Haven From Hell (Book 3): A Young Man's Game Read online

  Copyright 2018

  A Work of Fiction Written by Mark Won

  Haven From Hell: Young Man’s Game

  Introduction

  The following biographical information regarding Gideon Storm has been obtained with the permission of, and at the direction of, Incumbent Mark Herzog during the third year of his second term. It has been painstakingly researched for veracity by comparing with as many independent sources as possible. The principle source for the following is the journal of Gideon Storm, himself, as he always was careful to record his thoughts after the Change (albeit in a confusing, rambling, and chronologically incoherent manner). The purpose of this abridged format is to recount the travels of that fine adventurer for the education and edification of any interested in the condition of the world beyond the limits of Haven.

  Mark Won,

  In the Year of Our Lord 2061,

  After Change 13,

  In the City of Fisher Bay, Wisconsin Territory, Free State of Haven

  Prologue

  Chopper was a man of violence. The moment of the Change he had been in the process of raping a fellow inmate, a rapist just like himself, but weaker. The very concept of feeling bad about such behavior was altogether alien to Chopper’s thinking, it was just the sort of thing everyone had to go through at one time or another, just as he had. To his way of thinking it was every father’s responsibility to teach his children all about such things first hand.

  By the time he was finished, one of his ‘friends’ (friendship being more a matter of strategy than ethical allegiance to Chopper) approached him with news of a national, possibly global, disaster of epic proportions. The guards had fled, leaving the way open for any properly prepared inmate to pursue whatever escape attempt he had in mind to attempt.

  As it would happen, one of his inner circle happened to have a hacksaw hidden in his mattress. Never before having had enough time to make use of it, due to night patrols and such, the tool of deliverance had remained unused, awaiting more propitious circumstances.

  Bars to cells were cut; bars to windows were cut. It was an old prison and far more resources were expended on electrifying the perimeter fence and ensuring adequate sniper coverage than on the bars to the cells.

  Once free, Chopper lead his coterie around the cell block deciding who would live and who would die. Typically freedom could be purchased primarily by performing a sex act through the bars to whoever was in the mood. Anyone who refused was left to die. These first few moments of freedom were like heaven come to earth for Chopper.

  Moving from cell block to cell block, Chopper eventually had as large a crew as he felt he needed. By all accounts there was more than enough chaos for his army to cut their way to Mexico. Thus was the master plan of such a forward thinker as Chopper.

  To Chopper’s immense surprise, ‘the best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry.’ No sooner had his mob entered the nearest town than it was overwhelmed by a mass of the dead. Rather than derive any moral lesson by such a repulse, Chopper maintained his focus on the purely practical methods for dispatching his newfound enemies, such as the judicious administration of head wounds. Leading his diminished force back into battle, he was able to clear the town with greatly reduced losses.

  This became the budding warlord’s modus operandi. He would use various cars, trucks, and vans to clear a path and then move up the body of his troops to clear anything remaining. It was one of his subordinates who stumbled upon the expediency of leading the undead away using the superior mobility afforded by automotive technology. From then on distraction tactics became the standard form.

  Whenever Chopper’s mob encountered any other survivors, they were treated to a particularly horrific death at the hands of the worst men that pre-Change civilization had engendered. Murder wasn’t especially the intent of the ministrations of Chopper’s band, but did tend toward becoming the inevitable consequence of so much undesired attention.

  At some point Chopper took to dressing up his human monsters in the garmenture of civil servants, particularly police. He found the look of dawning horror on his victims faces to be especially satisfying. Also, it proved an excellent ruse for penetrating any defenses which may have been established by a community for the purpose of preventing the assault of the shambling dead.

  After three weeks of such joyful rapine and plundering, such as which would have brought a blush even to the face of Barbarossa, Chopper found himself in the city of Atlanta. The then standard practice of drawing off the horde concluded, Chopper found himself in contact with an overjoyed assembly of doctors, nurses, and patients from a local hospital. Needless to say, they did not remain overjoyed for long.

  It was then that Chopper instituted a moderate change in policy. No more would he allow his warriors to torment their victims unto death. Frankly, he was growing concerned at the consistently slimmer pickings, and felt that it might be wise to maintain a few keepers to save for later.

  During the first month of his occupation of the hospital, Chopper experienced repeated shudders of joy at watching the light of hope in his prisoner’s eyes die. This was what life was meant to be like. His favorite moment from that time came from a joke told by one of his victims.

  “God help me! God help me!” was what she said. He had to laugh. In fact he got such a kick out of it that he actually stopped tormenting the woman so he could tell his companions all about it. They were appropriately amused.

  Chopper uttered, “I didn’t think anyone still believed in that shit.” It was true, she was his first victim to pray, and he found it kind of exciting. Chopper rather enjoyed the notion of challenging god. Not that he believed in any such superstitious nonsense, of course, it was just nice to think of spitting in some supernatural joker’s eye.

  One of Chopper’s closest companions, a man in the process of growing a large and well formed beard, asked the woman, “Wait a minute, didn’t y’all do abortions here? How does that work?” All of his companions laughed at such a rare wit, at least the ones who knew what he was talking about.

  The woman, face overflowing with tears, lamented, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! God forgive me! God save me!”

  Chopper, becoming less amused by the moment, began slapping the woman mercilessly, while proclaiming, “There is no god! I am god. I can do whatever I want to you, bitch, and there’s nothing an imaginary friend in the sky can do to help you! Do you hear me!” He regained enough composure to desist before killing her. She was one of the pretty ones, after all.

  Then Chopper turned to the rest of his prisoners and declared, “I can reach out my hand and take whatever I want, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it! There’s no one coming to save you, there’s no one left. No police, no judges, no law, especially no god, so get used to it! This is your life from now on. Even if someone did come for you, who would it be? Who do you think could help you? What power could possibly save you from my hand?”

  -

  Gideon Storm was not feeling so very brash. For the last three days he’d been fighting a raging cold, and it seemed to have grown into something far worse. Something involving a devastating fever and the coughing up of blood.

  Three days prior the boy had seen both of his parents, six of his brothers and all of his sisters transform into the undead. His final brother, although unaffected by the Change, did not survive the encounter. Gideon had hastened to take up arms, the swords his uncle had crafted for him, and immediately proceeded to ‘smite the Devil’s Minions hip and thigh.’ Ever since then Gideon’s health had been steadily deteriorating.

  After acquiring a new bicycle, the fourteen year old had taken his puppy with him into the
Appalachians, which were experiencing an uncharacteristic cold snap at that time. The forest floor was covered with a fresh snow and the temperature seemed to have no intention of rising any time soon. Night had fallen hours previously.

  Huddled around his fire, the boy’s perceptions were fuzzy at best as he clutched his beloved pet close to his chest. Four figures drew close, attracted by the fire. Each had a firearm pointed at the back of Gideon’s seated form.

  “Don’t you move a muscle, you hear me? One move and I’ll shoot you dead.” The speaker was a thirty-something man wearing a heavy winter coat over a flannel shirt and blue jeans.

  Gideon barely heard the man. He was far more interested in the music. Somewhere nearby he clearly heard some clever duet singing ‘Orcs Will Eat You’ while in the far distance came a choir of cherubs sounding forth a faint ‘Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.’

  “Want me to shoot him, Pa?” came the overly loud voice of a young man, perhaps eighteen, who was also pointing a shotgun at Gideon’s back.

  Pa responded, “Shush boy! Don’t shoot unless we have to. We don’t need to attract any more of them things, and we sure don’t want him turning into one of them.”

  Gideon slowly realized he had company, rose to his feet and turned to face whoever it might be. He still did not understand his peril.

  Another voice, a boy even younger than Gideon, exclaimed, “Look, Pa, he’s got a puppy! Can I keep him?”

  The voice of the final figure interjected, “Sure, Dewey, you can keep him until we eat him tonight.” followed by a brutal laugh.

  “Aw, Pa, can I keep him please? He’s so small!” said the boy.

  Pa scolded, “Don’t be stupid, Dewey! That dog’s got enough good eating on it for tonight; I’m sure not going to feed it!”

  “Alright, you, put down the dog and lay down flat! Do it! Do it now!” ordered the voice of the second man.

  Gideon was so bemused by his fever that he slowly obeyed the command. More out of a confused indifference than due to any fear on his part. The man came forward to search the boy. During the search Gideon had a coughing fit that sent the man jumping back.

  “Look, Pa,” exclaimed the older boy, “he’s coughing up blood! You think he’s turning into one of them?”

  Pa commanded the other man, “Get his clothes off him, Josh, and let’s see if he’s been bit. If he ain’t been bit then he won’t change. Then it’ll be safe to take his stuff.”

  The man obeyed. Within moments Gideon lay stripped in the snow with four hostile faces looking down on him, as if from a great distance. Their faces were uniformly devoid of any semblance of sympathy.

  The eighteen year old asked his Pa, “You want I should stab him, Pa? I’ll be real quiet, I promise!”

  Pa replied, “Don’t be so stupid, Ham, you don’t know for sure he won’t turn into one of them!” The Change had only happened three days previously. In those early days there was an even greater uncertainty concerning such matters.

  As Gideon lay there, apparently dying, Pa spit a mouth full of tobacco juice on him. “We’ll let him live. Let’s get out of here. You, Ham, push his bike.”

  As they walked away through the snow, Gideon heard them exclaiming in delight at all the wonders they had found, not the least of which were his two blades. The best he could do about it was crawl back over to the fire.

  Come the first light of dawn, Gideon’s health had returned. His fever had broken, his coughing had come under control, and he was no longer coughing up blood. The fire had lasted until morning but was now turning to embers. Gideon was naked and believed himself to be alone with no reason to hope, but he couldn’t help letting out a laugh.

  Hearing his master awaken, Gideon’s pet leaped to its own feet and looked as if it would bark for joy at his master’s recovery, if its silence training had not overcome the impulse. Gideon sensed an adventure and sprang to his feet, looking about for inspiration. At once he saw the tracks of four people marching off into the distance. He slowly came to remember their owners and let out another laugh.

  There was also another set of tracks, matching those of his dog, which appeared to have returned to his side sometime during the night. Gideon presumed that his four legged friend must have escaped his tormentors and returned in the night, to lie down by Gideon’s side.

  Following the trail through the freezing snow caused him no discomfort, or at least nothing his training couldn’t overcome. It took only half an hour to come upon a simple log cabin, a cottage, situated in the heart of the forest. There was smoke wending up from the stone chimney.

  Most of the tracks lead to the door, but there was a sudden set which led off in another direction. It looked to Gideon that his pet must have sensed its impending danger and escaped prior to being slaughtered for supper. There were numerous footprints leading off after his dog’s tracks but all the human tracks returned to the door of the cabin.

  Knowing that the cold would overcome him given enough time, Gideon decided that valor would be the better part of discretion. He strode up to the door and quietly tried the doorknob. It was locked.

  Picking up a piece of firewood from a pile next to the door, Gideon smashed in a nearby window and dove through. Inside he saw the quartet of his tormentors rising from their beds in alarm. Seeing his own hand axe embedded in a log near the fire, Gideon pulled it from the split wood and cast it at the nearest foe, the elder brother.

  Knowing his aim to be true, Gideon didn’t wait for the axe to strike home, but his other hand reached out, grabbed the fire poker, and brought it down on Pa’s rising arm, causing him to release the shotgun which he had been in the process of bringing to bear. Then he cast the iron at the other man in the room, the spinning length of poker striking Josh in the face.

  By then the youngest had disentangled himself from his bed clothes and was busy bringing up his own firearm. Gideon leapt and spun over Pa’s rising form while Dewey opened fire, sending the burst of 12 gauge shot into his fathers chest.

  Seeing one of his own firearms hung around the nearest bedpost, Gideon quickly drew the revolver and then ducked back down again as Josh, finally overcoming his pain, brought his shotgun to bear and fired. The buckshot harmlessly impacted the cabin wall behind where Gideon's head had been an instant before.

  Finally over coming his shock, Dewey screamed in despair, “Pa!” in a tone composed of equal measure guilt and grief, forgetting for the moment that he was in the middle of a fight for his life.

  Gideon fired his revolver under Pa’s bed and managed to hit Josh in the ankle, causing him to fall. Gideon’s next shot struck the man in the chest, ending one life of corruption and beginning another.

  Pa’s dead hand began reaching over the side of the bed, questing for the human form it could sense laying there. Gideon rolled away from the searching fingers until the zombie’s face peered over the cushion. Then Gideon placed a well considered bullet between its eyes.

  Rising to his knees, Gideon saw the zombie of Josh getting to its feet and moving toward Dewey. Gideon, firing at the creature’s profile, shot the zombie through its head, from just below the left ear to just above the right, spraying its brains all over the wall and ceiling. Being a bit of a self proclaimed art critic, Gideon laughed at the apparent conformity to his appreciation of modern art.

  That left only Dewey, screaming in anguish at the passing of his father. Gideon wrenched his axe from the skull of the elder brother as he approached the trembling nine year old.

  Chapter 1

  “Well, well, well. What have we here, Tracer?”

  Naturally Tracer didn’t answer using any kind of human words. That’s because he’s a dog. Not just any dog but the finest dog in the whole history of dogdom. He was a mutt, weighing in at about fifteen pounds, mostly nose. He looked like the result of some kind of eugenics experiment involving a hound, a pekingese, and a horror movie, with the way his skin doesn’t look like it fits right. I had spent the last year training him to spot danger
ous situations and let me know about them without barking. He was a natural.

  And especially good at spotting zombies.

  Not that that was the situation I was confronted with at that time. I had decided to try my luck by looking for ammunition and stuff in Atlanta. The zombies there seemed especially dumb, and there were practically no ghouls or ogres. I guess all the zombies must have wandered off looking for victims elsewhere, because the streets were nearly vacant. The few zombies left behind were easy enough to walk away from.

  Not that I’d ever do that, given a choice. I much preferred to slash the tops of their heads off with my sword. I never told my uncle, but I named her “Apollyon the Slayer of Vasty Multitudes and the Short Road to Eternal Damnation”, or ‘Polly’ for short. She has a leaf shaped blade exactly two feet six inches long, with a handle six inches long. The cross piece is a simple bar with a couple of double rings to help guard my hand. The pommel is a small ionic shape made of silver. Uncle Batty had made her blade out of high quality steel with a super pretty sharks tooth Damascus design for me, as a reward, after I read the Iliad the first time. Then he taught me how to swing her (and how to keep that kind of thing secret from Mom and Dad, too).

  My main problem with chopping the tops off zombies is that I’m kinda short compared to most of them. I expect when I’m sixteen I’ll grow some, but until then I’ll have to take them out at the knees first.

  Anyhow, what I saw was a guy, kinda old, in his thirties, wearing a t-shirt and bluejeans, running down the street away from a cop car. And, boy, could he run! If the cops hadn’t been cheating by using a car they wouldn’t have stood a chance in that race.

  The cop car had two cops in it. One had a beard so I named him Beardo and the other had a big nose so I called him Big Nose (meaning no offense to Tracer). At first I thought that the running guy must have broke some kind of laws, and I was real impressed that cops still had jobs in Atlanta. I figured it was probably because the CDC used to operate in the area.