Fighting to Survive (As the World Dies #2)(101)

There was more discussion on the video feed. Finally, a door opened on the opposite side of the truck, facing away from the fort, and figures were slipped out and moved to the back the truck. At last, a tall, almost handsome man stepped into view, dragging a girl with a gun firmly pressed to her temple. The girl looked to be around sixteen. Her features were badly distorted and her arms and legs were covered in bruises and cuts.

“Enough of the bullshitting. We want guns, ammo and enough food to get us through the winter, or I'm going to kill this little girl,” the man shouted.

“That's Martin. Gawddammit. They busted him out of prison. He'll do it. He'll kill her,” Curtis said.

“No, he won't,” Nerit answered and said into her mouthpiece. “Katarina.”

“High or low,” Katarina's voice said, small and tinny and barely heard by those around Nerit.

“Low,” Nerit said after a pause. “It will be merciful. We can't save her anyway.”

On the monitor, the tall, gruff, charismatic man was jerking the girl about by her hair, making a good show. Her head jerked back and blood splattered his face. He found himself holding a very dead young woman. Her blood dripped from his startled features. With a wordless exclamation, he dropped her and stepped back in shock.

Curtis jerked his head toward Nerit. “What the f*ck?”

Katie covered her face with her hands and turned away.

“It’s a better fate than the one they would have dished out,” Travis said in an agonized voice.

“We just don't kill innocent people,” Juan protested, then hesitated, before adding, “do we?”

Katie looked back at the monitor to see the leader had recovered.

“Oh, so you'll kill someone who doesn't mean shit to you, huh? Then what about one of your own?”

Travis later thought he shouldn't have been surprised when a large burly man dragged Shane out of the back of the camper. He should have known that Shane was too mean to die at the hands of the zombies like Philip had. It shouldn't have been a shock that he would find a way to the bandits. But the once arrogant sonofabitch was dressed in a ragged dress and had makeup smeared all over his face. He looked battered and abused with his mouth gagged and his hands tied with rope. It bothered Travis to no end to see tear marks streaking Shane's face.

Beside him, Katie put her head down, and whispered, “Oh, God.”

Shane was struggling, trying to get free. Maybe he had not told the bandits why he was out of the fort, but it didn't matter.

“I got one of your boys from a patrol right here! He's a pretty thing, don't you think?” Martin grinned and patted Shane's cheek.

“What did they do to him? What the f*ck? That ain't right!” Curtis was horrified.

“They're beasts. They don't need a reason to do what they are doing,” Nerit answered. “Katarina,” she said into her headpiece. “Take care of it.”

Shane was struggling, reaching toward the fort with bloodied hands, screaming behind his gag. The big guy cuffed him hard and Shane staggered. He fell to his knees and his head snapped back as Katarina put him down.

Travis was surprised that he felt remorse. No one deserved what Shane had endured.

The monitors showed that the leader was startled and a bit confused by this turn of events.

“This is what you need to say now,” Nerit said to Juan. “Tell him that we have much more to lose than he does, that we have no problem fighting to the death. We have fought zombies and we can fight them. Tell him that we will sacrifice our own to protect the fort. Tell him that we have no problem with killing him or his people. Tell him that we are relentless and cannot be intimidated. Tell him that we have contingencies on contingencies. Tell him that right now, my sniper can blow his f*cking head off without blinking, that she just did it to two innocent people and that right now she's not aiming at his head, but his dick.”

Juan laughed. “I'm gonna love saying that.” And he did...with his own flair, but almost verbatim to what Nerit had said.

On the tiny black and white monitors, they watched the leader take a step back, his bravado completely faded away. Beneath all the grime, the arrogance, and the wild eyes, was a man strung out on drugs and booze and living at the edge of the abyss. For once, he was not in control and he shifted uneasily on his feet.

“Now, let's put cherry on top,” Nerit said. “Signal Jason.”

On top of city hall, a camouflage's sheet was thrown off. The teenagers and Roger quickly unfurled the long slingshot and loaded it up with a nice homemade Molotov cocktail. The kids had been practicing for weeks, so when their first shot hit the last bandit truck and sent it bursting into flames, no one was really surprised. Cheers erupted all over the fort.

Below, the bandits panicked. Through the smoke, they could be seen scrambling to get back into their trucks.

It was then that the mini-bus flew down Main Street, zombies flowing behind it. Ed was leading the zombie horde like a pied piper for the undead. Through the smoke, the bandits did not see the mini-van or the zombies, until the mini-bus turned into the quickly opening gate.

The zombies, finding fresh bodies, were immediately on the bandit trucks. They ripped at Shane's body, the guy Katarina had shot in the knee, and the body of the dead girl. They lay siege to the trucks, beating on them, desperate to feast on those within.