Deadrise (Book 5): Blood Moon

by Siara Brandt

  What they had? Obviously what they’d had was a lie. In fact, every lying word that he had used to justify what he had done was still fresh in her mind.

  “It only happened once.”

  “I only want you.”

  And finally, “Why can’t you overlook one mistake?”

  One mistake. Only that, too, had been another lie. Apparently, when it all came out, it seemed that Webb had made that same mistake over and over again. Maybe the worst was when he tried to blame her for his behavior. He’d told her that if she hadn’t been holding out on him, he wouldn’t have been tempted in the first place.

  He had tried to talk her out of leaving, of course. When that hadn’t worked, he had tried to frighten her out of going outside the fenced-in security of the abandoned factory where the group had taken refuge. She didn’t realize all the dangers that she would have to face on a thirty-mile hike through a zombie-infested landscape, Webb had warned her. And she didn’t know that evil men would be lurking everywhere and that they could be even worse than the ghouls that would be threatening her every step of the way. Men who would take advantage of her inexperience.

  She had almost laughed in his face at that. Isn’t that exactly what Webb had done?

  He absolutely thought that she wouldn’t leave. He had gone so far as to forbid her to do it, saying that such an order was for her own good. As if she couldn’t figure out what was best for her by herself.

  “You don’t know what it is like beyond this fence, Sidra. No one will go with you and you have no chance of making it out there on your own. When you calm down, we’ll talk and you’ll see that we can get through this.” And then he had told her, “It’s not like there are a lot of choices out there for you.”

  She knew that he wasn’t thinking about her, of course. He was thinking only about himself and how he was going to maintain his control over her. But he had underestimated her. She had managed to escape from what amounted to nothing less than imprisonment. He had actually had her locked in a room to keep her from leaving. It was a temporary precaution, he’d told her, till she came to her senses. When she was ready to listen to reason, he would let her out.

  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her that Webb would lie to get what he wanted or that he would take such drastic actions to keep her from leaving. Her final disappointment in him was just the last of a long string of them. The truth was that Webb had been corrupt in the best of worlds. In the business world, she had seen him lie and cheat and connive to get what he wanted, without a shred of conscience or remorse. He had bragged to her often enough about his conquests. Money had been his god. And the power that came with it. What had made her think he would be any different now? It had taken this last betrayal for her to finally see him for what he really was. She absolutely would not allow him to keep her caged up against her will. She had never really been in love with him. She knew that now. She had probably always known it. Maybe she had been holding onto the past because the present was so hard to look at and the future was even more uncertain. She only wished she had figured it all out sooner.

  The revelation, painful as it had been, had accomplished one thing. It had forced her to go off on her own. Something she should have done a long time ago. But Webb had managed to talk her out of going home too many times, always convincing her that it wasn’t the right time.

  To herself she admitted it hadn’t been an easy choice. The truth was that she would have been frightened to leave on her own had she not been so angry with him. And as she looked around at the dark landscape to try and get her bearings, it did seem like it was even more desolate here on this side of the river. In fact, it seemed that she was standing in the loneliest place on earth. The undead were out there, yes. She could hear them. But other than that, there were no signs that there was a single soul, not a living soul at least, anywhere in the vast, empty darkness that surrounded her. She felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life.

  Ignoring another faraway, unearthly shriek somewhere to her left, she stayed away from the gravel path as she had been warned to do and carefully walked along the zigzagging walkway that ran parallel to it. When she came to the end of the walkway, she was confronted by another wide swathe of tall grass. Everywhere you went, the vegetation was overgrown. Everything was going back to its natural state. Once again, she was terrified that something might be hiding in the waist-high grass, but she had no choice but to pass through it.

  She was still surrounded by grass when she came to an abrupt standstill. Out of the darkness that surrounded her, came another sound. Something was moving through the grass to her right. No sound, no movement could be ignored. There were too many life-threatening dangers out here. So she hid in the only place she could. She leaned back against the trunk of a nearby tree and waited.

  The moans and the snarls of the undead that were trapped in the mud grew louder and more agitated, so that she was certain that someone, or something, was out there moving among them. She pressed back tighter against the tree and swallowed convulsively. Her heart was pounding. Her mind was racing as she waited. Maybe it was one of the undead moving aimlessly around. Who else would be wandering around in the dark in the middle of nowhere? Besides her. If she waited long enough, wouldn’t it get trapped in the mud, too? Or wander off? Then she could pass safely. Still, she made up her mind that she would run as soon as she thought it was safe to do so. Before whatever it was got any closer.

  When she finally dared to look past the tree, she was alarmed to see a darker shadow wading through the tall grass. The top half of a man. He was headed straight for her.

  She flattened her body against the tree, hoping it would hide her. She could gauge the man’s progress by the soft rustle of the grass as he moved through it. He did not seem to be in a hurry. As the swishing sounds grew louder, anticipation had her stomach clenching. She wanted to run away, but she didn’t dare leave her hiding place behind the tree. She tried to separate the sound of the man’s movements from all the other noises around her. Webb was right about one thing. She hadn’t spent much time outside the fenced-in security of the factory where the group had kept themselves barricaded almost from the beginning, so she hadn’t had to kill very many of the undead on her own. In fact, she’d only had to actually “kill” one of them. Mostly she just ran, or she hid, when she saw them. She tried to tell herself that she could handle this situation, too, whatever it was, but the truth was that she was scared half to death.

  That’s when she saw the other woman. She was hiding behind a tree, too. She wasn’t making a sound and she wasn’t moving. She was just sitting there with her back against the tree, staring up at her. Slowly, the woman put a finger to her lips and motioned Sidra to silence.

  That’s when Sidra saw the man step out of the shadows of some trees into the full blaze of moonlight. She saw the rifle he was carrying. He obviously saw the other woman right away because he stopped short. He stayed motionless for the space of several heartbeats. Then, without saying a word, he lifted up the gun and shot in the woman’s direction. A dark spot immediately appeared in the center of her forehead. Her eyes remained open and she was still staring at Sidra, but she toppled sideways to the ground, a corpse.

  Sidra stifled a cry of horror as she froze. In the moonlight she saw the dark hollows of the man’s eyes as he began to search the shadows again. She saw the equally-dark, slashing line of his mouth. Did he see her? Or didn’t he? With the image of the dead woman fresh in her mind, she was absolutely frozen with terror. As she continued to watch the man, he turned his face slowly as he scanned the dimly-lit, wooded landscape in front of him. He suddenly snapped his head in her direction as if he had just become aware of her presence.

  Fighting off a wave of weakness that surged like a narcotic through all her veins and made her feel like she was half paralyzed, Sidra slowly edged her body along the tree trunk so that it was between her and the man. Not certain if he could see her at the moment, she knew that eventuall
y she was going to have to do something.

  The gunman began to walk forward again. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the swish of the grass. He stopped. She imagined that he was staring straight at the place where she was hiding. Grass swished again as he walked closer. He had shifted his position until Sidra could see him standing there like a pale, dark-eyed ghoul in the moonlight. He didn’t call out to her. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there like one of the walking undead himself, focusing intently in her direction like a hunter honing in on his prey.

  Each drawn-out second that followed was like an eternity to Sidra. She felt utterly immobilized by fear. Just like a deer in headlights must feel. At first, she couldn’t make herself move. In fact, she could scarcely breathe. She was gripped by a debilitating sense of panic and indecision. Her heart felt like it was in her throat. A cold, awful dread was building inside her as she realized she must act, she must make some decision. And soon.

  It seemed she was watching the whole scene in slow motion. She saw the man lift the gun again. She saw the black barrel pan a slow path across the moonlit landscape. There was a heart-stopping, breath-stealing moment as he took slow, deliberate aim. Sidra edged even more to one side in an attempt to keep the tree between her and the man while keeping her back pressed hard against the rough bark. And then suddenly she dropped to the ground. It was the only place for her to go.

  When the bullet hit, it shattered the deep silence like a cannon and tore splinters off the tree above her. But she hadn’t been hit. At least she didn’t think she had been hit. She had heard stories of people who didn’t know that they actually had been shot when in fact they had been.

  A second bullet hit the tree right above her, not as high this time. It sent more chips flying. She looked and saw that the man was reloading.

  That got her moving. She couldn’t stay there waiting to be target practice for some kind of deranged killer. She absolutely wasn’t going to try reasoning with him. She ran a zigzagging path and dodged behind a bigger tree. She didn’t stay there long. She ran again. She tripped on something, a root or a tree branch buried beneath the mud, and fell headlong into a shallow depression in the ground. It just might have saved her life because she heard the next bullet go over her head.

  She stayed low, praying for the brush to hide her as she headed for another tree. It was a good thing she was wearing dark clothing. Hopefully, it made her less visible in the darkness. Each agonizing moment she expected to feel the impact of a bullet in her back, but there were no further shots. Part of her mind was perfectly rational. She knew that she had to think her way through this if she was going to survive. Still, another part of her mind wanted to yield to the panic that was welling up inside her. She bit her lips, fighting it down, afraid it would take over and cause her to make mistakes. She couldn’t afford any. Not even one. Because that mistake, she realized, would probably be her last.

  She heard the footsteps of the man. They were more hurried this time. There was some heavy brush near her and she knew it would provide better cover. The only cover. She also knew that the man would eventually find her if she didn’t put some distance between them. She had to keep moving. The woods were heavier to her right. She held her breath, stayed low and ran like a rabbit flushed out of its hiding place by a hunter.

  Another shot rang out. This time she was hit. The bullet just grazed her arm, but she couldn’t keep from crying out. That had been mistake number one. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to bear the fiery pain in silence, but she also felt adrenaline surge through her. Probably as a result of some kind of flight instinct.

  She couldn’t stop, not even long enough to see how badly she might be bleeding. So she ran again, stumbling along the uneven ground, trying to reach the deeper shadows where the moonlight did not penetrate. There were no more gunshots. She said a quick prayer, even as she kept running, for salvation, in whatever form it might take.

  Long minutes passed. She didn’t know how many, but it seemed like she had covered a lot of ground. She didn’t hear any more shots and she thought that maybe her prayers-

  The toe of her boot caught in a root. It sent her stumbling headlong a few clumsy steps before she regained her balance. She straightened. She started to run again. Half sliding down a steep embankment, she reached the bottom of a shallow, deeply-shadowed ravine. She was up again. Running. Clawing her way up the opposite embankment, realizing that there could be undeads anywhere in the darkness around her. She reached a level. And then-

  She ran straight into something that was blocking her path. Something big. Something hard. Something immoveable. Whatever it was seemed as big as a grizzly bear. The impact threw her backwards. She landed hard on the ground. She had to stifle a scream as she sank into a shallow pool of ice-cold water. She heard the splash. Water droplets rose all around her, sparkling like jewels in the moonlight. She sucked in her breath and fought the shock to her system as the frigid water seeped right through her clothing.

  Everything was a blur after that. She heard a low-voiced curse. Then a deep, male voice was biting back another profanity. At the same time, the looming shadow of something, someone, was leaning over her. She fought to get back on her feet, but she couldn’t manage it no matter how hard she tried. The water wasn’t deep, but the mud was slippery. She couldn’t get righted. She couldn’t get a grasp on anything. She also still couldn’t get a good look at whatever was causing the impenetrable shadow that was blocking out the moon above her.

  There was a mindless sense of horror as hands reached for her and the same male voice growled out something that sounded like a warning. She couldn’t make out the words, but the man sounded angry. That’s when she panicked. She tried to roll onto her side and escape that way, but hands like steel shackles grabbed a hold of her upper arms and they wouldn’t let her go.

  She turned her face, still struggling and looking for another way out. Gradually she focused and saw that she was lying next to something that looked like a bundle of old clothes or discarded laundry. Her eyes widened as she looked at the face that was not far from her own. It was half rotted away as if it had been lying there for a long time. Part of the teeth and the jaw were exposed to the bone. There was matted hair. A hideous grimace. A skeletal hand somewhere in the mud. She wasn’t even sure if it was completely dead. But it was definitely undead. Or had been. As Sidra stared at the ashen face, or what was left of it, and the blank, staring eyes that were colorless in the moonlight, she gasped in sheer terror as she tried to get away from it.

  She was unsuccessful. Maddened, she rolled over onto her other side, and grasped frantically for something – anything - that would give her leverage and help get her out of the slippery mud and away from the corpse. And the man. Miraculously, her fingers closed around a root. Or a branch. She didn’t know which. She didn’t care. She held onto it like a drowning person might grasp a life preserver in the middle of a vast, churning ocean of dark and terrifying depths. Then, automatically, instinct took over and she went into full survival mode.

  Law had been making his way carefully through the deep shadows of the trees when he heard the first gunshot. It sounded close. Too close. Worse than that, it had taken him by surprise. That shouldn’t have happened. He should have been more careful. More alert. After the attack on the bridge, no telling who was out here. Prowling Mulada soldiers for all he knew.

  His gaze narrowed above his mask as he stopped to listen for any further sounds. Another shot rang out and he heard a distant, muffled whimper. After another shot there was a smothered cry of pain. He was sure it had come from a woman. He couldn’t ignore that. Someone was in trouble. He started off into the darkness, moving not away, but towards, whatever that trouble was. Not that he needed any more trouble tonight. But, hell, what was he supposed to do? Abandon a woman who was obviously in danger?

  He heard the faint rustling of brush not far ahead of him. And then ragged breathing from the darkness. It was getting louder. Closer.
Whoever was out there was making way too much noise. Though that was no scav doing the shooting, there were scavs everywhere, some stuck in the mud, some who weren’t, and they were making noise, too. He had to avoid another one that was reaching for him. He took it out quickly and efficiently. And then he-

  Wham!

  He didn’t see her coming until she had run right into him.

  The force of the blow had almost knocked him off his own feet. It took him a few seconds to recover. During that time, he saw her fall back. Like it was happening in slow motion. He saw the arcing spray of water across the face of the moon as she splashed dead center into a pool of water. He heard a sharp gasp, and the panicked whimpers that followed as she turned her face and saw the scav lying only a foot or so away from her. There followed a frantic struggle and a desperate clawing as she tried to right herself and get away from it. Or him. Probably both.

  For a while, she fought wildly, though ineffectually, like a turtle stuck on its back. She was clearly panicking, and panic wasn’t good. He already realized that she couldn’t have been the one who had been doing the shooting. That meant someone else was still out there with a gun. But he assumed she had some kind of weapon. Everyone carried as many as they could these days. It was only a matter of time before she re-gathered her presence of mind and tried to use it on him. If she perceived him as a threat. As soon as she re-focused. If she was in a blind panic as she looked to be.

  He had been right. The knife that she clumsily withdrew from a pocket and then anchored in her fist made a wild slash right at his chest. But he was used to combat situations, and he easily evaded the blade.

  She lashed out at him again. He realized right away that he had underestimated her. Either by skill or by luck, probably luck, the knife snagged the front of his jacket. It slipped through the opening, managing to graze the top layer of skin under his shirt. He sucked in his breath. He was pretty sure she’d drawn blood and he knew she’d try again. At the moment, however, the knife was stuck in the heavy fabric of his military jacket, and so they were wrestling silently, except for some heavy breathing on both their parts, while he was trying to avoid another slashing blow of the knife. Meanwhile, she was flailing about wildly, desperately trying to find a way to do some more damage.