Live (NOLA Zombie Book 3) (11 page)

“We didn’t take no women. Lloyd, he got bit, we had to kill him.”
 

“What about the other guy, on the road? On the road by the crashed SUV, is that what you do, just leave your men where they fall? Who killed him, did the brunette take out your man, did she kill your friend? Y’all couldn’t even take down a woman without losing someone? Two someones?”

“We didn’t take no women. Let us go, man! We’re just trying to survive!” he hollered.
 

“Zach, I need water, fill up anything you got, jugs, just use the marsh water. Hannah, I need a cloth, like a small towel.”
 
I paced in front of the men while Baby and Zach rounded up what I needed.
 

I knelt down in front of my target.

“What’s your name?” I asked as docile as I could force my voice.

“Clem, Clem Cook.”
 

“You look like the smartest of this lot, Clem. You know you can just tell me what you did with the women and we’ll go away, leave y’all alone.”

“We didn’t take no women,” he hissed.

“I know you’re lying, Clem, and I don’t know why. Why don’t you just tell us? We’ll go away, leave you…and who is that, your momma? Is that your mom, Clem?” I looked over at the older woman who was glaring at me.

“Yeah, that’s my momma.”

“I bet your momma wants us to go, right Momma?” I asked her.

“Fuck you,” she spat and I smiled, if she would have acted like a scared mother I might have balked, this made things easier.
 

“Y’all are fun,” I stood back up.
 
“You know what isn’t fun?” I asked in general. “Three tours in shithole countries where everyone wants to kill you. Where just saying you’re an American paints a fucking target on your back. Where women and children strap fucking bombs to their bodies and try to give you a fucking hug. But, see, those people, those enemies that tried to kill me…at least they had a fucking reason, a fucking passion and a belief system. I might not have agreed with it…but at least there was a reason. You bunch of lowlifes, what’s your reason? Can’t get a woman that’s not your sister to fuck you? Is that why you took the girls?” I pushed the man next to Clem back with my boot and he fell over awkwardly on his tied hands.
 

“Is that what it was? You saw pretty girls and your inbred dicks got hard? Y’all a bunch of rapists?” I asked, my voice still even and moderated even though I was seething inside.
 

Zach and Baby came into the room. He had filled a tub with water and put down a large Big Gulp cup next to it. Baby handed me the towel.
 

“My boys ain’t rapist, they didn’t touch those girls,” the woman cried.

“Then what the fuck did you do with them?” I screamed. All of them flinched, but said nothing.
 

“We know you took them, all you have to do is tell us where they are,” Zach spoke up quietly from the corner of the room.
 

“We didn’t take ya women, let us go. You got the wrong group, we ain’t them, man,” the one closest to the door spat.
 

“I guess we need to change things up a bit.” I smiled down at them. I don’t know why they were being so obstinate. Maybe they thought if they denied it, we would eventually let them go.
Wrong
.

I reached down, pushing Clem forward and cutting his zip ties. He pulled his hands from me and instinctively rubbed at his wrists.
 

“One last time, Clem…I know you took them. Where are they?”

“Fuck you,” he responded.
 

“You keep up with politics, Clem?” I turned and walked away from him, trusting that he would just sit there like the senseless slug he was.

“I don’t vote, this ain…ain’t right…whatcha talking about, ma-ma-man? This is crazy,” he stuttered.
 

“Political agendas, that sort of thing. You follow that kind of stuff?”

He just stared up at me stupidly.

“You ever heard of waterboarding? Caused quite a controversy a few years back, all the bleeding hearts pitched a fit, didn’t care much that we were torturing terrorists to get information. Of course, they rejoiced when we killed the bad guys. They just didn’t like how we got the information to kill the bad guys. You ever been waterboarded, Clem?”

“Fuck, no, what the fuck>” He pushed himself off of the floor and Zach was behind him in an instant.

“I’ve been waterboarded, had to in SERE training. Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, now that was a blast. Wasn’t as bad as some of the other shit they put us through, but it breaks someone quick. Really quick. Humans don’t like to feel like they’re drowning. Hold him down.”

Zach took Clem down with a few quick moves and then threw him on his back, tying his hands in front of him. Baby went to his legs and Zach went to his head. I grabbed the towel and soaked it in the tub of marsh water Zach had brought up. The water stunk of fish, an added bonus. I squeezed the excess water out of the towel and then grabbed the cup, filling it to the brim with the water from the tub.
 

I leaned down next to Clem who was now thrashing with Baby and Zach holding him in place. The two other men had pushed back against the sofa and were practically whimpering, staring at us. The situation wasn’t optimal, the subject was usually tied down to a plank. I wouldn’t be able to maintain a steady stream, but I was pretty sure the one cup would be enough. They had no reason to hold onto the information.
 

“You see, Clem, the thing about this little brand of torture…it isn’t going to kill you. It’s not even going to leave any lasting marks. None you can see anyway. You ever almost drowned, Clem?” I put the wet cloth over his face, covering his nose and mouth. I waiting for a couple of seconds for him to try and take a breath through the saturated material. He heaved and Baby and Zach held him tight.

I began to pour the water over his face. I didn’t gush it over him in one big burst. I slowly let it pour over his face, as if I was watering a plant. He began to convulse and Zach and Baby held strong, until I had finished pouring out all the water from the cup, then they moved away from him.

He jerked and pulled himself into a fetal position, rolling over to his side, the cloth fell off of his face and he dry heaved, coughing violently as if he was drowning. I went to the tub and filled up the cup again, pleased to hear the sputtering of Clem had turned to sobs, his mother’s wailing joining with him.

“Leave ‘em alone, you bastards,” she wailed.

“Where’s Alexis?”
 

I walked over to Clem and Baby grabbed his legs again.
 

“What did you do with them, Clem?”

“They’ll kill me,” he moaned.
 

“I’m going to kill you, Clem, torture you and then kill you.” I motioned and Zach held his head again. Clem was now sobbing. I grabbed for the towel and placed it over Clem’s face again, but this time the old woman spoke up.

“We sold them. We sold them to the bikers in Lakeview. We were hungry, we needed food. They told us to bring them women,” she moaned. “Let ‘em go, just let ‘em go.”
 

“You sold them?” Zach stood to his full height and I grabbed his shoulder before he could do something.
 

“We were hungry,” Clem whined from the floor. “And now they’re gonna kill us when they find out we told you!”
 

“Clem, those bikers are going to be the least of your worries,” Baby purred, then stood and kicked him hard in the ribs, drawing the Browning she had at her hip.
 

“Hannah, stand down,” I ordered and her arm dropped to her side, but her finger was still on the trigger, just as the com clicked on and Martinez’s voice buzzed loud in our ears.

“Um hey kids, we got incoming…”

ALEXIS

I awoke to a gentle shaking and sat up fast, my fist flying. The sound of a woman’s curse had me pulling back my fists and looking around the room in a panic. An older woman stood at the side of the bed looking down at me. She looked hard and not at all pleased with me.
 

“So, you’re Brandon’s property now?” she asked in a dispassionate whisper.
 

“I’m no one’s property.”
 

“So you say, girl. C’mon let’s get you cleaned up. He won’t wake up for hours.” She threw some clothes at me and I gratefully took them. It was a tee and some gym shorts. They would do nothing to protect me from the cold, but I think that was the point. Luckily this building seemed to hold the heat.
 

I slid off the bed, the motion making the old bastard grunt and roll over on his side. My whole body ached from the beating he had given me, especially my ribs. I moved my torso to check if there was more damage, but it seemed I was just achy and bruised. I slipped on the clothes the woman had provided.
 

She walked to the door and held it open, motioning for me to follow. The place was bright when I walked out of the draped office and I blinked against the stark difference. It must have been early morning because the sun was shining in from the east harshly.
 

The counter still had piles of white powder all over it, but most of the men had cleared out. Everyone except the VP. He was clear-eyed and was currently just sitting there watching me as I exited the office.
 

There was a nude woman on her knees at his feet and when he saw my eyes go to her, he smiled and grabbed her by her hair, pulling her head back. When she cried out, his smile widened. He fumbled with his pants and forced her head to his crotch where I assumed she began to service him because her head bobbed up and down over his lap, his own hand forcing her down onto him over and over again.
 

My hands clenched into fists and my nails dug into my palms. His eyes locked on mine and I recognized pure smug satisfaction there. He liked that it pissed me off, he got off on the sexual gratification and the power he held. Brandon Senior might be a drug-induced lunatic, but his son was a monster. He didn’t even have drugs for an excuse.
 

“This way,” the woman said as she led me down toward the back of the store. She pushed through two swinging doors into a storeroom. The doors were equipped with a large padlock which I knew wasn’t standard before Z. This is where they locked up the women. The storeroom was darker, with fewer windows than the shopping area and was full of women. There had to be at least thirty in here. A few sofas were scattered here and there and piles of rags were scattered on the floor with a few items positioned around them.
Those must be their beds.
Racks of clothes lined the side of the room, they seemed to be the cleanest thing in this rank place.
 
From the bright colors and filmy fabrics, nothing looked practical. Rows and rows of slut-attire for women treated like nothing more than tools.
 

Bile rose in my throat.

There was a large, raised, stainless-steel tub toward the back of the room and a fire burned underneath it. Smoke poured out and filtered to the ceiling which had a makeshift chimney cut out. The smell of wood-smoke and unclean bodies couldn’t be appealing to anyone. I pulled the cloth of tee over my face, but then second guessed myself and pulled it down. I shouldn’t shame these women even more by pointing out the smell.

 
There were enough women in this group to come together and take out the bikers. They would only have to combine and join forces. The bikers didn’t have that good of a defense in place to keep a group like this cowed.
 

I looked around the room and that quick flare of hope was extinguished. Each face that looked back at me was broken. Eyes were glazed. Faces were slack. These women were broken. Some had the telltale look of addicts, others just looked like beaten dogs. No one met my eyes, no one look offended at my obviously pummeled face. No one stepped up when the old woman pushed me forward toward the tub and I stumbled.
 

No one except one girl.
 

She was cleaner than the rest. A new addition, maybe? She was half-naked and cleaning herself around the tub.
 
She grabbed my elbow to steady me as the hag pushed me again. I would have fallen into the water if she hadn’t stopped me.
 

I smiled in thanks, but her face remained stoic, no emotions showing.
 

“Did he fuck you, girl?” the old woman asked me. She grabbed a washcloth off of a shelf nearby and handed it to me, motioning that I was supposed to clean myself with it.
 

“He couldn’t get it up,” I said quietly, not knowing if my confession would anger her or make her happy. Her reaction surprised me. She laughed maniacally and a genuine grin crossed her face. Happy it was.

“Well, then you don’t have to clean that pussy.” Her laughter cut off abruptly and she walked off, with one final parting shot over her shoulder, “Get clean, pick out something to wear and we’ll get you back to Brandon when he’s ready. Better hope he’s loaded, it’ll keep his prick soft, but he’ll take it out on your ass in some way.” She laughed again as she pushed through the doors. “Better you than me.”