Free Depraved by Bryan Smith

slip back into that world for real, with just a little concentration. It was a very odd and unsettling sensation. Then he became aware of the loud rumbling of the old van’s engine. Someone was sitting on his back, keeping him pinned to the floor. Couldn’t be the fat man, or he wouldn’t be able to breathe. This had to be one of the scrawny card players.
    His eyes widened.
    It all came back, every horrible moment of it. The shotgun aimed at his belly. The card players wrestling him to the floor. The heavy boot on his back. The painful crash of the shotgun’s stock against the back of his head. And then the blackness. Flashing images and sensations as he slipped in and out of consciousness, usually only for a few grim seconds at a time. No longer in the store proper, but in a back room stuffed with crates and boxes. His body bent over one of the crates. His pants hauled down. The fat man on top of him. Grunting. Shoving. Cursing. The other man laughing. The blackness mercifully taking him away again. And now here, fully awake again in the back of a smelly old van, being taken God only knew where. The stark truth of it all hit him with brutal force. These men were going to kill him. They were going to do some unspeakably ugly things to him, probably, and then they were going to fucking kill him.
    He suddenly longed for a return to the world of the zombie nightmare.
    Or, no. Not there.
    Where he really wanted to be was in the Jetta with Megan, riding fast away from this place. He wanted to go back in time and decide against taking the detour that would take them through Hopkins Bend. The detour would only have saved them an hour, and what was the hurry anyway? He liked spending time with Megan. Liked being alone with her. It was always better when it was just the two of them, with no one else around. She made him feel good about himself. Being in her presence made the world feel like a more interesting place. Vital and vibrant. Full of possibility, with a new adventure or fun revelation always just around the corner. The world was a duller place when she wasn’t around. A grimmer place.
    Oh, Megan.
    He couldn’t bear the idea that he’d seen her for thelast time. Or heard her sweet voice for the last time. Kissed her for the last time. The notion filled him with a bottomless despair. But a more pragmatic part of him hoped it was so anyway. This part of him knew the only way he’d ever see her again would be if these monsters returned to the general store to grab her, too. And that idea tore at his heart, made him feel as if an abyss had opened within his soul.
    He was helpless to stop the sob that lurched out of his throat.
    The man sitting on his back shifted and said, “I think the boy’s wakin’ up, Gil.”
    Pete didn’t recognize the voice. Had to be one of the card players.
    He twisted his head and looked up at the man.“Where are you taking me?”
    The man’s thin, wormy lips stretched and curled, revealing teeth stained dark yellow by decades of smoking, some of them black with untreated cavities. He held a length of rusted pipe in his hands. Pete assumed the man would rap the back of his head with it if he caused trouble.“Ain’t none of your concern.”
    “I beg to differ.”
    The man’s lips stretched even thinner as he snickered. “Oh, you’re gonna be beggin’, boy. That’s for damn sure.”
    Someone else laughed. Something in the timbre of the sound sent a cold finger of dread down Pete’s spine.
    The fat man.
    Gil, this one had called him.
    The laugh came from the front of the van. Pete couldn’t see the asshole, but he assumed the fat fucking pig of a rapist was driving. So where was the third man?
    Gil made that phlegmy, throat-clearing sound Pete recalled from the general store.“We’re almost there.”
    The van slowed and made a left turn. Gil tapped the gas pedal and the van picked up speed again, but now the vehicle jounced and shuddered in a more pronounced way. Something about the