Once Bitten: Twice Mad

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Four:

"What's going on here?" Rachel gasped as fear clutched at her heart. Doctor Harris had a revolver grasped in his meaty hand and aimed straight toward her. Rachel knew the knife she held in her own hand would be no match and she wasn't nearly fast enough to hope to pull her own gun before the doctor could get a shot off.

"Why are you in my home?" the doctor demanded angrily, his gaze darting back and forth between her and the rabid tied to the bed.

Rachel swallowed hard. "Why is there a rabid tied to this bed?" She pointed back toward the struggling flesh eating monster on the bed.

Doctor Harris glanced over her shoulder and his gaze softened as he looked at the monster struggling against the ropes holding her down. "That is my dear, Judith."

"Your wife?!" Rachel felt bile rise in her throat. This man was insane and this was the single most twisted and disgusting thing she had witnessed so far in all this madness. "Doctor Harris, please put the gun down—this isn't right. She is not your wife any longer. She's a monster."

"No!" Doctor Harris bellowed. He lunged forward and Rachel was so surprised by the motion that she stumbled backward and her knife slipped from her hand. The doctor's big hands closed around her arms and then he yanked her gun from her holster and threw it across the room. "How dare you!" he snapped, his cheeks reddening and his jowls shaking with his rage.

"I'm sorry!" Rachel gasped but her meager apology seemed to have the opposite effect she had hoped. Instead of easing his temper it only seemed to aggravate him further.

Doctor Harris moved one hand to the back or Rachel's neck and spun her around before shoving her toward the bed. Rachel couldn't manage to do anything more than whimper as her face was forced down toward the rabid's lying on the bed and panic caused her body to freeze.

The rabid moaned and bit at the gag on her mouth and arched her back off the bed in a desperate attempt to reach the meal that was so close.

"What do you want from me?" Rachel managed to ask as she trembled and a tear ran down her cheek.

"Apologize to my wife." Doctor Harris hissed. Rachel could feel his soft gut pressing against her back as he pinned her down. She licked her quaking lips and frowned.

"What...?"

"You hurt her feelings!" The doctor's grip on her tightened and the pain shot through her body like a bolt of lightning through a tree trunk. "Now apologize!"

***

"Colt, there is a problem." Colt dropped the mule's leg and stood straight as he turned to face Comanche. The look on the Indian's face told Colt more than his words had. Something was very wrong.

"What is it?"

"This town is not what it seems. There are rabid here but they are underground."

Colt frowned. "What do you mean, underground?"

"They are locked up in cellars. The cellars are straight drops down. He has obviously found a way to capture them or lure them into falling into the holes and then he closes the doors and chains them."

"Shit." Colt yanked off his hat and shoved his hand through his hair. "Can they climb out?"

"Yes. The holes are not very deep—however they seem secure as long as the doors are chained." Comanche glanced over his shoulder. "That's not all though, Colt," he admitted as he turned back to face him. "There is a person here other than the Doctor but I think it is only one. I saw the tracks, a man judging by the stride though a much smaller one than the doctor. And I found some disturbing evidence that we may not be the first survivors that found their way here—the other groups did not make it back out."