at him. “I am Private First Class Nelson Bonds. I am a soldier of the United States Army. I am sworn to protect this nation from enemies both foreign and domestic.”

  With a disgusted look, Casey moved around behind Nelson, leveling the gun with the back of his skull. His thumb drew back the hammer on his gun.

  “That’s cute. Sounds like somebody who really loves their country. But do you love your country, boy?” Casey mocked.

  Nelson was quiet. Casey punched Nelson’s back with the gun. Nelson flinched, more fear than force scaring him.

  “I said, who loves their country?” Casey screeched, spittle flying.

  “I love my country,” Nelson croaked, his voice breaking at the end. His eyes darted back and forth, pleading for someone, anyone to do something. The forest was quiet in its complacency.

  “How many times do we have to go over this? Which country do you love?”

  Nelson’s mouth shook.

  “Stop,” Gwen screamed from the back of the van.

  Nelson’s eyes skipped her way. Fear oozed with every blink.

  “You would shut your mouth if you knew what was good for you,” Ashley said. She slapped Gwen in the mouth.

  “Which country do you love, Private?” Casey asked.

  “I love America.”

  “You love America, what? Is that the proper way to speak to your superiors? I’ll tell you something, the military just ain’t what it used to be.”

  “I love America, sir,” Nelson said. His voice was soft.

  Casey looked impatient. “I didn’t hear you. Again.”

  “I love America, sir,” Nelson said louder.

  “I still can’t hear you,” Casey said. He swept a hand back and cupped his ear.

  “I love America, SIR,” Nelson screamed.

  “Thank you. Now, why is it so hard to get people to say they love their country nowadays?” Casey laughed. He looked back at the van and shook his head in disbelief. A fraction of a second passed and with a quick move of his arm the gun was back at Nelson’s head. Boom. Nelson’s brains burst through his nose into the ditch. Another casualty of the end time.

  ***

  Gwen relived the same scene every night, where Mark’s head kicked backward and he fell lifelessly onto the pavement. Her mind played it on repeat like a scratched CD. Every night she awoke in terror. She rested her head on Lindsay’s shoulder. They hadn’t done anything to deserve this. All they had done was try to help someone. The sun rises on good and evil alike.

  She lifted her head a touch as the shed door creaked open a bit. A gnarled old hand wrapped around the wood and pushed it open. It creaked. A slightly warped figure crept inside. Gwen could smell him as he got close, the thick body odor of someone who hadn’t bathed in weeks; it was almost pleasant compared to the filth surrounding her. As he inched nearer Gwen, she feared he was infected, but she had a brief moment of relief when she smelled the alcohol on his breath.

  She vaguely recognized the man as one of the bushwhackers. He was older, probably in his seventies. He wore overalls and a wide-brimmed hat. His mouth puckered permanently inward because he had no teeth. He reached an old arthritic hand for her and she tried to scoot backward. She sat upright, awakening the others. Her back pressed firmly against the wall.

  He wheezed a breathy laugh. “Everybody says, Old Barnum won’t ever get himself no cunny,’ but look at what we have here. Firm tits on this one. Yes she do.” He coughed a bit and twisted her nipple hard.

  “Ow,” she breathed, revolted by the unwanted stimulus.

  “There we go,” he said. His rancid hot breath smelled like stale fish and whiskey. Gwen turned away. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Her body knew it. She would rather face legions of the dead than this.

  “Let’s see what’s under them panties of yours,” he said. He licked his lips. An old sandpapery hand grabbed for her underwear.

  With a loud bang, the flimsy wood door flew all the way open, and Ash stepped in.

  “Get away from her Barnum, you old pervert. What did I tell you about touching the pretty one? That is Puck’s ole girl. You get on outta of here,” Ash said. She swatted at the old fiend as if he were a bad dog, and the old man left, muttering to himself. Ash squatted down in front of Gwen. Gwen couldn’t contain her tears. They streamed down her face. She tried to say thank you over and over to the woman who had saved her.

  Ash bent down close to Gwen, an ugly smirk settling on her pretty face. She swept dirty snarled hair behind her ears, judging Gwen with her eyes. Gwen was beginning to feel that Ash hadn’t done her a favor at all. Ash gave her a crooked-toothed smile and wiped Gwen’s tears away.

  “There, there, pretty birdie. No one’s goin’ hurt you.” Gwen nodded thanks through her gag. Ash laughed loudly with a shrill high-pitched note.

  “I mean, no one except Puck. His last girl didn’t make it through the week. He dresses them all pretty, makes them feel safe, and then rips them up real good.” Her eyebrows rose as she saw the fear in Gwen’s eyes. “Then when they wishes they was dead, he puts ’em in the Pit. So don’t think I did you any favors, you uppity bitch, by stopping Old Barnum from having his way with you. His shriveled cock would have been a blessing. The only reason I stopped him was because Puck likes ’em fresh.”

  At this moment, Gwen prayed to God that somehow Mark was still alive and coming to rescue her, but she knew her hopes were in vain. Ash gripped Gwen’s cheeks with firm fingers that dug into her skin. Gwen clenched the photograph the same way in her sweating hands and averted her eyes.

  “You hear me, bitch? You’ll wish youse was dead.” She shoved Gwen’s head backward and stood. “You’ll wish youse was dead.”

  MAUSER

  Moonshiner Camp, WV

  Ben Mauser ground his teeth and pulled hard on his chains above his head. They rattled, but he gained no advantage. In order to rest his arms, he let them hang. His muscles were stiff and sore throughout his shoulders and down through his back. The metal from the shackles chaffed his hands painfully.

  His exhaustion was only aggravated by his mind. These mother fuckers will pay for what they’ve done. Steele and
Nelson. Gone. He looked over his shoulder. And I’m chained to a post in the middle of some goddamn hillbilly paradise. They had shackled both his wrists together over his head, in a position that left his face and midsection perpetually exposed.

  How do we get out of this mess?

  The chains were a problem, but not insurmountable. However, it was unwise to get free without a plan. First, he had to determine who he was up against. He watched two mountain folk laugh as they walked into one of the sheds housing some sort of distilling equipment.

  Where did these people come from? It was as if he had been placed smack dab into a scene from a movie. He seriously couldn’t make these people up. If he had, no one would believe him. Over the course of a day, he counted a dozen men and three women who inhabited the camp. A few fire pits smoldered and twice as many small wood cabins filled in the camp. No sign of Gwen, Lucia, or Lindsay. They have to be in one of those sheds. Hopefully, not the one those men went into.

  Another issue hindered any sort of escape plan. Where the hell are we? Thick forest surrounded the camp, a naturally secluded hideaway for people avoiding the law. Someone looking in from thirty yards out would never know there were people there between the trees and the camouflage tarps. A tall peak rose high behind Mauser, a mountain staring down at the camp. He couldn’t get a good view of it because of the way he was chained, but it would be the only point of reference when he escaped. If he could break free, he would make for the top and look for any depressions, or other landmarks, to help navigate the foreign land.

  A deep moan came from the forest. He recognized the depressive sound anywhere. Infected. Mauser struggled against his chains. These chains are like a fucking dinner bell.

  “Ahmed, you hear that?” Mauser called behind him. The Arab-American man, in his late twenties, had been worked over pretty good by the mountain folk when they first brought them into the camp.

  “Yeah,” Ahmed rasped. The man had been in and out of consciousness over a day. It seemed that just when Ahmed would start coming around some hillbilly would punch his face in again. As much as Mauser didn’t like Ahmed, he felt for the man. Ahmed was still part of their group. Just like Nelson. Poor kid.

  The moans grew louder and Mauser didn’t appreciate being sacrificed to the monsters. All that stood between the camp and the outside was a thin line of barbwire draped around the trees. Haphazard wire ran from tree trunk to tree trunk as if the person putting it up had been intoxicated. A couple of his captors stood nearby, shooting the breeze.

  “Hey you,” Mauser shouted at the nearest captor. The only thing worse than being a prisoner was being eaten alive while being a prisoner. He felt like a goat tied to a post left out for the lions.

  A skinny hillbilly in a cut-off glared at him. “Shut the fuck up,” he shouted at Mauser.

  “There are infected coming,” Mauser screamed at him. “Over there.” He nodded in the direction of the trees.

  The skinny man with the light beer hat approached Mauser. He pushed his hat up high onto his forehead as if he wanted to wear it, but didn’t want it to block any sunlight. He was taller than the average joe, and he had the look of someone who had a very linear family tree.

  “What of it, city boy?” the man said.

  “Aren’t you going to do something?” Mauser asked worriedly. “It sounds like infected in the woods.”

  The man peered into the forest.

  “Nah,” he said. As if remembering he was mad at Mauser, he gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of a beady eye.

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” He turned his head as he tried to recall. “I believe I did.”

  He walked for Mauser, wound his fist back, and punched Mauser in the gut. The pain in his stomach made him want to piss himself. The hillbilly shook his hand out.

  “Shut up and watch.”

  Mauser coughed and regained his breath. The infected emerged from the trees and stumbled down the hill, disappearing into the earth. Where did he go?

  “Now, don’t make me come back over here,” the man said. “Chuck, go grab the black guy and clean that up,” he yelled with a vengeful look at Mauser.

  “Sure thing, Casey,” Chuck said.

  So Light Beer Hat was Casey. Fat T-shirt was Chuck. They were his two main keepers. He had heard about another character, Puck, but hadn’t seen him. Most others in the camp, when they weren’t spitting on them, let them be.

  He watched Chuck march Eddie out through a removable gap in the barbwire. Chuck poked Eddie with a stick as they walked, furthering the man’s humiliation. Mauser watched them go into the woods. Must be some sort of trap. Great. If we get out of here we’ll need to be careful of traps in the woods. He regained his breath, not comforted by the camp defenses. Fifteen minutes later Chuck and Eddie came back, blood dripping from the shovel. Eddie slinked along, head down.

  “Chuck, we need the outhouses cleaned. Get our black friend on it.” Chuck grinned like an idiot, a basic man at best, and shoved Eddie in the direction of the little brown single-person shacks near the cabins.

  “You got it, Casey. Come on, Fudgie. We got lots of work for you. I messed up one real good last night.”

  Eddie was literally their slave worker. Any manual labor the hillbillies needed done, they sat by and watched Eddie do it. They all would mock and spit at him as he did their basic chores. It left a sour taste in Mauser’s mouth. It was one thing to put Eddie to work. It was another to mock and beat the man while he did it.

  Chuck led Eddie away, tugging his chains like a dog. Eddie’s leg shackles clanked along, hindering his ability to move. Eddie might make it exactly a hundred yards before he was killed by an infected outside the camp. We either need a vehicle or we are going to have to break Eddie’s shackles when we flee. We need a key. Or we need the keys to a car.

  ***

  After midday Casey returned, his beady eyes looking over Mauser and Ahmed. Mauser could see the evil gears grinding away inside his mind.

  Casey, in Mauser’s eyes, was the lowest scum America had to offer. Casey was ignorant, uneducated, mean-spirited, and racist. Mauser was pretty sure that this man would shove his grandmother under a bus for a couple of bucks and a laugh.

  “Hey Chuck, that rag-head is wakin’ up agin. Go holler at Henry, tell him to get ta’ sticks. I gotta an idea.”

  Henry arrived with the sticks. He was the spitting image of Casey, and Mauser assumed they were brothers or cousins.

  He handed out the “sticks.” They were oaken branches three feet long and one inch thick, which had been smoothed down, giving them the appearance of a riot police baton. Casey held his stick in his armpit and unchained Ahmed. Chuck and Casey forced Ahmed to stand up. He wobbled, putting a hand on the post to steady himself.

  “There you go, fella. Stand up now,” Casey said. He leaned in close to Ahmed’s face. “Now go ahead and tell me how long you been a terrorist?”

  Ahmed knew that these people had no interest in showing him any sort of kindness. He rose his hands up in front of his body. Casey raised his stick behind his head. Ahmed flinched and covered his face with his arm.

  “How long you been a terrorist?” Casey bellowed.

  “I’m not a terrorist,” Ahmed growled. He coughed a bit, his eyes never leaving Casey’s.

  “He lyin’ Casey. He’s lyin’. Look at his eyes,” Chuck squealed, his fat cheeks jiggling like a human pig.

  “Please, I swear to you. I am an American,” Ahmed pled, a hand extended to his captors.

  “I said how long?” Casey cried out. He struck Ahmed’s upper arm. A crack cut through the air as it impacted the meat of his tricep.

  “Ow, please,” Ahmed cried. He grabbed his arm with his hand. Casey circled him. Ahmed turned with the man keeping him in front.

  “We are just going to have to beat it out of you until you fess up.”

  “I was born in Virginia.”

  “Homegrown extremist, huh?” Henry laughed, pacing with his stick. He took a
swing at Ahmed, catching him on the back of the knees, knocking him to the ground. Fat Chuck stepped in and swatted Ahmed repeatedly. Ahmed shrunk low and covered his face with his arms. Then it was Casey’s turn again.

  “Stop. Please,” Ahmed said. He held his hands out palms first at them.

  “Not until you tell us the truth,” Casey said. He baseball-swung into Ahmed’s side. Ahmed toppled over into the mud.

  Casey and his cronies took turns hitting Ahmed, in the stomach, arms, legs, ass, shoulders, head. Each time Ahmed would try and stand. Each time he would end up on the ground.

  “How does that feel, Hajji?” Casey sneered.

  “That one’s for 9/11, ’Merica,” Henry shouted out, as he landed a crushing blow across Ahmed’s stomach. Ahmed collapsed doubled over in pain.

  “I’m not a terrorist. My family has lived here for thirty years,” Ahmed mumbled.

  “What was that, boy? Your family’s been terrorists for generations?” Casey said, raising the back of his hand to his ear. Whack. He brought his stick down across Ahmed’s shoulders as he crawled in the mud. Mauser couldn’t handle it. He wanted in the fight. He was ready to rage on these ignorant fuckers.

  Casey helped Ahmed back up. “Here, here. Lay off of him, you two. I think he’s had enough. He is repentin’ of his evil ways. You want some water, little buddy?” he said. Ahmed’s head barely bobbed up and down, blood running down his swollen, split lip.

  “What do you say, boy?”

  “Please, sir,” Ahmed said timidly.

  “Chuck, bring us a ladle from the pot over there,” Casey called back over his shoulder. Chuck did as he was told and quickly returned to Casey’s side, giggling.

  “There ya’ go, boss,” he said, lips quivering with excitement.

  “Now, here ya go, Mister Towel Head. Drink up,” Casey said. He forced the ladle near Ahmed’s mouth, and Ahmed took the ladle in his hands. He drank it greedily. A second later, Ahmed spit out the substance. The liquid sprayed all over Casey.

  Casey closed his eyes and wiped his face off with the back of his hand.