The Torn World: The Harvesting Series Book 5

by Melanie Karsak

  “But without the others.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, at least Cricket’s group and Amelia’s group are safe. We did something right, I guess.”

  I smiled at Tom. It moved me to think that I wasn’t the only one who shared a sense of responsibility. Perhaps that was how we’d made it this far. Maybe all of us felt accountable for the rest.

  I followed Tom inside. The garage housed two trucks, two ATVs, a dirt bike, and a lot of tools. Tom took two sets of keys off the wall, handing one to me.

  “Try the Ford,” he said, heading toward the other pickup.

  I slipped behind the wheel of Tom’s lovingly restored 1950s truck. I’d seen him drive it around town a few times, showcasing his hobby. As usual, the light blue truck was waxed to a glimmering polish.

  I turned the ignition. The truck’s engine rods knocked then rumbled to a start.

  Tom got out and opened the garage doors then waved to me to pull out. He pulled the second truck out behind me. I got out of the vehicle and joined the others.

  “Okay, let’s split up,” I said. “Will, you go with Chase. Tom, you take Kellimore. I’ll go with Zoey. The town looks pretty good, just some strays, but we need to be sure. We’ll meet at the elementary school at five o’clock,” I said, handing watches to the others.

  “Where’d you get these?” Will asked.

  “They were Grandma’s.”

  With a smile, Will nodded. “She thought of everything.”

  “Layla, the vampires…” Tom began but was uncertain what to say.

  “I’m told there are three of them haunting Hamletville.”

  “How do you know that?” Chase asked.

  “The spirits told me,” I said with a half-smile.

  “Now you do sound like Grandma Petrovich,” Tom said.

  I grinned. “If you get into trouble, head back to the school.” I handed the keys to Tom. “Will, you take east of Morrigon Hill Road. Tom, you take west. Zoey and I will have a look around at the pier and downtown.”

  Tom passed off a set of keys to Will then motioned for Kellimore to get into his vintage truck with him.

  Kellimore stopped as he passed me. “Hey, you be safe, okay? Keep an eye out for Swamp Thing.”

  “He’s got nothing on me,” I said with a smile.

  “Of course not.”

  “You be safe too,” I said with a soft smile.

  I saw the effect of the glance on Kellimore, and I liked it. I waved to him then climbed into the SUV with Zoey. When I turned to look at her, she smirked and raised an eyebrow at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said with a smile then looked out the window. “So, zombies, kitsune, and vampires. Awesome. Anything else trying to kill us?”

  “Infection, starvation, nuclear fallout—”

  “I’m sorry I asked. It’s like we don’t belong here anymore. You get that feeling too?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “I do.”

  “So what now?”

  “Well,” I said, looking at the watch, “for the next two hours, we hunt zombies. After that, we hunt vampires. And if we survive the night, we’ll see what the faerie people have decided to do with us.”

  “Fabulous,” Zoey said as she flipped through my CDs. “You know, you should have upgraded to MP3s.”

  “Should have,” I said. “But aren’t you glad I didn’t?”

  She lifted my old Tool Lateralus CD and slipped it into the player. “That I am,” she said with a smirk then hit play.

  CHAPTER 40: AMELIA

  I STOOD IN THE DRIVEWAY studying the fence. The sun was dipping lower and lower in the sky. Night was coming. If I had done what Madame Knightly had taught me to do, then we were safe here, at least for tonight. I had not seen the vampires, and I didn’t want to. As it was, my world was completely flipped upside down. Adding another violent force into my field of awareness was more than I could handle. The world already looked so strange. Something was changing. It was like the hue on everything was getting darker. And I was getting more powerful. The magic inside me scared me. I was humbled and grateful that I’d been strong enough to save Cricket, to protect Madame Knightly, but I had failed to save my own mother. In the end, I’d lost her twice. My heart grieved.

  “Amelia? Are you all right?” I turned to find Vella coming toward me.

  I nodded then looked at the valley behind the property. Wherever Logan, Madame Knightly, and Tristan had gone, they hadn’t come back. Maybe they never would. I didn’t know.

  “Yeah, just worried about…everyone.”

  Vella linked her arm in mine. “Don’t worry,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “No?” I asked, turning to study her and the glimmering purple aura that always surrounded her.

  “What’s the use?” she asked with a half-smile. “Come tomorrow morning, we will know one way or another.”

  I nodded. “Layla, Zoey, all of them. They’re strong. They’ll be all right.”

  “How is your fence?”

  “Good, I think.”

  “Your fence has me wondering.”

  “About?”

  “Tristan’s people. Once, they lived in the same world as mankind. And then they separated from us.”

  “The veil between the worlds.”

  “What’s the difference between that veil and what you’ve done here?” Vella asked, motioning to the fence.

  “I guess just scale.”

  Vella nodded, patted my arm, and turned to head back inside. But she stopped for just a moment first. “We cannot survive in the dead world. Our world is gone. We don’t belong here anymore.”

  “Then what should we do?” I asked.

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “If only we knew how to drop a veil between our world—all of our world—and the dead world. If only there was someone with a gift like that.”

  “Vella?” I whispered aghast. Surely she didn’t think I was capable of something of that magnitude. “It’s too much, too large. I don’t know how.”

  “You are the High Priestess. You stand between the worlds. If you don’t know how, then no one does,” she said then went back inside.

  CHAPTER 41: LAYLA

  I PULLED MY SUV INTO THE PARKING LOT AT THE PIER. There were two undead roaming around, looking completely lost and very rotted. Zoey took out the first while I killed the second.

  I glanced down the pier. My dirt bike was still sitting under the shelter. No new boats were docked.

  “I’m going to go take a look,” I said, motioning toward the pier.

  Zoey nodded.

  I headed down the wooden planks to the end of the pier then checked all around. There were no boats in the water, at least none that were visible, and no boats docked along the shoreline either. Not that anyone was planning to hide in plain sight, but if Rumor’s people had found another way to escape, if they’d had another boat we hadn’t seen, then maybe. But there was nothing.

  I glanced around one last time, my eyes falling on the Fisherman’s Wharf, the restaurant where I’d found Jamie’s gift, the flower of life medallion. I lowered the binoculars and stared out at the lake. The dark waves lapped against the rocky shoreline. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I was supposed to get my happily ever after with the man I loved. Now, he was gone. Not just dead, but undead, and gone.

  I headed back to Zoey who waited in the parking lot cleaning the goo off her sickle.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Let’s check town.”

  Driving back toward Main Street, Zoey and I made a slow canvas of the town.

  “It’s quiet,” Zoey said. “Not like Brighton. You guys got the windows all boarded up?”

  “We were surviving here. Let me show you,” I said then turned down River Run Drive to the spot where the bridge used to be. The crumbled remains of the bridge hung out over the water.

  “Whoa,” Zoey said. “What happened there?”

  �
�We blew up the bridge. It was the main route into town from the outside world. Between the river and the lake, we were protected. We barricaded the other street coming into town. Everywhere else was just rural. We were safe, for a while.”

  “Until the vampires.”

  “It was the kitsune. They led the vampires to us. And just like in Brighton, and at Claddagh-Basel before that, they led the undead as well.”

  “Why do the kitsune hate us so much?”

  “We trashed our world. It was their job to protect it. So they trashed us.”

  Zoey shook her head.

  I put the SUV into reverse then drove back into town, turning onto a back street. Everything looked the same. There was, as far as I could tell, almost nothing out of place. But the undead were still roaming the streets. There weren’t many, but there were enough to notice. Again and again, Zoey and I stopped and finished the meandering undead. None of the walking corpses who had found their way to Hamletville were like Elizabeth or Caroline, the thinking undead. These were just corpses.

  Driving back across town, I suddenly realized with a heart-paining twang that we were near Jamie’s house. I slowed as we passed. Then I saw something off. I stopped the SUV.

  “What is it?” Zoey asked.

  “The door is open. It wasn’t before.”

  “Wind, maybe?”

  I shook my head then got out.

  I pulled my shashka, and we crossed the lawn slowly, eyeing everything around us. There were no undead anywhere. And there were no kitsune, at least not that we’d seen yet.

  “Hello? Who’s in there?” I whispered in my mind.

  Nothing. No answer.

  “Layla?” Zoey asked.

  “I don’t see—or hear—anything. But still, something’s off here.”

  Zoey nodded.

  I swallowed hard, realizing a terrible possibility.

  What if it was Jamie?

  Holding my sword in front of me, I stepped slowly inside. Bending, I felt the carpet at the entrance. It was dry, and there were no leaves inside. However the door had gotten open, it had been opened recently. The smell inside the house took me back. It was like I was with Jamie. I was completely overcome by his scent. It made my heart ache.

  “Hello?” I called, using my mind.

  There was no answer.

  “Who’s in here?” I called.

  There was an odd sound coming from the back of the house, like someone had knocked something over.

  Zoey followed me inside. I motioned for her to check the kitchen while I headed toward the back. I slid my sword into its scabbard and reached for my gun. Zoey pulled hers as well.

  The kitchen and living room clear, Zoey and I headed toward the back of the house. Again, I heard a thumping sound. It was coming from the spare bedroom. My heart slammed in my chest. A million thoughts spun through my mind, the worst imagining it was Jamie.

  “Jamie?” I called lightly.

  From behind the door, something crashed.

  “Dammit,” I said then pushed the door open.

  With a hiss and a low growl, a raccoon jumped out of a cardboard box and scrambled up Jamie’s gun cabinet, knocking down some of his old high school trophies in the process. It was greedily holding a pack of dried noodles in its mouth, growling at us at the same time.

  “Christ, scared the piss out of me,” Zoey said.

  I holstered my gun as the raccoon climbed up through a broken ceiling tile into the attic.

  “Okay. Just a raccoon. But he didn’t open the door, right? I mean, they’re smart but not that smart,” Zoey said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe one of the guys was by.”

  “Sure, maybe,” Zoey said, but I could see she was unnerved too.

  I looked at my watch. It was four-thirty. “We need to finish up,” I said.

  Zoey nodded, and we went back outside.

  As we were leaving, however, something caught my eye. Lying on the coffee table was the very charm I’d given to Jamie. I froze. Hadn’t he attached it to his knife? I tried to remember. Did he have that knife at the Harpwind? At Claddagh-Basel? Maybe he’d left the charm behind. After all, we’d fought just before we went to the Harpwind. Maybe he’d taken it off.

  Scooping it up, I slipped the flower of life medallion into my pocket. My eyes welled with tears.

  “You okay?” Zoey asked.

  “Yeah. This…this was my fiancé’s house.”

  “Sorry,” Zoey said, setting her hand on my shoulder.

  “Thanks.” I pulled the door shut behind me, realizing then that the door wasn’t fitting tightly in the frame anymore. I locked the door from the inside and pulled it shut. If I managed to see the next sunrise, I’d come back to fix the door, keeping Jamie’s memory locked up and safe.

  CHAPTER 42: LAYLA

  AS I PULLED THE RANGE ROVER INTO THE elementary school parking lot, Will and Chase pulled in behind me. Kellimore and Tom were standing outside.

  “Layla,” Tom said, opening my door. “Problem.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, looking from Tom to Kellimore.

  “We know where they are,” Kellimore said.

  “What?” Chase asked.

  “We drove through the cemetery at the Catholic Church. Someone tampered with the Zurn mausoleum,” Tom said, referring to the largest and oldest crypt.

  “Tampered how?” I asked.

  “Door had been opened. We could see the scrape marks on the pavement. We didn’t investigate closely. But…” Tom said then paused.

  “There were bodies outside. They were like husks, just lying around everywhere,” Kellimore said.

  “If they aren’t there anymore, and we bet our money on that place, we’re screwed if they find us,” Will said.

  “They’re in there,” Tom said. “You could feel it, that terrible feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when something’s wrong.”

  I looked up at the sky. The sun was starting to slant toward dusk.

  “Salt,” I said. “We need salt and gas. We’ll ring the place with salt, trapping them inside, then set it on fire.”

  “There is more salt than you could ever need in the cafeteria,” Tom said.

  “Chase and I can go round up the gasoline. We’ll meet you over there,” Will said.

  “Any chance Jeff left us a couple of bottles down at Figgy’s?” I asked.

  Tom smiled sadly. Jeff had been an ass, and had nearly gotten us killed, but he’d been one of us. “Maybe some gin. He wasn’t a gin drinker. I’m guessing I should grab bar towels too?”

  I nodded. “And vodka, if you see any.”

  “Vodka?”

  “Because if I need to fight vampires, in a graveyard, at night, I could use a drink.”

  Despite the underlying tension, everyone laughed.

  “Lady wants a drink, son. Best get on it,” Chase said, clapping Kellimore on the shoulder. He turned and waved to Will. The two of them took off.

  “We’ll grab the salt,” I told Zoey.

  “The undead don’t scare me. They’re mindless. The idea of a vampire, and not the sorry-assed sparkly kind, terrifies me. It’s the deception. That’s what makes them so freaking scary,” Zoey said.

  “Yes,” I replied, thinking of what happened to Ian once he’d turned. The vampire blood had unleased his shadow aspect, and it was terrifying.

  I opened the door to the gymnasium. The scent of cleaning fluids and dust, the familiar smell of the place, sent my mind spinning. Here I was again. Sitting just inside the door was a table with supplies, including flashlights. I grabbed two, clicked them on, and then we headed inside.

  “The cafeteria pantry still had some supplies, mostly spices and other things left that we didn’t have a lot of use for or didn’t know what to do with, including salt. Ethel, another one of our people, always found a way to make something though.”

  Zoey shook her head. “Sometimes I can’t believe this is happening. It’s too impossible.”

  I u
nderstood her feeling of disbelief. “I try not to think about it, not to feel any of it. It’s the only way I can keep going.”

  “It’s going to catch up with you eventually, you know.”

  “Yeah. But not today,” I said as we headed into the cafeteria. When we got there, however, it quickly became apparent that we had a problem. The place was flooded. “Shit,” I said with a sigh, pulling open the door to the pantry. Running along the top of the wall was a set of pipes that led into the kitchen. One of the pipes had burst and was shooting water everywhere. Every box, every item, was soaking wet and turning green.

  “What happened?” Zoey asked. “You guys had water?”

  “It’s part of the old well system. This end of the school was built in the eighteen-hundreds. In the spring the old well overflows. We weren’t here to fix it. I remember the janitors fighting with the lines every spring when I was a kid. Here,” I said, handing her my flashlight. “Pan it up there,” I said, pointing to a faucet.

  Carefully climbing up the slippery shelves, I reached out and turned the faucet, squeezing it shut. A moment later, the water stopped spurting.

  I climbed back down. “Great,” I said, scanning the room. “Totally soaked. Probably even dissolved,” I said, pointing to the cardboard containers of salt sitting in—and half floating—on the bottom shelf. “And our plan doesn’t work without salt. It’s the only thing that will keep them locked in.”

  “You guys have a municipal building? In Brighton, they always salted the roads in the winter. I remember my dad bitching about them not using enough salt.”

  “We should. I mean, it was nearly winter, and I don’t think anyone ever bothered with it. We used snowmobiles and even a sleigh.”

  “No shit. Crafty. I was stuck all winter watching Amelia and Logan fall in love while I half died of boredom and loneliness, wondering if I was ever going to see another guy again.”

  “Well, I brought you some options. You’re welcome.”

  Zoey laughed. “Thanks.”

  We left and drove across town. I realized then that the time was starting to get the better of us. The sun dipped lower on the horizon. As soon as dusk set in, the vampires would begin to wake. Zoey and I were going to have to work quickly if we wanted to get back to the cemetery in time.