Zombiekill (17 page)

“Or maybe they’ll take a bite out of your ass, and you’ll be just like them, wandering around out there looking for your next meal.”

“Not likely, sugar.” Butcher shoved Rilla down the path to the garage and stopped her short of the door. “I’ve got Conan watching my back, not to mention the others. Plus, now I’ve got you.”

As Rilla waited for Butcher to unlock the door, she heard the sound of dogs barking coming from inside. “What’s going on? Did you send my parents back out there? Whose dogs are those?”

Butcher put one hand on the door and pointed the gun at Rilla. “You really want to know?”

Rilla nodded. She wasn’t confident that she did, but she had to. She couldn’t just abandon her parents or the rest of them. She had to know what was going on, even if the worst had happened, and he had thrown them outside unarmed. Rilla worried about Charlie, even though she barely knew her. There had been a connection between them from the outset, and she would hate to lose the chance to get to know her better. As Rilla watched Butcher punch a code into a panel on the wall, she saw how contented he was. He enjoyed the power he held over her; relished it even. He was a sadist and probably got off on others’ pain. When he had finished entering the access code for the upper level, he waved the gun in Rilla’s face and ordered her to go up.

“Up there. I’m not going to waste what power we have turning the rest of the facility on, but you can see from the upper gantry what you need to. You’ll figure it out.”

With Butcher behind her, Rilla climbed the flimsy metal staircase to the door at the top of the garage. The light above the door was green, and she cautiously pushed it open as the barking of the dogs grew louder.

“What is this?” she asked, as she stepped over the threshold onto the flimsy metal walkway that offered a viewing platform above the annex. “It’s pitch black in here.”

Butcher stayed in the doorway and held the door open. “Let your eyes adjust. You’ll see in a moment.”

It took a few seconds before Rilla could understand what she was seeing. The room was still locked, and the barking and grunting noises of the dogs below echoed loudly around the smelly room. She thought there were probably three or four dogs, but couldn’t be sure, and as she watched she saw shapes appear on the floor. There were six in total, large dark blobs that remained motionless no matter how much the dogs pulled at them with their teeth.

Rilla put a hand over her mouth and nose. The smell was almost overwhelming, and it wasn’t just the smell of dogs, but of something more, something base and evil. It was the smell of death. “What have you done?”

Rilla looked at Butcher in the doorway behind her, her hopes and fears washing over her as she saw the glint in his eye. Surely this wasn’t what she thought? Surely he was playing a trick on her?

“Where are my parents? Kyler? Charlie? Did you throw them out?” Rilla wanted Butcher to say yes. She wanted him to tell her that he had let them go back onto the streets with a chance to get home. Five minutes ago she had hoped they were still here, but now she needed to know they weren’t. The dogs below were huge and ferocious, she could tell that much, and the longer that Butcher didn’t answer her, the more her fears grew. Rilla’s throat closed up, and she started shaking.

“Tell me,” she demanded. “Tell me right now.”

“No. I didn’t throw them out. Once you come through that door it doesn’t open again,” said Butcher.

“But...” Rilla looked back into the dark room and peered at one dog in particular. Its coat was jet black, and its eyes seemed to almost glow in the darkness as if it were a hound released from Hell. It was gnawing on something, and as Rilla looked closer at the object in the dog’s mouth she saw the object was an arm. Three pale fingers adorned one end, and the other abruptly came to a halt in a bloody stump. The dog chewed on it as it if was half starved.

“No, this isn’t... this can’t—”

“Sorry, Rilla, but your family is right where I left them,” said Butcher. He peeked over the control panel into the room and saw the motionless shapes on the floor. It was a sight he was familiar with and was becoming bored with. At first it had been entertaining to watch; amusing to see how people tried to fight back, to claw and hammer and bludgeon their way out of a locked room. He had lost a couple of dogs over time, but very rarely did anyone get the better of his pets. If they ever did, he made sure a bullet to the head took care of it.

“Jesus, no.” Rilla’s knees buckled, and Butcher caught her.

“Okay, time to go. Say goodbye to Mom and Dad.”

With Rilla sobbing hysterically, Butcher carried her back down the stairs and watched as the green light turned red. Back on solid ground, he let her go, and she fell to her knees. Rilla clutched the earth and brought great mounds of dirt up in her hands. It was cold and dry, and she let it fall through her fingers.

“Why?” Rilla couldn’t believe her mother and father were gone, just like that: Lyn, Kyler, and Charlie too. All of them gone, all of them dead; and not just dead, but murdered by this madman.

“Why?” Rilla screamed. She jumped up and began to beat Butcher’s chest. “Answer me, God damn you!”

Butcher grabbed Rilla’s wrists and looked at her tear-stained face. “You came to me with
nothing
. You offered me
nothing
. A couple of knives, some tins of food, and eight hungry mouths. You would’ve bled me dry. You think this place is paradise, but once I start letting people in, I have to let everyone in. Fuck that. No fucking way am I doing that. This place is a paradise precisely because I
don’t
let people in. If I let your family and friends in, then more would come. Then soon they would want to make changes, want me to adapt to
their
ways,
their
culture. No way is that happening. I’ve got it good here, and it’s staying that way.”

Rilla tried to pull away from Butcher, but he had two strong hands holding her close. She looked up at him. This man had killed her parents, and she wanted him dead. If she could get that gun off him she would shoot him dead right then, right there, without hesitation. But all she could think about was that Butcher had made a mistake. He had let her live. So obviously he thought she had something to offer. If she could understand his thinking, then maybe she could get him to talk and let his guard down. The second she got a chance to take that gun, then she would end it all and gain some sort of vengeance for what he had done. “Why me? Why Vicky?”

Butcher pulled Rilla closer so she was forced to look right into his eyes. “Me and my boys get lonely. You can understand that, right? The only woman here is Verity, and I’m not into doing my own Mother, no matter how insane you think I am.”

Rilla tried to pull away, but Butcher had her wrapped up tight. Verity had raised this psychopath? Did she know what he was up to? Did she know what her son did to people unlucky enough to come here? Rilla could feel the gun nuzzled against her chest. She grabbed one of Butcher’s arms and held onto it like a life raft. She felt like she wasn’t just lost, but drifting out over a burning ocean into Hades. “This place is Hell. I thought it would save us, but it’s the opposite. You’re fucking mad. You’ve destroyed everything. All you’ve done with this place is create Hell on Earth.”

“Hell?” Butcher stared at Rilla with cold hard eyes. “This place is fucking pearly gates and angels compared to life out there. I’m surprised Jesus himself hasn’t paid us a visit yet. This place allows you to govern your own lives and not be dictated to by anyone else. Those fuckers outside these walls can’t get to us in here. Don’t you see how much stronger we are for being in here? Those zombies—once you let one in, you may as well let a thousand in. You are royally fucked. One by one they keep on coming, insidiously, any time of day or night with no warning, with no thoughts but getting what’s yours. This life we have is ours to protect, and by God, I’m going to do whatever I have to.”

“By killing innocent people?” Her parents were dead. Everyone that Rilla knew was dead except for Victoria who thankfully was safely in Verity’s company. Rilla was all alone with this madman.

“Casualties of war,” said Butcher calmly. “I didn’t start this war,
they
did. All I’m doing is protecting my own. This is
my
land,
my
country, and one day it will be great again. Until then you play by
my
rules, or—”

“Or what?” asked Rilla. She knew the answer. It was what had made him murder her family.

Butcher grabbed Rilla by the back of the neck. “You really want to know the answer to that question?” he snarled. Butcher twisted Rilla around and shoved the gun into her back. He frog-marched her back up the incline toward the house, but before they reached it he pushed her toward the parked vehicles.

“Where are we going?” asked Rilla as they approached a black sedan with tinted windows.

“You wanted to know what happens when you don’t do what I want.”

Butcher pushed Rilla past the car, and on the other side was a rose garden. Surrounding it were ash trees and what appeared to be pieces of wood on the ground. They passed under a ramshackle trellis covered by ivy and through a pergola before reaching the center of the rose garden. Something tall and dark reached up into the night sky, and Rilla couldn’t understand what she was looking at. As they got closer she could see movement and heard the familiar sounds of the dead.

“What is this?” Rilla wondered if Butcher was about to feed her to a zombie. It was too soon. Victoria was still in the house. Rilla wouldn’t go without a fight and got ready to tackle Butcher. If she had to wrestle the gun from him she would. “What are you doing?”

“You wanted to talk to him, go ahead. Talk. Ask him anything you want.”

Butcher pushed Rilla forward causing her to fall to the ground once more. On her knees she looked up at the strange object that had been erected in the middle of the garden. A tall piece of wood stretched vertically up in front of her with another section nailed horizontally across the upper half. A body was nailed to the cross, its arms outstretched and guts ripped open. The body twitched but couldn’t free itself.

“Oh my God.” Rilla put her hands over her mouth in shock as she looked at the crucified corpse that hovered above her. “Is it... is that Attwood?”

“Bingo.” Butcher stood next to Rilla. “That asshole deserved nothing less. He wasn’t going to let us in either. My mother, Verity, worked for him for years. She did all sorts of work for him. She cleaned this place from top to bottom, and when the shit went down he turned her away. If it wasn’t for me and Tad, we’d still all be out there. So don’t go feeling sorry for him. He got what he deserved.”

In her peripheral vision Rilla saw Butcher’s gun. She could try now. She could spring up and grab it while he was off guard.

“So you just took his house and killed him. Why leave him here? Like this?”

“A reminder, so that people like you realize this is all mine now. If you cross me, you’ll end up next to him. Or worse I’ll feed you to my dogs to be eaten alive.”

Rilla jumped up and grabbed Butcher’s arm. He dropped the gun and together they fell to the ground. Rilla quickly punched Butcher in the face and in the gut, and then spun around looking for the gun. It lay next to an overgrown rose bush, and she reached for it. But with her hand only an inch from it, she felt a stinging pain in her leg and screamed out. Another pain erupted in her other leg, in her calf, and Rilla turned over to find Butcher kneeling above her with a long knife in his hand. Blood oozed from his broken nose, and he looked angry.

“You think it’s gonna be that easy? Have you not heard a single fucking thing I said?” Butcher plunged the knife down and stabbed Rilla at the top of her leg just below her hip.

“Stop!” Rilla cried out and clutched her leg. She felt blood flow freely through her fingers, and white hot pain racked her body. Butcher crawled up her body and shoved her arms beneath his knees, leaving her powerless to break free from underneath him. “Please.”

Butcher brought the knife to Rilla’s throat. She could feel her own blood dripping from it onto her skin and closed her eyes. She wished she had died with her parents. She couldn’t take on Butcher on her own. She should’ve have stayed with them and fought with them. She had let them down, and now she had let Victoria down. If Butcher didn’t kill her right now she was going to bleed to death.

“You think you know everything. What were you going to do? Shoot me, shoot Conan, and Tad and Verity? Then what? Cut Attwood down and give him a nice burial? You’re wasting your time. You’re never getting out of here.
Never
.”

Butcher lowered his face and let his soft lips kiss her cheek. Rilla felt his breath caress her neck, and she could feel his beard on her skin, his breath mixing with hers as he leered over her, all the while holding the knife to her neck.

“Please don’t hurt me, don’t—”

“What?” Butcher pressed the knife firmly against her neck, nicking the skin. A thin line of blood trickled out.

Rilla screwed her eyes shut. “Don’t rape me,” she whispered. “Just kill me. Get it over with. Do it.”

Butcher laughed. “Why would I do that?”

Rilla said nothing. Whatever answer she gave would be the wrong one. Her arms and legs were going numb, and she could hear Attwood moaning above them.