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Suddenly, he felt hands on his arm, grabbing, clawing, and ripping. He looked to his right to see a pickup right next to him. His eyes went wide when he saw the infected in the back of the truck, heads tilting back and forth, screaming and yelling. A few of the infected in the truck’s bed had a hold of his arm and were trying to pull him off the bike. He attempted to wrench his arm out of their grip, but they were incredibly strong. A couple other infected in the back reached out and grabbed his shirt and pulled him off the bike. Although he was fighting them with everything he had, it seemed futile. Feeling the situation was reaching a desperate point, he stretched down to his left thigh and grabbed his Walther PPQ. He cursed loudly as his hand came away empty. His pistol was gone, both of his pistols were gone.

“Fuck,” he yelled, as they pulled him off the bike and slammed him into the bed of the truck. They jumped on him, screaming like banshees as he fought to keep them off. He was swinging, kicking and thrashing about, trying to gain some freedom from their grip. Trying to create some space between them, so he could wriggle out from underneath them and maybe jump out the back. There had to be something….something to give him a fighting chance.

Priest screamed as the excruciating pain overtook him as he felt them taking bites out of his arms and legs. Then they ripped at his skin. They pulled his entrails out, laughing and screaming as they held them up as trophies. One leaned in and took a bite out of his throat as he attempted to scream. The scream wouldn’t come, only gasping and gurgling. He rocked his head, trying to remove the gnashing teeth from his throat. He gathered all the strength he could muster and screamed out.

He jolted awake, gasping and panting.

“Well, look who’s awake,” a voice called out that he didn’t recognize. Priest struggled to open his eyes and look around, but they would barely open. His eyes were pulsating and throbbing and something crusted them halfway shut.

Priest tried to wipe them, but his hands wouldn’t move, wouldn’t budge. They felt like they weighed 50 lbs, and he had lost feeling in them. He rotated his head to the left and right and saw he had handcuffs on each raw and bleeding wrist. Priest was on his knees with his arms stretched out, cuffed to a railing on each side. Stripped down to a t-shirt and jeans, they were both covered both in blood. He felt his lips with his tongue, and they were split and bleeding in various places. His throat was parched, like he had gargled with barbwire. As Priest regained his wits about him, every inch of his body screamed out in pain. Every inch protested movement and cried out, trying to gain his attention all at the same time. A slight grin came over his face as he embraced the pain as a welcomed friend. The pain allowed him to focus, allowed him to keep his mind in the present.

“Take it in. Take it all in. You aren’t home anymore,” that same voice said to him. He opened his eyes as much as they would allow to look around the room.

Priest analyzed his environment and thought, “A maintenance building of some sort? No, it looked more like a horse barn and tack shop. There was a man sitting in a chair facing him with three more men standing behind him. The man in the chair was leaning on a sledgehammer with the head against his cheek.

“Ah, there he is, it’s about time too. I worried I hit you too hard.” The man said as he held the hammer up to his face and examined it.

“It split that helmet, though. Just like cracking an egg. Oh, and the boys here worked you over quite a bit as well. I mean, with you killing so many of their friends, I’m sure you can understand how they might be a little upset. Truth is, we had to pull them off you before they beat you to death.”

In a low raspy voice, Priest finally spoke, “Yeah, they did a pretty good job on the dog pile seeing how I was already down. If they would like to try me now, I would be more than happy to return the favor.”

The man in the chair looked at him quizzically. A smile broke on Priest’s face as he snickered, then spat out a wad of blood and phlegm. The man stared at him for another brief second and then broke out in laughter like that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. He went on for a while, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“My God, you are funny.” The man was wiping the tears off his face. It took a few minutes for him to compose himself. “Whew. That was good. You know what makes this even funnier?”

Priest shrugged, as much as he could with the shackles on his wrists. “Because my associates here, probably don’t realize just how true that is.” He laughed again, but nowhere close to the spectacle as before. The men behind him started shifting nervously.

Priest didn’t know if they enjoyed being called out, but he didn’t give much of a shit either.

“My, my, my, where are my manners? Let me introduce myself. My name is Thomas, Thomas Baker. I am the mayor of our little paradise here, called Boone.”

When Priest pictured mayors he thought of fat, balding men with floppy jowls and a handkerchief to mop up the sweat constantly rolling off their head. This Thomas guy had a southern accent that sounded like an old southern gentleman of high society. His appearance, however, differed from the image his voice projected. This “Thomas”, was fairly tall from what Priest can determine with him sitting in the chair. He was lanky, a little on the thinner side, and wore khakis with a button-up shirt. Except for the fact that he tried to cave his head in, Priest thought he might have sat down for a beer with him under different circumstances. He had sandy blonde hair that was cut short and a close-cropped beard. Thomas Baker noticed Priest analyzing him and answered the unasked questions.

“No, I am not really the mayor, well one that was voted upon, anyway. This group, however, has made me the mayor.”

“No shit,” Priest uttered.

Thomas looked at him for a moment.

“My boys really messed you up, didn’t they? Perhaps seeing the picture I have in front of me, might clue you in to the seriousness of the situation at hand. Thomas got up from his chair and walked out of the room.

He was getting a kick out of this, Priest thought. Thomas came back into the room with a small mirror and held it out in front of Priest.

“Holy shit, they did a good job. My compliments to the artist,” Priest said. He could see that his eyes were practically swollen shut, crusted together with dried blood, and were black and blue. He had cuts all over his face and his lips were busted and split. He had blood crusted in this beard and cuts all over his face and head.

As Priest looked at the broken face in the mirror, he said in a raspy voice, “I’ve been tortured by the best and you fuckers are going to have to do better than this.”

That seemed to amuse Thomas. “I really like you; you know. I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name and I’m curious to know what yours is?”

“Priest.”

“What?”

“They call me Priest.”

“Is that your first name, last name or a nickname?”

“Just Priest.”