Deadrise (Book 5): Blood Moon

by Siara Brandt

  Blood Moon:

  Deadrise V

  SiaraBrandt

  Copyright © 2016 by Siara Brandt

  BLOOD MOON: DEADRISE V

  ISBN 13: 978-1533383464

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction

  or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden

  without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are

  either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,

  and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or undead,

  business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in USA

  Books by Siara Brandt

  The Ashes and the Roses

  A Restless Wind

  Blood Scourge: Project Deadrise

  Blood Storm: Deadrise II

  Savage Blood: Deadrise III

  Blood Reckoning: Deadrise IV

  Blood Moon: Deadrise V

  Dark of Peace

  Kadar’s Quest: The Legend of Iamar

  Stealing Cady

  The Patriot Remnant: Return to Freedom

  The Shadow’s Fall

  The Belly Dancer and the Border Agent

  The Meadow and the Millpond

  Tales from the Water Lily Pond

  Tangled Vines

  The Water Lily Pond

  For J who makes it all do-able.

  The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood . . .

  Joel 2:31

  Chapter 1

  He was moving through the trees, a shadow among the shadows, concealed by the darkness, but not knowing what the darkness concealed. Nighttime travel was always a risk, but sometimes risks couldn’t be avoided. His priority was to stay alive. For one simple reason. He was of no use dead. Not to himself or to anyone else.

  So Thayer McKinnen pushed resolutely onward, trying to balance caution with haste, and praying to God that he wouldn’t run into any more hidden fences in the dark. Or stumble blindly into any more unseen holes. Or gouge an eye out on the jagged point of one of the sharp, talon-like branches that was reaching for him from out of the shadows.

  Of course, more than all of those obstacles, he hoped he wouldn’t run into more of the undead. They were especially thick down here in the bottoms, he had found, and that did not bode well. Not for him or for the ones he was looking for. Not that the undead weren’t everywhere. No matter where you went, you could never let your guard down completely. You could never get too comfortable. Not if you wanted to stay alive. And that was the goal. For most of them, at least.

  He considered himself lucky to have gotten this far in one piece in the dark. He hoped that they had been as lucky. But he was armed. They were not. And they were much smaller and could not fight back as well as he could. While he had come this far in relative safety, he was well aware that everything could change dramatically in an instant. The world was a perilous place now where the undead outnumbered the living, and where the blood-thirsty, flesh-eating fiends that roamed the earth were driven by one, and only one, relentless instinct. They had an insatiable appetite for those who were still alive.

  The sudden mild weather was a stark contrast to the bitter cold they had endured the past few weeks. He didn’t know if that was working against him. He didn’t know if it made the undead more active. What he did know was that once, long ago, he would have enjoyed such an evening. The balmy air was soft and hazy with a faint mist rising from the damp ground. In the gnarled branches of the trees to his right, a full, blood-red moon was just now rising. Its lower rim was blurred by a drift of dark clouds that made it look like it was melting into a sky that was starless and black as a raven’s wing.

  There was nothing else to relieve the darkness anymore. There was only the moon when it was out, or the faint light of the stars when they were visible. Perhaps there were candles or lanterns for those who still had them and dared to light them in some sheltered place. He still held onto the hope that somewhere in the world people were able to live unafraid. But here, for the most part, when nighttime fell, darkness reigned, as it must have reigned in the beginning when the first humans’ rebellion had made them outcasts and left them struggling to find a way through what must have seemed like a very terrifying, very lonely darkness to them, too.

  Now the world was dark again. In the blink of an eye, technology had ceased to exist. There was no simplicity of invention anymore because man had come so far beyond simplicity in his devices that his reliance on such things, ironically, had left him almost helpless without them. His conveniences and inventions had become so complex and intertwined that there was no hope of going backward and starting all over again. Not overnight. Not like he needed to. The journey to the beginning was simply too far to travel in such a short time and too complicated even if he could get there. So he had to rely on cunning and ingenuity to survive and hope that it would be enough.

  Since all forms of communication had been wiped out virtually from the beginning, there still was no way of knowing what was happening in the rest of the world. In the next state. In the next county. In the next town. A few rumors would come their way now and then from passing strangers, the living ones at least, but no one could get any reliable information on how widespread this was or what had started it in the first place. Most people were convinced that it was worldwide because of the last newscasts that had reached them before everything had gone black. But the hope was that somewhere in the world someone had found answers and that this was going to be over soon. Right now, however, the complete blackout of communications had left them lost. It was almost as frightening as the undead that surrounded them were.

  Perhaps the hardest burden to bear for all of them was that there was no way of contacting anyone anymore. There was no TV, no internet, no radio, and no cell phones, so the fate of family members and loved ones all too often remained unknown. After a brief period of martial law, or at least an attempt to impose martial law, everything fell apart and lawlessness reigned as people were forced to take matters like safety and basic survival into their own hands. Some people, the hopeful ones, or perhaps the weaker ones, had waited a long time for the government or the military to show up in force and make things right again. But that hadn’t happened. In fact, a mistrust of anything even remotely connected with the federal government and all its entities had rapidly taken hold after a few attempts to round people up had gone terribly wrong. Some even suspected, maybe with good reason, that the government had been behind it all.

  How this nightmare would end, Thayer did not know. What he did know for certain was that even though he had seen some remarkable instances of courage, bravery and downright heroism, this zombie apocalypse also brought out the worst in some people.

  He still did not know how a woman could abandon two helpless children and leave them to an unknown fate for the sake of a man. When he had gotten back from a food run, he had discovered that the two youngest ones in the group had been left behind, just like Hansel and Gretel. The reasons that he was given? Because they couldn’t keep up. Because it was selfish and cruel to force them to do so. Because someone would eventually go back for them when things got better. But Thayer knew there were no actual plans to go back. And he knew the real reason was because Galton Clune had talked Letha into it.

  The children had been left at the Mead farm with a supply of food and water, Letha had told him. But only after he had confronted her about their absence. According to Letha, even though it was supposed to be temporary, it was a chance at a better life for Seth and Kesi. A life where they d
idn’t have to be on the run all the time, and where they weren’t in so much danger.

  Yeah, Letha had expected him to buy that. But just how and when things were going to get better, she never did say. And without someone to protect them, they probably didn’t have any chance at all. Seth was only eight years old. Kesi was six.

  “You don’t understand,” Letha had tried justifying.

  But he did understand. He knew damn well that she hadn’t been motivated by compassion or some kind of protective motherly instinct. Or a chance at a better life. Unless, of course, she had been talking about her own life. With her husband gone, her step children had become too much of a burden for her. It was that simple. She didn’t talk much about her missing husband, Logan, especially now that she was with Galton, so no one really knew what had happened to him. These days, you didn’t ask. And sometimes, maybe you didn’t want to know.

  At least she’d had enough of a conscience left to look ashamed. But it wasn’t much of a conscience or she wouldn’t have done what she’d done. She knew very well that the meager supply of food and water she’d left with the kids wasn’t going to last long. And as for being on the run, there was a good reason for that. Otherwise they would have all put down roots by now.

  “They were never really my responsibility,” Letha had finally broken down and halfway admitted the truth, still foolishly believing she could convince him that she had made some kind of morally-responsible choice. “They weren’t even mine. They were my step children. I took care of them as long as I could. With Logan gone- ” She didn’t go on. She just stood there after giving him her lame excuses, not realizing that it was only adding fuel to his anger. As if those excuses could ever be good enough. As if there was any chance in hell she was going to convince him.

  “We had to make that choice. You know people have to make hard choices all the ti- ”

  By that time, he had listened to her long enough. He’d cut her off and asked coldly, “Why’d you wait until I was gone?”

  That silenced her. Finally. She had waited because she knew he would have fought against it. Because he never, never, would have agreed to leaving them behind. And she knew it as well as he did.

  In the end, there was no undoing it. In the end, all he could do was to try to make it right on his own. He wasn’t related to the children, either, but if they were still alive, he would find them. If not-

  He shook his head, refusing to consider that possibility until it was staring him straight in the face. The Mead farm wasn’t far now. He knew the place. Seth and Kesi were smart. They had learned a lot about surviving in a zombie apocalypse. They’d had a crash course just like everyone else. Hopefully they had learned enough.

  The harsh reality was that abandoned children were only one of the horrors Thayer had seen during these past grueling months. And it probably wouldn’t be the last of them. The truth was that the group had been going downhill for a long time. It was only a matter of time before they got rid of him, too, he suspected. When he stopped being useful. When the food supplies got even lower. No matter how much he managed to scavenge and bring back for the group. After too many close calls these past few weeks, the group was fear-driven now. There was so much suspicion and downright mistrust that people were working against each other instead of with each other. And that was never a good thing when you were living in a virtual war zone. If they didn’t have each other’s backs, what was the point in being with a group in the first place? Sometimes it was better to be on your own.

  Maybe Letha could live with the cold-blooded choice she had made, but he couldn’t. If Seth and Kesi could be found, he would do his best to find them. And take them where? He didn’t know. He hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Some place safe. If there was such a place. But not back to Letha. Definitely not back to Letha, who had not bothered – or maybe she had not dared - to tell him what she was planning. In fact, by now, he had figured out that she and Galton must have been planning it for a while. It was obvious that they had gone out of their way to keep him in the dark. That’s why they had sent him out to find not only food, but medicine, which would keep him away much longer. He had every right to be pissed, he knew, but there was no use in holding onto all that. Anger tended to work against you, especially in this world. No, he needed to be focused, so he could make the right choices. There was still that. Even in this world. He had to believe that.

  As to better choices, there might have been some in the beginning, long before the military had tried rounding people up and sending them to what they were calling safe zones. If anyone had known what was coming and could have read the future, most of them would have probably made different choices. But who could have predicted a zombie apocalypse? Any kind of military structure seemed to have collapsed by now. The time came when the military seemed to be working against, not for, the people. Now there were no military planes, no helicopters and no drones as there had been in the beginning. There were no soldiers or equipment. There was no military presence to be seen anywhere, except for some abandoned vehicles.

  No one knew if there really were safe zones. Or, if there ever had been, no one knew if they still existed. No one had seen anything even resembling a safe zone. All they ever saw were a lot of abandoned homes and vehicles and entire cities that looked like garbage-littered ghost towns, except, of course, for the terrifying, resurrected dead who were still trapped inside buildings, or who wandered the streets aimlessly in a mindless quest to appease their unholy hunger. Fires had broken out in towns and cities alike as murder and chaos and looting became rampant. As the fires raged out of control, masses of terrified refugees had quickly begun a desperate exodus from their former homes where they were not only burned out, but outnumbered, both by the undead and by equally-ruthless gangs that were already well-organized and heavily-armed even before the shit had hit the fan. You could tell from the massive, churning columns of black smoke on the horizons where the cities were. Or, at least, where they had been. They had smoldered endlessly for a long time so that a dismal haze hovered over everything. The smell of smoke was always present. With no way to put out the fires, they spread rapidly. Out-of-control wildfires beyond the cities added to the devastation. Entire sections of forest became desolate, blackened landscapes. Yeah, for a time it had looked like a virtual hell-on-earth scenario straight from an apocalyptic video game.

  When the food supplies began to run out after only about three days, it didn’t take long for some people to start killing each other for what was left. Starvation, when it became extreme enough, was a particularly ruthless motivator, especially when you were trying to keep your own family alive. Almost as bad as the starvation, the fate of missing loves ones also drove people to migrate. There were still people looking. But by now a lot of them had given up the search, learned the worst, or had turned themselves so that the numbers of searchers had dwindled drastically. Now that survival had become so desperate and so difficult, it had become the priority.

  Through all of it, there was one glaring question that remained unanswered, one that, had it been answered, might have offered a more hopeful look into the future for survivors. No one knew how this had all started. Whatever truth might be out there lay buried beneath the plague of contagion that had swept the earth, if indeed this was worldwide. If indeed it was a plague. There were many possible explanations and countless rumors, but none of them could be pinpointed as the actual cause. So far, there was no glimmer of hope to cling to, nothing that might guide survivors into a more optimistic existence. It was hard not to be pessimistic when choices had been narrowed until there were only two things left. Gruesome, living death was one of those choices. The other was a desperate, all-too-often brutal way of life for those who had somehow survived that unnatural state of living death. There was nothing in between. Even worse, there was no predicting which fate ultimately awaited each individual. Whatever this was, whatever had made people turn in the first place, there was no way of knowing if people were
still turning. Or if eventually they would all turn. Certainly, Thayer did not know. He only knew that so far he was one of the survivors.

  He smelled the strong stench of death from somewhere out in the darkness. Again. No telling where it was coming from. It could be a dead body, yet another hapless victim. Or it could be one of the undead. It could even be a dead animal. Luckily, the smell quickly faded and he was breathing fresh air again.

  Suddenly and unexpectedly, he emerged from the trees and saw a road. It was just a narrow gravel lane that gleamed dully in the moonlight as it wound through an aisle in the trees and disappeared over a rise. The roads were a maze down here in the river bottoms. Only a rural mail carrier or a school bus driver would know them. Thayer knew that this was the road that would take him to the Mead farm because he himself had ridden the school bus through here on a daily basis just four years ago. So he knew he was close. In fact, he probably had less than a mile to go.

  He took a few steps forward and stopped short. Half concealed in the weeds, a white plastic bag was caught on a strand of barbed wire. He wouldn’t have seen the fence at all if it hadn’t been for the limp, deteriorated bag hanging there in the moonlight. He climbed through the sagging strands of wire, carefully avoiding a pile of discarded beer bottles and flattened boxes. From the number of bottles, it must have been a popular dumping site. Back in the days when you could actually get beer.

  On the other side of the fence, he stopped again, looking to his left and to his right to make sure that he was alone. With both hands, he slowly shoved the long, dark strands of his hair back from his face and listened. It wasn’t that cold, but the air was heavy and damp in his lungs and his breath misted slightly each time he exhaled. There was water standing in the roadside ditch before him. The shrill peeping of spring frogs filled the air. Other than that familiar sound, an almost-nostalgic one from his old life, it was eerily silent down here in the bottoms. It was pitch black, too, under the trees where the moonlight didn’t reach.