Joseph Talluto - Taking It Back

For my part, I warned Bob about Mazon, and he shook his head at the waste. He was going to have to let the town know, since several people had relatives there and would want to bury them. My suggestion was to burn the whole lot, but Bob just shrugged.

We passed through the town and out the other doors. It wasn’t until we were about a mile away that Tommy poked his head through the back window.

“I have a question,” Tommy said. “If they knew we were coming, why the chilly reception? I thought you were going to kill that guy holding the rifle on you.”

Charlie nodded. “Seems a little out of place, given their defenses.”

“I asked Bob about that and he said it was because they’ve been having trouble lately,” I said.

“What kind of trouble?” asked Charlie

“Apparently there’s some sort of rogue group terrorizing Kinsman, Ransom, and Kernan. They’re demanding ‘protection goods’ and such. They originally came in showing themselves as capable of handling the zombie problem, but they disarmed the populace and now are essentially running things. They tried to run a fast one on Verona, but got knocked back. The people of Verona are wary of strangers, which is why we got that reception. If we hadn’t known Harlan or been from Coal City it might have gone down differently.”

“So what you’re saying is we’re heading to a fight we may not want, against a group we have no knowledge of, supported by a bunch of weaklings too afraid to fight for themselves?” Tommy asked.

“Possibly.”

“I’ll be in the bed, cleaning my guns, if anyone needs me.” Tommy said, withdrawing to the back of the truck and pulling out his cleaning kit.

I chuckled and looked over at Charlie. “We could pull out, head back to Coal City on the roads.”

Charlie just looked at me.

“You’re right,” I sighed. “This is what we do.”

“At least it’s not boring.”

“True.”

We moved down the rails as the sun was getting to its highest point. The landscape sloped gently in various places and I could see homes here and there in the distance. We were coming up to a farm that had the house relatively close, so I told Charlie to pull up so we could take a look.

We stepped out of the vehicle and crossed the field to the growing grass of the farmhouse lawn. The house was typical of the area, two stories, whitewashed, with a few outbuildings. There was a barn, a garage, some sort of long building I couldn’t identify, and something that appeared to be a chicken coop. They were all in need of repair, but that was something I suspected was necessary before the world died.

Tommy wandered over to the barn while Charlie and I checked the house and other buildings. Charlie moved around to the windows and looked in while I stepped up onto the expansive front porch. I guessed the farm had to be somewhere between fifty and one hundred years old. I looked in the front window and saw a family room with several pieces of furniture and old antiques. All that wasn’t as interesting as the legs I saw sticking out from behind the lounge chair.

Great, I thought, here we go again. I pulled my pickaxe and held it ready as Charlie stepped onto the porch. He saw me arm myself and pulled one of his tomahawks as well. I tried the door and found it open, so I pushed it slowly in, stepping back to allow anything in there an opportunity to come out and play.

Nothing happened, so Charlie and I stepped into the room. I went over to the legs and saw they belonged to what I assumed was the owner of the farm. He was a fairly big man, dressed simply and would be mistaken for sleeping except for the large, gaping wound in his chest. I figured he had been shot close range with a shotgun and judging by the looks of him, this had happened a while ago. The blood around him on the floor had turned black, as well as the mess on the wall behind him.

I turned to Charlie. “Murdered. I’d bet if anyone else was home they’re dead too.”

Charlie pointed to the family photo on the mantle. “It’s a family of six,” he said.

“Shit, not again.” I remembered the last time we came across something like this. A rogue group had killed a family and very nearly killed us, but we burned their world down around their ears.

Charlie and I split up, Charlie taking the upstairs and I took the downstairs and cellar. I opened the door to the cellar while Charlie headed to the stairs at the back of the kitchen. The kitchen had been completely ransacked and I did not expect to find anything useful in the basement, but the opportunity was there.

Down in the basement, I looked over several workbenches and found a few road flares, which I added to my pack. Tools and such were of no use right now, but I did find a small refrigerator. Looking inside I found four beer cans. I placed them on the stairs to take later. It’d been a long time since I had a beer, and I thought I’d earned one. Normally I didn’t drink, but I had a feeling I was going to need it.

As I turned to head back up the stairs, I noticed something odd. The back wall wasn’t made of flagstone like the rest of the walls. It was made of cinderblocks, painted the same color as the stones. Looking closely, the wall seemed a lot closer than the wall upstairs in the kitchen. Walking over to the bench that lined the wall, I looked over a bookshelf that seemed oddly out of place. I looked at the floor and could see scuff marks where the bookshelf had been moved.

Intrigued, I wrestled the bookshelf away from the wall and flashed my light in the revealed opening.

I was pleasantly surprised. The area behind the wall was a secret storage place, with canned goods piled high. I found stacks of batteries, emergency radios with a crank handle, and several boxes of MREs. There were backpacks hung on pegs by the opening and several stacks of bottled water. In addition, there was a shotgun, a. 22 rifle, and boxes of ammo for all, including ammo for a. 38, which I didn’t see and for a. 45, which I didn’t see, either.

I grabbed a duffle bag from the corner and filled it with canned goods and water. I took one of the backpacks and emptied it, filling it with MREs. I emptied another backpack and filled it with ammo for the shotgun, the. 38, and the. 45.

I hauled all the bounty back upstairs and met Charlie in the kitchen. His eyes widened at the haul, but then turned cold.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Come upstairs and see.”

Puzzled, I followed him back upstairs. At the back of the hall was the master bedroom and inside was a nightmare. A body was on the floor, a single gunshot wound to the chest indicating how he died. He was dressed in jeans and a leather coat and appeared to be young, maybe twenty years old. That wasn’t the nightmare. The woman on the bed was the nightmare. She had been stripped and presumably raped, then methodically mutilated until she bled to death from hundreds of cuts and stab wounds. Whoever killed her, wanted her to suffer. If I had to guess, the body on the floor was some sort of relation to whoever had savaged the woman. This was a revenge killing if I had ever seen one.

Charlie reached into his pack and retrieved a Smith amp; Wesson Model 66 and a Springfield Armory Mil-Spec 1911. Both were stainless steel and in good shape. “Found the revolver on the bedside table, probably left there to taunt the woman as she suffered. The. 45 was in the dresser.”

I didn’t say a word. I was too angry at a world that allowed this to happen. I pulled my knife and cut the woman loose, wrapping her up in the bed sheets and carrying her downstairs. I barely noticed her weight as I walked outside, Charlie stopping to pick up the bags I brought up from the basement.

Outside, Tommy was working at the ground, digging a shallow trench. I walked over to where he was and placed the woman on the ground. I looked over to the side and dropped my head.