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Marlaina awoke that morning seeing herself surrounded by Christian freaks. They were washing themselves off. Most of them were shirtless, displaying their tribal colors complete with Jesus Christ's floating face on their backs announcing how he came for the white people, and, when they turned around how she saw the picture of the cross and the huge letters spelling "White Power." What a bunch of assholes, she thought. The very concept of their religion was such a complete and utter oxymoron, since Jesus had been open to all races and nations, or hadn't they heard? Obviously, the answer was No, they hadn't, because all of them were frigging idiots.
She already knew that Aiden was on his way. Women in this world had always possessed this sort of sixth sense about things like that. In her mind, Aiden was a sort of god who followed her about and protected her back while she protected her front and vice versa. Together, no one could beat her or him, although in the night's chaos they had accosted Marlaina. Her new husband, a man with few teeth whose name was Leroy Tuttle, had forced his way with her, hoping to replenish his seed inside her body whether or not she agreed to it, which she did by lying and saying she loved Leroy and wanted his children inside her. She already figured out if she stayed with Leroy for five years and had no babies that Leroy would marry another and put her right out of her misery with a gunshot to the back of her head. In Marlaina's mind at this moment, that might be the answer to her prayers. "Just kill me, for Christ's sake," she prayed. She certainly didn't want to carry the evil seed of Leroy in her stomach and feel the intense pain of his neo-satanic children being born into the white cultist's world of hate and pain.
She smelled breakfast cooking and decided it might increase her chances of survival if she could find where the women were cooking food. Soon, she was there, introducing herself to the women, many of whom were also captured, and telling them how she loved to cook. Marlaina began whipping scrambled eggs and bacon into cheese omelets. Men loved that sort of thing in a woman. The way into their hearts was through their stomachs. She cooked up a storm, doing so day and night, making herself smile and becoming familiar and loved by all. In this way, she hoped to stay alive so she could help in what she hoped would be racist Christianity's terminal madness in a battle where all of them died. She envisioned how Leroy Tuttle would look with his own blood dripping from her blade.
"How are you this morning, my fine husband?" she asked as Leroy came by for his meal. She filled his plate and kissed him. "You were so good last night!" she said. Of course it was a lie. It was all she could do not to wretch. No matter what she had to do to stay alive, she would, because the real goal was to live to be with her husband Aiden and have their babies together. It was a prize worth whatever she had to do to make it happen.
They broke camp and continued wandering over mountains and streams, probably in search of more and more women so the men could produce new Christian racists with white skin and prejudice against all but their own. These Christian cultists were pathetic. She was going to pretend she agreed with them no matter what. She wanted to escape, and her pretended cooperation was just one more payment that this priceless ticket known as her marriage to Aiden demanded.
Hate?
Oh yea, she could hate as good as anyone if it got her out of here and into Aiden's handsome loving arms. That was all that counted in Marlaina's mind, and she would have Aiden back no matter what she had to do.
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Aiden slept with Yellow and his fine doggy friends in the Pennsylvania hills as evening tossed its stars like fireworks against the silvery flow of the Milky Way. Nature was beautiful at evening time.
"Hey, guys," he said as he fondled their ears. No matter how many times he scratched and massaged their warm furry ears, it was not enough. They lived on this stuff, and he wasn't against providing it. He leaned down and sniffed their canine hair which had a familiar scent to it. Each dog had its own odor, and most of them were quite pleasant. Otherwise humans would have ceased sleeping with them long ago.
The next day, he fed them scraps and jumped into the saddle and meandered through the fields, looking for clues to the whereabouts of Marlaina and her white Christian captors who, whether they knew it or not, were already on their way to hell once Aiden found them. He'd kill them all, making sure none would survive. Neither would their Satanic children. "I'm going to kill you," he said. Yellow heard him and barked. Did he understood what Aiden meant by that or was he just barking because Aiden was his master and had said anything at all?
It didn't matter. Whatever. Get it done.
The dogs sniffed the ground for zombies and people. Their world was filled with one or the other. Not as many as before. The battles were making fodder out of the dead whose arms and legs were dismembered.
"I'm coming for you guys," he said.
He dreamed he had rescued Marlaina and lay at her side nipping gently at her ear and cheek, all the while telling her just how much she meant to him. She would already know, because he had come for her.
The dogs picked up a scent. Was it the racists or was it the zombies. Both were pure assholes. Aiden thought that he preferred zombies stumbling forward for innocent human victims over white Christian racists who wanted to corrupt the kids and ruin the world for everyone including themselves. Nothing was so demoralizing than hatred of others, and Aiden didn't understand why people who loved their color, race, and nationality felt that they had to hate others who weren't like them. He knew they were wrong. As wrong as it gets. But you could bet your bottom dollar they'd keep it up just as long as they could breathe or rip a knife blade across a man's throat. He reached down and fingered his knives and swords. These were his friends. In battle they cut up the enemy, and that meant that the enemy could not cut him up. This was a good thing. Any soldier can tell you. If you had ever been in battle, then you had seen the craziness of imminent death haunting you amid the blood smells on all sides, until knife after knife flashed in the front of your face with the intent of ending your life. Only then you would know the holiness of a blade. When one came for you in battle, you would know how it was the impeccable strength all along its edge that gave you the force to persevere within the madness. It was that edge that protected you as you used it to slice out pieces of your foes in the hope of standing alone yet bloodied at battle's end, surveying the world you had silenced as your enemies blood glistened redly from your knife blade's edge. He pulled his favorite knife from its holster and sniffed its blade. This was his friend. Like his dogs and any men he trusted going into battle, Aiden would be wielding this metallic flange along its thickest edge. It glistened in his eyes. It seemed to stand gloriously tall and ready in his hand. Only with severe military discipline and reluctance had he brought himself to hide it inside its perfectly fitting holster for later use.
Day after day, scent marks picked up here and there by the dogs faded and went, then came back, then disappeared. The soft sounds of the dogs kept Aiden appraised of what they were sensing, human or walking dead, as they sprang into their work for the glory and deeds of their master. It was a responsibility to care for such loyal friends who worked for nothing and required nothing more than an occasional pat on the back or hugs at day's end. Even the loneliest man in the world can find himself heartened by the lapping tongue of his best friends, as Aiden had been finding. A good dog by his side wasn't his wife and the love of his life, but it was a truly loving being who appreciated him for what and who he was, and it was something good to have around when all things were said and done.
"We need to find Marlaina, guys," he said. "Let's get this done. I miss her, guys. Help me out here, please."
The dogs whined back at him, turning their beautiful heads, and scampering here and there, nose down, searching for just the right stuff.
Aiden jumped down off his horse. “Whoa, stay here, Penn.” He didn't want to over work the animal. He'd need the beast for the long haul. It would be foolish to ignorantly over use a working stud then come up missing when a dang
erous situation arose. He'd never be that thoughtless. Besides, survival meant planning. It required that every man be aware of the approaching conflict, cognizant to the extreme, and knowledgeable of all of the requirements for victory. Aiden intended to be that type of person who pursued the future with a stern focus. All his moves required a steady nature and the ability to overcome everything that fate tossed into his face. He would need every available faculty at his command, each in the right time and place, each ready for duty. Any mistake Aiden made in ignorance could become his terminal kill point. Foresight, not hindsight was all that mattered to Aiden. His mind pursued a deeply penetrating direction that focused him upon the task at hand.
Right now Aiden was in dangerous territory. The racist Christian hordes were out there. He knew nothing about them except that they were heartless and would do whatever was necessary to survive including the kidnapping of individuals like Marlaina. She had done nothing to entice them to take her. They had come on their own to get her. That required forethought, cunning, and total disrespect of her rights and those of her loved ones. He would have to be even more cunning than the Christian racist fringe or he would be falling inside their trap. Aiden knew he was fighting against time, events, numbers, and destiny. He did not even know if Marlaina was still alive or whether she was nearby or far away in some hidden place. There was no way of knowing. Only vigilance, hard work, and reading the clues the Jesus Town cult members left along their way could help him find her. It would either happen, or it wouldn't. There was no way of knowing the outcome. To the right, dogs were circling zombies, softly barking just the right way to tell him they were of the dead and not the living. Aiden wanted to leave them there, but he couldn't. They needed to be taken down. Every one of them needed to die and be burned to ashes on their brightly flaming funeral pyres. So he led his horse to the circled mass and began heaving his bat into their skulls.
"Clear!"
The habit of yelling that word was ingrained. It simply came with the turf.
"Clear!"
“Clear!"
He counted twenty-one of them. They offered no resistance. The dogs had created such a ruckus that the zombies simply bunched up in a circle together where Aiden bashed them into zombie oblivion. He built a fire and torched them. Their volatile bodies burst into flames. They were so dry, they burned in no time. Aiden put out the fire and buried their ashes. He had peeled the grassy surface so he could roll it back over the pyre's remains and snuff the fire out completely. Soon, the place looked substantially like it had before he killed the animated corpses. No one would even suspect that twenty-one of them were buried here. No one needed to know. The least said about it the better. Wasn't that the way of the new world? What people saw could be used against them. The Christ freaks could learn from such a burial that someone else was in the area. Then they'd be vigilant. That would not be in Aiden Wilson's favor at all. Stealth was his only friend.
He mounted his horse. Penn was a good steed, and Aiden loved his name. Someone else had made it up. He could not remember who. He figured it was probably his father or his uncle. It was unimportant. His mind reeled with facts. There was too much going on for him to waste time on anything but the business at hand. Search and rescue. He was going to find his wife, Marlaina. His beautiful young sweetheart was out there in God only knows what kind of trouble. Aiden fully understood how each of these Aryan racists who kidnapped Marlaina and two other militia women were sociopaths at best. Their entire existence was based on false claims of white supremacy. What Aiden had seen of the white race, most of the world's problems had some way or another been created by whites. Hadn't they wiped out the Indian culture? Who then was to blame? The Indians or the Europeans who came two thousand miles across icy seas to slaughter them? He tried to put it out of his mind. He had to concentrate. He rode to the highest point he could find and searched in all directions. He reached into his saddle bag and took out the binoculars his father had given him. He raised them to his eyes and focused on the most distant ground. Then, he nudged Penn in a slow circle so he could see the entire horizon as he had done regularly several times each day. Aiden wanted to see it all. He had trudged a long way to get to each observation post. He wanted all of them to count. At first, he saw nothing. Then, a puff of smoke and some movement. They were to the north. He guessed there were fifty of them, but it might be double that or less than half. He'd have to get close to know for sure.
He placed the binoculars back in the bag, then prodded his horse forward at a slow gait. The dogs romped in front and back and to the sides as it suited them. Now and then, Aiden stopped and gently selected one of his dogs. Usually, he'd lift the lucky pup and carry it on his lap, allowing it to feel his closeness which helped to cement its loyalty and give it a more bountiful sense of self worth. As an occupation, searching and rescue so far seemed good to him. He liked the fact that he was moving closer to retrieving his wife from these bastards and that he would soon have her back with him. He looked forward to sleeping by her side and working in the safe house environs where zombies would be a thing of the past. However, the first thing he was going to do was to fortify it against armed human beings who were susceptible to false prophets such as the ones from Jesus Town. Mankind needed to rid itself of these criminals so that everyone in the future would be guaranteed true liberty and respect. The idea of kidnapping people and taking them into the country and hiding them was hideous and could not be allowed. These cults would have to be systematically hunted down and destroyed, until not a single vestige of their injustice remained. Only then, would mankind feel safe inside their communities, knowing that bigots and religious zealots would be contained and dealt with properly.
Three days later, Aiden had reached their camp. He watched from a safe distance and waited until nightfall to approach the Christian cult's position. Before he left, he painted his body and clothes in black ashes which rendered him totally invisible since no light could be reflected from him to give his presence away. He staked his horse and dogs so they could not follow him and give him away. He hated to do it for fear zombies would approach them, making them an easy kill. After total darkness settled in, he crawled and ran toward the camp, keeping his body in the darkest areas. He circled it, observing who was there and exactly where each one of them was located. He counted 34 persons before he found Marlaina. She was sitting with the man who had enslaved her and claimed his right of ownership and marriage to her. He was the person who had been breeding her for white children. Two other women from the Wilson safe house were also in there. They, too, were being bred by the rednecks who owned them. He was determined to rescue all of them alive. As the activities inside the encampment began to slow and people stretched out to sleep, he saw that his wife and Leroy Tuttle who now called himself her husband were side by side and Leroy was hugging her and kissing her lips. Marlaina was acting like she enjoyed it, but Aiden knew better. Leroy was a intolerant racist troll. No woman as fine as Marlaina would allow herself to become united with a loser like him unless she were under great duress including threats to her life. Other women were also being stroked by their men in the same manner. They had nowhere to hide from this sort of thing, so they had to perform whatever acts they felt obliged to perform in the open, except that the darkness pretty much hid them from one another and there didn't really seem to be any voyeurs taking advantage of the situation. This meant they might be a bit more sociable than Aiden figured. That could spell bad news, because the more ignorant they behaved as a group, the easier they would be to outwit and conquer.
On the other side of the encampment several filthy scumbags guarded the horses. They were smoking homemade cigarettes which seemed like a mixture of tobacco and sage of some type. They were exhausted from their day's work, so that when Aiden approached them, he was able to slice both of their throats with no effort at all. He slowly comforted the horses, most of whom still had their saddles on, loosened, but to the ready for quick getaways if needed. He took th
eir reigns and slowly led them about one mile away from the camp, deeper into the field where he secured them next to a clump of trees for safe hiding.
Back at the camp, Leroy was doing to Marlaina what he had kidnapped and married her for. When Aiden placed his hand around the man's mouth and snapped his neck bones in the quick and deadly kill move that General Grayson Andrews had taught him, he bent down, and whispered, "I hope you found that satisfying, you son of a bitch!" By now his hand covered Marlaina's mouth. Her eyes stared at him in total fright. "Be quiet as a cockroach," he told her in a whisper. “I'll have you safely out of here and on the way back home in a second.” He picked her up and carried her beyond the perimeter of the camp and didn't put her down until they reached the safety of the horses.
"I was so frightened," she told him. "They made me..."
He placed his hand over her mouth.
"You can never speak of this, ever," he told her. "As far as both of us are concerned this nightmare has never happened. Do you understand?" She nodded. He looked into her eyes. "I mean it. You are never to speak of this to me or my father or mother or anyone else. This is finished. Over. Kaput. We have our entire lives to live and this never occurred. Got it?"
"Yes, Aiden."
They kissed gently. Tears fell from both of their eyes.
“Know that I love you totally,” Aiden told her. “There's nothing you will ever need to say about this.”
She was so happy to see him. They had traveled many miles from where she had been taken from him. As he held her close, she felt her body shaking in his arms.
"I have to go back for the others," Aiden said. "Stay here and be totally quiet."
In the camp, he found both of the women from the safe house. The necks of their lovers were snapped effortlessly in the exact manner General Andrew had trained him. Easy as pie. He felt no remorse for them, because as far as he was concerned no one in this life deserved to live if they dedicated themselves to the low life missions of Jesus Town. He carried the women out of the camp one by one and walked the women to the horses where Marlaina was hiding. He tightened two of the saddles and placed them there.