The Bomb and the Cage: Doree Anne (19 page)

“Robert do you recognize any of these people?” Linda asked.

I looked at the three people. One was a young girl that looked around ten years old. She was wearing a white dress with yellow flowers on it, sunflowers. The flesh on her right arm was torn in long gory chunks. There were several bite marks on her face and chest where something had bit her.

The other two were librarians. One was Scott Wilson. Scott was the head librarian. His stomach was torn open and from where I was standing looked hollow inside. He was wearing a white dress shirt that was hanging on by one arm and was drenched in his blood. There was a black tie around his throat but it was pulled to the back. His tan pants were soaked in blood and he only had on one black dress shoe on.

The other person was April Gilmore. April was a volunteer who had been working here maybe eight months. I remember Amy talking about how she was such a gentle and kind woman. Now she was on her left side with a hole in her eye where Bruce stabbed her. Her other eye was still open, it was completely gray. She had bite marks around her right hand and arm. I couldn’t see the other arm or hand but I was sure it was the same. The bite marks were small, like they came from
children
.

I looked over to Bruce who looked to be saying a prayer over the child. He took the crossbow and shot the back of its head. A moment later, he went around the room pulling out the bolts, cleaning them, and putting them back in his backpack. He didn’t talk while doing this and neither did Linda. I wondered if they had seen any other children transformed into these things. However, by the somber appearance, I didn’t think they had.

“So I guess your girlfriend made it out?” Linda said, looking at the only window in the room. It was intact, closed, and locked. If Amy made it out, she had done so before the children were infected.

“I guess so, but there’s no telling where she might have gone.” I said.

“Maybe she went to the three-story building on Main Street?” Linda said.

“Maybe she did, but there’s no telling. If you hadn’t talked about going there I would never have thought of it.”

“Well Robert, we should go there now. If she’s not there, we can always go look for her later. We can’t stay here too much longer.” Bruce said.

“You’re right, let’s get going. Oh, and Bruce.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for trying. You could have stopped at the front and let me out, you didn’t have to come in and risk your life.”

“We’re in this together.”  

Chapter 42

09/18/2004 1230 Hours

Inmate Max Helm

              If you would have told me, I was going to be a free man yesterday, I’d had told you that you were full of shit.
Max Helm was a monster that deserved to rot in prison for the remaining of his life
, was just one of the things the newspapers said about me. Was I a monster? Yeah, it was true. I hadn’t meant for things to get so crazy, but does anyone? Sometimes things just get out of control. Ten years, five months, and twenty-two days I’d been locked up for the murder of a pregnant mother of two.

I remember the night being pretty cold. I had been drinking at one of the local bars called
Frogs
. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall type of places. The kind filled with people from the nearby apartments, too poor to drive somewhere nicer. It was the type of place where they serve you till your pockets are empty, not until they
think
you’ve had enough.

On my way home I passed one of the new duplexes. It was the first time I’ve ever seen anyone outside. The road ran alongside the apartments and outside there was a very attractive young white woman smoking a cigarette. She was bundled up because of the cold and even with all those layers on, she had turned me on. With the liquid courage inside me, I approached her and to my surprise, she didn’t run inside.

“It’s so cold outside. I do believe that Hell has frozen over.” I said, while walking up to her. It was hard I wondered if she was interested in me, but by her silence, I knew she probably wasn’t. The cracked sliding glass door was to her right and she kept looking back towards it. Next thing I knew she ran for the door. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me. However, I was too drunk to keep my balance and fell onto her into and through the sliding glass door. We fell to the floor. I hadn’t been cut too bad because she had blocked most of the shards of glass. This was past the point of no return. With my record whenever the cops showed up they’d throw the book at me.

I dragged her farther inside and raped her. I hadn’t planned to kill her but when I was done I stood over her. I felt so bad. I felt so remorseful. I wanted to make things better. I wanted to fix her. But no! She kept screaming, crying, wailing. I tried to tell her that I was leaving, that everything was going to be better, but when she wouldn’t stop screaming I panicked. I got on top of her and put my hand over her mouth.  I looked around the room and saw a shard of glass from the glass door. I slashed her throat with it. However, unlike in the movies, she continued to struggle, to fight the inevitable. I watched her die a slow and painful death.

I rolled off and laid there. I couldn’t tell how long I stared at her. Something was just so odd about her. Something in her twisted grin that just seemed to be dreadfully sad. I’d find out later that she was eight months pregnant. I hadn’t noticed because of the cold weather clothing she had been wearing and her smoking. It was sad that she was taken out of this world so soon. Her two children, a boy that was five and a girl that was two, would never get to grow up knowing their mother.

While in prison, I blamed the alcohol, which was easy to blame. It covered up most of my guilt and made me feel better about myself. Over time, I felt more and more like a cliché. Alcohol might have given me the courage to approach her, but it couldn’t have caused me to rape and murder her. If alcohol had that kind of effect then there would be raped and murdered women everywhere.

Then one day an officer talked to me about God. He suggested that I talk to others that went to prison church. I met several people who pretended to believe in God and go to the prison church for the after service treats. I started going too, not for my salvation but for the cookies they gave out. The people who preached knew that the reason most of the inmates came were the cookies. The officers even called them
Cookie Christians
. 

Then one day it happened. It was during a Sunday morning service that I finally received peace for my crime. I was a monster. One day I would die and go to Hell where I will pay for my sins. I would finally in death get my deserved punishment. This was the answer to my crime. Just knowing that I was dammed to be eternally tortured in Hell for my crime satisfied my guilt. 

One of the biggest problems with being a rapist who raped and murdered a late term pregnant woman was that no one made me pay while in prison. You’d think that there would be people that would cause me suffering, officers and inmates who would deliver daily beatings. But no, prison was a cakewalk. Sure I couldn’t have my freedom to do as I please, have a girlfriend, own a house or car, or pick what I ate, but I was always so broke I couldn’t do those things anyway when I was free. On top of that, I didn’t have any stress. I didn’t have bills or have to worry about where my next meal was going to come from. Prison was a vacation for everyone, just as long as you kept to yourself.       

***

“Max, are you oaky?” I looked to see Eugene standing in front of me. I was sitting in front of the gas station leaning against the wall.

”Yeah, just tired.”

“Well get up brother, we’ve got a job to do.”

Williams gave us orders to raid the trailer park behind the gas station. It was going to be Sparring, Robby, Brandon, Eugene, and myself. I had a bad feeling about this, but it needed to be done, especially if we were planning to stay here for any length of time.

We got our weapons ready and walked back there in complete silence. There were five trailers around a road that looped around at the end. Three were on the left and two on the right. At the end of the road was a small well-kept lake with a dock. There was a small chain across the entrance to the dock with a sign and grill next to it. 

We split into two groups of two and Robby covered the groups. Eugene and Brandon started it off by walking up to the first trailer door and kicked it in. There was yelling followed by loud banging sounds. A moment later, Eugene came out and yelled it was
clear
. I guess there wasn’t a need for knocking or survivors. No, this was how our group apparently was going to do things.

Sparring kicked in the door to our trailer and led with his shotgun out. Inside there was silence. The trailer was a mess and smelled of feces and trash. The living room was furnished with a single brown couch and clothes piled up in the far corner of the room. In the kitchen dirty dishes piled up in the sink.

There was a small hallway in the kitchen that led to two doors. The first one was probably a bathroom and the back was a bedroom. We kicked in the door to the bedroom and inside crouched in the corner was a heavyset woman. She was a young white woman wearing a grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans with long curly brown hair. I could tell she was terrified.

“Hello there!” Sparring said, walking to her. She jumped up holding a knife.

“Come any closer and I’ll stab you!”

“Listen miss, we’re not here to hurt you. We just are searching for those things.” Sparring said.

“Then why did you kick down my door?”

“We don’t have time for this. Please just put the knife away and come with us.”

For just a moment, she lowered her guard and that was all it took. In one fluid movement, Sparring grabbed the arm with the knife. He pulled her closer, clubbed her with the shotgun, and threw her onto the bed. He ripped her pants off as she started kicking and screaming. He was going to rape her. I looked at her and she wasn’t that same woman I had seen a few moments ago, she was the woman I killed. She looked up at me with those eyes.

“Please save me!” I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. “It’s not too late Max!” I pressed the barrel of the shotgun against Sparring chest. He stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. There was a look of shock across his face. I fired the shotgun. The shell ripped his chest to shreds. He fell to the ground. I threw down my shotgun and spit on his corpse as I walked out of the room. The woman didn’t follow me.

When I came out into the living room Eugene and Brandon were coming inside.

“Sparring is dead.” I said.

“What happened?” Eugene asked. His voice was filled with anger.

“He got shot in the stomach. Why don’t you go see?”

Eugene went into the bedroom and a moment later, there was a gunshot. Then he came back into the hallway with his pistol aimed at my face.

“Did she do it or did you? It sure does look strange, a fat girl over powered Sparring, shot him with his own shotgun, and you or her still being alive!” Eugene shook his gun at me. “Answer me!”

“He was going to rape her! That girl is eight months pregnant!” Eugene and Brandon both looked confused by my outburst.

              I was sure Eugene would have shot me dead right there but he never got the chance. Sparring came from behind and bit him on the side of the neck. Eugene screamed as blood squirted from his neck onto the wall beside him. Brandon fired his rifle, the round missed. Sparring’s right hands came up and went into Eugene’s mouth. The hands pulled back, ripping his cheeks open and blood started running down his face. Brandon fired again and again he missed. Sparring pulled back the loose flesh around Eugene’s face until his face started to come up over his head.

“Brandon we need to get out of here!” Eugene fell to the floor with the
Gray
Eye
Sparring on his back. “Brandon he’s already dead! Let’s go!” I pulled Brandon out of the trailer and slammed the door shut as the woman from the bedroom came out and joined Sparring eating Eugene.

Outside Robby was running towards us with the rest of the group. They had their weapons out.

“What is going on?” Williams yelled as he came to us.

“
Gray
Eyes
!” I yelled. The door behind us broke open and Eugene, Sparring, and the fat girl came running out. Brandon and I fell to the ground as the group opened fire at the
Gray
Eyes
.

“The whole trailer park must be infected.” Williams started to yell. “We should torch this place! Jacobs and Robby go get us some gasoline! We’ll watch the trailers out here.” Williams walked over to me. “Max I want to know what happened in there, later after we clean this mess up.” Williams didn’t want to know right then, and I was thankful. I needed the chance to talk Brandon first.

We burned down the trailer park. It didn’t matter anymore if there were salvageable things. No, this was about murder now. This was about cleaning up our tracks. During the fires one or two people tried to run, but they were gunned down as soon as they stepped outside.

Brandon and I watched the horror from the entrance to the trailer park.

“Sparring was going to rape that woman. I would have let him do it too, but she looked at me and it was the girl I killed. I could barely live with myself after killing her. She told me to save her. So, I shot him.” I said. When Brandon was silent I continued. “This isn’t us!”

“Max, it’s not the old world anymore. The only way we’ll stay alive is by sticking together. What did you think was going to happen to the people here?” Brandon looked around. “That Williams is a sick person. You don’t want to get on his bad side. I’ll stick up for you this time, but it’s the only time. Sparring was a dick and had it coming. But think about it, did you make it any better? She died anyways and now they’re torching the other places. We didn’t get any supplies, we lost two people, and we’re wasting time.” 

              After the trailers were burned down, we went back to the gas station. The group gathered together and I told them that Sparring and I had been attacked by a
Gray
Eye
. I shot Sparring by mistake, as he was fighting with her. He died and I ran out of the room. Eugene and Brandon came in. That Eugene was attacked. Then Brandon and I ran out. Brandon confirmed my story. Williams wasn’t happy, but he decided there was nothing else we could do about it. We packed up the rest of the store and started getting ready for the night.