Jason Campagna: White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel

Carson's hands squeezed on Alison's ankles like vice-grips; she moaned, but it was stifled by the tape gagging her mouth.

"Stop it,” Kim pleaded. “You’re hurting her."

Alison heard the smacking sound of flesh hitting flesh. It was followed shortly by a thump of a body hitting the ground. She heard Kim moaning. "You promised you'd never hurt me," Kimberly whimpered softly.

Alison's body was ripped from the back of the truck; her feet hit the ground, and the weight of her body bent back her knees. Her shoulders were shoved and she fell to the ground on her back.

Alison heard the girl take a deep breath in, "You’re a fucking monster, Carson."

"That’s it," Carson said. The gravel on the road was kicked around and stones thumped against the military blanket surrounding Alison.

"No," Kimberly pleaded. Alison could hear the girl being hit over and over again. Carson wheezed from the efforts of beating the girl senseless. Alison struggled against her bonds, but they held her fast. Gravel shifted as a heavy object was drug beside Alison. She could feel something soft but solid against her shoulder.

"I'm sorry Alison," Kimberly whimpered.

"That’ll be enough talk out of you," Carson said in a dead-pan voice. The sound of duct tape being pulled off the roll was all Alison heard for several more seconds.

"Give me your hands," Carson ordered. "It's a real shame girl. I can't take you back there now."

Carson coughed deep and hard, then he spit. His breathing was all that filled the darkness in front of Alison; she could tell he was hovering over them.

The blanket on her face was pulled, but the tape resisted. Carson's hands tore at it, jerking Alison's head around. The pain from her wounds made her feel like she was falling. Darkness gave way to a blur of light and the shadow, as Alison's eyes struggled to make sense of the world through her tears. Fresh air filled Alison’s lungs and brought with it the smell of warm hay.

“I hope you’re happy, Alison,” Carson said. “You’ve ruined everything.” Carson coughed hard into the sleeve of his shirt. He dropped to his knees and wiped sweat from his forehead. He pulled the shirt off his back and threw it off to the side of the road.

“I’m sick,” he said. “I got attacked by one of those things at the hospital yesterday. I thought I cleaned the wound out good enough, but I guess some of it made it through. If it’s viral, it could have been a low viral load, or it could be that I have a resistance. I might survive it.”

Carson coughed again.

“You both think I’m a monster,” he said. “Well I’m not. Alison, you didn’t give me a choice coming in with a gun like that. You threatened me, and no one threatens me, not now not ever. Kim, I really can’t have you telling on me. I didn’t make it this far in life for a minimum wage tramp to hand me over to the authorities. This virus is either going to kill me, or I’m going to survive and set myself up real good with those people back there. Either way, I’m going to deal with the two of you, so what do you say we play a little game?”

Alison turned her head to her left to look at Kimberly. Kim turned her face at Alison revealing tears running down her cheek. Her face was swollen from being beaten. Her right eye had a dark red patch with a spider web of red lines extending outward from the bloodshot orb. Another line of red liquid drew down from her nose and mixed over the silver of the duct tape holding her mouth shut. Kimberly’s eyes pleaded the case of her crime; her soul cried out through those eyes at Alison.

“I think I’m going to have a little fun with the both of you. Each of you is going to get to watch as I have my way with the other. Then when I’m all finished with both of you, we’re going to sit back and wait. If I die, then I’m more than likely going to come back. Then one of you gets to be lucky enough to watch my corpse feast on the other before I move on to the next. That’ll make me worthy of the monster that you two seem to see in me.”

Carson pointed at Kimberly, “I think I’ll start with you Kim, it’ll give Alison more time to think about us.”

Kimberly broke her eye contact with Alison and turned her head in the opposite direction. Kim’s chest and stomach convulsed in deep sobs. From the trees, a pair of crows cawed down at the scene.

Carson loomed over Kimberly, contrasted by the bright blue sky behind him. The dark shapes of the crows flew over Carson’s silhouette like dark specters.

Alison’s ears throbbed from a sharp crack. Her head ached from the buzzing whine in her head. The deafening pitch soared through her ear-drums like they were being squeezed through a pin-hole. Carson staggered back and fell out of sight.

“Ahhhhhh”, he moaned, “My shoulder.”

“When I was a young kid,” a man’s voice said, “my dad told me animals are always trying to tell us things. Those crows took off telling you a bigger fucking predator was coming this way. I listen; that cat back at the meeting, must have been telling us about your bite mark. Might have been even telling us about what a freak you are.”

Rex stepped into Alison’s view with an AK-47 pointing in the direction of her out-of-sight husband. His gun spat fire as the Spartan let lose another round. Alison watched the shell casing spin up into the air flipping end over end. It whistled downward to clank on the top of the truck.

“Doc, next round goes in your heart if you keep trying to move.”

Carson cried in agony. “Please don’t hurt me, it’s not my fault. She attacked me.”

Rex knelt down between the truck and Alison, and set his rifle down. From his pocket he pulled out a knife; it clicked open in his hand. He looked down at Alison; her face was bruised much like the girl beside her. Their eyes were wild with fright and desperation.

"Alison, can you hear me?" he said.

She nodded her head yes at him.

"I’m going to cut you out of this tape, but I don’t want you to move so just hang in there and listen to my voice." He moved the blade near her face and slid it under the blanket cutting at cloth and tape. He cut the blanket off her chest and down to her stomach. He saw the ball of massed tape around both her hands. Rex found the end of the tape and pealed it back unwrapping her hands a layer at a time. He faced the doctor and spared him a glance as he continued to untie Alison. The doctor lay on the ground groaning but alive.

"He lumped you up pretty good,” Rex said to Alison. “But he's in pretty bad shape at the moment. I shot him twice, once in each shoulder."

Rex untwisted the last layer on Alison's hands except for the one against the skin. "This part is going to sting a little," He said. He yanked at the tape separating it from the skin of her hand. Alison's eyes winced in pain, but her hands separated free of their bondage. She flexed her fingers while he went to work on cutting the tape from her arms. He pulled the tape away from her clothing and cut the gap between. Alison reached up with her freed arms and hands and pulled on the tape closing her mouth. She dug her finger at the seam and pealed the tape away from her skin. Alison sucked in a deep breath as she broke the seal on her mouth. The tape popped open freeing her face.

"I thought I was dead," Alison's voice cracked. He cut away the last of the tape on her leg's completely freeing the young woman. She tried to sit up but dropped back down after only getting a few inches off the ground.

"Not too fast" Rex said. "You likely have a concussion. Let me help you into a sitting position."

"I don’t know how you found me,” Alison said. “Thank you, Rex. Thank you."

"I'm sorry I was late," he said.

"No, it was the best birthday present anyone has ever given me," Alison said.