Chapter Six

Fallen

Dane told her: “Lose the visor. I want to see your face.”

Ignoring him for now, Courtney put her palms on the floor and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

The minilights on the fallen Socoms illuminated the grisly scene in Fortunes Casino. The bodies of her teammates were scattered around her, bloody and broken and partially devoured. However, the armored zombies that assaulted them were all standing in place now, wavering and looking drunk. Dr. Dane stood with them, holding a button on the handbox as he aimed the revolver at her.

Finally she uttered, “What’s going on here?”

“Don’t ask questions and don’t get up,” he replied. “Just lose the visor. I won’t tell you again.”

Trembling and taking in stuttering breaths of air, Courtney removed her beret and slid the visor off her head. Her hair spilled out to her shoulders.

“Now the sword,” Dane instructed. “Unsheathe it and toss it.”

Courtney complied, pulling her last weapon from its scabbard and sliding it away. She stared back up at Dane.

“Don’t give me trouble,” he said. He motioned to the zombies at his sides and added, “Or I let my friends have at you.”

He pushed down the antenna on the handbox and hooked it over the waistline of his jeans. He stepped forward, keeping the gun trained on her, and put a foot on both sides of her legs. He loomed there for a moment before kneeling down on top of her and placing the barrel of the revolver on her forehead. It was righteously cold against her sweating skin.

He leaned in close and put his nose in her hair.

She remained still, staring at his finger as it hugged the trigger on the revolver.

After a moment he leaned to her ear and whispered, “Your hair smells like apple blossoms.” He pulled away and smiled a very creepy smile. “You’re just a small thing, aren’t you? What are you, about five-five?” He paused to study her, and added, “Nice body though.”

All at once he used his free hand to grab her left breast, then squeezed and twisted on top of her wetsuit until he forced her to cry out. He held on for quite a while, clenching more than fondling, seemingly enjoying watching her face scrunch up in pain, then slowly started to release his grip. When he finally finished he mumbled, “Hmph—Not even a handful. But I like the way you scream.”

She wanted to tell the loony psycho to get the hell off of her, but the gun being shoved in her face reminded her to stay quiet.

“I’ve decided,” he said. “I’m keeping you.”

He took off the satchel bag and placed it at his side, then opened it and rummaged through the contents, eventually pulling out a syringe. He eyed it over his nose and tested it by depressing the plunger a smidgen and squirting out some of the liquid inside. He whispered, “These suits you murderers wear can’t stop a needle, can they?”

Despite the threat of the gun, she quickly squirmed to her side and tried to slither out from beneath him, but she suddenly felt the needle jab into her posterior.

Dane wrestled her to her back once more. He cupped his hand over her mouth and whispered, “It’s just a sedative. You relax now.”

She glared back at him, frightened yet angry. However, as the moments passed she began to feel lazier and lazier and almost wanted to close her eyes.

His hand slid down her stomach and began fumbling with the buckle on her belt.

Through her drowsiness she mumbled, “Please don’t.”

Dane returned his gaze to hers and smiled. He said, “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in the living.”

He finished unfastening her belt and let it fall off. He then gathered her limp body in his arms and put her over his shoulder, then stood and carried her out of the casino.

Her eyelids fell shut shortly thereafter.