《ALIVE: The Aftermath Chronicles (Book 1)》Chapter 13 - ABEL
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Abel's eyes land on Paige. They narrowed finely on her and on Isaac, unseeing of anyone else. The ones before him presented their energy as the group's leaders and a challenge. One, sharing in equal bulk against the cult maniac and the other, a woman with ferocity in her eyes. A ferocity, that brought Abel's shoulders to square tightly and his teeth to grit.
Behind Abel's current attention, Emma slinks slowly away behind the line of her gathered people. The movement behind his current targets blurs, but it does not distract him in the sight of what needs to be destroyed as soon as possible.
"Who's in charge 'ere?" Abel asks over Paige when she steps up, a southern accent playing in the question that matched most natives to Savannah. An accent that didn't match his previous announcement, but those with him have learned to adjust to such quick changes and more so, to read them for his current mood.
"I am," Isaac clutches his concealed gun behind his back as the rest of Abel's men circle entirely around the camp and begin to search through the camp's belongings.
Abel's gun aims. Pointing, to another behind Paige just over the nurse's shoulder. As suddenly as he pulled it, he sounded off a bullet.
Paige hit the ground to shield herself, as did the others behind her as they let out the frightful screams. In the back, Emma bit down against her own and her head holds down to stay invisible.
A man fell to the ground with a thud. A forager and valuable for his green thumb, one of the camp's elders lay bleeding from his chest till the rattle of death greets him. Paige's at his side, putting pressure against the wound, then watching the life slip away before she can do anything else. Expecting the old man to rise as the undead at any moment, the murderer does nothing to shoot the slain in the head, to assure them all that a zombie won't arise amongst them.
"No," Abel shakes his head, "You are not in charge of anything. I am in charge of this camp now. Do you understand?"
Isaac's spine straightened and his lips pursed. He didn't take well to orders, to white men, especially, trying to take what was his. Cracking his knuckles, Isaac is ready to fight, to kill this man with his bare fists, but a voice from behind stops him from taking the step forward.
Paige shouts shakily, "You are, yes. We understand! Please don't hurt anyone else!"
All, but Abel moves away from the spasms given by the fresh corpse. Expectantly, and without the retreating steps the others gave, Abel grabs the zombie by the neck. Abel's grip is steady as the chomping teeth direct his way and the familiar sounds of the undead snarl from its tightened throat.
Redirecting those deadly teeth and knowing the infection of sin passed quicker with one little bite from this demon, Abel aims it toward the beach camp survivors.
They all cower away and Isaac warily stands his ground, as the jaws of death chomp away mere inches from his unblemished flesh.
His words project to the others, "I am Abel! I've been sent here by our God on a divine mission! I'm here to cleanse the world of these things. These...demons...that stay in waiting to unleash on all of you can be controlled by the divine path," he spins slowly, making eye contact with each and every person who met the misfortune. Emma slinks back further as he continues, "All this happened for a reason...it is the purge!"
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He clears his throat and a different accent comes in. One, of some sort of English influence.
He continues, "Our God is clearing the world and giving us a new one...a garden of Eden. I am your Adam, your Abel, your Moses, your Jesus Christ...you will obey or you will meet the devil as you were all meant to without my guidance! Pray all you like. I'll hear them, as will our God! Be obedient, subservient to God and his chosen people, and you shall be rewarded, protected, from the demons amongst us. If you are worthy, I will expel these demons from you and protect you from them, in the house of our Lord, forever..."
Emma clutches onto her chest, her racing heart a pounding hammer against shredding cloth as she finds refuge behind a tent. Hiding, ignoring that voice that sent her blood to flow faster through her veins as more of his men make their way closer.
Abel continues, "I'm in search of Holy Ground. Join us. Fight and..." With the clenching of his hand, Abel breaks the neck of the zombie. It chomps on as Abel drops it to the floor, then with one step of his boot over its temple, he crushes the elder's skull on the bloodied soil.
"Come out! Come out those who hide from us. Come one, come all. Your new path awaits!" Abel taunts on as his men gather all of Emma's people into the center circle of all the facing tents, pulling those yet to be discovered from the tents they hide in. Children and the elderly are pulled, then tossed into the ring of survivors that are counted for and herded together like livestock.
When Emma is grabbed by the arm and dragged, as well, she tries to fight against it as her stress levels rise. In seeing her, Paige gathers the courage required to protect the ailing pregnant girl in distress. To Isaac, Paige sends a desperate look, but his eyes do not sway from Abel's.
Ready to shoot the ring-leader in his broad back as he approaches Emma, she aims, then finds a reluctance to pull the trigger. To kill someone, who wasn't infected, brought her hand to shake in the tight grip of the gun as she aims it up at the back of Abel's ahead.
Abruptly, the religious invader turns. Gripping Paige's arm, he twists it till it snaps out of the sockets at her elbow and her shoulder as if she's nothing more than a limp twig.
Paige screams, falling to her knees in agony as another female voice comes to her defense.
"Stop, please!" CiCi breaks into the circle, a bow clutched between paled knuckles and an arrow ready to let fly finds ease on the recurve bow. "She's a nurse, she can help in Eden! She's a good person, she helps people! If you come in the name of God you'll have mercy on her, please!"
Abel releases Paige, leaving her to crumble to the dirt and to the help of her own revered people. The delusional male moves like a curious predator to foreign prey, making his slow approach to the darker-skinned girl. Her hair is long, natural, and pulled back. Nothing, like his chosen Eve's. There is an innocent look to this girl that reminds him so much of his soon-to-be-wife in protection, a plea in her eyes that goes beyond her request to save his offender.
"You," his chin raises faintly CiCi's way, calling her forth with the beckoning of his outstretched hand, "Come to me."
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Cici walks, her bow heavier with every step that calls for her to let arrows fly into this man with dangerous eyes and frightful words. How he looked at her gave her chills and made her instantly sick. To Isaac, CiCi warily looks to when she passes him, but the former dominant male of their group seemingly has taken his step down with the terrifying new survivor.
Nick and Dalton gone, CiCi felt mighty big shoes to fill in their absence as all eyes of the camp from both ally and enemy lines focus intently her way. Having seen Emma hiding, then dragged out, CiCi wonders if she should have stayed unseen. To grab Emma when she had the chance, and try to make a run for it, against the obvious advisory for Emma's worrisome condition.
It's what Nick would've done, she's sure of it. Now, she was entering negotiations and a battle of wits and words, which had always been Dalton's natural arena.
CiCi lifts her eyes in difficulty up to the man built like a bull as she finds her way before her. All the searching as stopped from his men, with ever eye now turned their way.
He's studying her, reading a book of his own writing in her stare. Bravely, she holds his gaze and then takes his outstretched hand, holding any fears back and a strong resolve atop shaky knees.
"I see a great deal in you," Abel tells CiCi and in his distraction, Isaac bends low to help Paige, finally shifting his focus from Abel to help the distressed nurse moaning in agony.
Abel continues, "You will be the protector of the great mother of the new world. With our Eve, you'll find your place, your purpose, and you will put your life before hers to help manifest a newer, greater era. Do we understand one another? Do you accept my offer and your calling?"
Nodding earnestly with wide eyes, CiCi then agrees, "Yes. We have an understanding."
Isaac rises with Paige supported in his arms. With Abel's present infatuation with CiCi, Isaac sits Paige down to a safer distance. After resetting her shoulder, something black draws his attention to the sky over the wailing of Paige.
A solitary line of puffing, that reaches up toward the night sky.
Nick and Dalton's signal.
It was time to set all his plans into motion, but now, they were thwarted by something unexpected and certainly unwanted. In all their plans and what could go wrong, this hadn't been a scenario they'd conjured.
To Abel, Isaac keeps his eyes, formulating a plethora of plans that simply wouldn't work until he understood his enemy's weaknesses. Russell's, he knew well, but this new brand of crazy would take some time. Time, he didn't have when the smoke gave him the signal he needed to move onto the colony. To take his revenge, against Russell Wolfe who exiled him from his own home, to keep their people safe and the innocents that remained in the colony.
With Abel's nonsensical words on his own goals, his ultimate want to find the promised land, Isaac thought to buy himself time and get himself into that window of revenge all the while creating a temporary backup.
Isaac speaks up, his voice just as commanding as Abel's, "I know where the Holy Ground is. We are heading there. Look up..." He waits for Abel to find the trust to look away to where Isaac motions, "The smoke is a signal from our people there. We're heading to a colony. Food, protection, a new chance to start over...there is just one man there in the way..."
Though he's temporarily given away their safe-haven to a scarier enemy, the camp trusts Isaac knows what he's doing after all they'd been through together.
"And you.." Abel finds his attentions diverted to the man who seems to speak his unsettling language, "Your name?"
"Isaac. My name is Isaac," he replies.
Abel, along with anyone else who had basic knowledge of the good book, knew Isaac to be a name of biblical nature. This, in itself, along with his offering, had Abel shedding off any present aggression toward Isaac's camp.
This man, Isaac, and his own people, would now become his. They would lead him to Eden and to victory. Together, with his Eve, they would shed light again into these dark times and bring forth a new, better world, free from sin. His children after him, would lead a holier world brought to fruition from the ashes.
"The miracle son of Abraham..." Abel trails off, finding further madness in his constant delusions of his Eve. He needed all the blessings around him in bearing future sons with her and having the miracle son he believed, would give him further good fortune from the All-Father. Grey eyes flash fire at Isaac as he says, "Our people are now one. Yours shall be judged individually, and we will purge the demons that linger within those who have infiltrated our good mission. When we get to this colony, to our Eden, the selection will begin."
Dread, spread throughout the camp. None more, than that of Emma, who already knew that Abel held every intention to purge her. She'd escaped it before, but such luck couldn't possibly find her again.
Emma, still clutched by one of Abel's men, is seemingly forgotten by the madman and unrecognized by one of the sickos that violated her sister. Though, she knows it won't be for long when all the distractions die down.
Emma cries to herself when Isaac reveals the safe-haven she's been waiting for in all her troubled months with this pregnancy. The Eve he spoke of, the woman still in his custody somewhere unseen, Emma feared was also dead with her lack of presence here today. The girl had helped her escape his very clutches and now, she was nowhere to be seen.
"No..." Emma drifted the word without a sound.
Paige, Cici, Isaac—her new allies at the camp, didn't know what they were in for. This monster she knew as Abel, whose scriptures forever repeat in his distinct voice, conjured instant nausea in the cruel memory of him and what he did to her, and Lilly, before he took her life.
She's lived this nightmare over and over since she escaped him, that he'd find her again. Wondering, if the man with the swaying wooden cross had now manifested from the hallucinations in her waking mind. His voice, that cross, those storming eyes, refused to vanish when she tried to blink it way. Now, he's here and he'd kill them all.
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