The three of them stood at the front entrance to get some air, joined by Anna, Kaos, and Teddy.
Raine stared across the street. Timo hung around with three more armed guards.
He happened to glance over, noticed them standing there, and continued to walk on.
His dismissal infuriated Raine, and she stormed across the road to confront him. The rest of the group followed to back her up.
‘Hey!’ Raine shouted. ‘Where’s Gideon?’
Timo whispered to one of the men he was with and motioned to greet her.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Timo said, aware that some of the townsfolk had been alerted to the mild disturbance.
‘Where is he?’ Raine asked again.
‘He’s… unavailable.’
‘How about you go knock on his door and make him available,’ O.B. said.
‘Time’s running out,’ Salty said.
‘Just get out of the way. I’ll go see him myself,’ Raine said.
As soon as she tried to get by, Timo stepped in front of her.
‘I can’t let you do that,’ he said.
‘Hey, hey, why don’t we all just take a breath for a minute,’ Teddy said, putting himself between them. ‘I’m sure Gideon will be out here soon enough.’
Salty didn’t say anything, but he took note of Teddy’s reaction and his sense of calm.
‘I don’t want trouble here. I just want to talk,’ Raine said.
‘You had plenty of opportunity to talk during the council meeting,’ Timo said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Raine asked.
A shout rang out from the front entrance of the town’s walls, a voice Timo instantly recognised. He broke away from the confrontation and ran down the street towards the sound.
Raine, her group, and a fair number of residents followed.
By the time Timo reached the main gate, the lookouts were already training their rifles on someone outside.
‘What is it?’ Timo asked.
‘Someone’s approaching on foot,’ one lookout shouted back.
‘Just one person?’
‘Looks like. No one else visible.’
‘Can you get an identification?’
The lookout lifted his binoculars and followed the wandering figure.
‘It’s a woman. She’s wearing civilian clothing. Seems like she’s in a bad way.’ The lookout cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down to the woman.
‘Stop right there and identify yourself!’
The woman gazed up to the top of the wall, her hand shielding her eyes from the harsh sun.
‘My name is Geraldine Foster. I was a prisoner at a camp not far from here.’
Foster looked drained. Her lips were dry, she had broken twigs in her hair, and a strip of material hung from her shirt where it had been torn around the flank.
‘Let her in, Timo. She’s one of us,’ Raine said.
‘You’re not selling it to me, Miller,’ Timo replied.
‘Please open the gate,’ O.B. said.
Timo pondered their request, throwing a quick glance to the town and Gideon’s office tucked around the corner.
‘Let her inside. I want her searched at the entrance,’ he said.
The guards did as ordered and opened up.
Foster was almost knocked off her feet when they patted her down.
Once she was allowed through the gates, the others rushed to her, none faster than O.B.
She fell into his arms through sheer exhaustion, and he held her in a tight embrace, clenching his eyes shut and burying his face into her shoulder.
She was surprised and relieved to see them, if a little confused by O.B.’s reaction to her arrival.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ she said.
‘We hadn’t planned to leave you there,’ Raine said.
‘Miller, I don’t know if Ethan knows I escaped. He’s going to obey Edwards to keep me safe. He’s on his way here now,’ Foster said.
‘I know,’ Raine replied.
The crowd gathering near the entrance had slowly grown, and they were all too busy trying to get a look at the newcomer to notice Gideon had emerged from his office with an armed escort.
Timo eventually saw him and ran to brief him on what had just unfolded.
‘Another member of their group turned up at the gate. She claims to have escaped from The Children. She looks in pretty bad shape,’ he said.
Gideon paid little attention to his update and continued on. The guards by his side pushed the townsfolk out of the way so they could get to Raine and the others.
Gideon’s expression was stern, resigned.
The guards pointed their weapons in the faces of the group.
‘Take Raine, Oswald, Jake, and the new arrival to the station and put them in the cells,’ Gideon ordered.
‘What is this, Gideon?’ Raine asked.
‘I’m sure you can figure it out. You’re under arrest, and you will remain so until you can explain why you lied to us about this so-called device and why The Father thinks you and your friends are so important that he would send his disciples to the ends of the Earth to track you down.’
As the escort moved in to apprehend the suspects, another shout came from the wall.
Timo forced a path through the bodies to communicate with the lookout.
‘What is it now?’
‘It’s the dead. The dead are coming!’ The lookout screamed it loud enough for everyone to hear, and Foster immediately turned to her companions.
‘Ethan,’ she said.
Gideon caught up to Timo and stared through the still open gate to the hordes of bodies swaying in the distance.
‘Get as many rifles on the walls as you can,’ he said.
Timo nodded and raced back into town to gather every resident capable of handling a gun.
‘It appears your device is about to bring the wolves to our door,’ Gideon said as he made his way into the crowd again.
‘I told you to leave,’ Raine said.
‘You told me a fairy tale. If you’d been honest from the beginning, we may have listened,’ he said.
‘They’re gonna shoot Twilight first chance they get,’ Salty whispered.
Foster knew this to be true and looked towards the open gate, which the guards had just started to close. She noticed the guns were all trained on the others, probably because she looked so weak and wounded to put up a struggle.
With a split-second decision, she made a run for the entrance, knocking a couple of bystanders to the ground in the process.
One guard saw her fleeing and lined her up in his sights, and O.B. timed his football-style tackle with the sound of the shot. He dragged the guard to the ground as the bullet whizzed by its intended target and Foster carried on unhindered.
‘Hold your fire!’ Gideon shouted.
Raine and Salty wanted to chase after Foster, but they were swiftly surrounded.
Following Gideon’s orders, no one took another shot at Foster or was close enough to prevent her from heading outside. Even though the gates were almost closed, she managed to kick on just enough to slip her slender frame through the narrowing gap before it slammed shut.
The guard who O.B. had tackled angrily shoved his gun against the young man’s head and hoisted him to his feet by his shirt.
‘What does she think she’s doing?’ Gideon asked.
‘She’s going to try to communicate with our friend,’ Raine said.
‘This is the one The Children wanted so much? Why they were searching for you in the first place?’
‘Yes. Their leader, the one who calls himself The Father, his name is Edwards.’
‘He’s known to you?’ Gideon asked.
‘I didn’t just know him. I’m the reason he became what he is—the reason your community is being terrorised by him,’ Raine said. ‘That’s why I couldn’t tell you the truth
. I didn’t know what you would do to me and my group if you found out.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Gideon said.
‘Tell your shooters on the wall to hold off, Gideon. Give her a chance to get through to him. It may be the only way we have now. Do it and I’ll tell you everything,’ she said.
Gideon scowled at her and didn’t answer. He started to walk to the wall and half turned when he had a second thought.
‘Bring her to the wall,’ he said, pointing at Raine and the guard who had her covered. ‘Just her. Keep the others down here. I want to know exactly what’s going on before I make a decision.’
The guard in question pushed Raine forward to follow his leader.
‘It’s OK,’ Raine said to Salty and O.B., making sure they didn’t object and get themselves shot.
Gideon climbed the steps up to the top of the wall and its walkway, and Raine and the guard came up after.
There were eleven shooters already positioned with rifles, some trained on Foster as she staggered out from the shadow of the city, the others aiming at the large tide of dead slowly edging closer.
It was difficult to tell just how many there were, but there could have easily been a thousand, if not more.
Gideon took a set of binoculars from one of his men and examined the encroaching army. He then handed the binoculars to Raine.
‘Where’s your man? Do you see him?’
Raine focussed the lens towards the centre of the horde. All she could see were rotten, shambling bodies—no one living, or at least no one living except for the strange half-life afflicting those who had been infected by the Necro-virus curbed by the Lazarus Serum.
‘No, but they wouldn’t allow Ethan to be exposed so you could pick him off. They would hide him with the disciples in the herd. The dead won’t attack them,’ Raine said.
‘Your friend has taken one hell of a risk going out there on her own,’ Gideon said.
‘She knows,’ Raine said, passing back the binoculars. ‘Just give her a chance to do it her way before you start shooting. If Ethan is killed, there may be no way of guiding the herd away.’
Foster turned and looked up at the poised rifles on the city walls. In doing so, she noticed Raine was present.
They made eye contact for a brief moment before Foster stumbled on in the direction of the horde, only a few hundred yards away.
They were close enough for the stench from their foul decomposition to be gag-inducing.
Due to her work in medicine, Foster had developed a strong constitution when it came to overpowering smells, but this putrid stink of decay washed over her like a wave. Already unsteady on her feet, its potency almost knocked her over.
The gaggle of tightly packed bodies retained its circular shape the whole way to her. She couldn’t see one human face amongst the dead. Heart pounding, she wondered whether Ethan was really there at all or if he’d found some way of controlling them all from a distance.
If so, he wouldn’t know she was there, and the creatures would simply roll over her, picking her bones clean on their way to sack Medora and everyone in it.
Foster didn’t believe in God or a higher power, but she desperately searched her mind to remember a prayer she’d learned in middle school.
She silently mouthed the section that came back to her, not necessarily in the correct order, and clenched her fists.
The terrible procession was upon her. Even if she ran, the people inside the city may not be able to open the gates in time.
The low groan of each creature blended into one pervasive death rattle that surrounded her.
‘Ethan,’ she called out into the horde. ‘Ethan, it’s me.’
The slow stomp to the city suddenly ground to a halt. The cloud of dust kicked up by the hundreds of dead settled around their feet as if someone had hit the Pause button on a remote control.
They were still groaning, their eyes vacant, unfocussed.
A fresher body emerged from behind the decayed, skeletal barrier. To her relief, it was Ethan who showed himself first.
She took a couple of steps forwards to embrace him but stopped short when she noticed his eyes.
They were clouded over like he’d been afflicted by cataracts. His trance was familiar to Foster. With so many creatures under his control, she could only imagine how much his mind had been pulled into their world. Yet some part of him must have heard her, recognised her voice.
‘I escaped and found my way here. You don’t have to do this anymore. Let go of them. Let go and come with me.’ She reached out her hand to him. ‘Let me take care of you.’
His vision began to clear, and his brow wrinkled with a flicker of emotion.
Foster was so concerned about getting through to him, she didn’t see the disciple sneak out from the horde on her left. The man attacked her from the side, knife held aloft.
The shooters on the wall had been ordered to hold, and Gideon hadn’t seen the man fast enough to have him picked off before he got to her.
She became aware of the danger just as the disciple’s shadow descended upon her and she saw the glint of the blade.
Three creatures swarmed him as he was bringing down the knife to her chest. They had broken from the pack and bit into his arms and neck.
One chewed into the tendon of his wrist, and he dropped his weapon, screaming at the sight of his flesh being torn from his body.
The creatures continued to feed on their live prey, and the overriding expression on the disciple’s face as his life ebbed away was one of surprise—surprise that his immunity to the dead’s hunger had seemingly disappeared.
When Foster reverted her attention from the shredded flesh, she saw Ethan’s eyes were almost back to normal. The milky fog had given way to his soulful blue eyes.
‘Foster?’ he whispered wearily.
‘It’s me, darling.’
Ethan took another step forwards.
‘Please, get me out of here.’
She immediately rushed to him, and he fell into her arms.
‘I’ve got you,’ she said, not confident she had enough strength herself to make it back to the gate.
Up on the wall, Gideon told his guards to shoot at any human who tried to break from the ranks of the horde again, and he ordered the gates to be opened.
Foster and Ethan slowly turned their backs on the dead army to stagger towards Medora.
The three creatures Ethan used to protect Foster finished their meal and dissolved into the horde. The hundreds of bodies swayed in the afternoon breeze, awaiting their next command.
The other disciples hiding within remained there, unsure whether to attack or retreat.
Gideon studiously examined his enemy from above and then called down to his soldiers on the ground who were about to receive the two escapees at the entrance.
‘I want them both detained for questioning,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Raine said.
Gideon glared at her.
‘Take her back to the others. Lock her up,’ he said.
The guard did as Gideon told him and shoved Raine across the walkway towards the steps.
Gideon returned to the edge of the wall and surveyed the static horde—over a thousand strong receivers awaiting a signal to unleash their brutal lust for blood.
Once Foster and Ethan were inside, they were shepherded at gunpoint to Raine, O.B., and Salty and then escorted farther into the city, on their way to the jailhouse.
Kaos did his best to comfort Anna, clutching her collar to prevent her from following. She yelped and tried to wriggle free, but he held on tight to her and petted her back.
Teddy knelt in front of her to block her view and took a handful of fur around her head.
‘It’s OK, girl. They’re not going far. You’ll be able to visit him soon enough,’ he said.
‘What did you do?’ Kaos asked.
‘What they should have done from the start, k
id. I told the truth.’
11
The two disciples flanking Edwards ducked behind the rock face and pointed their weapons in the direction of the footsteps.
The tall figure raised his hand to warn off the threat.
‘Get those things out of my face.’
‘Crane. Thank God it’s you,’ one of the men said, lowering his firearm.
Edwards stood up and dusted the dirt from his robes.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘The woman who escaped us, she met him at the gates, managed to pull him out and inside the city. One of ours was killed trying to stop them.’
Edwards tightened his jaw to suppress his rage at the news.
‘What of the others?’
‘They’re still hidden amongst the dead. I managed to get Anthony on the radio. He awaits your command,’ Crane said.
‘Tell him they need to hold their position until nightfall.’
‘And then?’
Edwards shook his head.
‘Then we will see. Gideon and his people might not be so welcoming when they discover the true nature of what The Shepherd is capable of. He is in more danger from them than he ever was from us. We must protect him, Crane. At all costs.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘He will come to realise that he no longer belongs to their world anymore. He has a far greater purpose, and I will make sure he fulfils it.’
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Everything Dies | Season 3 Page 26