Horror Within : 8 Book Boxed Set

  Horror Within

  Meat Camp

  Scott Nicholson / J.T. Warren

  Zombie Fallout (Plus Bonus Short - Mayan Prophecy)

  Mark Tufo

  This Plague Of Days

  Robert Chaz Chute

  The Unwashed Dead

  Ian Woodhead

  Dead Hunger

  Eric A. Shelman

  From The Ashes

  Tony Baker

  Red Sky

  Travis Tufo

  Dying Days

  Armand Rosimilia

  MEAT CAMP

  By J.T. Warren & Scott Nicholson

  Published by Haunted Computer Books

  Copyright ©2013

  Scott’s Author Central page at Amazon

  J.T.’s Author Central page at Amazon

  CHAPTER ONE

  Delphus Fraley was as wrinkled and warped as the October leaves crunching beneath his feet.

  But not as fragile, of course. Delphus might be sixty-five, a widower with arthritis and, at least according to the uppity Florida snobs that seemed to be invading the Blue Ridge Mountains, a crotchety old hillbilly. But he wasn’t some weak-kneed old fart who spent his days in a rocking chair chewing hay. He had plenty of life still pumping through him.

  And big plans.

  He stumbled through the woods, rubbing his long beard and his narrow chest beneath his long-john shirt and overalls. Helped to get things pumping. The late-afternoon shadows masked the trees into black sentries and a fracture of gray sky revealed the outhouse that looked like it might topple beneath a strong gust, but she’d been holding on for years. Just like him.

  Inside, he swiveled the small wedge of wood on its nail to latch the door, and unstrapped his overalls, pushed them down, and sat. His wrinkled butt found the familiar groove—it had taken years and years to wear the wood away but the seat was now his perfect throne, sculpted just for his bottom.

  Sure, they had flush toilets in the house now, but sometimes you just couldn’t beat tradition. And they didn’t call it a “privy” for nothing. This seemed to be the only place where he could get away from bawling calves, whiny neighbors, and that jangling telephone his daughter had installed.

  “Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-yi-ee-yi-o!” he sang in a creaky, off-key rasp. “Government taxed it all to hell, ee-yi-ee-yi-ooooooooooooooo.”

  He reached for the lantern hanging on its hook and lit it before continuing to the next line.

  “And on that farm he had some….” Delphus frowned, trying to figure out a farm animal that rhymed with “hell.”

  Leaves scuffed and branches scratched the outside of the outhouse. Hadn’t been any wind before, just a dull, gray, dead afternoon. Maybe something was strolling passed, smelling the ripe aroma drifting from the outhouse. Most animals had a keen sense of smell, and Delphus didn’t consider that always an advantage.

  He felt along the floor and tugged out the magazine he kept stashed in there. Turning to his favorite spread, he licked his lips and felt the few teeth he had left like abnormal bumps along his smooth gums.

  He smoothed the pages against one knee, kind of like a caress. A fellow had to appreciate his solitude, and a widower like him had to take his comfort where he could get it.

  Can’t get much prettier than the four-point white-tail buck in this centerfold of “Game & Fish.” Hunting season will be here before you know it.

  Something blocked the light squeezing through the cracks in the outhouse planks. Whatever it was, it made a strange snuffling, gurgling sound. Something looking for breakfast, perhaps.

  Or maybe one of the campers. Those little bastards were known to prowl past the marked boundaries of the camp, violating the lease agreement and generally looking for trouble. And it was all Eva Dean’s fault.

  “Who’s there?” he growled.

  He strained, anxious now to finish his business. The thing outside made that odd noise again, something close to a cat trying to hack up a mouse carcass, and pawed at the door. It vibrated against the meager wood latch.

  If it was one of them camp kids, Delphus would jerk him up by the ear and drag him to the woodshed for a whoopin’. That was the problem with those brats, anyway. If their parents had whaled the tar out of them a time or two, they might not have gotten into trouble.

  Delphus ripped a few pages from the back of the magazine, all ads, and wiped. He crumpled the paper and dropped it down. The pawing sharpened into frantic scratching. The door shook.

  “Hold on a second, dammit,” he said. “Let me get my drawers back up.”

  The scratching turned frenzied, the door thudding against that latch, and then stopped. Stupid damn kids. They tramped all around these woods like they owned every piece of it. They were city kids, street kids—they didn’t know the first thing about making it out here. In the woods, life took on a harder edge. No matter what kind of screwed up nonsense had brought them here, none of those kids knew the first thing about life in the mountains.

  Maybe, to a kid, an outhouse was some sort of strange artifact from a lost civilization. You practically couldn’t resist trying it out just so you could brag about it when you got back home.

  Delphus pulled up his overalls, fastened them, and took the lantern from its hook. “Damned campers think this is the Conrad Hilton. Gotta make a reservation to get in a little quality time ‘round here.”

  He unlatched the door and pushed it open, standing framed in the doorway with the lantern at his side. To his immediate left, something squealed as if in pain and scrambled off through the brush to the edge of the clearing.

  “Okay. Your turn, you impatient peckerhead,” Delphus said. He peered into the shadowed forest where the kid had retreated. “I told you to cut out the pranks. I’ll get my shotgun and fill your ass with rock salt.”

  Delphus followed the trail away from the outhouse. Should have brought his shotgun with him. He could sit on the pot and blow a hole right through the door. That’d teach them.

  Don’t mess with the old guy—that ought to be the slogan around here. Don’t mess with Old Man Fraley, especially when it’s his time on the shitter.

  He chuckled, heading back to camp. Leaves crunched behind him. A smile deepened his wrinkles as he paused mid-step and turned around quickly, hand in a revolver gesture. “Gotchya, you—”

  The kid, hunched over as if he’d been thinking of leaping on Delphus from behind, cut back through the forest with surprising speed. He was a blur of white and dirt, dodging back among the trees and crunching the underbrush in a cackle of snapping twigs. He made a strange gurgling sound.

  Almost like indigestion. Maybe he really had to go. Delphus clucked out another chuckle and continued on his way. He’d learned in six decades not to let little things get to him, and that included little people.

  A few steps on, he stopped, turned back. “I hope you fall in!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jenny Usher was twenty-two and a virgin.

  Not that she hadn’t had ample opportunities to lose it.

  She could have lost it when she was twelve and barely had any hips or breasts to speak of and the boys in seventh grade threw her sidelong glances, their eyes glazed over, mouths in ridiculous grins. She could have made it with every straight guy in high school, if she wanted to, and maybe even some of the gay ones who still hadn’t figured things out.

  She wasn’t stuck up or full of herself—she knew she was desirable and that made her virginity all the m
ore important. Her college roommates had called her “Cherry Turnover” and tried to set her up with a series of potential deflowerers, although most of the guys had been their rejects and leftovers. None of them would make it past the third question in a Cosmopolitan “Is He the Right One For You?” survey.

  So she was doing the lame thing, waiting for marriage, but when she finally found the guy who deserved to have all of her, well, she planned on making up for lost time.

  But she wasn’t feeling it here.

  Mark was two years older and always wore jeans and a T-shirt, Mister Tough Guy, even when it was cold like now. They were in the camp counselor’s lodge, a candle on the picnic table as the only light, except for the weak daylight leaking between the cracks around the boarded-up windows, and she was shivering in a sweater and sweat suit.

  “I’m freezing, Mark.”

  “It’s barely autumn yet.”

  “I thought this was the Blue Ridge Mountains, not Siberia.”

  “Blue Ball Mountains is more like it.”

  “Mark, don’t start that.” Boys always turned into assholes when they realized she hadn’t been coyly teasing about preserving her virginity.Aren’t we good together?, each one said.I think you’re the best. I really want to take us to the next level. She held her ground, and even when she allowed some exploration, each guy still turned into a little kid throwing a tantrum in a toy store.

  But I want my candy! Wah Waa!

  Mark grabbed a paper bag off the desk in the corner by the single bunk. Some archery equipment, ropes, and other camp gear hung on the walls. There wasn’t even a fireplace, never mind electricity. She’d spent more than a few days wondering why she’d agreed to take this job. Thinking the time with Mark would be like a romantic getaway and that he could turn out to be The One, well, that had been her hopeless naiveté again.

  Mom always told her she needed to be tougher. “The world isn’t a magic place waiting to fulfill your dreams,” she had told Jenny more than a few times. “The gullible, sensitive, and the hopelessly optimistic suffer the most.”

  Gee, thanks Mom.

  But hadn’t that been partially why she’d come up here, to prove she was made of stronger mettle than everyone thought? She could tough it out up here without any of the modern conveniences, electricity included, and simultaneously help two dozen troubled city kids realize they didn’t need to be in gangs, or do drugs, or break laws to be cool. Just surviving out here was cool enough.

  Yeah—how’s that going so far? Moral fiber doesn’t keep you warm.

  Mark doled out the contents of the bag onto the table: granola bars, beef jerky, potato chips. She was starving, unable to eat the junk they served in the dining hall. At least she was losing weight here at the camp, and there was nowhere to spend money, so she’d have a good start on a deposit for a new apartment.

  Last of all, Mark pulled out a condom wrapper and spun it across the table toward her. She pulled back from it like it was a diseased thing. She’d had guys get half-naked and snap out a condom like a party favor, as if going to all that trouble would convince her to give it up. She’d even had a guy try to rape her at a frat party. He’d been drunk and she’d kicked him right in his family jewels. His face had turned purple and when he hit the bathroom floor she thought she had killed him. Then he vomited down his chest and passed out.

  “They call it ‘Meat Camp’ and I’m not getting any meat,” Mark said.

  “True love waits.”

  “Yeah, yeah, saving it for marriage. Sorry I brought it up.”

  She nodded toward the cot. “Let’s eat; then we can cuddle a little bit before we check on the kids.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “It’s a little too chilly for a cold shower.”

  She tried to hide her hurt. She should be used to assholes like this by now. But, like Mom said, Jenny was hopelessly optimistic.

  And Mom was also right about the “suffering” part.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jose knew a place they could go.

  It wasn’t too far off, not after they took Kyle’s car most of the way into the mountains, anyway, but he doubted Kyle would even be able to wait. He drove with Amanda in the passenger seat and Jose lounged in the back, ankles crossed and hands joined behind his head like he was reclining poolside.

  Kyle’s car was a piece of crap, a beat-up Camaro with ripped leather seats, a rusting body, and an engine that choked instead of growled. Even so, at least Kyle had a car. Jose was almost nineteen and he still didn’t have any wheels. And a car was the only way to get out, get away, and find something better.

  Jose’s father had been a handyman. When Jose was a little kid, his father worked constantly and they lived in a two-story house just outside the city. He had so many calls and steady customers that Dad started taking the family out every Saturday night for a fancy meal. Jose had been too young to really appreciate how good things were, but he remembered how his parents smiled at each other, and how they laughed. If he concentrated hard enough, he could still hear their laughter, so free and unafraid.

  Then Dad was working on the plumbing in some stinking tenement and a guy who was there thought Jose’s father was a Narc, or at least an undercover cop—he shot Jose’s father twice in the head. Apparently, the guy had been high on something, maybe meth, maybe bath salts, maybe Freon huffed out of a window air conditioner.

  Whatever, Jose and his mom moved from their suburban home into a rat-riddled tenement, and he had no car or any chance of getting out.

  “How much farther?” Kyle asked from the driver’s seat.

  “Almost there,” Jose said.

  The cover story was that they were hooking up with Sven to buy a bag of weed, but the sex was a bonus. Either would have been enough for Kyle.

  Amanda’s hand reached across to squeeze Kyle’s thigh. Her hand stayed there, slipped along his leg, out of Jose’s view.

  “Come on, man,” Kyle said. “Time is of the essence.”

  “Hell that even means,” Jose said. “We got nothing but time.”

  Kyle contorted as Amanda teased him. “You, maybe,” he said. “I’m in a hurry here.”

  Jose looked out the window. Trees towered all around. A fresh smell, a pure kind of breeze woven with a surprisingly pleasant sweetness of forest decay, slipped through the window. It was funny how even rot smelled better out here. In the city, everything stank of garbage and car exhaust and the smell burned your nose off.

  They had turned off the main road a while ago and it had been slow going up into the mountains, bumping and thumping over dirt roads, but they were almost there. Jose knew the place. His buddy Sven was up here somewhere, doing time at some feel-good camp for degenerate teens. It was some naturalistic community camp without electricity or plumbing. It was supposed to be a last chance for kids on the cusp of jail, something to set them straight.

  No electricity? No plumbing?

  Jail sounded a hell of a lot better. Place was probably run by some Hitler do-gooder type.

  “What are you doing?” Kyle asked in surprise.

  “Shh,” Amanda said and undid her seatbelt.

  She climbed over and started slobbering all over Kyle’s neck, squirming against him. The car swerved.

  “Jesus, Amanda, Jose’s right there.”

  “Jose doesn’t mind,” she said. “Do you?”

  Jose turned his head to the rear window. “We’re almost there.”

  “Well, let’s get there,” she said. “Before things get out of hand.”

  Her giggling grated at him.

  She was messing with him on purpose, and he hated her for it. Even more, he hated himself. They’d played this game too long.

  Kyle groaned, barely keeping it under control as Amanda teased him.

  “Just pull over,” Jose said. “We can walk from here.”

  “I don’t know if we’ll even make it out of the car,” Amanda said, practically purring with false innocence. “Sorry to be such a distracti
on.”

  The car had slowed and wobbled to a crawl, but Kyle still had his foot on the gas and every few seconds, the car surged awkwardly along the uneven road.

  “You like me, baby?” Amanda said, purposefully loud enough for Jose to hear.

  “Stop the car,” he said, louder.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kyle said, and the car surged again.

  “Hell with this,” Jose said. He moved fast, popping open the door and stumbling out on to the dirt road, almost keeping his balance, and then slumping to the ground.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Amanda said inside the car.

  The car finally stopped a little farther on and Jose watched Amanda kiss Kyle in the driver’s seat. The moment her eyes caught his through the rear window, Jose turned away.

  He started up the hill, disgusted at his own arousal.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Through binoculars, the grounds looked beautiful. It was going to look even better covered with condos instead of ramshackle cabins. The mountains rose high over the valley below and the camp with its ropes course in the middle, a dining hall nearby and a lake in the back behind the cabins. Complete waste of beautiful real estate. But not for too much longer.

  Maximilian Jenkins, wearing a John Varvatos suit, probably stuck out in this environment about as much as if he was pictured on a neon billboard. That was okay. Max liked attention. He deserved it. A billionaire at forty, he had earned it. And this latest venture was just one more example of how he got what he wanted and deserved what he got.

  “One-hundred twenty acres of primo valley land. Cover it with condos, we’re talking thirty mil,” Max said still looking through binoculars.

  “I thought the family didn’t want to sell,” Robert said behind him.

  Max lowered the binoculars, turned around. Robert Reaves was fresh out of business school and new to this whole gambit. He looked a bit uncomfortable, tugging at his knock-off suit, but he was a malleable sycophant and Max could work with that. The sinking sunlight bounced off the black, 7-series BMW parked on the old logging road.