Affliction Read online

  “You are stubborn, I’ll give you that,” the kid drawls out as he lets his feet drop to the sides on the floor. His lips have begun to chatter as the sun falls behind the trees but I am untouched by the chill. My escape antics would keep me warm enough even without the added benefits of the mutations.

  “Since we are obviously stuck here we might as well talk. I spent far too many days on the road alone to like the sound of my own thoughts. How about you tell me where are you from?”

  Plus I need to think of something other than the pain biting into my wrists as I begin to pump my legs and swing back and forth, trying a new tactic.

  “I’m from just outside of Chicago. My dad and I were lucky. We got out of there before things got really bad.” He watches me swing, gaining momentum with each pass, but seems indifferent. I don’t really blame him. I’m tired of trying and failing too.

  “Was he here with you?”

  I stretch out my foot, straining to reach the beam in front of me but I fall short. My wrists scream in agony as the skin peels further off my wrists and blood runs in steady streams down my forearms but I grit my teeth and force my legs to pump harder.

  “No. He’s still out there somewhere. We got separated during an attack before I stumbled across this place.”

  “Raiders?” I grunt.

  “No. Wouldn’t you know it, it was our own heroes in camo that nabbed him.” He angrily tosses aside a bit of broken hay. “A whole group of soldiers showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the night and started grabbing people from our camp. They said they were trying to help but I saw those Army guys shoot three in the head when they got jumped from behind. One of them was a lady but that didn’t stop them. My dad managed to shove me into a dumpster and get me covered before he led them away. I never saw him after that, but I looked for ages. He was just gone.”

  At the mention of soldiers I let my legs fall still and struggle to turn to see him as I fight to stop my swaying. “Where was this? Back in Nashville?”

  “Yeah.” He gives me a queer look. “Why? How’d you guess that?”

  I wish that I could give him something good to hold on to and reassure him that his dad is just fine but after Cable’s attack on the hotel I can’t do that. Even if he was taken by some of Cap’s men, I have no idea if he was ever even a resident. For all I know he could have been among those sent down to the hospital lab for testing. He could even be a Flesh Bag now.

  “I was taken too.”

  “You were?” He sits up a bit straighter as I throw out my legs to try to counterbalance my spin.

  My skin tears a little more with each swing and as the floor begins to tilt I realize that I’ve begun to move faster than my equilibrium can keep up with. Apparently not all of my weaknesses were overcome with the mutations. I’ve never been very good with spinning carnival rides.

  “A couple months back I was in pretty rough shape. Everyone in my group had been turned by the virus and I was left on my own. I stuck to the woods as much as I could, scavenged when I had to and then I ran into some trouble. Those soldiers found me, patched me up and took me to a hotel in Nashville. It was supposed to be a safe place for survivors.”

  “Supposed to be?”

  Damn, this kid doesn’t miss anything.

  I swallow hard and force myself to focus on his face each time I spin around. “I suppose it was for a while. They had plenty of ammunition, hands to hold guns to man the walls and food for everyone. They scoured the city for supplies and hunkered down. I reckon they would have done just fine if things hadn’t changed. A few nights ago there was a massive assault on the hotel and a lot of people died.”

  His shoulders droop and any hope of seeing his dad that I may have seen burst to life in his eyes withers and dies out. “So that means I was right. He probably is dead.”

  “You can’t think like that. There were also a lot of survivors.”

  “Yeah, well if there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the past couple of months is that fate tends to like to take a big stinking shit on me whenever it can. If my dad was alive I’d bet money that he’s a goner by now.”

  I close my eyes to still my stomach as I finally slow to a halt. I don’t feel so good but I push myself to speak again. “So that’s just it? You are just going to give up on him before you even try to find out if he’s alive?”

  His face twists into something dark and foreign. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like he ever came looking for me.”

  And then I understand the root of his bitterness. He did everything he could to find his father and now, after having been abandoned by everyone here, he feels like his own father has done the same exact thing.

  “Look, I don’t know your dad, and I’m not exactly an expert on loving parents, but if he got you this far south and hid you in that dumpster, then I’d say that means he cares a heck of a lot. If he’s alive, then I would bet my life on the fact that he is looking for you. My guess would be he has joined up with one of the security teams back at the hotel so that he can search for you while he is out on patrol.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  The raw pain in his voice is utterly heartbreaking and I am reminded that even though he doesn’t want to be called a kid, for all intents and purposes, he is still exactly that.

  “Yeah, I really do, because that is what I would do if I were him.”

  He turns his head and wipes at his nose. He tries to muffle a small sniffle and I allow him his privacy as I begin to swing again.

  He is a tough kid. I vow that once we are out of this mess and he is on his feet again, I will do everything that I can to make sure he has the weapons and supplies he needs to get back to that hotel to find his dad.

  The second round of swinging tears through new layers of my skin much faster but I press on, knowing just how far I have to reach now. With only a few hard pushes, I manage to wrap the end of my boot around the wood post.

  “How exactly is that going to help?” He asks as he watches me struggle to maintain my grip.

  Working my other leg around the back of the beam, I slowly walk myself up the wood. Once I begin to feel a bit of slack on my arms, I grab high on the rope and begin pull myself up. My arms tremble and blood makes my palms slippery but I hold on with everything I have got left in me.

  “Holy shit, that is brilliant! I can’t believe that I have never thought of that before.” He rises to his knees as I use my fingers and teeth to work the slipknot, loosening it just enough to get one hand free.

  Moments later, I free my other hand, release my hold on the beam, and drop to the floor. This time I feel pain when I land as blood rushes back into my toes. I pause for a moment to rub circulation back into my calves and thighs, waiting until I am certain that I will not collapse when I try to move.

  “All joking aside,” Kid says with a wide smile, “that was totally legit.”

  When I laugh and push my wild curls back out of my eyes I smear a stripe of blood across my forehead. “I think I will take that as a compliment coming from you. Now hold still while I look around for something to bust you out of your chains.”

  “Flannery has the keys, remember?”

  “How could I forget? But there may still be something here that we can use.”

  I brush my fingertips along the wall of weapons, searching for something narrow and pointed. An ice pick would work great to pop the lock, but there isn’t one to be found. A pair of bolt cutters would have him out of there in no time, but Flannery is not stupid enough to leave those lying around either. With sharp knives with no serration on their blades and branding irons too large to fit the keyhole, my options are woefully limited. I can’t even find a blowtorch to heat the metal enough to try to break it and there is no way to pull him close enough to the fire to try to improvise.

  “You have to leave me behind.”

  “N
o.” I shake my head. “I told you that I am not leaving you here.”

  “Look, Hope needs you more than I do right now. Go save her and then come back for me.”

  I turn to look over my shoulder at him. “Hope? Is that her name?”

  He nods slowly.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah,” he rubs the back of his neck, “well, she’s a pretty special girl. I will definitely deny saying this later but I think she will like you.”

  “That is a really nice thought. I hope she does.” I drop down beside him to meet him at eye level. “I will be back for you.”

  He hesitates, searching my face for any signs of fear but finds none. “Just kill the bastard for me, will you?”

  I pat him on the shoulder. “With pleasure.”

  Leaving him behind in the growing darkness feels wrong. He is too exposed, too vulnerable if a Flesh Bag came along while I am gone, but I have no other choice. One tug on the barn door tells me that we are sealed in tight enough that he will be safe until I return with the keys to his lock.

  Climbing the beam up to the loft, I skirt along the edge and back out through the rectangular window. This time I race straight down the hill under the cover of darkness and silently step up onto the porch.

  The windows are lit with the flickering of candles instead of the oil lanterns. Hot wax drips down the nearly spent candles and onto the wooden windowsills. From inside the house, I can hear whistling but little else. I search from window to window, hunting for any sign of where he is keeping Hope. I circle around the house before finally locating her in the back bedroom.

  She is paler than before but at least appears to be sleeping. Her eyes are closed and she has been tucked into bed with both arms concealed by a quilt, but there is no sign of Flannery anywhere. The small tea cup on the side table makes me wonder if he has drugged her somehow to be able to rest through the pain. As I shift to the next window down and look through into the hall, I see that a chair has been propped against the door and jammed up under the handle.

  I move around to the front of the house and peer in through the living room window to find Flannery seated in his lounge chair. His house slippers are on his feet and a throw blanket is spread across his lap where he sits polishing the barrel of a shotgun that has been stripped for cleaning. A dirty dinner plate sits on the coffee table. At the sight of three small finger bones pushed onto one side of the plate I am forced to look away.

  My back teeth grind as heat flushes through my body. My fingers clench and flex rapidly as I allow myself to imagine how delicious his death will feel. Delusional or not, this man needs to die and I want it far more than I wanted Ryker.

  But I need to do it quietly so that I do not wake Hope up and give her a new monster to fear. She has already been through enough trauma for one lifetime. If I can spare her more terror, I will do whatever it takes.

  Lifting my head to do a quick inventory of the room, I search for any other signs of weapons within arms reach. There is a sawed off shotgun propped against the window beside the TV and I spy my handgun on the side table less than a foot from where he sits, not to mention the one in his lap. If I bust through the front door there is no way I will get to him before he fires off at least one round. I may be a superhuman now, but I am not willing to find out if I am bulletproof.

  My best option is to enter through the back of the house and sneak up on him. Hurrying around the side, I cast one glance toward the barn and listen closely but hear nothing out of the ordinary. Just the sounds of crickets chirping and bullfrogs croaking. The birds have already settled down in their nests for the night.

  I sniff the air just to be sure that I haven’t missed an unseen or unheard threat, but all seems safe. I open the back screen door with painstaking care and silently slip inside. The kitchen is dark and I pass straight through, not bothering to grab a knife from the counter. I will take pleasure in killing him with my own bare hands.

  Glancing down the hall toward where Hope rests, I pause to listen for her steady breathing and am relieved to discover that she is still locked in her deep slumber. From up ahead, I can hear the intermittent swipe of a cloth and know that Flannery is still polishing his gun. Torn between needing to take him out and wanting to get Hope to safety as soon as possible, I decide take care of business first and then dispose of the body before I disturb her.

  Keeping to the far right side of the hallway, I tread with a light touch as I approach the living room. The candle lights are dim with their wicks nearly spent. They flicker in the cool air that passes through an open window in the dining room.

  I pause just long enough to calm my breathing before I turn the corner and leap. Flannery’s wrinkled eyes widen with surprise just before I hit him and together we tumble to the floor, knocking his chair over. His bony hip digs into my side before I throw him off and then jump to a crouch. Pieces of his gun scatter across the wood floor in all directions.

  He slams into the corner of the TV hard enough to pull a cry of pain from his lips before he rolls to his side and slowly pushes himself up. Despite the fact that he is along in years, a lifetime spent living off the land has afforded him far more agility than I had planned on. He will not go down without a fight.

  When he turns and sends a right hook flying in my direction, I nearly miss the movement and his fist grazes my cheek. I take hold of his hand and yank it over my shoulder and then straight down, snapping his arm at the elbow. Flannery howls in pain as I release his arm and turn to shove a fist into his left shoulder hard enough to snap his collar bone.

  The old man stumbles back with his broken arm swinging grotesquely.

  “You bitch,” he spits.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” I growl and lash out at him, raking my nails across his face. “The slow and painful mutilation of your body over time is something beyond comprehension and yet you have forced a dozen people to slowly watch as you eat their flesh.”

  “They were monsters. They deserved to die!”

  “No,” I shake my head, “they were people. Innocent, helpless people that you once cared about.”

  “No one is helpless in this world.” He staggers backward with his arm cradled against his chest. “They are nothing more than rabid animals.”

  “Just like the one that ate your wife?”

  Heat darkens Flannery’s cheeks and spills down his neck. “Don’t you dare speak about my Tilly!”

  “It ate her, didn’t it?”

  A strangled moan rises from the man as I step forward to match his withdrawal step for step. He needs to suffer, to realize what he has done and feel excruciating pain before he meets his end. I will not make this quick nor will I show him an ounce of mercy.

  “You saw the thing that got her, didn’t you? It that tore into her stomach with its bare hands and chewed on her intestines. I know you saw it all. I can see the fear and rage in your eyes even now.”

  I step forward again and move to keep him out of arm’s reach of my gun. It fell to the floor when I knocked the end table with my boot, but in doing so, I know that I am also driving him closer to his shotgun near the TV. He may be a skilled hunter, but that broken arm of his will make getting a shot off far more difficult. I do not fear his aim, but the sound that it will make. Hope must not know what happens in this room.

  “Did her screams wake you in the night?” I ask as I kick out his legs. His head smacks into the TV on the way down and I grab his gun and toss it away. The edge of the console glistens with fresh blood as he drops to the floor, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.

  “I bet you can’t sleep at night without hearing her calling to you for help, but you were as useless then as you are lying there right now.”

  I stomp down on his leg and smile at the feeling of bones shattering beneath my boot. Flannery’s gruff shout cuts off when I reach down and slam my fist into his mouth, splitti
ng his lip and dislocating a couple teeth in the process. He spits them out and they clatter to the ground.

  I bunch up my fist again. “Were you afraid of that thing when you found your wife?”

  “Yes, dammit,” he rasps. Blood stained spittle flies from his lips as he curls in on himself. “It was terrible.”

  I lean over him and smile. “And you know that there are more of those things out there, don’t you? You have seen them. They tried to take your prisoners from you. I saw the claw marks and the bullet holes. They came to finish the job.”

  Beads of sweat form over his ashen lip as he begins to tremble.

  “That’s why you protected those people, isn’t it? They weren’t just for food. You needed to feel strong, needed to feel powerful again. That thing in the woods terrified you and you had to find a way to be in control. They weren’t only food. They were bait.”

  I reach out and smack him across the face hard enough to leave a red handprint. His head rocks to the side and remains facing away from me as tears fall down his white stubbled cheeks.

  “I will not let you hurt those kids.” Rising up, I pull my foot back and connect it with his ribs. The cracking bone echoes through me and I feel a surge of excitement and awareness that I have begun to acknowledge as my dark side, the monster within who shares my face.

  “I won’t touch them again. I swear it.” He gurgles as blood bubbles at his lips. “Take them and go.”

  “Go?” I sink down onto my knees beside him. He tries to pull his shattered leg away from me but I place a hand on his thigh to hold him in place. “Oh, I am not going anywhere. At least not until I avenge that little girl for the pain you caused her.”

  “It was just an arm!”

  “And she is an innocent child!” I lose my temper and slam a punch into his face. One hit is not enough and I hit him repeatedly, savoring the feel of his face molding beneath my fist. My vision goes red with his blood as his lips and jaw turn to pulp beneath my fist and splatter my face.