The Reaper: No Mercy Read Online Free PDF

one more!"
    No one took him up on his offer as all fell backward, hands raised, partially-filled bottles of alcohol falling to the ground as they stumbled away in their haste.
    "No, man, no. We don't know who did it. One of our guys spotted some pervert spying on us from the barn and we went to take them out. Shots came out of nowhere, man. We were dropping like flies. Left and right, even. We had to take cover or we'd be dead too. Jesus dude, calm down, it's not our fault. Look at the bodies, man!" The new speaker was slightly older, yet still the epitome of a dirtbag by most standards. Disheveled and filthy, a .45 automatic stuck in his waist, he was beefier than the last man to hit the dirt, but not by much. His name was Duane, and he was one of Ringo's lieutenants.
    Duane was a drug dealer from Ringo's home town and in fact had been employed by Ringo for several years. When the shit hit the fan, Ringo had brought Duane along out of the city. Regardless of his appearance, Duane was smart and cunning, an person of interest to the local authorities but one who had never been caught.
    Ringo looked at the speaker and forced himself to calm down. He needed to control these men and be smart about it. A certain amount of fear kept the men in line, too much and he might lose some of them. Ringo had been doing alright so far, slowly expanding and consolidating his power base.
    Many of his current followers were members of his old crew from Columbia, Missouri, but even more were new arrivals. Some had just walked up to the gate, or one of his scouting parties, recognizing kindred spirits when they saw them. Others were from a few of the groups they had come in contact with, who had no desire to be farmhands the rest of their lives. Still others were culled from the captives they had taken; the test for entrance was simple. Hand them a gun with one round and have them shoot one of their group, or, point to a female captive and order them to rape her. It was a brutal method of testing, but surprisingly effective in how many were willing to kill and rape their fellow man, or woman, in order to gain acceptance. And while Ringo knew that most were lazy fuckers, even drug addicts or the mentally insane, he welcomed them all. Those he couldn't trust he would use as cannon fodder, for he was making a new world, one in which he planned to be King of Missouri, or as much of the state as he could hold.
    A mid-city drug dealer and loan shark from Columbia, Missouri, Ringo had risen high in the underworld, at least high in his estimation. He had quickly become known for his ruthlessness with those who owed him money. Those who owed him for drugs and had no ability to pay, he made permanent examples. The marks he loaned money to, who were late on their payments, would be dealt with more gently at first. It was true that it took willpower not to break their legs, but damaged marks didn't pay the bills. You had to be careful, and clever about it. The right amount of force and threat and your payments kept coming. Too much force and they were incapable of making payment. Payments equaled money, and money was power. A strong hand also equaled power, and Ringo was equally versed in both forms. However, this new world was all about power, as money no longer had meaning, so he went with what worked, and he was good at it.
    Within days of the dead rising, he and his boys had taken to the countryside, heading north. They'd barely escaped Columbia, but that was cool, and Ringo knew what he was doing. This had apocalyptic end times written all over it, and in those brief times he had been imprisoned he had read his fair share of books. He needed a central location away from the major cities for what he had in mind, which is why he'd settled in Paris.
    It did not take a genius to realize that after the crisis, many things would be needed. The need for physical labor was paramount, and that was a commodity he aimed to supply. There were many survivor groups