Crashing Down - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 3) (11 page)

Right as Penn reached out to open the door, it opened and Dominick was standing there staring at us. It was like my mind was a window. He looked at me and I felt as though he could instantly read all of my thoughts. It seemed as if he knew we were trying to make another attempt at an escape.

He looked at me, and then at Penn. Dominick clicked his tongue. “If you make another move to leave this camp I’ll lock you up. How can I trust you idiots if you keep trying to escape?” he whispered. I wondered if the evil inside him was growing even quicker than he could manage.

My hands started to shake as it was again confirmed that we weren’t free to come and go as we pleased. We would always be exactly where Dominick wanted us to be. Always.

If we tried to leave the camp again, I was almost certain everyone would come after us. Dragging and pulling us back into Dominick’s lair. And they wouldn’t play nice either. They’d use what dirty method would please Dominick the most. And whatever would cause us the most discomfort.

Dominick gestured towards the door and nodded, “I want to show you all something.”

W
e followed
Dominick around the main building, out past the hanging stage and along the fence until he stopped abruptly. He stood in front of a thick piece of wood that was laying flat on the ground. There was a giant rock placed on each corner.

“This,” he said as he rolled a stone off of the wood panel, “is the prison.”

Dominick worked to remove the remaining stones while we stayed several feet back. For some reason I was worried he’d open it up and someone was going to come from behind and push us into whatever was under the wood panel.

He motioned for us to step closer and I took a slow apprehensive step, but it was enough. I saw the small holes that had been cut into the wood each about the size of a baseball.

Dominick grabbed something from his pocket and dropped it down. The noises that came from below the wood plank were horrific. It sounded like two dying men fighting for their life, but that they were too weak to really do anything about it. Moaning and crying… it was awful. I turned my head and covered my mouth. I didn’t even want to know what was going on down there in Dominick’s prison.

After several minutes Dominick dropped down what appeared to be a piece of rotten fruit, or a large mushroom, I couldn’t be sure. I hoped that now they each had something the dreadful howling would come to an end. But it hadn’t. They still fought over the second item. Dominick smiled down at them through the holes in the wood.

He walked to the edge as if he was going to lift it up for us to see inside. I waved my hand and started walking away. I wasn’t going to look. No one could make me look.

“That is just so wrong,” I muttered and Dean stepped closer to me. This had been a threat. Dominick was showing us his prison because he knew we wouldn’t want to end up down there with the ghosts. He was trying to tell us that if we tried to escape again, he wouldn’t hesitate to put us down in his underground prison.

He started rolling the stones back on top of the wood panel. I wouldn’t be able to survive down there. Who knew how often these two men had been fed. It could have been days since their last meal. If you could even call that a meal.

If Dominick decided to put us down there, we’d die down there. Unless of course we could manage to find a way out, but for some reason I was almost sure Dominick had it tested. Escape would have been very difficult if not impossible.

“I….” I stopped myself. I wanted to tell him I hated him. But now I couldn’t be sure if that would earn me a one-way ticket to Dominick’s underground prison.

So I just closed my mouth, watching his smirk grow as I did so. I hated that stupid, self-satisfied grin. The one I wanted to slap right off his stupid face.

He nodded at me as if now we finally had an understanding. Then he nodded to the others. Dominick brushed himself off as if he had managed to get dirty just by being near his prisoners. Once the cell was sufficiently sealed he started back towards the main building. He waved for us to follow, which we did without hesitation.

I was scared but I could tell by the look on Penn’s face he was still trying to find a way to get us out of here. And if anyone could do it… it would be Penn.

As we made our way back, we all stopped and grabbed onto one another when we heard the loud noise. Then there were voices. Men were shouting and women were screaming. Whatever was happening had caused an outright panic.

I considered running and trying to make my way over the fence, but the helpless cries wouldn’t let me. Maybe it was stupid, but it sounded like they were in real trouble.

When we got closer I saw that a large part of the surrounding fence had been broken through. And then I saw them. Countless dog-beasts were filtering inside the camp at an alarming rate.

I grabbed Dean’s arm, and we ran towards the tree house with Penn and Sienna following close behind. Dominick and his men were just behind them and I was worried they might stop us from climbing up. For a brief second I had vision of him throwing us off of the ladder so he could make his way up to the top first. Thankfully he hadn’t.

Dezzie was standing behind him with his gun drawn. Dominick started up the ladder behind us and Dezzie quickly followed him while the dogs were busy with other easier targets. They hadn’t noticed us yet. If they had Dezzie wouldn’t have been able to take them all out by himself. I wondered if he realized how lucky he had been.

Dominick’s men shot at the dogs but there were so many of them. There were men on top of buildings, some on the ground and some shooting out of various windows. But they weren’t quick enough. There were more dogs than there were men shooting. And sadly it seemed the best time to shoot the dogs was when they were taking someone down and Dominick’s men had quickly realized that. For each man the dog-beasts took down, Dominick’s men took out three to four of the dog-beasts.

I looked out over the fence to see if I could tell who was behind all of this, although I already had my suspicions. There were HOME army men blowing on what appeared to be some kind of whistle. The dog-beasts seemed to hate it and they ran from it. It was a noise that only they could hear and it made them even more angry than usual. They attacked ferociously taking down anyone and everyone in their path.

Beyond the gates there were three delivery type trucks parked side by side. The doors at the back of the truck were pulled open by the men standing on top of the trucks. They each held a rope that had been tied to the door handle. Of course the men on top of the trucks were perfectly safe, but anyone who was on the ground wasn’t. Everyone in Dominick’s camp that had been outside was getting attacked and bitten. The dog-beasts savagely tore at their flesh. If the dog-beasts didn’t kill them on the spot, I knew they’d eventually die from the bites.

My stomach turned seeing all of the defenseless people laying on the ground being torn apart by the vicious dog-beasts. The HOME army didn’t care. They wanted to wipe out the entire camp. They were probably thrilled with each person the dog-beasts pulled down to the ground. Dominick had been right about one thing, HOME did want everyone dead, at least in the resistance camps, and would do whatever they deemed necessary.

I wasn’t sure exactly how many of Dominick’s men had been taken out by the dog-beasts. There seemed to be at least forty men and women laying on the ground with just as many, if not more, dead dog-beasts. The ground was covered with blood, dogs and bodies. It was so gory and bloody it didn’t even seem like it was real.

Once all of the dogs were inside the fence, the HOME army men got back inside their trucks and drove off leaving the dog-beasts and their mess behind. Dominick watched the trucks driving away. I knew he wished he could go after them.

The men below continued to shoot the dogs until there was nothing moving. Then the air was filled with a deafening silence. No gunfire. No talking. No movement. Nothing.

“DOMINICK!” someone shouted from a nearby rooftop.

“He’s up here,” Dezzie called back. “Stay where you are!”

“Shit!” Dominick whispered but his face looked like he had wanted to scream obscenities at the world. “What do we do now?”

I looked at Penn to see if he had noticed Dominick’s momentary lapse of confidence. It appeared as though he had, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything we could do right now about it. His men were down there holding guns. We wouldn’t be able to get away.

“How many men do you think are left?” Dominick asked Dezzie as he scanned the area below. He shook his head. The scene seemed to almost be too much for even him.

“Forty? Maybe fifty? And who knows how many are laying out there alive and bitten,” Dezzie said looking out over the crimson field of people.

“OK,” Dominick said taking a deep breath. I could tell he was trying to collect his thoughts and figure out where he’d start with fixing this mess. “Be on alert,” he said mostly looking towards Mack, “gather everyone up and go to the big house. Don’t let anyone in that’s been bitten, scratched or injured by one of those things. We’ll have to figure out what to do with the afflicted later.”

Dezzie and Mack deliberately made their way down the ladder. Neither of them seemed excited to make the descent. We stood there staring at Dominick. I was worried about what he was going to instruct us to do. For all I knew maybe he’d try to make us clean up the bloody mess that had been left behind.

“Go down, I’ll show you where the house is,” he said as he ran his fingers through his hair. I could tell he was still uncertain and hadn’t quite figured out exactly what to do about what HOME had just done to his camp. And to his people.

Once we were all down on the ground we followed him towards one of the large houses near the fence at the back of the camp. Penn removed his gun as if he was worried a stray dog-beast might jump out at us.

Before we reached the big house, we stopped at what I assumed was a dead body. About ten feet away was a definitely dead dog-beast. Its head was cranked to the side in an impossible position. It looked like someone had broken its neck.

The man on the ground twitched, and none of us had been expecting it. I think we all jumped back at the same time. I didn’t remember having ever seen the man before. He was lying there, covered in blood blinking his bright blue eyes up at us.

He looked at Dominick and took a slow, painful breath. I wasn’t sure if he recognized him. It almost seemed as though he was looking through him. His breathing was so slow, I thought each breath would be his last. He took in a little more air and winced, “Please… kill me.”

Dominick looked at us and then up towards the sky. He smiled and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe this was happening. I wasn’t sure I could believe any of it either. I looked over at Dean and heard the loud pop of Dominick’s gun.

My whole body shook. Dominick stood there, his gun still aimed at the man on the ground’s forehead. He’d shot him.

I didn’t know what to think. But then again, I knew what would happen to him without the cure. Maybe I would have done the same? Saved him from a short, miserable future… and there were other people left in the camp to consider. The innocent people needed to be protected.

We followed him up the stairs to what they referred to as the big house. It had at one point been painted white, but now it was mostly peeling away. The building was soggy and droopy like most buildings out this way looked.

Dominick put his hand on the doorknob and paused. His shoulders raised up and then slowly dropped back down. And as if someone had flipped a switched he turned around and was in Penn’s face. He was less than an inch away but it didn’t intimidate Penn. He stood his ground.

“This is all because of you isn’t it?” he shouted, jabbing two of his fingers into Penn’s shoulder.

“What?” Penn said, with a look of pure disbelief on his face. “What did I do?”

“We didn’t have any of these problems until you came into our camp. HOME hadn’t come around this much until you showed up. Coincidence?” Dominick said pushing at both of Penn’s shoulders aggressively.

I didn’t believe what he was saying to be true. He had mentioned earlier having to move the camp again. If it hadn’t been because of HOME, why else would they have had to move the whole camp? Dominick was probably just looking for someone to blame and Penn was an easy target because he was new and he was from HOME. And maybe it was in the back of Dominick’s mind still about needing to remove Penn’s tattoos.

I could tell that Penn wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer. He wasn’t afraid of Dominick. Far from it. The only thing Penn was afraid of was death, well that and maybe HOME too. But that was only because he knew HOME would kill him.

“Dude, I had nothing to do with any of this. How would I orchestrate that? Use your brain, man. I hate HOME. Probably even more than you do. Honestly, I don’t even know why or what you think you are fighting against,” Penn said his face bright red from anger.

“That’s exactly what I’d expect someone from HOME to say.” Dominick looked like he was going to spit on Penn, but he turned his head at the last minute and missed him by a couple of centimeters.

“Come on,” Penn said right as Dominick took a swing at Penn’s face. But Penn easily ducked out of the way. “Is that all you got?”

I wanted to step in and stop them before someone actually got hurt. Penn wouldn’t stop. I knew he would have no trouble exchanging blows until one of them was knocked unconscious. He would fight until the bitter end if that’s what it came down to.

Dominick straightened himself and flashed Penn his cocky smirk, but the look didn’t faze Penn. He just put up his fists, ready to defend… and attack. Dominick didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Or maybe he did and didn’t care.

“Come on guys! That’s enough,” Dean shouted, taking a small step in their direction. I could tell he hoped he’d be able to talk them out of their fight, but I saw the look in Penn’s eyes. That wasn’t going to happen just by asking. He probably couldn’t even hear Dean’s voice he was so in his zone.

“Yeah, why don’t you listen to your friend,” Dominick said as if he was taunting Penn. Almost trying to force him to break his concentration so he could release another blow. Only this time he would actually want to land it.

But Penn didn’t look away. There probably wasn’t anything that could cause him to look away. Dezzie was rushing towards us. He looked sad, but that quickly changed to confusion when he saw Dominick and Penn. I could tell he didn’t understand what he was seeing, but he picked up his pace to a full on run probably realizing that what he was seeing wasn’t good.

“Hey? Dom?” Dezzie shouted, but Dominick ignored him. He took a step to the side as if he was trying to psych Penn out. Then he bobbed to the other side and tried to throw another punch.

I think he had been aiming for Penn’s nose, but he hit him in the shoulder. Penn’s eyes turned dark. He was going to a place inside him I didn’t think he should go. He pulled back his fist as if he was going to punch but instead he dropped down and swung out his leg taking Dominick by surprise.