Rex grinned at the youth, “Show me.” The ATV's engine roared to life and its tires peeled out as it accelerated in the direction of the gate.
In the truck, Kimberly squeezed her hands forcing the blood out of her fingers. The growing numbness in her hands did little to keep Alison out of her mind. What am I doing she thought. Oh Daddy, I should have listened to you. Who am I kidding, I made my bed and now I have to sleep in it. It'll be ok, she thought, Carson will fix everything.
The two soldiers guarding the gate had waved the couple through easily enough. Carson had told them they were going to grab medicine from his house down the road and would be back shortly. The guards had warned them to be careful and that they would have to be inspected when they came back.
Carson drove them north down a back road that paralleled Route 8 a mile to the east. The scenery consisted of old farmhouses and wooded lots.
He slowed the vehicle down at the edge of a wooden lot and a cornfield. He turned down a small dirt road used by tractors and pulled the vehicle to a stop near three old bales of hay left over from last season. He reached up and pushed the transmission into park then dropped his head to the steering wheel.
"Carson, are you alright?" Kim said.
"My head hurts,” Carson said, “and I feel like I might be getting a fever."
In the back of the truck, Alison's mind woke from the edge of the abyss. Her head swam with nausea and pain. Her eyes cracked open revealing nothing, blackness encased her. Something was holding her, suffocating her as she tried to move.
Air, she thought. Her jaw ached, but when she tried to open her mouth she found it sealed shut. She felt the bonds of duct tape holding her tightly in its grip. The sticky substance pulled at her skin and hair if she tried to move. Each attempted movement brought a new wave of pain to her head. Her hands stung with numbness, and she realized she was laying facedown. She tried to open her hands, but they were folded together with the fingers interlaced, the tape was wrapped around them fusing them into a knot.
She breathed deeper through her nose for air, but a blanket wrapped around her kept her lungs pleading for more. She tried to kick out with her legs only to find them bound fast together.
A picture of a mummy thousands of years old formed her head. Its body wrapped tightly in bandages. Buried alive, she thought. Adrenaline dumped into her heart and panic ate like acid through her mind.
"We'll dump the body here," Carson said.
Carson, Alison thought. The name felt like someone squeezing her heart, but a part of her felt thankful to hear any voice. Any voice meant life and that held the monster of despair in its chains for the moment.
"You would never hurt me, would you?" Kimberly asked.
"Never," Carson said, "I need you so much. Now more than ever." Carson used the same voice on Alison when she had caught him cheating on her back in med school.
Alison heard the door to the truck open. "Come on let’s get this over with and move on with our lives," Carson said.
Panic filled Alison’s heart once again. Not like this, God, please not like this, she prayed. She felt a wetness filling her eyes in the dark. The back door opened and Alison felt heat from late summer air warm the blanket surrounding her.
Hands grabbed on to Alison's legs; she stiffened as she was pulled backwards.
"Did you see?" Kimberly said. "I think she's alive."
"Kim, we have to do this, now keep pulling."
"I can’t,” Kim said. “This isn’t right. If she’s alive we can’t do this. I can’t do this."
"What choice do we have, Kim?"
"We have to help her, she's hurt,” Kim said. “She's your wife, you can’t do this to her. Please, Carson. Help her, and we can run away. They won’t find us."
"Where are we going to run to?" Carson said. "Those things are everywhere eating everyone they can get their fucking hands on. What do you think is going to happen if we help her? You think they’re going to say, “Bad Doctor Carson and little Kim; let’s put them on trial.” You'll be lucky if they don’t rape you before they put a bullet in you."
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.”