Wormwood Dawn (Episode IV) by Edward Crae Read Free Book Online Page A

his toes began to cramp after a few seconds, and let his weight fall back on his wrists. Either position was painful. Desperate, he began to kick at one of his dangling companions.
    “Hey,” he whispered. “Wake up.”
    His foot impacted a thigh, and a light moan followed. He kicked again, and pain shot through his wrist as the shackles cut in deeper. He gritted his teeth through the pain, growling as he kicked harder.
    “ Wake up!” he hissed.
    With another sharp kick, the person next to him groaned loudly, moaning in misery as he realized his predicament.
    “Wha—“ the man whimpered. “What the fuck…”
    “Wake up,” Dan said.
    Though he could only see faint details, he could see that the man was beaten and bleeding. His eyes were swollen, and he seemed to be missing several teeth. His speech was slurred, and his breathing was ragged.
    “Where am I?” he moaned.
    “You’re trapped in a basement,” Dan said. “There are three others. Where did you come from?”
    After a few seconds of struggling, the man sighed and settled back down. “Martinsville,” he said. “Outside of town.”
    “How did you get here?”
    “I… I don’t remember.”
    “You don’t remember anything?” Dan asked.
    The man moaned and growled. “Nothing but… I was hunting. Hunting at night. Then, something grabbed me. I thought it was one of those things, but it spoke. That’s all I remember.”
    “What did it say?”
    The man sighed, his breathing slowing. “Something about food for the gods… or something.”
    Food for the gods? Interesting and terrifying at the same time. “You’re fucked,” Dan said.
    “What?” the man said, growling in anger. “Fuck you. You’re here, too.”
    “Look,” Dan said, trying his best to calm himself. “If we work together, we can get out of here. But we need to wake the others if we can. Do you know them?”
    The man scoffed, looking around. “I can’t even fucking see them. But, no, I don’t think so.”
    “Was there anyone with you when you were hunting?”
    “No. And I live alone.”
    Good. Another loner. Dan could deal with that. “Alright,” he said. “Fuck ‘em. We’ll do our best to get out. If they wake up, good for them. If not…”
    “Right,” the man said. “Fuck ‘em.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Mike,” the man replied.
    “Dan.”
    “Well, Dan, I can’t say it’s good to meet you. But what’s your plan?”
    Dan motioned toward the window with his head. Mike turned to look, slowly nodding as he saw the faint moonlight shining through.
    “When it rains,” Dan said, “there’s a leak near the bottom left corner. The stone is weak there. A couple more good rains and we should be able to break a few stones loose and maybe remove the whole window frame. The problem is getting out of these shackles before our captor plays any more games.”
    “Games?”
    Dan sighed. “Yeah. That’s why I said you were fucked. He’s playing a game. He’s the dungeon master, so to speak, and I’m the player.”
    “Which would make the rest of us…”
    “Right,” Dan said.
    Mike grunted, increasing his struggling. Like Dan, he groaned and growled in pain as the shackles cut into his wrists. “Fuck this,” he hissed. “And fuck those other people.”
    “How strong are your arms?” Dan asked. “If anything comes in the room, we might need to pull ourselves up out of the way.”
    “What do you mean if anything comes in?”
    “You know what I mean. This room’s been an arena since I first awoke here. The last gladiators were a group of Gephardt dicks and a few Shamblers.”
    Mike grunted again. “Shamblers?”
    “The mean ones,” Dan replied. “The ones that run and attack.”
    “Oh, fuck. We call those Ragers.”
    Ragers, eh? Interesting. “We?”
    Mike relaxed for a moment. “My group. We all live close to one another and trade stuff, but stay out of each other’s way. We meet once a week at Old Man Holcomb’s barn on Cramertown Loop.