Chapter Two

  Rasp stood outside the walls as his class of future guards stood on the wall watching him. He wore his flexible leather and wood armor lacquered black. He awaited the incoming rebel attack eagerly as he stood past the wall on the pretense of teaching Plague Combat to his students. A lone infected, a shambler, staggered towards him snarling and snapping its teeth.

“Plague Combat as you know revolver around three principles, avoiding being bitten or grappled, crippling the opponent, and most importantly destroying the brain,” he said stepping to the side and spinning his leg out tripping the infected. Then he stepped within its reach allowing it to grab one of his legs.

You have all practiced breaking from an ankle grab in class but until you’ve been tested you can’t know how you’ll react to panic,” Rasp said his voice coming out like his name in a rasp from his scorched lungs like someone who’d smoked too much. He stepped on the hand grasping the ankle and twisted his leg and pulled out where the infected’s grip was weakest, just between the thumb and fingers.

“Your test when you become guard is not truly a test of your ability to kill infected don’t be fooled by those who boast of how many they killed on their test, this is a test of the mind to see if you can stand fast on the ground beyond the wall not just from the top of it,” Rasp said in his sinister voice his student’s having to strain to hear him.

He quickly walking around the infected grabbing its leg and flipping it on its back and lifting the leg into the air. He swung his right leg over the infected leg putting the infected to his back as the wedged the freshies leg in place between his legs, then he pulled hard and broke the leg with a snap.

“Put an infected down and it can’t chase you but don’t let that fool you, as long as they can bite they are still a threat,” Rasp said going down on a knee and grabbing both sides of the infected’s jaw, “there is a reason we practice ankle break but until you’ve broken the skull or stabbed it through its brain you haven’t won.” Rasp held the infected jaws apart as it tried to bite through his armored gauntlets, “never try this technique unless you have strong gloves or gauntlets on if you can’t get ahold of those and are trapped without walls wrap your hands in layers of cloth or find thick material to protect the palms of your hands, don’t try it if you have any open scrapes or wounds on your hands you don’t want to become a carrier and become infected when you catch the flue.”

Rasp ripped the infected’s jaw off and its snapping ceased as it jaw was only connected by a few strands of muscle and skin. “you must always have a weapon on hand, a blade of at least twelve inches, carry it with you go to bed with it and put it under your pillow on your nightstand but it you don’t have a knife there are other ways to break its skull.” Rasp snatched a rock from the ground grabbing it in both hands lifting it above his head and then bringing it down with all his strength to the side of the infected skull breaking through the bone and the infected spasmed as the main body of the parasite took damage and it dissolved killing its mate with the acidic red fluid.

Stolen story; please report.

He stood and there was a screeching of tires in the distance, with his back to the wall Rasp allowed a smile to come across his face then he held out a hand, “spear,” he ordered.

The rebels in the Humvee speed down the cleared street a lone guard in black armor stood in their path and they pressed on the gas intent on running him down, then the guard turned around revealing the skull mask protecting the lower half of his face and the red trim of his armor. The rebel paled.

“It’s him,” he gasped.

Rasp’s arm snapped forward with the spear flying, shattering the windshield of the Humvee, and impaling the driver. The rebel on the roof of the Humvee opened fire and the street explode with noise and shards of stone. Rasp rolled to the side as the Humvee spun and crashed into a wreckage of a car flipping on its side. Rasp pulled his twin kama from his belt. There was a groan and a rebel stumbled out through the broken windshield and staggered to his feet raising a pistol, he fired but his arm shook and bullet missed him entirely.

The back door of the Humvee slammed open and a automatic rifle opened fire on the walls and there were a few screams. The gun men stepped around the corner of the Humvee and Rasp threw the kama in his left hand taking the rebel in the chest. He swung the kama in his right hand into the other rebel’s shoulder causing him to drop the pistol and he lifted up, bringing the rebels to his tip toes. Rasp grabbed the rebel around the throat with his left hand and squeezed crushing the man’s trakula and dropping him leaving him to die choking on the ground.

The two other rebels stumbled out of the burning Humvee coughing but Rasp moved like the wind gliding in slashing one across the throat and kicking the other one in the chest and knocking him back against the wrecked car the Humvee had crashed into. The rebel groaned as Rasp retrieved the kama imbedded in the rebel he had taken in the chest. The rebel stumbled back to his feet raising his gun in week hands and Rasp kicked the gun to the side with a circle kick than slashed the rebel across the throat cutting halfway through his neck and then removing his head with the kama in his right hand and the headless corpse toppled to the ground.

Rasp’s chest heaved with anger and exertion, he reveled in the death of every rebel he killed, the scars on his body were a constant reminder to him of what they had taken from him and left him to become.

Rasp grit his teeth closing in his eyes as he heard his mother and sister scream as they were violated, he felt the warm blood of his father on his face as he lay bound in a pool of it as it seeped from the knife in his chest. He heard the roar of the flames as his home burned down around him felt the pain in his wrists where he broken free from the handcuffs and pulled a wet cloth over his head. He felt the burning the endless pain as a beam broke overhead showering him in fire and coals, setting everything but his head on fire. He was trapped in the prison of his body and mind every rebel death was like breaking a link of a spiritual chain that bound him as he took vengeance.