Free Beyond the Barriers (Novella): Ghouls by Timothy W. Long Page B

small fence, which appeared to have been used to hold livestock, held a bunch of shambling undead. They moved from one side to the other, milky white eyes looking dull and lifeless.
    Then I noticed the cart and gave a gasp.
    It was like something out of an Amish village. Wooden, and clearly built in the last twenty years. It was attached to five people who looked close to death. They were dressed in rags and they were kneeling on the ground while a guard stood over them. He had a shotgun in one hand and kept it pointed at the bunch. In the back of the cart were about a dozen bodies in various states. Blood dripped from the wooden floor and soaked into the ground. This is what we’d been sent out to investigate.
    I felt like throwing up.
    The front doors to the duplex were shut and chained. Through the dirty windows I observed a few faces but they were indistinct.
    Of the horror movie that the world had become, this was the most horrifying thing I’d seen yet.
    Then it got worse.
    Among the men and women who worked the little camp, a couple of ghouls moved. One of them was a large woman who moved around on all fours. Her eyes were bright green, and when they settled on me, my scalp itched.
    Anger burned in her gaze as she moved across the ground until she was before the head captor.
    He leaned over and waited as she hissed something into his ear.
    I waited, hoping against hope that they weren’t talking about me. He nodded and then she was off and moving toward one of the big tool sheds.
    The man turned and approached our pitiful group.
    “You,” he said pointing at my face. “You’re first. Bring him.”
    I struggled as my arms were grabbed. I fought as they dragged me across the ground. Someone hit me in the gut and another guy knocked me across the back of the head.
    “No!” I yelled.
    “Shut up and this will be over soon,” another guy said, then there was another blow.
    They took me into the little toolshed and the door slammed closed.

11
    “ P ut him on the table ,” the leader said.
    The room reeked of blood and misery. Chains and knives hung from the walls. There were a few limbs tossed in a corner as well as a pile of bloody clothes.
    With four of them it wasn’t that hard. I was already exhausted and they’d beaten the shit out of me. I played it safe and pretended like I was giving in. If there was any kind of opening I was going to take as many of these fuckers out as I could before they killed me so I conserved my energy.
    The ghoul stood hunched over the low table waiting. Her eyes burned into me.
    They held my arms and dragged me before her.
    “Let me tell you what’s about to go down, Chief.” the leader said.
    “Fuck you,” I said.
    “We’re going to strap you down and she’s going to change you. I don’t know what you did to piss them off but she wants you bad,” he said.
    Two men had my arms in a tight grip and they tried to turn me around, presumably to lay me flat on my back. The man on my left was scrawny but strong. The guy on the left was a beast with a huge black beard running down his face so I named him Grizzly Adams. They were efficient with the rope and got my wrists bound tightly together.
    Grizzly Adams smelled like a dead bear and I told him as much. When I turned my head to the side and tried to hold my breath, he leaned over and open hand slapped me.
    The blow rocked my head to the side. I blinked away tears and thought about what it would be like to press my thumbs into his eye sockets.
    “This isn’t right!” I protested and tasted blood on my lip. “Why are you working for these fucking things?”
    “You’ll know soon. Just give it up. You’ll either be one of them or you’ll be chopped to pieces. We got a whole pen of them out there to feed. Your choice,” he said.
    I noticed there was a small bucket on the ground and it was filled with rancid chunks of meat. Like the cages we’d been kept in, it had to be the diseased flesh of the twice dead. I knew the