I took the guns from the men I had killed and stripped them, cleaning the parts and making sure everything was in working order. It hadn’t been long since the world ended but I did not trust other people’s weapons. One of them had been damaged in the fight, I wasn’t sure which one it belonged to, but it had a bent barrel, useless.
I finished with that and still had more than an hour until the sun was set and the moon would come up. I went to my bedroom and retrieved a key to the basement, my personal treasury, so to speak.
It contained things of importance to me, or what I wanted to keep safe; an old earthenware plate, a tin cup, a still painted bust of Julius, and sitting in the center of the room was an old chainmail shirt, a tear on the bottom left. I had never had it repaired, it was from the wound that would lead me to become what I am.
I had been riding at the front of a charge, cutting through a retreating column of barbarians. We chased them from the field and into the forest. Once there we were ambushed, arrows and spears coming from all around. I had wheeled my horse back to attempt to escape the forest and charged straight into a young man with a spear. He stabbed me, a gut wound. In return I removed his head from his shoulders, a fair bargain I think.
When I returned to the camp I was told that there was nothing that could be done except to give me something for the pain. I lay for hours as I slowly died. I could have asked one of the others to end my life, but I was coward in life.
During the night a woman arrived in my tent, and she crouched over me, asking if I wanted to live. There would be a price, but she could heal me. It was a lie, she did not heal my wound but killed me, turning me into a mockery of life. Dead but alive. Unable to return home and threatened by the sun itself, I received a powerful thirst that could only be quenched with blood.
I touched the armor, amazed at my own ability to keep the armor after so many years. Beneath it on a stand was my gladius, a little longer than a footman’s gladius, it’s hilt worn from ages of use. The blade much thinner than it had once been, and the sheathe twice replaced. I wanted to take the sword, but I knew it would not hold up to use now, instead I looked at it as a reminder.
I walked around the room, stopping at a myriad of items to recall their use and the memories associated with them. Once done I went upstairs to wake Miss O’Connor to prepare for our battle.
I walked into the room, putting a hand on her shoulder I gave her a single shake. Her eyes snapped open and a gun came out from underneath her pillow, aiming towards my chest. We had already gone over this, if she shot me it would hardly be a nuisance. “Relax Miss O’Connor.”
Slowly the veil of sleep left her completely and she realized what she was doing. The gun came down quickly and she gave me an embarrassed look. “Sorry about that. Um… Max? You should call me Catherine in front of the others when we save them. Less likely to get them to be nervous.” I shrugged in response, she was the people person while I was the murderous monster.
“Fair enough Catherine.”
We spent a half hour preparing, dark clothing, grays and blacks, and we donned the vests from the former skinheads. The less messy ones, the others were drying out after I had washed them. The rifles in the best conditions were taken as well, and I strapped the leader’s Colt 1911 to my hip on a whim, I also slipped a butcher’s knife through my belt that way I could take advantage of the difference in speed and strength in close quarters. It was much quieter than a gun and Catherine told me that I shouldn’t rip people apart during this battle.
Catherine looked me over and shook her head. “You look like you’ve done things like this before.” I was conducting a gear check, pulling the slide on the pistol and looking over the rifle before accepting them for myself.
“I have been a soldier in the past. One never forgets. Though it has been an era since I the last time I have needed to use a weapon against my opponents.”
“It will help you blend in. If anyone asks, just be vague about your past. Military and law enforcement members will probably think you are some sort of alphabet agent. Or some sort of special forces member. You can shoot right?”
“More accurately than any man living I am sure. I picked it up as a hobby about sixty years ago, though I never did collect my own firearms. I had some years ago but sold them to a contact of mine, likely they are in South America by now.”
“Damn… what other hobbies do you have?”
“I enjoy watching funny internet videos.”
She froze at this point and then broke down laughing. I guess the thought of a man who could tear another man’s heart from his chest with one hand sitting down and watching videos was just too insane. “What? Wait, wait, wait, you just sit down and watch things on the internet?”
“Well, you have a lot of time when you do not need to sleep. Have to occupy your time some how.” I shrugged.
“I guess so… just never imagined an ancient being would be entertained by something so trivial.”
“You find it trivial but I have seen the advancement over the years and I must say that is incredible.”
“Huh… never thought about it that way I guess.” She shook her head one more time before nodding seriously. “Let’s go.”
We were going to take two vehicles, I would be driving a truck, some Asian sounding name. She was taking my sedan, it was quieter but smaller. We had no way to communicate over a distance, so I told her to just remain behind me as we drove, and when I tapped the brake lights twice it was time to stop.
The drive was short, we arrived under the cover of darkness, the moon and stars the only lights in the countryside. I pulled off the road and she parked behind me. “Alright, so any last ideas?”
Catherine looked out into the darkness and shook her head. “I got nothing… just you go first and take out any guards then we kill them. I wish I had something, so I could see in the dark.” She muttered the last part to herself and I couldn’t resist a smirk. I could see just as easily in the near darkness of night as I could at noon.
“Well then. Let’s go.”
We approached the farm that the bandit had told us about. It was a two-story old homestead with a large barn nearly sixty yards from the house, and a grain silo near the barn. If I was setting up a guard I would likely put someone near the top of the grain silo, except I doubted they would be able to see. The next likely location would be the barn.
I stopped and focused, listening for heart beats, my eyes unfocused for a moment before I started seeing things in blues, purples, reds, yellows, and oranges. I did not like doing this, the strange coloring still bothered me after centuries of use, but it would help me find who I was looking for. A single orange spot appeared laying down on top of the barn, a man. I looked around some more but did not see anyone else outside. The figures in the house were a little blurred from the windows and curtains, but they did not seem to be looking outside, they were pre-occupied.
“One, top of the barn. I’ll take care of him. Inside the main house there seem to be the others. I want to say fifteen or so, which means there are at least some prisoners inside.” I reported to Catherine, the blobby red humanoid form next to me as I forced my eyes back into the normal spectrum.
“Alright. I’ll get into position to cover the back of the house, you take care of the man at the barn then attempt to drive the ones in the house out the back.”
“Got it. I’ll give you five minutes.”
Catherine nodded and crept away, loud as shattering glass in the night’s silence, but passible for a human. I glided over towards the barn, my footsteps not even leaving prints in the dirt. I leapt up onto the barn, landing with the same silence as before.
The guard that had been laying down when I spotted him had stood up and was pissing over the side of the roof facing away from me. ‘Too easy.’ I thought to myself as I moved over to him, sliding the knife out of my belt, though it caught on the vest I was not used to wearing. A small cloth on metal sound caused him to turn around. I quickly closed the distance and drove the blade into his eye just as he spotted me. “Mmmm… so much extra effort.” I whispered to myself as I laid his body on the roof softly.
I checked his spot and smiled, he had some sort of large hunting rifle with a scope on it. I wouldn’t need the scope, but I was sure that it would be useful to my human companions, once we were done here. I laid down in his spot and looked towards the house, still counting in my head for Catherine to get into position.
About thirty seconds from the appointed time I got an idea. A small cruel smile played on my face as I pushed myself up into a crouch and moved over to the dead guard. I drew my knife and hacked at his neck, sawing through the muscle and tendons before breaking the spine with brute force. Once the head was free I only had ten seconds left. “Shame I won’t get to see the expressions on your friends’ faces.” I whispered to the decapitated head, it wasn’t that I couldn’t see from the distance, but the curtains were drawn obscuring my view. I moved back over to my spot and cocked my arm back with the head in it.
Stolen story; please report.
I threw the head at an upstairs window that I had seen several forms in. The head broke the glass and soon screams followed. Women first then the cries of a surprised and angry man.
As soon as the man’s form appeared in the window, looking for the person who threw the head, I shot three times. The man jerked then collapsed. More men started yelling from the house, I could see them moving about inside. I fired several rounds into the first-floor windows without taking time to aim properly. I was rewarded with a cry of pain, I must have hit someone without killing them.
Three men rushed outside, half-dressed and rushing for cover, I put a short burst at them to get them to duck. I was playing to the human expectations, one cannot get perfect shots every time, even I couldn’t, projectiles have too many factors. Hit a piece of glass and the bullet skews off to the side, a bit of window far away might push it too high, or maybe too low.
“Shit, Jamie’s bleeding out! Hit that big vein in his leg!” A voice from inside the building yelled. I put a couple more rounds into the house just to make them keep their heads down.
The three outside took cover behind some boxes and a steel barrel. I looked down at them and waited for them to fire back, officially revealing their position. I already repositioned my rifle to be aiming at them, they began firing moments later. I returned fire and dropped two of them, one had a new hole in his head and the other was screaming incoherently, the bullet having smashed through his lower jaw.
“Fuck! Fuck! This is bullshit!” The third man cried out before he stood up and began firing at where I was laying. I pushed myself off of the barn’s roof, and landed on the ground, unmoving as if I had been killed. “Ha! Take that you fucker!”
The gunman walked over to me, expecting to find a dead or dying enemy. As he stood over me, probably about to gloat I drew the 1911 from my hip with inhuman speed. I pressed it against his groin and pulled the trigger twice. Eventually he would die but the screams generated by the wounded are much more terrifying than dead bodies. I rushed over to the house, a couple of shots kicked up dirt in my general area but none striking within ten feet.
Once I hid myself beneath the lip of the porch I decided to speak up. “You in the house, give up, we have you outgunned, and have already killed nine of your men. No need to draw this out and end more lives.” I called with what I thought an authoritative voice might be like, military or law enforcement levels of authority.
“Fuck you pig!” The porch exploded in a hail of gunshots. There was the sound of people moving away from me coming from within the house.
“You can’t take us all!” A new voice. I guess I had killed their usual leader.
I contemplated just rushing in and tearing them apart, but I had agreed to Catherine’s plan. Act human. Ugh, such a pain. I lifted the rifle and put rounds through the wooden walls of the house, causing more confusion and panic.
“Look, there’s only one gun… It’s a single guy. We can slip out the back and sneak up on him.” A voice slightly lowered but still loud enough for me to hear. I grinned, hoping that Catherine was watching the back door to the house.
Half a minute later there was the sound of gunshots coming from the other side of the house. More screams of pain and panic were added to the two men who were slowly quieting.
I used it to slip up onto the porch and kicked in the door. Inside were three men with weapons, two looking towards a doorway that likely led to the kitchen then outside, in the far corner of the room were four women completely naked, seems I miscounted earlier. I shot the man who was trying to aim at me, then the other two. I went for the chest this time. No need for more psychological warfare, this was the ending stages of the siege.
I stormed the kitchen, at least I thought it was the kitchen, and opened fire on the survivors of the failed ambush. ‘The watchman, the window man, three outside, three in the sitting room, and two here.’ That accounted for ten of the eleven men that were supposed to be here. Where was the last one?
I went to the backdoor and pushed it open, several shots punched through the door and nearly struck me. “Hey! You crazy bitch! It’s me! I got everyone inside.” I yelled through the door, I guessed she killed one of them outside.
I did not even bother to go outside again but to the women cowering in the sitting room. One of them grabbed a gun while I was in the kitchen and aimed it at me when I came back. “Let us go! I’ll kill you!”
I sighed and stood where I was, dropping my rifle to let it swing from its sling. “Relax, my boss should be coming in a moment. We are here to release you and everyone else.” I said placatingly. Right now, I was going to talk up Catherine so that they would be more willing to listen to her and accept her leadership.
“Oh yeah? How did you know we were here?”
I put on an annoyed face, taking on a persona, deciding that a professional wet-work agent would be best. “Some of these sick fuckers attacked our base camp up the road. We’re staying in a mansion for now while we are trying to gather up survivors. Miss O’Connor, my boss you see, wanted to come rescue you. I was against it; too dangerous, not enough gain.”
The woman with the gun snorted. “Then why did you do it?”
“Because Miss O’Connor said to. She’s the boss, I’m just muscle.” I shrugged. The sound of the door behind me opening made me glance over my shoulder. “There she is now. Can you stop pointing that gun at me, it makes me nervous. And when I get nervous, people die.”
The woman blinked a couple of times as if surprised that I was threatening her while I had a gun pointed at me. “Catherine, I have a full count of hostiles, but now the supposed hostages are threatening me. Permission to engage?”
“What? No, relax Mister Gaius, they must be terrified after everything that has happened.” Catherine came in, waving her hands at me in a placating motion. “Ladies, I apologize for his behavior, he’s not a people person.”
“Oh… oh god… you are really here to save us?”
“Yes. We are here to help.”
“Are you from the army? Is there somewhere safe?” One of the other women spoke up. Catherine moved over to them, gently taking the rifle from the first one while speaking soothing lines for them.
I interrupted with a cough. “Where are the other prisoners?”
The three women spoke at once, but I got the information I was after, the others were tied up in the barn. I took my leave, letting Catherine explain to the three what the situation was and questioning them about what they knew.
I walked up to the barn, keeping my rifle across my body in a casual manner. The doors to the barn were chained closed from the outside. Looking around to make sure what I was about to do was not witnessed I broke the padlock with my hands. I pulled my pistol out and shot one round into the ground to cover my inhuman action, holstering once I was done. I slid the chain free from the handles and opened the doors slowly just in case someone was waiting to brain me.
Inside was dark, shadows fell across everything, not that it bothered me. There were fifteen people inside, five men, seven women, and three children. Two of the forms were unmoving, not even breathing, I assumed they had succumb to their injuries. “I am Maximus Gaius and I am here to free you. The men keeping you prisoner have been killed and my boss is talking to the women in the house.” I said with a calm voice as I moved into the gloom, drawing my knife as I did so. All of the prisoners were tied up, hands behind their back and ankles bound. I moved among them cutting them free from their bonds, even receiving a couple of ‘thank you’s before I directed them all to the main house.
Checking the two that were unmoving I confirmed their deaths. A man and a woman. I didn’t bother to remember their features, no need. I leaned down to cut the man free, so I could move their bodies and it lunged at me. I dodged the corpse’s bite and kicked it heavily in the chest, ribs breaking under my booted foot.
“Fucking revenants.” I pulled up the rifle and put a bullet through the thing’s head. I moved over to the second corpse and repeated the action, no need to check and see if it was a revenant or a real corpse. “Barn clear.” I muttered to myself, honestly enjoying the new persona I had taken on.
I walked out of the barn to find Catherine leading everyone back out of the house. “Oh, Mister Gaius, I heard gunshots, is everything alright?”
“Two of the prisoners died and turned into revenants… um… zombies, I put them down.” I wasn’t sure if the second one had but I omitted that part. “I suggest looting the hostiles for their weapons and ammunition, as well as taking as much food as we can from the house before returning to base.”
Catherine nodded a couple of times before turning back to the crowd of people behind her. “Jacob, Blake, I want you two to go around and gather up all the guns from the dead bodies.” She pointed to two of them men, they seemed the least injured. “Belle, can you lead the women inside to gather up all of the food and put it in boxes or backpacks, so we can bring it with us?”
One of the men, I assumed was Blake because he had been pointed at second, stepped forward with an arrogant sneer. “Who put you in charge?” Before he could get closer to her I stepped in front of her, pistol clearing my holster and came to rest beneath his chin.
Everyone tensed up at this move. I glared at him as I thought about splattering his brains across the others as a warning. Catherine’s voice rang out before I could come to a decision. “Stand down Max.” I stepped back, but I kept the gun in my hand. I was playing the part of a professional killer, no need to be polite. “Mister Pennock, my partner and I just rescued all of you from a group of men five times our number. I think you should at least show some respect.”
Blake grunted and looked at me warily, he was a hot-head. I did not like him already. “Fucking short bas-.” I punched him in the groin, at human strength… well, almost human strength.
As he lay on the ground groaning Catherine asked another man to take over the job he had been asked to do. I crouched down over the downed man with a small smirk on my face, waving my pistol casually at him. “Look Blake, I don’t care who you were before, I don’t care who you are now, but you will do two things if you want to stay alive. One, you will respect Miss Catherine O’Connor, she is going to be leader of this group, not you. Second, you will never call me short again.” Blake was over six feet tall by several inches, a tall Anglo man with light colored hair. If I had to take a guess as to his profession before the end of society I would say he was a lawyer or a high-level manager of a company. Someone used to bullying the people around him.
His only response was to whimper in pain, I didn’t think I had hit him that hard.
I put the barrel of the gun to his temple and leaned in. “Do you understand my terms?”
“Yes… oh god, don’t kill me.”
“Fucking pathetic coward.” I stood up and walked away, the remaining survivors recoiled when I got close to them. They were afraid of me, they thought I was some insane but skilled killer. Good, at least they thought I was human.
One of the women walked up to Blake and spat on him, clearly there was some enmity there. I did not stand around to question it before I wandered over to Catherine as she directed the gathering of the weapons. “So, what now boss?”
“Why are you calling me boss?”
“Because you are going to be in charge, I don’t want them questioning who the leader is. So, you are the boss.” I smugly replied.
Catherine looked at me with an exasperated sigh before going back to leading the people. I leaned against a post on the porch while I waited, I had no intention of carrying anything. I was not some pack animal.
Once everything was collected we had obtained nine rifles, six of which were ARs, the other three hunting rifles, along with seventeen different handguns, most in nine-millimeter or twenty-two caliber, though there was a humongous forty-four caliber revolver in the mix. We gathered several backpacks and boxes of food that would be loaded into the trunk. I brought it up the dirt road to the house so that everyone didn’t have to walk as far.