Evil Is a Man

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

If you like what you're reading, let me know: SellarDhor@gmail.com. And let me know where you want the story to go and who you want Jake to end up with. And if you have any ideas for the future, let me know, I might include them.

JANUARY 30th

I saw Cornelius hiding in the bushes outside of the pig farm's boundaries, and I motioned for him to wait, trying to make it clear that I couldn't get out on my own enough so it would be safe for him to approach me. The pig farm was highly concentrated, unlike the crop fields had been the past two days, and I couldn't get away from Grimes ever constant watch.

Instead, I walked over to Grimes and said, "Master, I need to leave for Lucky's now."

"Fuck, is it that time again already? And I was just rounding up some pigs that need to be slaughtered and hooked, yer favorite goddamn job. Well, next time. Lemme give ya a pork sandwich before ya go," he said, using his gross, greasy hands to pull out an unwrapped sandwich from inside his shirt and hand it to me.

I looked down at the sandwich. "Should I eat it while I run back, master?"

"Nah, do it here first. Nothin' like eating a pork sandwich when surrounded by pigs. Almost as fun as drinking a human's blood while surrounded by slaves."

I ate the sandwich, feeling grossed out by the whole deal, but telling myself that it was a whole lot better than slop. Only then did he permit me to leave, and I jogged off towards the pens.

But as soon as I was out of sight of the pig farm, I turned around and walked into the space between the farm and the oil fields, knowing there would be almost no chance anyone would be moving through there.

It wasn't long before Cornelius had sight of me, and he moved to my position, coming out into the hills. "I'm glad to see you're still alive, Mr. Groves. I've brought you what you requested." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic turkey baster. "Unless your strategy is to literally stun them all with your poultry roasting skills and thus make your escape, I can't conceive of how such an item could possibly be of any use to you. Furthermore, I fail to see how you'll smuggle something so large back with you when you haven't a stitch of clothing on."

"I'm not going to smuggle it back, Cornelius. And there's some far more important item I need you to give me, something I will smuggle back."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Groves, but I really don't have anything else useful on me. Should I go back to the mansion and retrieve what you require?"

"No," I said. "You already have what I need. This is a very awkward request, Cornelius. And I've been through too much in here to try and put it delicately, so I'm just going to be blunt. I need you to put as much of your semen as you possibly can into the baster."

"Good heavens! Whatever for?"

"I need to inject the semen into my anus."

"Is that supposed to help you escape?"

"It's the best shot of escape I can think of. If it doesn't work, then I'll die in my escape attempt, and that's far better for me than living as their plaything. If I die today, you have to promise me slaves won't be killed in retaliation."

"I'll make sure of that. Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"I know it's a lot to ask of you, Cornelius. If it makes you too uncomfortable, I totally understand."

"No, I can do it. But it all seems so impersonal. Listen, you are a disarmingly attractive person, and you deserve to be treated well. I'd gladly offer to forgo the baster and have actual intercourse with you, but it wouldn't feel right to me given my friendship with Parker, and more importantly, I'm married, and I've sworn to be monogamous."

"Would you masturbating for me betray your vows to your wife, Cornelius? If so, I don't want you to do it."

"No, she would be fine with this," he said. "But couldn't you get another slave to do this for you?"

"Vampires have more semen than men do, so I'd need to get at least two slaves to do it to me back to back. And I wouldn't have the baster, which would mean they would actually have to top me. I've been topped in here more than enough times to last me a lifetime, and I'm not jumping up and down at the thought of adding more to that."

He unzipped his pants, and pulled out his dick. He was the smallest vampire I had yet encountered in that department, though he was still larger than average on a human scale, similar in size to my own unit. He stroked it quickly to life. "Where should I put my semen? I mean, before it goes in the baster."

"Just on some waterproof surface around here."

"There's nothing but dirt around, or grass. Why don't I ejaculate on your body?"

"Sure." I sat down on the grass.

Cornelius came close to me, all the while still pumping, and I noticed that he took a sniff of me, clearly smelling my blood. I saw his fangs pop out.

I decided to lie face down, to give him some privacy. He knelt down over me, and I got a sense that his unit was just a couple inches over my back.

It took him a few minutes to climax.

I felt his vampire-large load splatter all over my skin. Cornelius used the turkey baster to suck it all off my back.

"Sorry, I seem to have spilt some in your crack. Let me try and correct this."

I felt the turkey baster move into the top of my crack, and sucked away the globs of cum there as well.

"There you are," he said, and handed me the baster, zipping up his pants finally.

"Thanks. I can take it from here."

"Do you want help injecting it?"

"Umm, I guess so," I said.

"Sure." He took the baster back from me. "Alright, brace yourself, Mr. Groves."

He inserted the turkey baster into my butt. A few weeks ago, this might have hurt enormously, but given the way my hole of late had been mercilessly and repeatedly stretched, I really didn't feel any pain. Once it was fully inserted, I felt the odd sensation of the load being emptied into my insides. And then he removed it.

"You'd better take the baster back with you," I said to him.

He held onto it. "I've got a decoy planned that should get all the vampire guards in Mareshead busy and accounted for while you make your move. Good luck, Mr. Groves."

"Thanks Cornelius, for everything."

On the way back to the pens, I walked instead of running because I didn't want the semen to drip out of me. I found Lucky on the outside table, just finishing his lunch.

"You're late," he said when he saw me. "What do ya have to say for yerself?"

"Sorry, master."

"I bet you're just dyin' to make it up to me in my bed right now, huh slave?"

"Yes, master."

He led me into his tower and then up the flights of stairs until we reached the bedroom on his top level. He pushed me onto his bed and said, "Take off yer master's clothes."

I had hoped he would just get to the screwing, but he was making me engage in preliminaries. I took off his hat and then he wanted me to remove his boots.

I started to pull off his shirt sleeveless shirt.

"Yeah, seeing me shirtless must get yer hole all wet, ain't it, slave?"

"Yes, master," I said, definitely feeling moisture but knowing it had nothing to do with him being shirtless.

"Get these pants off too, slave."

"Yes, master."

I pulled his pants off until he was naked before me.

"I want ya to get my dick slobbering before I take ya. I want ya to stroke me."

I put my hands on his soft dick and stroked it hard, as patiently as I possibly could.

"Better get yer mouth around my dick."

"Yes, master."

I started in on my blowjob, skipping any licking and just diving straight for his dick, wanting him to get it over with. Still, it took a brutally long time before he had his fill.

Finally, finally, he pushed me over and rammed himself inside me.

As he did, I could hear and feel Cornelius's cum gush out of my hole all over the place.

"What is that? Why did it just feel like I stuck my dick into a juicy watermelon?"

I didn't say anything.

He moved back and forth again, more slime oozing out. "What the hell is that inside you?"

He pulled out and stuck his face into my crack, looking at my hole. I felt him lick up some of the sticky substance.

He spat. "Oh fuckin' hell! That's cum! That's another man's jizz! And there's a whole lot of it! You fuckin' whore, who did you let fuck you?!"

I didn't respond, and he grabbed his whip and started to whip my back, over and over again, making all my old slashes bleed again as I tried not to cry.

"You little whore, you dirty little whore!"

"I'm sorry, master."

"Fuck you! Yer ass was just supposed to be for me! I'm gonna kill you, and all yer slave friends too!"

I briefly wondered if my plan backfired, and then he stopped the whips.

"Oh my god," he said. "There was way too much cum there for that to have been done by a slave. This was done by a vampire, ain't it?"

I sad nothing.

"Tell me, slave!"

"Please, master, I was ordered not to tell you a single word."

"Oh, I knew it! This was done by one of my vampires, ain't it?!"

"Please, master, I begged him to stop, but he forced me, and he told me if I told you, he would kill thirty slaves."

"You tell me which one of those bastards did this to you," he said.

"I can't."

"You will, or I swear, I'll kill three times as much as he threatened to!"

"Okay, okay," I said. "It was Dunson." The only reason I said Dunson and not one of the others was because Dunson's food farms where by far the farthest away from the pens.

"Dunson! That stupid fucker!" He threw things around the bedroom, causing destruction as he boiled over with rage. "I'm gonna kill him for that. Oh yes. Even if it means I'll have to take over his job until I can find a replacement. You stay here. Get in that shower and spend all afternoon scrubbing out yer hole, got it? After dinner tonight, When I get back from the farms, I'll give ya the fuckin' you deserve."

"Yes, master."

He stormed out of the room, and I started the water in the shower, just in case he was listening. I actually did want to wash all of the semen out of me anyway.

After I had finished my shower, I walked over to his toiletries in the bathroom and pulled out that little leather pouch which contained his old-fashioned razor. I picked this up and left the bathroom.

I tried to get downstairs, but the latch was locked. This was not surprising; Lucky often locked me in when he wasn't there. But just like always, the hatch from the bedroom to the roof was unlocked. I climbed up.

I looked around the pens until I was sure I couldn't see Lucky's horse anywhere. Once I was positive he was out of sight, probably a third of the way to Dunson by then, I shifted my search. When I found Clanton working among the slaves below, I looked at him and shouted his name, waving until I got his attention.

"What do ya want, slave?" he shouted up to me.

"Unlock Lucky's latch from the outside and let me out!"

"Why the fuck should I?"

I lifted the razorblade in the air, making sure he saw what it was, and then I pressed the blade to my face. "If you don't do exactly what I say, I'm going to cut my face up with this razor, cut it until there's no recognizing me and no one will pay a dime for me. And we both know that Lucky will blame you, and I'll tell him you did it to me. He'll kill you, you know it."

"You lil' fuck!" He pulled out the gun on his holster which I knew would set off my collar and pointed it at me. "Don't make me use this!"

"Don't be a moron, Clanton. You're not going to kill Lucky's favorite pet."

"Fine, I'll kill them fools," he said, pointing his gun at the nearest group of slaves, who looked rightfully terrified.

"No you will not," I said. "You even hurt a single slave, and I will cut my face up beyond repair. Is that what you want?"

"Fuck no," he said. "Alright, fine. Just please, please don't cut your face. I'll come let you out."

I walked back down to the bedroom, and heard him unlatching the hatch from the other side. "Alright, now I want you to move back down to the ground level and don't try anything funny."

"Okay, okay."

When I got to the ground level and left the tower, I still held the razor up to my face, looking at him in defiance. "I want you to stay back from me, at least twenty feet, at all times, or I'll do it."

He backed away from me, raising his hands. "I hear ya."

"And I want you to drop your collar remote onto the ground. And I see you have an actual pistol in your other holster. I want you to toss that on the ground as well. Good, now kick those weapons over here."

He knocked with his boots the two items towards me, and I picked them up.

"Now, let's go back to where you always put collars on new slaves," I said, still holding the razor to my face. I led him back to the entrance of the pens, where he had first stripped me and made me put on my collar. "I want you to grab one of the collars and put it around your neck."

"Are ya serious?"

"Dead serious. Do it, or I start cutting."

He did as I asked, putting a collar on.

"And you need to lock it, or else it's just there for show. Get the key out of your pocket and lock it up."

I watched as he stuck his hands in his pocket, pulled out a keying, selected one of the keys and used it with an angry huff to activate his collar, both locking and activating it simultaneously.

"Now, I want you to take the chain that you first locked me to when I came in here and lock it to your collar."

He knelt down, crabbed the chain, and fastened the lock around the loop on his collar, making him pinned down.

"Now, toss me your keys," I said.

He shook his head. "I'm not gonna give these to you."

"I'll cut myself if you don't!"

"I don't care," he said. "If ya escape, I'm as good as dead anyway. I'll kill ya myself before ya take my keys. And these chains won't hold me long, ain't ever meant to hold a vampire." I could see him pulling the chain, working more and more of the stake it was connected to out of the ground. "I'm gonna slaughter every single slave I got, just to get my revenge on ya, as soon as I get free here."

I dropped the razor and lifted the remote control to the collars, pointing it at his head. "I didn't want to resort to this, didn't want any more blood on my hands, but you leave me no choice. You'll be free in a few minutes if I don't do this."

I squeezed the trigger, and I heard the mechanical noise of the nails entering his throat. His hands went to his throat in shocked pain. I wasn't sure if the nails in his collar would even kill a vampire, and if it did, it would for sure be a slow and painful death. I knew Clanton deserved to die for what he had done, and I knew his death would save the lives of many people he would kill in his future. But I didn't take any pleasure in the idea that Clanton suffer during a long and drawn out death, like some more blood thirsty folks might.

I picked up the revolver, made sure it was loaded and cocked, and moved quickly to Clanton. I got the muzzle to his temple before he even had a chance to do anything but struggle against the nails of the collar, and he never put up a struggle as I pulled the trigger.

Just like Boyd, I wanted to be sure he was dead, so I shot a couple more bullets into his temple. And then I turned quickly away and shut my eyes, not wanting to have to look at the aftermath of someone getting their brains splattered. I leaned down to the ground, found his fallen keychain, and stood back up.

Every slave around me that had witnessed Clanton's death erupted into huge cheers of applause, which both made me feel good about what I'd done and a little insensitive for so callously delivering death, even if he deserved it.

I used the same collar key to unlock and deactivate my own collar, though I didn't remove it.

I ran over to all the hordes of cabinets and lockers that held all of the slaves personal belongings, and I went precisely to the one I knew held mine. But when I tried to open it, it was locked, and so were all the other cabinets. I started to fumble around with the keys on Clanton's chain, trying to figure which one would open them.

"It ain't on that chain," said a slave, and other nodded in agreement. "Only Lucky has that key."

"Thanks," I said, knowing it wouldn't be so easy to get all of my personal things, but knowing I didn't really need those to survive. Though losing Parker's items would be the most painful of all.

I ran over to the main pens entrance, and like before, there was that same older Asian woman who waved towards the electric gate's lockbox panel. There were seven keys on his chain, and I tried them until I found the one that fit. I opened the box and turned the shut off switch, deactivating the electric charge.

"Yes, that's it," said the Asian woman. "Now, run, run as fast as you can and never look back!"

She had tears in her eyes as she was smiling at me, urging me to escape.

I turned away from her and opened the gate, looking out at my freedom beyond, the dusty plains in front of me that I knew I'd be able to escape to on my own.

And that look was all that I needed.

I turned back away from the door, jumped over the barrier into the pen that held the Asian woman, and I unlocked her collar with my master key. "I'm not leaving you," I said.

"Thanks, but I need to stay with my friends here," she said, pointing at the group of other elderly slaves in the pen.

"I'm not leaving any one of you," I said, moving through one at a time and unlocked all of their collars, the Asian woman starting to cry as I did, every one of them looking so grateful.

Once I had all of them unlocked, I started moving into the next pen, and unlocked all of the slaves there, including the Native American opera singer Benedict. "Thank you, thank you," he said. "They told me this day would be my last before I was killed off. You just saved my life."

After I had finished with his pen, I moved to another, and started unlocking all of the slaves in it.

"You keep that key away from me," said that Territory eighteen year old who was still waiting to be trained as a human sex slave. "You think you do us mercy by freeing us? You just gonna get us all killed. You killed one measly vampire. Whoop-dee-doo. There's eight others in the pens, waiting to kill us."

"I know that." I couldn't make her unlock her collar, so I skipped her, and continued on until I had freed every single slave in the pens. There wasn't much any of them could do, as most of them were the slaves that were too old or damaged to be in the labor units, so I told them to wait for me.

I walked quickly over to the dump, where I was supposed to spend the second half of my day, and saw Daggett acting like he always did, standing at the rim of the precipice, getting his dick sucked off by a couple slaves as he watched his group of laborers. I avoided him and found Jane the Jamaican woman instead, in the same spot she was before, using a shovel to make the perimeter larger, but before I even had a chance to tell her what was happening, I was spotted.

"Goddamn, I been waiting all day for ya, slave," Daggett said, pushing his two slaves away and jaunting over to where I stood. "I'm sick of the amateurs messing round with my balls. I need the real deal."

I worried he would notice my collar, and then remembered that the unlocked, deactivated collars looked the same at the locked ones did, so he wouldn't be able to notice the difference.

Daggett walked back to the edge of the hole, and took his position watching his slaves as he looked into my eyes and pointed at his dick.

"Better get to work."

I approached him, dropped to my knees, and started to give him oral, wrinkling my nose at the gross garbage taste of his dick. He moaned and carried on for a good long while.

"Ya better get that hot tongue on those balls, slave!"

And I started to suck at his balls one at a time, getting him even more revved up, before returning to sucking his dick.

I waited until he started to orgasm, knowing how affected he got when he did it.

I felt him erupt his load into my mouth, and knew it was time.

I bodyslammed him backwards, towards the cliff wall of the pit. He lost his balance and fell backwards, right as I intended.

But he managed to stop me from pushing him over the edge, digging his heels into the very cliff precipice to keep from falling. "No ya don't you lil' fucker!"

And then I heard a loud clang and saw a shovel blade hit the man's face above me with a huge amount of power. And just like that, he lost his footing and fell into the hole, two hundred feet down. When he landed, I could see his upper body ripped from his lower body, and I knew for sure he was dead.

I looked over to see it was Jane who was connected to that shovel, and she nodded at me.

"Thanks for the help," I said.

"Just paying back my debts," she said with a smile.

I grabbed the collar key from where I had hid it in my armpit and used it to unlock her collar. "This will get us all out of here," I said.

"From the first moment I looked at you, I knew you would bring hope to these downtrodden people."

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I didn't try. "Gather everyone, and meet me at the water tower," I told her instead.

And then I went from slave to slave until I had unlocked the collars of every single slave working in the dump. A shower of ecstatic `thank-you's rained down on me.

I hid the key again and ran off back to where I had started my day: at the pig farms. Grimes looked at me with surprise as I came over and nodded to Lisa, the Hispanic woman who had helped me my first time in those pigpens. I saw her scratch her forehead, and then I saw several other slaves who saw her also scratch their heads, then others who saw them, clearly this was some gesture she had worked out with the entire team.

"What the fuck are you doin' back?" Grimes asked me.

"They couldn't use me at the dump, so Lucky wanted me to go back to you, master."

"Well, ya got perfect timing, `cause we just slaughtered some more pigs. Ya remember the old job I had ya do?"

"I kind of do, but I may need you to show me the exact process again, master."

"I'll show ya again, but it'll cost ya a blowjob."

"Yes, master," I said as I followed him into the slaughterhouse.

Once again, I saw Stella standing just to the left, her hands bloody, but it seemed like she had just finished slaughtering the few dead pigs on the floor. And to the right, a number of slaves were waiting to butcher the animals with butcher knives in their hands. All of them were watching us.

Grimes walked over to the first pig on the ground, with me behind him.

I grabbed one of the chained meathooks in my hand. "So, where am I supposed to hook these, exactly, master?" I asked.

He grabbed one and leaned down, starting to rip his hook through the pigs' legs.

I took the hook in my hands and slammed it through Grimes's body, just beneath his right shoulder.

Shocked, he jumped on me and started to strangle me with just his left hand. "I'll kill ya for that, I don't give a shit `bout Lucky, I'll kill ya!"

I could feel my neck start to nearly snap when Stella reached over, grabbed another chained hook, and impaled Grimes through his left shoulder. He screamed in agony and started to struggle with Stella.

I got to my feet and slammed the lever, and before I knew it, Grimes was getting pulled into the air, safely away from Stella. As soon as he was immobilized, all of the butchers came running, slamming their butcher knives into the vampire's body as he screamed.

"Please, don't make him suffer, just kill him as quickly as you can!" I said.

I noticed Stella on the ground, and I reached down and unlocked her collar. Then I saw she was holding her left arm, and I realized she had a huge cut all across it.

"You're hurt!"

"I can sew this up," she said.

"You won't need to. Vampire blood heals wounds, but I'm not sure how long those properties last after the vampire dies. Hurry up and put some of his blood on it."

She nodded, and walked over to the bleeding vampire. I tossed my key to the butchers and they unlocked their collars before handing it back to me.

Not wanting to look at the carnage they were creating, I left the slaughterhouse and nodded at Lisa. "Your cues worked brilliantly," I said as I unlocked her collar. "Just like we discussed this morning."

"What now?"

"Take these slaves and meet us at the water tower," I said. "Bring any weapons you can find."

I used my key to unlock every single slave in the pig farm, all of them bursting into joyous applause and singing my praises, which I quickly brushed off. I certainly wasn't doing this because I wanted to win any popularity contest; I was doing it because it was the right thing to do.

I hid my key again and jogged away from the pig farms. The next closest area was Wilson's lumber, tobacco, and cotton farms. As I came into the valley, I could see Wilson riding his horse among the cotton fields on the far end of the crops. I found Haala nearby working with the lumber trees, and waved to her. I hadn't ever gotten the chance to tell her or anyone else in this farm about my plans.

"Haala, I'm staging a full scale breakout. I've already killed Clanton, Daggett, Grimes, and likely Dunson, without a single slave casualty, and I wanted to kill Wilson next. Will you help me?"

"But, our collars."

"I have the key." I unlocked her collar. "Take this and start passing it around secretly. Unlock the collars, but don't remove them. We both know Wilson is quick with his trigger finger on the collar guns. If he tries to kill any slaves that way, I want it to fail."

"I think I can think of a way we can kill him without sacrificing any lives," she said. "Leave it to me. Just find a way to get him off his horse, right about there," she said, pointing on the ground.

We heard horse hooves and ended our conversation quickly.

"Slave, what are ya doin' here?" asked the black cowboy. "Didn't expect ya back `til tomorrow or the day after."

"Daggett couldn't use me, so he sent me to you, master," I said.

"Daggett gave up his time with ya and send ya to me?" he asked, suspicious.

"Yes, master."

"I always knew Daggett was the stupidest fucker in the pens," he said. "Well, I'm sure ya remember what to do here." He motioned around the farm.

Haala slipped away, hiding the key in her hand.

Wilson rode closer to me, and then his fangs popped out. "Goddman, AB neg gets my fangs out every time I smell it. Yer bleedin,' slave."

I realized the back of my left hand had a small cut on it, presumably due to my tussle with Grimes. I hoped that he wouldn't ask me how I got that way. I also had those open wounds on my back, but those weren't anything new.

"Lucky ain't gonna like ya bleeding all over the place, better give that hand to me."

I lifted my hand up, and he pulled it towards his mouth and licked the wound until it healed.

"Oh, fuck no, I done forget how good this here blood tastes," he said. "Got me so turned on, I ain't gonna get through the rest of the day. Need yer mouth right now."

I figured if he was going to make me suck him off, at least it would mean he'd have to dismount his horse, which is what I was trying to get him to do. Instead, he swung his left boot over the saddle until he was sitting on the right side of the horse, both his legs dangling off.

He ripped open his jeans and pulled his hard dick out and started to slap me in the face with it. "Time to give let Wilson stretch out yer gullet, slave."

He pulled my head towards him and the horse, slamming his black dick into my mouth.

I figured I needed to buy some time for Haala to get everyone coordinated, so I started in on a slow, gentle blowjob that would make him last longer.

By the time he came, I felt like I had bought a generous amount of time, and I was oddly proud of myself for the sexual act.

While he was in the throes of his orgasm, I reached with my right hand and pulled the collar remote control gun from his hip holster. I pulled off of him and ran back through the trees, gun in hand.

"Hey, you lil' fuck, come back here with that or I'll shoot ya down with the real revolver!"

I kept running, and behind me I heard Wilson's boots land on the ground as he finally dismounted his horse. As I heard him run towards me, I knew I had about two seconds before he overtook me.

"You want it? Go get it." I threw the gun and it landed just where Haala had pointed to. I ran off and out of the way.

"I'll get it," Wilson said as he walked towards the dropped instrument. "And when I do, I'll make the slaves here suffer for your fuckin' arrogance!"

Right when he reached the gun and leaned down to retrieve it, I saw five large trees from all around him be kicked over simultaneously, and I realized that they had been axed and then held up my several slaves per tree until just that moment.

The trees slammed into Wilson all at once, and he fell to the ground and became trapped under the logs. "That won't kill him!" I said. "Use the axes to cut off his head."

All the slaves came out, axes in their hands, and started to hack away at the vampire who had been their tormentor for so very long.

"Alright, it's done!" I said. "No need to overdo it."

Haala gave me back my key. "The people here are genuinely in your gratitude, Jake. Just let us know what we can do to help you."

I told them to take their axes and wait by the water tower.

I hid the key once again and jogged off towards the chicken farm. Wade spotted me before I had time to notify Lek or anyone else of my intentions.

"We got chickens need slaughterin,' slave," Wade said as soon as I had explained to him that Daggett had sent me to work for him for the afternoon. He led me into the slaughterhouse.

No one else was anywhere near us in that poultry death barn, so I knew I'd have to kill Wade on my own. Luckily, I knew that Wade was the youngest, weakest of the vampires in the pens, which I hoped played to my advantage.

"Let's kill a turkey, so I can pour even more blood on yer purdy body while you blow me," he said, fetching one of the large birds and leaning down to stretch its neck out on the butcher board. "Pick up that there machete and get to butcherin,' slave!"

"Yes, master!"

I picked up the weapon with both hands and noticed that, like always, Wade was looking down, towards the bird, and away from me. That set up his prone neck beautifully. I thought about how brutally unpleasant this was, how much I hated killing.

"Well, come on, swing!" he ordered, getting impatient, and I knew I only had moments to act.

I swung my arms down, the blade landing perfectly, right into the back of his neck.

But the swing only cut through about half of his spine before getting stuck, Wade's body entering a series of stomach churning convulsions. I remembered when I saw Rose do this to the Riley bandit in the stagecoach. She had said it always took her two swings to do the job. I raised the machete and swung down one more time.

Either Rose Dixon has a stronger swing or a better technique than I do, because it took three swings until I finally had his head severed from his body.

And then, when I knew he was gone, the violence and the blood and the awfulness of it all caught up to me as I felt myself faint and collapse to the ground.

When Lek woke me up, bright daylight hit my eyes, and I knew someone had carried me out of that shack. As my head cleared, I handed Lek the key and told him to quickly unlock everyone and have them meet up under the water tower, just as I had with the others. Meanwhile, I washed off all traces of Wade's blood from my body.

Once everyone was unlocked, I hid the key again and jogged over to the gold mine.

"Comin' back so soon?" asked Valance as he saw me and dismounted his horse. "Must've missed mining, eh? Or was it somethin' else ya missed?" He rubbed the crotch of his jeans, making it all too clear just what he was referring to.

"Yes, master," I said. After I fed Valance the same line I had used all day about Daggett, I soon joined Montana, Randy, and others on the farthest level down of the mine, with Randy and Montana sending me eye signals, making it clear to me what area to avoid.

The first time I had been introduced to the gold mine, I had discussed with these slaves my plan, and they had come up with an idea completely on their own for how to kill Valance. All I needed to do was deliver the key. When Valance wasn't looking, I quickly unlocked Randy, and then gave the key to Montana. She unlocked herself and handed the key off. Everyone here knew to unlock and pass the key only when Valance was otherwise occupied, and I picked up the shovel and started to dig along with the others, giving some time to let the key make its rounds.

After Montana handed me the key back, she said, "We're ready. You ready to go, Randy?"

"Why do I have to be the decoy?" he asked, unenthusiastically.

"Because he knows all the rest of us too well," she said. "And the new ones tend to be the weaker ones."

"What are you trying to insinuate about my muscular vitality?"

She gave him a look.

"Alright, I'm the weak one here, I'll concede that."

"I don't mind playing the decoy," I said.

"No way," said Montana. "You, lie? Are you kidding me? He'll see right through you."

"How do you know I was a bad liar?" I asked.

"Isn't it totally obvious after talking with you for just five minutes?" she asked.

"Alright, I'll do it," Randy said. "But I'm doing it my way." He threw himself onto the ground in an overly dramatic fall. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" he shouted.

I was about to strangle him, knowing that his cliché line would never fool anyone, and really wasn't the least bit clever.

"What's that?" Valance said, jumping down a level until he was on that four foot ledge above us. "Lard ass is fuckin' hurt? How `bout I come down there, and I'll fuckin' show you hurt."

I could not believe that Randy's line had worked, and then I remembered that Valance probably was even worse with pop culture references than I was.

When Randy continued to lie on the ground, Valance jumped from that four foot ledge to the bottom floor of the mine, right close to Randy. Instead of landing in the mud, however, the ground beneath him seemed to fold away as if it was nothing, and I saw Valance quickly disappear into what I realized was a well-like crevasse, four feet in diameter. They had carefully used a burlap sack pulled over the hole and mud spread over the sack to conceal their trap, and it had worked beautifully. I heard his shout of surprise as he fell ten or fifteen feet to the bottom.

"You won't have killed him," I said. "He'll climb out sooner or later."

Already, I could hear Valance cursing and yelling obscenities as he seemingly tried to climb up.

Montana grabbed her shovel and stepped to the rim of their hole, and the other shovelers did the same. "If he comes up, we'll knock him down."

"You ain't gonna be able to do that forever!" Valance screamed.

"He's right," Montana said. "Murphy, get the dynamite!"

"Coming up!" said a man on the rim of the mine as he used a shovel to break open a nearby chest.

"Dynamite?" I asked. "Are you being metaphorical?"

"Nope," Montana said as Murphy brought down a stick of the stuff and lit the fuse with a match. "How did you think we created this mine in the first place?"

"Of course, it would be dynamite and not some more sophisticated explosive. Unless it looks like it belongs in a cheesy Old West movie, they won't touch it here."

Murphy dropped the dynamite down.

"Grab that cloth over there and put it over the hole, so he can't throw it back at us!" I said, and the shovelers did so.

"That fuse has about a minute," Murhpy said.

"Everyone, back up out of the mine, just to be safe, and I'll meet all of you by the watertower," I said. "Murphy, can you give me another load of dynamite with a ten minute fuse on it and some matches?"

"Sure."

The explosion went off just after everyone had cleared the mine, and I could hear Valance's screams come to a sharp end. I got the load of dynamite and I headed alone off towards the oil fields.

I knew I couldn't exactly just skip straight into the slaves in the oil fields as I had done in the other slave units with a huge pack of dynamite in my arms, so I stealthily approached the fields from the rear. I could see the pumpjacks working in the valley, and on the hill, I could see Calvera leaning against that rusted oil repository, looking carefully at his slaves as they worked the scene below. I watched for a couple minutes until I was sure Calvera wasn't in the habit of looking away from the slaves, and then I started to sneak-crawl up the back of that hill, towards the back of the repository.

I reached the thing without him noticing I was there. The round steel repository was around thirty feet in diameter, so I knew as long as he stayed put on the opposite side, I wouldn't be close enough for him to smell my blood, especially since Wade's blood had turned the open wounds on my back into scabbed off scars.

Figuring the dynamite would work better if it was under the repository and be less conspicuous at the same time, I crawled underneath the thing, as several, two-foot legs held it off the ground. On the other side, I could see the back of Calvera's legs, and as I crawled in his direction, I worked hard at moving in total silence. Luckily, the pumpjacks made so much noise that they covered up any incidental noises I might have made. On my way, I almost hit a jagged edge of the metal, which might have injured me, but I avoided it carefully.

I attached the dynamite to the underside of the repository and pulled out my matches, but just as I was about to light the fuse, one of the slaves came up the hill and poured their bucket into the large tin. And then when I saw their naked feet leave, another slave came up, and I knew this could potentially end up in unnecessary collateral damage.

I left my dynamite and matches and crawled back the way I had come. I moved back down the backside of the hill, and then got to my feet again. I walked the long way around to the normal entrance of the oil fields on the far side away from the hill Calvera was on. I hid from Calvera behind some boulders, and soon enough, I saw Maria, and waved for her to approach me.

"Kuzman, get Kuzman," I said to her, hoping she would understand the English. She nodded, clear that I was trying to hide from Calvera and she was acting sly.

A few minutes later, Kuzman appeared about fifteen feet away. When he saw me hiding, he purposely looked away.

"Jake, good to see you, friend," he whispered.

I pulled out my key and tossed it over to him. "Use that to unlock your collar, and try to get it spread around all the other slaves as well without being seen."

"I can do that."

"And I need you to tell everyone to stall at their pumpjacks for as long possible, and to stay away from the oil drum on the hill."

"Of course," he said.

I backed away from the boulders and out of the sights of the slaves in the valley. I walked back the long way once more to the back of the hill that Calvera was on, and then crawled my way up that hill, approaching the oil drum.

I crawled under it one more time until I got to the dynamite. I grabbed the matches and lit one up as soon as one of the closest pumpjacks made a particularly loud series of noises. I lit the fuse and put out the match.

Ten minutes. I had ten minutes to crawl back down the back of the hill. Plenty of time.

I started to crawl on my hands and knees towards the back, and almost immediately, I felt a sharp pain as something sharp and jagged scraped against my left buttock. I cursed myself, remembering that there was a sharp piece of the underside of the tin that I had almost hit before. How could I have forgotten?

As long as I wasn't bleeding, I would be fine. My hand went to my butt, and annoyingly, felt hot liquid there. I prayed that I was too far away from Calvera for him to smell anything.

"How come I smell AB neg?" I heard him say, and I cursed my luck again.

I froze and looked towards his feet, hoping that he wouldn't start looking for the source of the smell. But when I saw his knees hit the ground, I knew he was about to look under, and the first thing he would see was the huge pack of dynamite under the drum.

I sailed back towards the dynamite, giving up any pretense of keeping silent, and I somehow managed to get in front of the explosives just before he stuck his head down.

"Fuck, I knew I smelt ya," he said to me. "What the fuck are ya doin' here?"

"Uh," I said, unable to think of any excuse besides the one I had fed over and over again that day. "Daggett didn't need me at the dump, so I came here to help you. Master!" I said, almost forgetting to say the last part.

"No, ya stupid human, I meant, why the hell ya cralwlin' `round under there, bleeding?"

I absolutely could not think of anything to say. "Um, I was, uh..."

"Well, spit it out, human!"

"I, um, well I..."

"I know precisely what kind of nefarious scheme yer up to under there."

"You do?"

"Damn right," he said. "It's goddamn obvious. Crawling on yer hands and needs towards me, cutting yer hot little ass for me. Yer tryin' to seduce me, ain't ya?"

I said nothing, shocked that he would ever jump to that ridiculous conclusion. "Yes, master," I said finally.

"I know what's up," he said. "It all came down to when I gave you that ride on my horse the other day and I gave ya the Calvera special brand of fuckin' around. After that, you couldn't stop thinkin' of me. Kept on hoping ya'd get another taste of that Calvera dick when ya got assigned to me again, and when Daggett didn't need ya, ya figured you'd run over here to the one vampire here who can really push all yer buttons, am I right? Got tired of getting fucked only by Lucky, need a real man to do the job, ain't that what yer hoping for?"

"Yes, master," I said meekly, not looking him in the eyes for fear I wouldn't be able to carry on the lie.

"Well, get out from under there," he said, standing up again.

I looked back at the dynamite whose fuse was still going, and I crawled out towards Calvera's legs. When I crawled out and got to my feet, I was at least happy that Calvera had stopped looking under the oil drum. I mentally figured I still had nine minutes left to get myself off this hill.

"Lemme see bout that cut ya got on yer ass," Calvera said. "Lucky'll flip if ya got any mark on yer ass sides that pretty L brand. Bend the fuck over, grab yer ankles, and let Calvera take a looksie."

"Yes, master." I did as he asked, trying to think some excuse I could make to leave.

I felt his two erect fangs scrape along the cut on my buttcheek. "Ooo, god, yer blood tastes so good, I just wanna suck every last drop outta you right now. But I'm not gonna do that, so don't worry."

He took his sweet time licking my wound healed, moaning and groaning with every drop of blood he finagled from me.

While he was there, he also took the opportunity to lick my butthole, and then I even felt his tongue meander its way inside me.

"God, I wanna fuck ya so, so bad, and I know that's what ya came for. But I can't. Lucky'd kill me if I did."

I wasn't going to argue with him.

"I know ya must be real bent outta shape by my refusal to fuck ya. After ya came all that way for nothin.'"

"Yes, master."

"Now get to work." He slapped me on the butt.

I quickly scooted down the hill in front of him towards the pumpjacks, all too eager to put distance between my body and the dynamite, hoping my eagerness wouldn't be read as anything but a good work ethic.

"Wait, wait, wait, come back here, slave!" I heard him say, and at first I didn't even look back. "Don't make me come down there!"

I stopped in my tracks, knowing my plan could all go to squat if he didn't stay up by the oil tank. So, I turned around. "Sorry master, didn't realize you meant me."

"Sure as fuck did. Now get back here."

I ran back up to him.

"Look what ya gone and done to me," he said, and I realized he was holding his hard dick out of his jeans fly. He wagged the brown flesh tube up and down, showing me the precum he was leaking.

"Ya got me all leaked up, and I ain't gonna waste a single drop of it. Ya gonna lick it all up as a preview for the real meal you'll get from my cock tonight."

"Yes, Master."

I grabbed his dick and quickly licked it clean, swallowing his precum.

"You done good, slave. Now, git!"

I ran back down away from the oil tank towards the pumpjacks, again thanking God when I crossed what I figured to be the blast range.

"Wait a second, slave!"

I froze.

"Come back up!"

I rolled my eyes, and then turned towards Calvera and begrudgingly hurried back up to him.

"Ya got me so hot, I ain't gonna ge through the afternoon without blowin' my nuts. So, I'm not gonna let ya leave here without some Calvera cock, even if it can't be me fuckin' ya."

I stifled another eye roll.

Soon, I had Calvera's dick in my mouth, and unlike when I had been sucking off Wilson, in which I was trying to delay him, this time I knew I had eight minutes left to get him to blow before the oil drum blew behind me instead, killing both of us.

I used both hands to grab his muscled buttcheeks, making him slide further into my throat, determined to make this the best blowjob I was capable of, as if my life depended on it, which, in fact, it very much did.

"Oh yeah, I like that energy, slave. Show yer master just how much yer dying to swallow his load."

I bucked up and down as fast as I possibly could, sucking at that dick with complete abandon. Still using my left hand to force his butt to fuck my face ever faster, I used my right hand to rub his body, hoping that would further excite him. My hand pleasured his ripped body, settling finally on his nuts.

"Ah fuck, I'm gonna shoot soon," he said, and I got excited. "But no, I want this to go on forever, fuck."

When he tried to pull back to try and settle himself down, I went harder than ever, my head flying up and down and my lips and tongue all over his unit.

"Oh, fuck, it's no use, here it comes!"

And then he started flooding my throat with his cum, making me swallow it.

"Alright, you can go now."

He let go of my head, and I hurried down towards pumpjacks, jogging this time, trying to get as far as I could as quickly as possible.

"Wait, slave, come back!"

I wanted to scream in agony, but I forced myself to stop and turn around.

"Come here. Yer not done yet."

As I trotted back towards him, I couldn't imagine what he still wanted me to do for him.

He had his dick in his hands. "I'm still leakin' here. Lick it up, slave. Get all of my juice before ya go."

I licked up the dripping cum from his dickhead thoroughly.

As soon as he let me go, I took off at a run down the hill away from him.

"Why the fuck ya runnin' away?" Calvera asked, and one look backwards told me he was starting to walk towards me.

BOOM!

The dynamite went off, and I realized Calvera was just beyond the blast range, he looked back behind him quizzically for a moment. Crap, he was going to survive.

And then a second, much louder explosion occurred as the oil itself ignited. I saw Calvera's body ripped apart as the whole hill erupted into flames.

I jumped to the ground, face down, as the flames shot over my body, burning the whip wounds on my back and scorching my calves.

When the fire receded, I got back to my feet.

"Are you hurt?" asked Kuzman, appearing suddenly.

"Can you look and tell me if I have any major burns?" I turned so he could see my back.

"Just minor ones, perhaps," he said.

I looked up at the oiltank as it continued to burn. "Is there any worry that the fire will spread?"

"Nope," he said. "They have us clear out the oilfield grounds of even the smallest shrubs or grass regularly, as obviously this whole area is filled with flammables, and Calvera was always smoking. Nope, it'll take some time to burn out, but then the fire will die." He handed me the collar key back.

I stood up on a pumpjack and looked out over the oilfield slaves, who were cheering me and applauding. "Thank you, but it's not over yet. Everyone grab any weapons here you can find, if any, and follow me to the water tower."

I led them over the dusty fields as we made our way towards the water tower, placed just before the food farms, but itself out of sight.

As soon as the oilwell slaves were absorbed by the much larger group of slaves that we found under the water tower, there came general applause at our arrival, as well as specific moments of glee as loved ones were reunited.

I saw Lek come out of the crowds, tears streaming down his face as he picked out his long-lost husband, Kuzman.

"Oh my god, you're alive, I never thought you'd be alive!" Kuzman yelled as the two of them ran into each other's arms, kissing each other and tossing out all sorts of "I love yous," and, "I miss yous."

I told everyone to hold on, and I walked to the top of the hill beyond the water tower. I crawled just until I could see into the valley, just letting the top of my head appear for anyone looking. I could see the fields of crops in the valley below, with slaves working those crops. Lucky was on his horse, monitoring the slaves on the far side. With a bit of searching I located Dunson's body lying in a pool of blood.

I crawled back out of sight, got to my feet, and addressed the slaves behind me. "I'm counting on all able-bodied slaves to help kill Lucky. I'd lead you into battle myself, but Lucky's a special. If he's bitten somebody, he can physically control him. I don't want to turn into Lucky's weapon, so I'm going to stay out of this fight. What I need now is for everyone who was bitten by Lucky, whether he raped you like he did with me or not, I want you to raise your hand and move to your left. Please, don't be ashamed to admit this. And if anyone around you can't understand me, please translate for them."

I saw Lek, Kuzman, and Haala pull together any slaves who didn't speak enough English to understand me and translate for them one at a time until everyone got the message.

"Okay, now please raise your hand and move aside." To demonstrate, I raised my hand myself and moved over.

I'd say a hundred slaves raised their hands and moved over, including Montana, the woman from the gold mine who sadly gave her shovel to another slave, and Lisa, the Hispanic woman who had helped me at the pig farm.

"Give Lucky fuckin' hell for me, that sick rapist bastard," Montana said to the group.

I pulled together all the remaining faces that were familiar to me. "I'm going to go down there, sneak that key to one of the slaves, and get them all to unlock themselves before we make our attack on Lucky. Just in case he should decide to get gun-happy."

"You shouldn't go, if he catches you, he'll use you as his weapon," said Stella the veterinarian.

Everyone agreed that I was absolutely not to go.

"I'll go," volunteered Phong. "I can slip into the group without Lucky spotting me, and I'll make sure the key is passed around to everyone."

"You're too uncoordinated to sneak anywhere, Phong," I said.

"I should go, to redeem myself for being such a weakling," Randy offered.

"No," I said. "If you won't let me do this job, then it shouldn't be anyone who just was parsed by Lucky. He'll remember that he didn't assign Randy to Dunson. It has to be someone he won't remember."

"It should be me," said Jane, the black woman who had befriended me at the dump. "I'm the oldest, been here the longest. I'll do it, I insist."

"No, it can't be Jane," I said. "Not after Lucky just got into it with you a couple days ago. He'll know for sure you don't belong in the farms."

"I'll go," volunteered Lek.

"No," I said. "Lucky just made me go to the chicken farm as well, and he could have seen you there. No one who has seen Lucky in the past few weeks should even volunteer."

"I'll do it," Kuzman said. "I haven't seen him since he sorted me."

"Alright, yes," I said, moving to hand him my key.

Before I could hand it off, Haala came forward and snatched the thing from my fingers, rushing off towards the farms.

"What was that?"

"What she always does," Lek said. "Making a decision without consulting anyone and acting on them."

"I'm supposed to go, Haala," Kuzman said.

"You just got reunited with your husband. I'll do it, Lucky won't recognize me and I'm smaller, and can more easily sneak into the farm. Just give me enough time to get the key around to everyone."

Haala lowered herself to the ground, and then crawled out of sight, over the hill and into the valley.

"Alright, everyone who hasn't been bitten by Lucky, give yourself a few minutes to grab your bearings, and try to get a hold of some weapon if you can. When I give the word, I want all of you to sweep the valley and take out Lucky as soon as you can."

I again climbed up the hill until I could see down, and I could see that Haala had integrated herself with the other slaves without Lucky noticing. I could see slave going to slave, unlocking their collars and handing off the key.

After a bit, Lucky moved his horse towards my side of the fields, and the key in turn was passed to the far side, by the slaves he couldn't see. They whispered to each other and passed the word.

When the last slave had been unlocked, Haala motioned towards me.

They waited until Lucky moved his horse as close to the hill we were perched on as he would go, and I noticed as he waited over there, Haala and the other slaves seemed to find any excuse they could to suddenly start working in a close proximity around him. Haala gave me a look, and I realized she was waiting for some sort of distraction that was not coming on its own.

I jumped to my feet. "Lucky Holden, up here!" I shouted as loud as I could, jumping up and down.

I saw Lucky spin his horse around away from the farm to face me. "What the hell ya doin' up there, ya goddamn slave?"

As Lucky looked at me, Haala made her move. She broke into a run towards Lucky's horse, grabbed the real revolver on his right hip holster, and tossed it far away into the farm.

Lucky turned his horse towards her, so his back was facing me. "You lil' bitch," he said to her, trying to kick her but she moved out of the way.

Before he could track her down to do anymore damage, all the other farm slaves moved towards him with menace, some holding shovels above their heads, clearly meaning to attack.

"You'll all die for this, you human cunts."

Lucky pulled out his other revolver, the remote to the collars, and he started to squeeze the trigger frantically at all of the slaves, surely meaning to kill every one of them. But the remote failed him. As he continued to squeeze the trigger, the farm slaves reached him and pulled him off his horse.

Lucky dropped the revolver and started to fight his attackers hand to hand, and I knew he was much more powerful than any of the other pen vampires, and he would not be easily killed. I wasn't sure if the farm slaves on their own would prevail, and if they did, I was sure he would take lives with him.

"Forward!" I yelled to the small army of slaves behind me, and they were absolutely incited by my cry, angrily shouting as they rushed down the hill and into battle.

Soon, the slaves overpowered Lucky, and hacked at him on the ground with their weapons. He looked up at me as he lied there, and I assured myself again that I was too far away for him to manipulate me, after all, I was just as far as I had been when I had almost killed myself by jumping off the top of his tower.

I could tell he was trying to use his manipulation power on me, and then I saw his frustration mount as he realized I was out of range.

And then my heart sank as I felt my right leg take a lumbering step forward, followed by my left one. He had somehow in his near death panic made his power stronger than it ever had been, and I was suffering the consequences. And every step he made me take towards him put me closer in his power's range, my movements turning more and more fluid.

As I began to make a head on charge down the hill towards the melee, I started to shout, "Lucky has me! His power, he has me! Someone take me down!" Everyone close to me stopped to listen, confused. "Take me down before I hurt someone!" But then I felt my lips shut as he forced me to be silent, and I could say no more.

I hoped the first people I reached would be smart enough to listen to what I had said. The first girl gave me nothing but an awestruck stare, and I knocked her violently to the ground. The second man, who was armed with an axe, gave a similarly perplexed reaction, and I punched him so hard in the face, he fell to the ground and dropped his weapon.

Suddenly, I had a dangerous blade in my hands, and I was swinging this way and that, slashing at an older woman's arm and a man's torso, wounding both. I continued to swing the axe like some psychotic killer.

It took Kuzman and Lek to step in from behind me and put their arms around me. They pulled me to the ground while the other slaves wrestled the axe away from me. As soon as Lucky had realized I was completely restrained, I felt his hold go, and I knew we had beaten him.

"Thank you," I said breathlessly to Lek and Kuzman.

I started to hear the sound of many feet running above me, and I looked up the hill to see all the slaves that had sat that one out, including Lisa and Montana, were all running down the hill towards us, obviously excited about our victory.

But a glance towards Lucky's concentrating eyes as he watched them from the ground made me worry. I looked back up the hill at them, and not one of them were saying anything or smiling. As they drew closer, it became clear that they all had horrified expressions on their faces.

I couldn't believe it, but Lucky's power had grown so much, he was able to move these hundred slaves he had bitten and raped, just like he had with me, down the hill like they all belonged to his personal army. Many of them had weapons raised, and all of them were ready to kill.

It dawned on me that we wouldn't just be able to wrestle all of them to the ground. They'd kill us unless we killed them first. It was an awful, horrible decision to make, and it went against everything I thought I was accomplishing for these poor people when I decided to rebel.

I shook off Kuzman and Lek, and I picked up a shovel, and ran over to Lucky on the ground. I started to slam the shovel over and over again into his face as hard as I could.

It worked: he shut his eyes, and all the bitten slaves stopped in their tracks just before they reached the rest of us, all of them regaining control over their bodies.

I reached down and fished Lucky's keys out of his pocket. "Take your collars, and throw them to the ground!" I yelled to all of the slaves. "May we never be shackled again!"

Everyone cheered happily as they threw their collars on the ground, some going so far as to stomp on them.

"All of us Lucky victims come with me. We'll go as far away from here as we can, back to the pens, so the rest of these people can finish him off without anymore distractions. Vampire blood will heal cuts and wounds, if anyone here needs it."

Haala handed me back the collar key, and I led Lisa and Montana and all the other slaves Lucky had bitten and marched with all of them away from the farms, back towards the pens.

I tossed the collar key to the eighteen year old sex slave, the last one in Mareshead to have a collar.

"I'm not coming with you," she said defiantly. "You're leading us into death."

"I'm leading us into freedom," I corrected. "But you make your own mind up. That's what it means to have free will, for once."

It took all the other slaves only a few minutes to arrive, after they had managed to heal most of the wounds and kill Lucky off. They had a few folks with broken bones, but no one was mortally wounded, thanks to Lucky's blood.

I led everyone to the locked up wares, and I used Lucky's key to unlock all of it. People began to cry as they fished out personal belongings; some of them hadn't seen their things for decades. I removed my two bags, the one containing my own clothes, and the other containing Parker's, and I almost came to tears as the sight of his things. I put my own clothes on for the first time in what seemed like forever, finally having a shield against the cold winter air. As all the other slaves put on their own clothes, I could see the humanity returning to their countenances.

Lek started to laugh as he looked at Kuzman in his outdated jeans and shirt. "It's so bizarre, I've never seen you in clothing until this moment," he said.

"We all have a lot of adjustments to make," Kuzman said.

Even for those people whose things weren't stored there, we were able to find clothes for them. There were so many belongings in there that belonged to the deceased. I found a giant backpack used for the kind of backpacking in which people must be expecting to be gone for weeks, it was so spacious. I was able to take the contents of both of my suitcases and fit them in my backpack, feeling much more mobile.

We made use of everything the pens had to offer. I had all the infirm and injured slaves be put on the eleven horses that had belonged to the pen vampires. We took a huge number of weapons that vampires had, arming ourselves. And the pens also served as the storage of Mareshead, so opening lockers and cabinets led us to more water, dried corn, dried meats, fresh fruit and vegetables than we could possibly eat. We carried as much of it with us as we could; I estimated we would probably be able to go three or four days without needing some sort of replenishment.

Some of them wanted to eat the real food as soon as we pulled it out, but I hurried everyone along, reminding them we were a long way from being safe if we were still in Mareshead.

As we finally marched out of the pens, leaving those evil grounds behind for good, many got emotional, myself included. We had just started to march off to the east when another large group approached us from the mansion.

"We have an incoming army!" said one slave, and all of us looked.

"A vampire army!" Randy said, frightening everyone.

"Get ready to attack!" said another.

But I looked twice and shook my head as soon as I saw Polly on Abderhalden, leading the others towards us. "Stand down, stand down!" I yelled at them. "They're our friends!"

"Yous right on time," Polly said to me. She was towing Patches behind her. "Here's yer horse."

I embraced the large stallion, who nuzzled me exuberantly. "Thanks, Polly. Did everything go to plan on your end?"

"Pretty much," she said. "Cornelius is gonna kill us if he ever gets his hands on us."

It had been Polly that I had worked out this whole plan with, she had been for it a hundred percent, knowing she would likely just end up a slave herself in a couple years. Cornelius could not know the truth.

"I'm happy to see Patches, but I've got some older, weaker people here who could use him more."

"And we got more horses for them too," she said. "I took all the horses. Well, `cept for Jericho's horse, he wouldn't come. Or Curie. And I left Cornelius his horse."

"What about Donnie's horse?"

"Ain't yous hear?" she asked. "After Donnie died, no one put his horse in with Jericho's stallion no more, which drove the huge horse crazy. Jericho's horse broke out of his stall one night, broke into Donnie's horse's stall."

"To molest the horse, I'd guess?"

"Darn right, molest him to death, that time. They found him dead the next morn.'"

"Well, if we have all the horses, that means any attempt they make to catch us will have to be on foot." I nodded to the group of people behind her. "Who decided to join us, after all?"

"A good third of the house slaves, and all outdoor laborers they used to work out on the town construction. And a lot of them came with their kids too."

Something about having children with us made me feel so extremely responsible for the safety of this group. "They sure look encumbered with supplies," I said.

"Like we talked `bout, they have the blankets and the tents for everyone. Gots everything we need to make camp."

The new slaves joined our group, and we started again towards the east. Just as we were starting to get out of sight of the pens, I heard a voice yell, "Wait for me, wait for me, I'm coming with you!"

I turned to see the 18-year-old run out of the pens and come barreling for us, waving her arms. "Hold on, let her catch up with us. Please, no one gloat."

After she joined our group, we set off east. As we left the Mareshead grounds, I could barely see the Rodeo Coral off to the south as it was completely ablaze, and I saw all sorts of horsed riders trying to put it out. I realized that was the distraction Cornelius had set up in order to lure all the vampire soldiers away, and I remembered just how much he had hated the rodeo. The rouse had the wonderful side effect of having all of us leave unseen.

We marched continuously until the sun set, and I knew there would be only about an hour left of usable daylight before it became too dark to do anything. We found a field large enough for us to make our camp, and bunkered down for the night, people starting to erect tents and arrange dinner with what little time they had.

I looked at the group of people that had stuck with me for the whole ride: Polly, Lek, Kuzman, and Haala. "One of you needs to announce to everyone that we shouldn't light fires. Just in case anyone's looking for us, I don't want our camp to be lit up brighter than Las Vegas Boulevard."

"Yous tell `em yerself," Polly said.

"She's right," Kuzman said. "These people need a single leader to rally behind. You should take the reins, Jake."

"That's ridiculous," I said. "I'm too young, with too little life experience to be leader. One of you three should lead."

"If one of us spoke," Lek said, "We'd each get one eighth of them to listen. You're the only one everyone here knows and trusts."

"I don't want to be leader," I said. "That's not something I ever pictured for myself."

"None of us asked to be leaders either," Haala said. "But we took up the roles after we realized that more than anything, these people needed a guide. Someone to shine a light through the darkness. If you're a good person, if you're strong enough, you'll take up that role here and now, and learn to be a leader."

There was no option of declining with those three, so I was forced to do as they bid. I mounted Patches, by far the largest horse we had, and used the borrowed height he afforded me to look out at the hundreds of people. As soon as I did, they stopped what they were doing and focused on me.

"Greetings, fellow ex-slaves," I yelled, thankful that I was blessed with a strong, powerful voice.

That alone brought me a burst of delighted applause.

"We're not out of the woods yet. I had us march as late as we could possibly go. Tomorrow, I want us ready to march on as soon as the sky lightens. We need to keep moving as fast as we can, to make sure no one catches up to us. We have a couple days' ride ahead of us before we get out of the Territory."

"The Calvary will come kill us all before we get there," said the eighteen year old girl.

"No they won't," I said, to her and to everyone. "They are at least four days ride behind us, after dropping off Syd on the other side of the Territory. They won't catch us, but there are other threats, I'm afraid. Bandits and outlaws roam these parts. I want everyone to be ready for a fight at all times. Keep the older, infirm, or the young and their parents towards the center of the group, where they'll be safest. And I ask that none of you light any fires. I know it's the dead of winter here, but we have ample blankets for everyone, and tents to keep the wind off. And we have enough water and food to last for a couple days, none of which requires cooking. I know personally, after all the meals of slop, even a cold meal of dried meats, bread, and produce will taste heaven sent.

"Polly is leading us, as she knows the way out of the Territory. Polly has family outside that are involved in helping us, and Della is secretly sending all she can muster as well. They'll help all of you get home. If some of you would rather go back into the Territory, Della is ready to smuggle you into Fools Gold. The choice is yours.

"And please, I'm begging you. When we make it out of the Territory, I'm asking each and every one of you to promise me, that you won't tell anyone about the vampires here, about the Territory."

"How are we supposed to explain to our communities?" asked a nearby man I didn't recognize.

"Make something up," I said. "Because telling them the truth will not only change the world in a way I'm not sure it's ready for yet, but more urgently, the vampires have law enforcement and politicians in their pocket all over the world. If they should hear about what happened to you, you will likely end up dead. Please, please be smart."

After Lek, Haala, and Kuzman translated that to everyone who didn't speak English, I made them all swear to me they'd keep silent.

I put up my fist into the air. "Here's to our imminent freedom," I said. "May we never be shackled again!"

The ex-slave masses before me erupted into huge applause. People started chanting "Moses," and then those cries turned into "Spartacus Jake." It felt deliriously good to be the recipient of such admiration, though I reminded myself not to let myself be seduced by the glory. If I were to be a good leader, I would sometimes need to make unpopular decisions that would come with no applause, and I needed to be able to deal with those moments too.

That night, I pulled out my cross, and I prayed to God, apologizing for neglecting my nightly prayers while I was in the pens, and thanking Him profusely for delivering to us freedom.

JANUARY 31st

"What is that, Polly?" I asked.

"That there is a river," she said, stating the obvious.

We all looked at what was clearly the largest body of water I had seen since entering the Territory, a wide river brimming with white water.

"How are we supposed to cross THAT?" I asked.

She pointed. "See `em rafts?" she asked, and at first I looked for bright colored white water rafts, before I reminded myself what century this Territory was stuck in.

Searching with my eyes eventually merited reward: there were a huge number of large wooden rafts with oars tied up to our section of the river. I hadn't noticed them at first because they blended in with their environment.

"We're supposed to cross a ferocious river in nothing but log rafts and oars?"

"Folks do it all the time."

"At least tell me there's enough life jackets for everyone."

"What jackets? If ya'll go on puttin' layers of clothes on, it just means you'll end up more cold later on when yer still not dried up." Polly completely misunderstood my concern, and that only proved that the Territory had no concern for safety.

"No way," I said. "We're not crossing here. Anyway, the horses would never survive this."

"Nope," she said. "'Bout three miles to the south, there's a spot a horsed rider can make it through."

"I want us all to walk there. We can rope the horses and have them make a dozen trips across the river if need be until we get everyone safely across."

"Yer talking `bout losing a bunch of time."

"I don't care."

"You might want to reconsider," said the eighteen year old, whose name turned out to be Marin. "We got incoming. Still a mile away, maybe."

She handed me her binoculars, and I looked through. I saw a familiar group headed straight for us. "The Pawnee warriors. Crap!"

"They ain't got horses, so they'll need the rafts to cross the river," said Marin. "But they're movin' real fast. They'll be here well before we get to the place where the horses can cross."

I thought of how Parker felt sorry for them. "Perhaps I can try to reason with them," I said.

"Ain't no way," Marin said. "They speak nothin' but Pawnee."

"Excuse me," said Benedict, overhearing us from nearby. "I'm actually Pawnee, and I speak the language. I'm at your disposal."

"It ain't gonna do no good, never does with `em," said Marin. "See how they come at us? They got their tomahawks out, ready for war. They'll rip us apart sooner than reason with us."

"I don't believe they'll kill us," I said.

"Maybe, maybe not," said Marin. "But they'll capture us. Maybe lead us to be captured by the Logans. I promise you, you let them get to us, and we'll pay the price."

I groaned. "Oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm going to consent to this. Polly, here's what I want you to do. Take as many people who will fit on the horses as you can. Start with the minors, and the injured, followed by the elderly. Benedict, I want you to go with them too. And Jane. The Pawnee won't be able to catch anyone on horseback. We'll meet up with you on the other side."

"Sure, Jake," she said, and then she rode her hose off and started to make adjustments to the horse riders and pile people folks onto the animals. Patches got loaded with three children. In a few minutes, all the horses moved south, riding fast away.

"I want everyone else to hurry onto the rafts," I shouted to the ex-slaves. "Please concentrate on safety. Don't overcrowd the rafts, there's plenty for all. Make sure each raft has someone who is experienced with these kinds of river crossings."

People who had already came up as leaders before moved to the riverbank and started loading people on the rafts. And then it was a matter of anxiously looking back and forth between my people as they loaded the rafts and the Pawnee looming ever closer. Because I knew it wouldn't be safe to have everyone shove off into the river at once, knowing even a small collision could end up in death, I instructed them to shove off one at a time.

The worst part of it was that the rafts soon disappeared from sight as they drifted down-river, so I had no clue if any of them were successfully making it across, or if they were all just getting sucked into the wild water. The first ten rafts took the longest, and I figured the Pawnee would catch up to us before we even had two-thirds of our people on the water. But then the next five rafts somehow were loaded and disembarked much more efficiently, and I wondered if perhaps we would all make it.

When we had gotten two-thirds of our people on the river, I pulled out my rifle. "I'd say the Pawnee are in rifle range now," I said to all of my friends around me. "That may be the only thing that holds them back. Everyone pull out your rifles and don't be afraid to let them have it."

"Are you kidding, dude?" asked Randy. "I grew up in Brooklyn. I don't think all of those hours spent owning the online FPS death matches will translate here."

"I've used a gun before, but nothing like these," said Montana. "I could try and learn."

"No, I don't want anyone who isn't familiarized with Territory guns to touch any of them," I said. "You'll end up hurting yourself. Guess that means I'll try to hold them off on my own."

"Not quite on yer own," said Marin, taking another rifle and getting down on the ground beside me, both of us lining our sights towards the Pawnee.

I was trying not to kill them, just incapacitate them, so I kept my shots below the head. But it took so long to reload our rifles every time we shot, making it all to time consuming a task. We managed to hit all of them at least once, buying some desperately needed time as more and more rafts set off.

By the time we only had enough people for two last raft loads, I told Marin to drop her rifle, and both of us took up our revolvers, as the Pawnee were all too close at that point. We could hear the Pawnee shouting and hollering to each other as they bore down on the two of us. We shot as well as we could, but they made it very difficult to land shots against them, jumping around and dodging bullets.

The second to the last raft disembarked successfully, and that left only us few who remained for the final raft: Haala and her boyfriend, Kuzman, Lek, Randy, Lisa, Montana, Stella, and Phong.

"Everyone get on the raft!" I yelled, trying to brave in my desperation, as Marin and my brilliant revolver action was the only thing keeping the Pawnee back the few yards they were.

Quicker than any of the other people boarded, my friends moved efficiently into raft, taking up their oars. We continued shooting until Randy pulled off the rope that tied the raft to shore, and then Marin and I jumped on, still shooting the Pawnee as they approached the shore.

"Which one of you knows abut rafting?" I asked.

"I do," said Stella the veterinarian. "I've been on a few raft trips. Everyone on the left side, row!"

As we started to pull away from the shore, one of the Pawnee readied a tomahawk and sent it flying towards us. I realized it was spinning through the air straight for Marin. The axe hit her, and she cried out in pain, falling to the raft floor.

"Marin!" I yelled, moving to help her, panicked with worry that it was already too late.

"I'm fine," she said. "Bastard just got my gun, made me lose it in the water. Don't worry `bout me, just make sure you don't get burned too."

But right before I could defend my gun, I felt the back of the axe blade hit my right hand, making me lose my grip and drop the gun in the water. Those were our last firearms on the raft.

"Oh my gosh, I shouldn't have left them a raft," I said, noticing that they all seemed to be heading for the one remaining tied up raft. Somehow I had figured Pawnee wouldn't be sophisticated enough to boat across the river. I had been wrong, and if they successfully crossed, all of this would have been for nothing. I had to rectify my error before other people paid for my mistake.

I reached down and grabbed the fallen tomahawk that had previously knocked my gun into the water. It was different from all the axes I had thrown in the rodeo, but not so much, really. I lined up my shot carefully, and threw it.

The blade landed on the rope holding up the raft, and suddenly the last raft was moving out into the river on its own, as everyone on board my raft cheered for me. A couple of the Pawnee tried to jump in the water and capture the raft, but the river was too swift, and it got swept out of their hands.

The Pawnee were only more pissed off, however, as they yelled all sorts of angry words in their language before changing their attack tactic and running downstream with clear intentions of catching up to our raft. I recalled the last time they had attacked, how they had been able to jump over that creek like it was nothing but a crack in the sidewalk, and I became worried.

"Can we move away from the shore, please?" I asked.

"There's dangerous rapids towards the middle of the river," Stella warned. "Boulders."

The nearest Pawnee warrior reached our position and leapt over the fifteen feet of water between us, landing on our raft, and moments later, a second landed as well. I thought it would be over for us right then, as I had no firearms left, but some of the other slaves clearly were a lot more industrious. Seemingly eager to make up for not being able to participate in the first part of the battle due to their non-existent firearm skills, they pulled out various other weapons.

Kuzman and Lek both had machetes that looked like they came from the chicken farms, Haala and her boyfriend had lumber axes, Montana had a shovel, and Lisa had a butcher's knife from the pig farms. They all felt their lives at stake, or at least their freedom, and even though none of them were trained fighters, they attacked the two vampires with cold resolve, knocking both of them into the water, where they swam off to the shore. They all coolly dropped their weapons and picked up their oars.

"Now would be a good time to move away from the shore!" I said, and Stella led the rowers to move towards the central, tumultuous river just before a third Pawnee vampire tried to jump from the shore and land on our raft, narrowly missing as a result and being sucked into the water.

Of course, as soon as we were out of range of the Pawnee, who were left yelling at us in anger on the riverside, we moved into treacherous whitewater rapids, and I hoped Stella didn't make the mistake of assuming a wooden raft would hold up as well as an inflatable one. "Everyone, hold on, and do exactly as I say," Stella said.

I got anxious as I saw us getting treacherously close to a boulder in the water.

"Left back, right forward!" Stella yelled with urgency, and all of us worked to oar as she commanded.

As we moved away from the boulder, my faith in her was restored.

A hand came from nowhere on the inside side of the raft, swooping out of the water and grabbing Randy in the face. Poor Randy, who had purposely sat on the far side of the raft and away from the attacking Pawnee, started to scream his lungs out as he dropped his oar into the water and jumped back to the center of the raft, kicking the Pawnee back into the rapids.

"Left back, right forward, left back right forward!" Stella shouted as we suddenly moved closer and closer to that boulder.

It became clear that Randy leaving his post was throwing us off balance, sending us into the boulder.

"Jake, switch sides to compensate!" Stella said, realizing the same thing.

I quickly jumped over to Randy's vacated spot, and began rowing the other way.

But I was too late to change our course completely, and we still ran into the boulder. Though my efforts perhaps kept the raft from hitting so hard that we capsized, we still hit hard, and everyone held onto the wood beneath them.

"Is everyone okay?" I asked, looking around to make sure everyone had managed to hold on.

Everyone looked fine, thank goodness.

And then I noticed a blank spot, and I heard a scream in the water.

"Phong!" Stella said.

"She's the clumsy one," I said, looking over and seeing Phong in the water, getting pulled under over and over again. Her swim was strong but uncoordinated, and I could see she was losing the battle with the water.

Everyone started to panic, and people extended their oars in her direction, with Stella moving the raft closer to her, but she was always out of range. Pretty soon she would drown.

I jumped into the water, not able to let anyone die because of the choices I made as their would-be leader. Thankfully, I was a strong swimmer, and reached her quickly, pulling her to the surface as she gasped for air.

But getting her back to the raft proved entirely too difficult. No matter how hard I swum, even with her swimming too, we just couldn't get through the rapids.

Luckily, Stella was able to have the others move the raft towards us, and Lek extended his oar out towards us. I was able to grab the end of it. They pulled us towards the raft, and then back onto floor.

Phong and I lay gasping for air on those welcome logs beneath us as Stella and the others led the raft to the other side of the river without any further complications, just a little farther down that the others had gone.

When we got to shore, I went over and accounted for all the other rafts. No one had any major issues crossing but us, it seemed.

We started marching east again, and before long our horse riders joined up with us once more.