by A. W. Exley
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
A question from me to you…
About A. W. Exley
ELLA, THE SLAYER
By A. W. Exley
The flu pandemic of 1918 took millions of souls within a few short weeks.
Except it wasn't flu and death gave them back.
Seventeen-year-old Ella copes the best she can; caring for her war-injured father, scrubbing the floors, and slaying the undead that attack the locals. Vermin they're called, like rats they spread pestilence with their bite. Ella's world collides with another when she nearly decapitates a handsome stranger, who is very much alive.
Seth deMage, the new Duke of Leithfield, has returned to his ancestral home with a mission from the War Office — to control the plague of vermin in rural Somerset. He needs help; he just didn't expect to find it in a katana-wielding scullery maid.
Working alongside Seth blurs the line between their positions, and Ella glimpses a future she never dreamed was possible. But in overstepping society's boundaries, Ella could lose everything – home, head and her heart…
ELLA, THE SLAYER – copyright © 2015 A. W. Exley
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used reproduced 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. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Amalia Chitulescu
Editing by Suzanne @ The Word Vagabond
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Author's Note: This novel uses British English
Chapter One
Somerset, England. Summer, 1919.
To escape from reality, I dream of a time when there was only one type of death.
Mother died when I was young. We buried her in the ground, and the maids packed away her clothing. Father and I cried and mourned the empty space in both our souls and at our table. Back then death only had one meaning: your life snuffed out, never to rekindle.
Then came the Great War, and we learned of a new type of death. The ‘walking dead’, we call them. Men who returned with shattered minds, unable to grasp the horrors they saw or the deprivations they had suffered. Their chests rise and fall, but they have blank eyes — the window to their souls have shattered, leaving thousands of fragmented reflections that cannot be pieced together again. They continue to follow the routine of their pre-war lives, but there is no spark within them. Like Henry, my childhood friend and co-conspirator in my escapades. Once he dreamed of being footman in a grand house. I still remember his excitement when he hit five foot seven, the minimum height for work upstairs. He always had a quick joke or smile for me. Now he rarely speaks and never laughs. At night I hear him cry out in his room above the stables. Sometimes he screams; that sound is worse than the silence.
Other walking dead from the Great War — or in his case, not walking — are like father. A shell exploded close to him. Doctors removed the shrapnel in his head, but they say it’s left him with an irrecoverable brain injury. He sits in his chair by the window and drools out one side of his mouth. The doctors said he would have been better off dead; and in my heart, I wish he had joined mother. We tend to his needs and each night I narrate the events of the day. Every time I climb into bed, my last wish before sleep claims me is that father might either return to us or find peace.
Although, father’s condition suspended between life and death is convenient for step-mother. With our modest estate entailed, as long as father lives she remains in control. The war created problems for families the length and breadth of England, as lawyers scour genealogies for a living male heir. So many men died or simply disappeared. Titles were in need of a man to settle upon, and stories cropped up of humble privates returned home to find a peerage thrust upon them.
Then, as the war concluded and the nation planned armistice celebrations, came the most devastating attack. The flu pandemic of 1918 struck with the influx of returning soldiers. In just a few short weeks from September to December, millions of people died. We all pulled together to nurse the sick and bury the fallen.
Except it wasn't the flu.
And they didn't stay dead.
The table bounced under my cheek and jarred me back to full awareness.
"She's at it again," Alice, the upstairs maid, said. A full coal scuttle rested on the table, the heavy item that had awoken me. She rolled her amber eyes and wiped her hands on the white apron around her neck. Her white mop cap kept her dark curls under control, and a frown marred her pale brow.
"What is it this time?" I asked, wiping strands of blonde hair off my face. My cap pitched to an angle and I righted it, shoving stray hair back underneath. The she in question was step-mother, no doubt: Elizabeth, Lady Jeffrey and wife of Sir Jeffrey. My step-sisters, Louise and Charlotte, were referred to collectively as them. And I had to stop referring to them as my step-relations; the lady of the house would flog the skin from my hide if she caught that familiarity passing my lips. She may have been married to my father, but she was quick to point out my status as the daughter of a servant.
Alice poured herself a glass of water and took a quick drink. Only eight in the morning and we had both been working for over two hours now. We had cleaned the house from top to bottom and laid fires that should sit unused in the middle of summer. The lady thought it kept us in work to use them throughout the year. Thank goodness father's home was modest in size with only eight fireplaces. Imagine if we possessed a grander home with thirty or more!
Alice put her hands on her hips. "The coal is dirty and apparently it's throwing dust on her clothes. She wants us to wipe it off."
I sighed. At just seventeen, I had found myself responsible for holding the estate together. England lost the flower of her youth on the battle fields of Europe when so many men had failed to return. Their jobs were either left vacant, or women stepped in. We're fortunate in that the small house and plot of land need only a skeleton staff to operate. But that is what we're becoming – skeletons. The life and flesh plucked from our limbs by her constant irrational demands. We needed to maintain the perimeter defences, to ensure the vermin don't disturb our sleep, and she wanted the coal polished.
"I'll deal with it." I stood from the table and brushed my hands down my apron. "Let's just dump the coal in the old bath by the stables and sluice it through the water. Then pick it out and let it dry in the sun."
Alice beamed. "You are so clever. Not like them."
I picked up the heavy bucket. "Come on, may as well get started before she wakes up and screams for something else. I still need to find time to ride the perimeter."
I was born within these walls and sat by my mother's bedside, holding her hand until
the last breath sighed from her body. Father loved me as his daughter and raised me as well as any son. Fencing and shooting were part of my daily lessons, and I thanked him for it; post-pandemic they became valuable survival skills.
Father never hid me away as the shameful product of his scandalous marriage to the housekeeper. There was an advantage to a rural life; farmers are more pragmatic. An extra set of hands makes the daily tasks easier, no matter where those hands originated. Christmas 1913, just a year after she had passed, father returned from a business trip to London with a new bride and two new daughters. I understood; he was lonely and foolishly thought a new step-mother would welcome me. But the city-bred woman he brought to our corner of the countryside wasted no time in demoting me to the kitchens, where I belonged. Her daughters looked down their elegant noses at me, scoffing at my plain clothes and dirty hands. They stayed inside and played the piano, while I dug potatoes and drove the tractor.
With the brewing trouble in Europe, father didn't notice that I hardly appeared in the parlour anymore, except to serve tea. Then, in August 1914, war broke out. I was just thirteen when he left us. He was first amongst those to sign up — he said he would lead the village lads, that they needed a father figure to watch out for them. He said we would be safe in our corner of rural England.
He was wrong.
Five years later, his body returned, but not his mind.
I pushed aside such maudlin thoughts and concentrated on the task at hand. It didn't take long for us to wash the coal and lay it out in the sun to dry.
Henry appeared in the barn doorway and walked across the cobbles, leading my mare. He rarely spoke, but his sorrowful eyes saw everything. He went about his tasks quietly, always knew what I was about to do and had whatever I needed at hand. I wished we could reach him, but he remained locked deep inside his exterior shell. What I would give to see him smile, or to hear father's voice again.
I took the reins and laid one hand on his arm. "Thank you, Henry."
Alice and I had determined he needed touch to remind him he stood amongst the living in Somerset, and not on some desolate killing field surrounded by the bodies on his fellow soldiers. So few had made it home. Only nine villages in all of Somerset were untouched, 'the lucky nine' they called themselves. We were not among them and we treasured those who returned to us, however damaged they seemed.
The men who returned from war faced a new battle in the grounds of their homes from the shambling dead created by the flu pandemic. Except it wasn't influenza. Doctors and scientists still can't agree what it was or where it came from. Some called it Spanish flu, but it didn’t originate there. The War Office suppressed word of the initial outbreak so as not to dampen morale – arrogant fools. We were so ignorant when it hit, and completely unprepared. Returning soldiers brought the sickness home with them. Millions died in a matter of weeks. We mourned like so many villages and buried our dead — except they came back.
It took weeks to realise the new danger. Grieving people embraced the returned souls. We were horrified to think that the living had been confined to the earth still breathing. We thought they did not speak because of the horrors they had suffered. Imagine being buried alive, the dead and earth pressing on you. Except they came back for a reason: us.
Those attacked were infected. Over a period of days these poor souls sickened and died, only to turn and suffer the same horrible fate. Even now there were those who couldn’t believe we needed to exterminate the flu victims. They hid them in their homes, certain that with time they would be cured. Until they too were bitten and became the same mindless, violent shells. It was a horrible cycle that needed to be broken.
We call them vermin, it helps to forget what they once were. You cannot think of it as Mrs Bridge from down the lane who always had a smile and a ginger cookie. Or young Amy that I used to play with. No, that made it too painful. Vermin spread disease, like the rats who carried Black Death into every village. I knew technically it was the fleas on the rats, but the analogy suited my mind. The virus burned around the globe in a matter of weeks and destroyed itself, thank God. But it left behind the vermin who continue to transmit the disease through their bite, until we figured out how to stop them.
The mare bumped against my arm, and I reached out to scratch her neck. I leaned into her for a moment, inhaling the unique scent of horse that meant both companionship and freedom.
Alice emerged from the kitchen with my katana in hand. Father had brought the sword back from Japan as a curiosity, an object to hang on the wall. Now it was a part of me. I seldom ventured forth without its protection. Foot in the stirrup, I swung myself into the saddle and settled the sword against my back. Alice stood next to Henry and watched.
"Please be careful," she said. She always worried until I returned. Out in the yard, she always checked my arms for bite marks before she would let me into the house.
"I promise." A tap of my heel against her side and the mare trotted off, leading us out over the paddock.
A line of barbed wire marched into the distance and enclosed our fifty acres. Not much land, but enough to maintain the sheep and cattle to keep us fed. The rest of the estate we leased out to other farmers. I wondered how long before step-mother carved it up and sold it off. Expensive dresses from Paris didn't materialise on their own; she needed the ready cash to pay for them.
We passed a copse of beech when the sway on the wire made me sit up straight. More than a line blowing in the wind, it had the pull and tug of something bigger. The mare whinnied and tossed her head. I scratched her wither as I scanned up ahead.
"It's all right girl, I won't let it get you." We dropped to a walk and followed the fence, dodging around stray trees and clumps of spent daffodils.
At first glance it looked like someone had dumped a pile of laundry. The shape clung low to the ground. This one had tried to go under. Thankfully, Henry had suggested bottom wires. A few hastily drawn pictures on a sheet of paper had saved us in our sleep.
The mare halted and stood her ground, so I took the hint and dismounted. "Easy girl." I gave her a scratch and looped the reins over her head to let her graze. We learned together, the horse and I, and over the months we came to an agreement. She was a solid wee thing and wouldn't spook or run away, as long as I let her keep her distance from the creatures that smelt bad.
I pulled the red-spotted handkerchief around my neck up, and covered my mouth and nose. A bite from a vermin would infect you within a matter of days, and we learned that it didn't pay to breath in blood splatter either. It didn't always turn you into whatever they are, but it made you sick enough to wish you could die as your body tried to turn your stomach inside out to purge the tainted blood.
This one has once been male and looked as though it had died in the first pandemic wave over nine months ago. A few drops of lavender oil on the cloth around my face helped hold back the stench. I lost count of how many times I had vomited in those first few days, but I couldn't afford the distraction of those precious minutes spent staring at the ground while my breakfast came back up. Looking away gave them an opportunity to attack while you were weak, and I schooled my stomach to obey. Vermin walked and hunted us, but time ate at them. Without the spark of life to animate their bodies, they rotted on their feet. They needed to bite and tear at our living flesh to transmit the disease.
Maggots burrowed through his dead flesh, tiny writhing white bodies filling a hollow in his leg. The hair had peeled away from the scalp, and the bone was coated in dirt and mud as though he had tried to disguise his baldness by painting on hair. Very little flesh clung to his form, the white showing through where skin and bone had parted company. Tendons moved as he flexed and struggled against the barbwire digging into his back. A loop had caught around exposed vertebra and pulled him to a stop. The more he struggled, the more entangled in the fence he became.
I took a moment to examine his build and clothing, searching for anything that might identify him. What was left of his
face triggered no recognition, but I had learned to look past the rotting flaps of skin hanging from exposed bone. My eyes took in face shape, the curve of a jaw and the arch of a brow could reconstruct an image in my mind. This one came up blank, so I would need to record his physical description in my notebook — my heavy record of vermin and the people that had once been.
He stilled as my feet appeared in his vision. How did they even see without a functioning brain? Another question for the scientists to answer. I heard they held vermin captive in laboratories, trying to discern the secrets they might yield. Perhaps they thought the dead would make better soldiers, they would keep moving forward no matter how many bullets they took.
My blade sung on the morning air as I pulled the katana free. The creature panicked, thrashing and struggling to pull away from the wire. A high-pitched moan came from his damaged throat and startled the mare. Fortunately, she just moved farther away. Chunks of flesh flew as he flailed his arms. Blank eyes fixed on my face. I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't recognise this one, and at least I didn't have to dispatch one of our own. Although, how far the vermin travelled would worry me later.
I held my ground and waited until the head turned, facing away from me. Then I struck. One blow and I severed tendons and bones. The head rolled a short distance and came to a stop. Like chickens, the bodies took some time to realise the head was gone. He continued his efforts to struggle free. Fingers clawed at the ground as though he sought something. Perhaps he searched for his head to reattach it?
I watched the second hand on my watch. This one took two minutes to still while I filled out an entry in my notebook. Then I tucked it back in the saddlebag while I preformed the rest of my vermin disposal ritual. First I cleaned my blade with a lightly oiled cloth, a rule father drilled into me from early on; care for your blade. I took the small bottle of petrol and doused the body, then struck a match and tossed it on. The fuel ignited with a soft whump, and I turned my face from the wave of heat. Once well ablaze, I kicked the head over to re-join the rest. I always waited, just in case they could reattach their heads. Just because we hadn't seen it yet didn't mean it was impossible.