Pound of Flesh (Wrath & Vengeance Book 1)

by Sara Clancy

  Aleksandr studied her carefully. “How can I trust you?”

  “Says the serial killer,” she sneered. “How am I the suspicious one here? Besides, you don’t have a choice. You can’t do this on your own and I don’t see any other kidnap victims offering assistance.”

  With practicality warring with suspicion, he considered the offer. Seconds ticked by, each one pressing down on him with a crushing weight.

  “If you betray us,” he said at last, forcing himself to meet her gaze as he finished, “I will kill you.”

  “Seems fair,” she shrugged.

  Bewildered by her casual agreement, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do next. As he struggled to regain his bearings, she continued.

  “But I need to know that you’re willing to kill your parents if it comes to it.”

  “It’s a dream come true.”

  “That’s both disturbing and reassuring.” Lowering her fist, she twisted her outstretched hand so it wasn’t blocking his path anymore, but instead held vertically with her thumb up.

  He stared at her hand, puzzled.

  “Okay.” It was the slowest she had ever said a word. “I guess you’re not a ‘shake on an agreement’ kind of guy. How about a ‘fist bump of collusion’?”

  Keeping her hand where it was, she curled it into a fist and waited. Thinking that this moment was perhaps the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him, Aleksandr tapped his knuckles against hers. She beamed at him.

  “Okay. First things first. Let’s get that car.”

  Aleksandr shook his head. This time, she let him go around her. “We’re getting my knife first.”

  Chapter 10

  Evelyn had never experienced anything quite as liberating as reconciling with the fact that she was going to die. It didn’t extinguish all of her fear. She could feel it crawling around her organs and drenching her mind. But she could fight against it, crush it under the weight of indifference, and keep it from taking control. Indifference and ridiculing psychopaths. It was a powerful rush. A thrill unlike anything else. She had looked into Olga’s eyes and taunted her. Dismissed Petya while he held a loaded gun to her head. She had never felt so powerful. Reality lingered in her thoughts, telling her that it was all just an illusion. She had been, and still was, their victim. Luck and timing had spared her. Simple as that.

  But it was a marvelous delusion and she clung to it as she followed Aleksandr out of the building. After so long in darkness and artificial light, the sun was blinding. Muggy heat ravaged her skin and boiled her lungs. Both she could ignore it. The sand, however, was torture. Every step burned like molten gold, the particles sinking into the dozens of cuts that covered her feet. Adrenaline had kept her from noticing the damage earlier. Now, her body was running low on that precious, pain-reducing hormone and the muted sensations were becoming sharp. Smothering her whimpers of pain, she kept moving, forcing herself to keep up with Aleksandr’s pace.

  In theory, it shouldn’t have been a hard task. He was covered in blood and gunk, ripped to shreds, and looked about a second from death. Still, he practically ghosted over the sand. Crouched low, he took the slope in wide, silent steps. Constantly vigilant. Breathing deep and even. Watching him, it was impossible for Evelyn to ignore the fact that she wasn’t in her element. This wasn’t the ring. Or her home. Or anywhere else that tipped the odds in her favor. They were on his family’s home turf, where these killers had grown and adapted. They had the advantage here. So, adapt as well, she told herself. Or burn this place down.

  Aleksandr helped her get up to the house on the hill, but the strain left her breathless and weak. The heat was crushing. It hadn’t occurred to her how much cooler it was underground. In reality, it could only be a few degrees difference, but it changed everything. She could almost feel her blood evaporating in her veins. Finally, they reached the shadow of the house. The temperature didn’t change, but getting out of the sun felt like stepping onto the dark side of the moon. Aleksandr had his hand on the back door before he seemed to recall that she was there.

  “You probably don’t want to come inside,” he whispered.

  “I need water,” Evelyn replied. “And I want a knife of my own.”

  “The kitchen’s a mess.”

  She took in a deep breath, reminded herself not to hit him, and carefully stated that there was no chance in hell he was leaving her outside. Glancing around, he seemed to decide that the argument wasn’t worth the risk of exposure.

  “Breathe through your mouth,” he said.

  The fly screen clicked but opened with barely more than a whisper. A gust of putrid air rolled out of the house and she clamped a hand over her mouth and nose. It didn’t help. She could feel the bile rising up her throat. It didn’t bother Aleksandr. With well-practiced ease, he slipped his head just far enough into the kitchen to check if the coast was clear. The silence was dense, unrelenting. It put Evelyn on edge. Restlessly, she constantly scanned the area, searching for any sign that the monsters had found them. Not that she fully believed they were gone. Even now, she could feel that something was watching her. Waiting. And that was worse. Being attacked by a malevolent unknown force was one thing. Terror and adrenaline could push her through it. But this wasn’t an attack. This was messing with her. Taunting her.

  “Keep quiet,” Aleksandr whispered.

  Evelyn snapped around. She wasn’t able to see the majority of his face, but his mouth was visible and his scowl spoke volumes.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him softly. “I’ve got this.”

  While it wasn’t exactly convincing, it worked, and Aleksandr slipped silently in to the shadows of the house. Evelyn followed. Nothing of what she had smelled outside prepared her for the overwhelming stench waiting for her inside the kitchen. She gagged, dry heaving against the backs of her teeth even as she tried to swallow it down. One hand pressed against her stomach, the other clutched her mouth. Still, the stench threw her forward, almost rocking her off her feet. Her hand snapped out, looking for anything that could help to keep her upright.

  She latched blindly onto the first object her fingers found. A chunky goop oozed up around her fingers. There was a wet crack and she stumbled forward, releasing a new wave of rancid air. Something squirmed against her fingertips as she lifted her head. The scream ripping through her chest didn’t have a chance to get out of her throat. She was struggling to pull her hand out of the maggot-filled corpse it had sunken into. It swayed at each of her attempts. Its head lulled back and forth. Jaw slack. The bones rattling together like a cheap imitation of laugher.

  Aleksandr grabbed her forearm. One solid push and the corpse toppled to the floor. Her hand slipped out of the broken cavity with a sucking slurp, leaving her hand covered with fresh gunk and squirming, bone-white larvae. Bugs bounced against her face as if trying to find their way into her mouth, her eyes, her nose. She hurled again, her empty stomach straining to find something to throw up. Gripping her around the waist, Aleksandr dragged her to the kitchen sink. One hand on the back of her head, he forced her forward, letting her spit and gasp over the rusted steel.

  “I told you,” he whispered by her ear.

  She wanted to tell him off, but was too busy flipping on the table and frantically scrubbing her hand clean. The little ivory bugs toppled from her skin, squirming with renewed protest before they followed the flow of glugging brown water down the drain. She rubbed until her hands were clean, then kept going. Until her skin was raw and small pinpricks of blood began to well up. The water ran from black to clear. She wouldn’t stop even as a red tinge tainted the water.

  “You’re never going to feel clean,” Aleksandr whispered.

  He placed a kitchen knife beside her elbow and handed her an empty cup. Thirst had been forgotten in her frenzy, but it raced back now. She grabbed the glass filled it under the flowing faucet and drained it all in a few gulps. The first splashes of the tepid water against her gut provoked another, violent heave. Leaning over the ri
m of the sink, she threw up every last drop. A few more attempts and she was able to keep it down. She drank with a frantic, desperate need. Long after her thirst was quenched. Only stopping when her stomach was on the verge of bursting. Now full, she felt the churn of her stomach on a new level. The rancid air was overpowering.

  “For the record,” she said as she wrapped shaking fingers around the handle of the knife, “you could have warned me about the bodies.”

  “I did.”

  As sick, twisted, and gross as it all was, she almost laughed. Because Aleksandr sounded offended. Childishly offended. And that was just too much to deal with right now. She turned around and stepped into a puddle of goo. A pool of decayed muscle, skin, and fat.

  “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “It’s between my toes.”

  “What?” Aleksandr stood at the threshold to the next room and turned upon hearing her voice.

  For a second, she had thought that the gentle clicks she heard were from him. But they came again as he remained still. Drifted up from the other direction. Aleksandr’s mouth furrowed. He heard it too. They both turned, looking across the room to the table. There were four places, all taken. The fifth chair was now empty, its occupant now sprawled in pieces across the floor.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Aleksandr swallowed. He recognized the sound. Evelyn was sure he did. Are his parents back? Torn between running and staying still and silent, she looked to Aleksandr for guidance. His attention drifted to the table. In unison, the four upright corpses jolted in their seats, their bones clicking together within the melted casing of their skin.

  “I’m going to need you to tell me what you just saw,” Evelyn said in a rush.

  “The bodies moved.”

  “Oh, good,” she stammered, trying to maintain her level of sarcasm even as anxiety bubbled up in her gut. “So, it did happen.”

  In one split second of movement, all four corpses snapped their heads around to face them. Evelyn jumped, the small of her back colliding with the edge of the sink. Aleksandr had frozen in place, one balled fist already raised and ready to strike. The unsteady silence was back. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs as anticipation turned thick and bitter in the back of her mouth. The bodies were still but no longer entirely lifeless. They sat with a rigidity that their rancid muscles couldn’t possibly possess. Their lower jaws hung low, creating ghastly smiles. Time had already reduced their eyes to mush. The little that had remained in their sockets sloshed out and drizzled down the exposed bones of their cheeks. It looked like they were crying with laughter.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Evelyn flicked her eyes around the room, desperately searching for the source of the sound, trying to pinpoint which one of the bodies was moving. They all remained still. Watching. Dead faces distorted in silent laughter.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Evelyn turned, drawn towards the sound that now distinctly came from behind her.

  Bodies crammed themselves against the kitchen window, their bony fingers clacking against the glass as they tried to claw their way in. Behind them, dozens of broken, gnarled corpses, each in a different state of decay, staggered up the slope. The reddish sand flung out in waves as they sprinted towards the house. She threw herself back from the window. Her throat swelled shut, turning her words of warning into a gargled croak.

  A blur shot up from under the rickety table. A hand. It latched onto her bare leg, flesh squishing and cartilage snapping. Her bottled scream broke free from her throat. It served as a catalyst, whipping the dead into a frenzy. They slammed against the window, rattled the door, desperate to find a way inside. She leaped back from the table, but the grip was stronger than she had anticipated. It held on. Her retreating steps dragged the shattered, maggot-infested remains she had broken earlier out from under the table. Its jaws snapping ferociously. Hard enough to fracture its teeth and spew the remains over the linoleum.

  Evelyn screamed again and pulled back with more force. Still holding on, the corpse slid with her then jerked to a stop, the motion sending a wave of fetid ooze sloshing out of its gaping mouth and hollow eye sockets. Its foul mess pooled under her feet. She slipped and would have fallen helplessly to the floor if Aleksandr hadn’t hooked an arm around her shoulders.

  Crouching to take her weight, he tossed her back up onto her feet as the bodies hurled themselves from the table. She stomped the writhing mass of bones into mush as he surged past her and kicked the table. It rattled across the linoleum, slamming into the furthest two and keeping them back while he took care of the others. The back door wrenched open and the twitching cadavers swarmed into the room.

  “Front door!” Aleksandr bellowed at her over his shoulder.

  He retreated out of the room and she moved to follow, the slop under her feet making her slide. That split second was all it took for one of the monsters to close the distance between them. Skeletal fingers seized her arm. Instinctively, she swung her fist, kitchen knife still in her grip. The corpse’s skull shattered on impact, releasing a wave of putrid brain matter riddled with insect larva. She was already running before it crumbled. It didn’t release its grip. Not even after the arm had popped out of its socket. Evelyn had to break each of the joints to get the fingers off of her.

  As she raced past Aleksandr, she tossed the severed limb blindly into the living room. The front door stood before her. It called to her like a beacon, whispering promises of salvation. Her legs struggled to meet the demands of her mind. A quiver rippled along her outstretched arm, her fingers greedily reaching for the doorknob. A few inches still separated them when the worn, metal circle twisted.

  The door opened outwards and that seemed to confuse the horde of rotting flesh. It created a bottleneck effect; slowed what could have been a flood of death into a volatile trickle. There was nowhere to go. The living room was a dead end. The exits were a lost cause.

  “Upstairs!” Aleksandr commanded.

  The stream of death had already filled the small foyer, cutting off the bottom stairs. Evelyn had to jump to grab the top of the staircase banister. With the knife still in her hand, an awkward grip threatened to fail her. Planting one foot on the wall under the stairs, she pushed off, jumped over the railing, and dropped down onto the stairs. Aleksandr did the same, landing a few stairs higher up. Taking them two at a time, she caught up with him and they raced to the top, side-by-side. If either of them had been any bigger, it would have been an impossible maneuver. But the hair’s breadth of space allowed them to pull it off.

  The rickety house shook and groaned at the sheer number of bodies clambering up the stairs. Plaster cracked off of the walls and sand poured down from the roof. With her heart in her throat, Evelyn prayed that the house stood for just a little longer. It seemed like they were ripping it apart at the seams.

  “Twins’ room,” Aleksandr said as they sprinted down the hallway.

  “I don’t know your house!” she screamed back.

  Abruptly, Aleksandr grabbed the strap of her crop top. When he tossed himself through an open doorway, he yanked her in after him. Instantly, she slammed the door shut and set about barricading with a nearby cabinet. Anger flashed along her veins when she noticed that Aleksandr wasn’t helping. Instead, he was dragging the bunk beds from the wall.

  “Zombies don’t get priority?” she snapped.

  Ignoring her, he drove his fist through the wall. A large square of plaster peeled easily from the wall, exposing the building’s raw wooden innards.

  “You built an escape route in the kids’ room?” she asked, back pressed against the cabinet as if she could keep it in place.

  “Have you met my family?” he snapped. Retrieving two backpacks from the hiding place, he tossed one over to her. “Are you coming?”

  Already pulling the straps onto her shoulders, she bolted across the room. A thin strip of rope was attached to the wall. She couldn’t feel the breeze, but one must have been slipping through the gaps to make the rope sway
. Needing to hold on with both hands, she bit down on the thin blade of her knife, careful to keep the sharp edge facing out. She gagged as droplets of sludge dripped onto her tongue but grabbed the rope and pushed out into the open space.

  It was a tight fit. The uneven blanks of the outer wall scraped her knees while the backpack snagged on inner structure. Aleksandr followed just as the cabinet gave way. The invasion rattled the wall, sending waves of dust and body parts toppling down around them. Hand over hand, Evelyn worked her way down into the gloom. The coarse material scraped along the broken skin of her palms. Heat pulsated around her, making her vision blur and her head swim. A torso hit her, exposed ribs cracking painfully against her wrist bones. The blow loosened her grip. She plummeted down, stomach lurching, rope burning her palms. In one moment of clarity, she tossed the knife away just before she collided with the mound of sand.

  It was like falling into a snow drift. Partly accommodating, partly solid. Tucking her arms in, she rolled, helplessly spinning over and over. The sun hit her. Blinding and scorching her at once. Coming to a stop at the base of the hill, she struggled to draw in a deep breath. Every twitch brought a fresh wave of pain. Clenching her teeth, she forced herself up onto her hands and knees and looked back up to the house. A sea of monsters were racing down the hill towards her. Aleksandr was nowhere in sight. Her first thought was to head back up. To find him. Reality sunk in as she got to her feet. In her current state, trying to get back up there was a suicide mission. Get to the shed, she told herself. Get the car. Come back. How she was going to hotwire it, she didn’t know. But the horde was closing in. She needed to move.

  Chapter 11

  Aleksandr hit the sand hard. Crab crawling, he scuttled out from under the house, holding his knife so the back of the blade was flush along the length of his forearm. The severed limbs squirmed across the sand, trying to follow him as other bodies dropped down around him like boulders. Swooping, he ducked the edge of the building and stepped out into the sun. He straightened up, knife at the ready, and found himself facing a wall. Confused, he twisted around. Orange tiles that time had faded to look like moldy peaches. A thin bathtub. Exposed pipes and a faded overhead light bulb. Hyperventilating, he spun around again. No. This can’t be real. No matter which way he turned, the walls remained the same. He was back in the house. In the upstairs bathroom.