“They help, they don’t just kill. They’re survivors, not enslavers.” I flounder for the words I’m looking for, but can’t seem to find them. I stare at her beseechingly. “They’re my family,” I eventually say, because that’s as close to the truth as I can give her. That’s about as honest and accurate as I can be.
She watches me, her deep brown eyes staring intently. Her face is a blank mask and I have no idea if I’m getting through to her or not, but I’m out of ideas now, and all I can think of is getting out of here and trying to find my friends—my family.
“Okay, look, I’m going,” I say to her. “Just point me in the right direction, that’s all I ask.”
She nods and stands up and walks across the room. By the doorway there are some weapons piled into the corner that I hadn’t seen. They’re not your typical guns and knives, though. Instead these are more basic, yet just as deadly. Long wooden poles stand side by side. The tops of each have been shaped to a point, almost like a large vampire stake, and fixed into the top wood is a metal chain hanging down, presumably so that when you swing them they’ll smash into plenty of zeds at the same time. They’re very primitive, and more brutal than most of the weapons I’ve come across.
“These are death sticks. Pick one. It will be my parting gift to you,” Korah says.
I look over them all, trying to decide on the best one. I haven’t got the strength in my arms or shoulders to carry the biggest one with the heaviest chain, but I want something a little stronger than the long, thin one. Korah reaches out and picks up a dark wooden pole, her fingers grazing over the metal chain that clinks when it’s moved.
“This one, I think, is best for you,” she says, picking it up and handing it to me. She shrugs off the backpack she’s wearing and hands it to me. “It’s not much—one water, some cat meat. It’s all I can spare.”
I take both items with a grateful nod, shrugging the backpack onto my shoulders before deciding it’s too painful almost immediately and pulling it off with a gasp. The bag lands on the ground at my feet and it takes me a moment to catch my breath. Korah stands, watching me the entire time, a small frown on her face. I swallow the pain in my body and pick the bag back up before slinging it over just one shoulder instead. Korah grunts something and then picks up the largest death stick before turning and leaving the room, and I follow her silently.
It’s a maze of corridors down here, and almost pitch black barring some small candles on the ground at every turning. There’s no way I’d never be able to find my way back if I got lost down here, which I guess is probably the idea. Korah can’t be the only survivor in this town.
I come to the conclusion that what we’re in a department store, or at least the underground stores of one. Korah leads us both through the building, seemingly knowing her way around without even thinking about it. We pass crates of things stacked up, and racks of old, moth-eaten clothes and shoes. Boxes have been torn open and cosmetics and bags are hanging out of some, or spilled across the floor haphazardly. We finally reach some stairs and Korah goes up first, but stops at the top. There’s a small window in the door, covered with black material, and she lifts it and looks through the glass to the other side. After several tense seconds she unwraps some chains from the handles of the doors and opens it before leading us out into the main building.
It’s eerie, with mannequins still standing at attention, waiting to be redressed. Stands have been toppled and bones lie in piles on the ground. Some are zeds, some are dogs and cats, and some are the remains of humans. It doesn’t smell, though, which puts me at ease that there are no zeds nearby.
Korah moves like a panther through the store, her long legs easily stepping over the tragedy on the ground. Her hand is wrapped around her stick and chain, holding the chain in place to stop it jingling against the wood as she moves, and I copy her, even following in her footsteps.
At the front of the building, she raises a hand up to hush me before I’ve even spoken while she looks out the dusty windows. I wait patiently, not wanting to let on that I’m feeling lightheaded again. Eventually she turns to me, and with natural light on her features I can see how attractive she is, with high cheekbones, full lips, and large oval eyes.
“The street is clear, but that’s not to say the dead are not out there. They are always out there, somewhere.” Korah points to the top of the building opposite, where I can see a ladder has been passed between the two buildings to create a ridiculously unstable bridge. “Your friends went over there, from one building to the next. Then they went down Main Street and into the candy store.” Korah turns to look at me.
“You said they left!”
“They left where they were and they went somewhere else,” she says, and then points in the direction of the other building again. “They went over there, into the candy store. They may not still be there. I didn’t dare follow any further.”
I open my mouth to say something but decide against it. It doesn’t matter now. She’s not helping me, and I should just be glad that there’s a possibility that they haven’t left, not getting angry because she didn’t tell me the exact truth.
“They are not safe in there,” Korah adds.
“Why?” I ask, stepping forward to look outside, anxiety pushing my anger away. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Bad people live in there. If they made it out of there alive, they are very lucky. Be careful.”
“Bad people?” I mutter, thinking about all the bad people in the world and wondering if any can really be defined as truly good anymore. “Of course there’s bad people. Isn’t there always?” I say with sad resignation.
“No, not like these,” she says. “Good luck, O’Donnell.” Korah turns and walks away from me.
Just like that.
I’m a little shocked, I’m not too proud to admit that. I honestly thought she might change her mind, or at least take me a little further than the front door, but apparently she has other things to be doing today.
“Right, well, bye then,” I say to her turned back. She doesn’t even acknowledge my farewell, though, so I shrug and push on the main door and head outside.
The day is warm, yet a cold chill travels my spine. Korah said that I had been unconscious for two days, yet it feels like years. When the dead first rose, there was a brief war between the living and the dead and then the world fell silent. A deathly silence hangs over this town, but it’s different—a silence that says so much more than any words possibly could. This place reeks of death, and for once I don’t just mean the zeds. I mean death. It clings to the walls of every building like ivy threading through the cracks in the concrete.
“Odds of survival,” I say to myself while taking a good look around, “down to fifteen percent.” I grip my death stick as tightly as I can and begin to walk, staying in the shade as much as I can and being as quiet as possible. The chain on my death stick is digging into my hand, but it reassures rather than hinders me.
I cross the street, feeling weaker than I have in a long time yet filled with the determination to find my friends before it’s too late. And of course Korah’s warning is alive in my mind: bad people live in there. I’ve met many bad people over the years—some worse than others, of course. I can’t imagine that these “bad people” are going to be any worse than what I’ve already met. Korah has been living in this town since the beginning, whereas I’ve traveled. I’ve seen the worst of the worst. I’ve seen what people do to each other when they have nothing left. I’ve seen so much more than she has and I can never un-see it, or un-live those lessons learned. And I know that my friends have lived the same type of life as me.
I’m not worried. Not really.
I try to picture their expressions when they see me alive, and I can’t help the slow smile from sliding up my cheeks. Yeah, gotta keep positive.
Across the street, I look up and see that I’m directly under the place where the ladder goes into the building. But when I try the doors they don’t budge. I
cut around the front of the building, listening intently for any sign of zeds getting close. I near the edge of the building and I press my back against the hard wall and take a breath before quickly peering around the side of it to see what’s down there.
Nothing.
There is nothing down there.
I start to walk down the narrow space between the two buildings. I can see at the end that there’s a couple of cars blocking the way, but that’s also good because it means it’s blocking anyone else’s way too.
At the end of the alleyway I follow the same procedure, though this time I have to carefully climb onto the hood of a car to get close enough to the corner to be able to see around.
I look left and see that it’s clear; however, the other direction is not clear. Not even a little bit. There’s a large horde of zeds all gathered together doing what they do best when they’re not killing and eating something: standing around and groaning about having nothing to eat and kill.
My gaze travels past them and over to the store almost directly opposite from me—Cromford Candy. Korah’s parting words sneak into my skull again about bad people being in there, and that sends a reluctant shiver down my spine.
I’ll heed her warning—I’d be stupid not to—but if Mikey, Ricky, and Phil went in there, then that’s where I’m going to have to go regardless. I look up at the building I’m leaning against, realizing that it’s a restaurant of some kind and wondering what, or who, could be trapped inside it. The only way to know if my friends are inside the candy store is to either go inside myself or scope it out for a couple of hours, and since I can still barely lift my left arm and my skull is throbbing like it’s being smashed in, I decide that scoping is the best thing for now.
There’s a side entrance to the building, but it’s locked from the inside when I try the handle. I could probably smash the handle in, but that would attract the zeds so instead I use the large garbage cans down the side, and climb on top of them before reaching for the emergency exit ladder and pulling myself up. The last time I did this I fell and almost died, and I’m not eager to repeat that performance, so when I get myself up onto the first ledge I decide that’s where I’m going to stay. I look in through the window and see it’s an office, and it’s empty so I try the window, happy when it slowly squeaks open when I push on it. I look back out to the alleyway one last time, making sure I haven’t attracted any attention before I climb inside the building.
It’s quiet inside, which is good, and I’m beginning to think that things are going my way for a change. I creep to the door that leads out into the…well, I don’t know, it leads out into whatever is beyond it, I guess. It could be more offices, or the restaurant, or someone’s apartment, for all I know. Either way I need to go in there and find a window that looks out over the candy store, because I can’t see anything from here.
I get down on my hands and knees and look through the small crack underneath. I can’t see anything moving—no shadows flickering past the door—so I stand back up and put my hand on the handle and press down on it before I can change my mind.
The door swings open and I grip my death stick, ready to kick some zed butt, but the space beyond is empty. Sure, there are dead bodies everywhere, but they’re all dead-dead, not alive-dead, so that’s good. I’m really hoping to keep my survival chance at fifteen percent or higher for the rest of the day, and it seems like I might even achieve that as I walk through the apartment littered with bones and rotting carcasses. I mean, it’s gross, but I’ve seen worse. There’s a window on the far wall and I aim for that, my feet treading between the bodies, until my foot gets snagged on something.
I swing down with my stick and it noisily hits the bars of a large square cage. It’s about the size and shape of a large dog crate, and when I look in I can see a sleeping bag and some cans of food and a bottle of water inside. It’s weird, and scary, because it means that someone else is around here. Or at least they were at one time. They were living in this room—more specifically in this crate, to keep themselves safe. I look around the room, slowly taking in every corner and shadow, but there’s no one and nothing around. Since I don’t intend on sticking around to meet and greet whoever has been living here, and I desperately need those supplies, I get down on my hands and knees, putting my death stick down on the ground right next to me, and I reach into the crate for the bottle of water.
I can’t grasp it so I take a small crawl forward and make another grab for it. My fingers skim over the bottle and I grunt as I slap the top of it to make it fall over, and thankfully it rolls toward me. I grab it, and sit back on my haunches with a smile.
Chance of survival eighteen percent, I decide. Now if I can get that food I’ll have something for the road to eat other than just cat meat.
I take a cursory glance around me, happy to see that I’m still alone, and I crack the bottle open and take a small sip of the contents. It tastes fresh, like rainwater, and I drink half of the bottle in one go before crawling further into the cage to get the cans of food.
I grab all three cans, quickly checking the labels and seeing that it’s dog food and not anything I can actually eat. My heart sinks and I put them back down. The cage is too small for me to turn around in without doing some gymnastics, so I start to back out of the cage like a truck in reverse. Beep, beep, beep…
It’s right about that time that my odds of survival plummet to nothing and the cage door slams down.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Shit,” I whisper, sweat trickling into my eyes.
It’s such a cramped space, and with my shoulder hurting so bad, I can barely move. I look over my shoulder, kicking out with one leg to try and open the cage door, but it won’t budge. I lie on my front, tucking my knees under my chest and trying to make myself as small as possible. The extra pressure on my shoulder hurts so bad that tears leak from my eyes, but I force myself to twist and contort so that I’m facing the right way and my fingers can touch the lock.
I drag a hand down my sweaty face so I can see better, and then I grab the lock and hinge on the other side. It seems to be an automatic lock, which I’ve triggered somehow. But I can pick locks, so other than being hot, sweaty, frustrated, and a little embarrassed, I’m not too worried.
Yet.
I’m reaching into my back pocket for my lock-picking kit when a noise on the far side of the room draws my attention. I can’t see around the overturned desks and boxes next to the cage, so I keep quiet and listen carefully.
It’s not long before a zed slowly stumbles further into the room. It puts its nose into the air and sniffs, homing in on me almost immediately, and then it begins to stagger toward me.
“Oh crap,” I whisper, my fingers frantically fumbling to retrieve the lock kit from my pocket. My death stick is still on the floor on the outside of the cage, and I decide that’s my best option so I reach for that instead. I mean, it’s a stick, I can stab the zed through the gaps in the bars. All is not lost.
Yet.
I start to feel nauseous and my vision blurs so I rub at my eyes again, thinking it must be the sweat getting into them, but it doesn’t help any. Every time I reach for the death stick, there’s three instead of one and I grab the wrong one, and I shake my head in frustration. The zed has stumbled to the front of the cage now, and it stands on the death stick and presses its face against the bars of the cage, its jaws snapping as it tries to get at me. Rotten fingers poke through the holes in the cage and I squirm as far back from the cage door as I can.
But the zed is right there, and it’s not going to go anywhere, and it can most definitely wait me out if it needs to. Not that it’s going to be able to eat me regardless, because, you know, I’m stuck in a damn cage!
The nausea is getting worse and I’m feeling dizzy so I grab the water and take a small swig to try and settle my stomach—although that’s kind of hard to do with a zed banging at the cage and breathing its death breath at me.
The water isn’t helpi
ng, and I start to heave onto the space in front of me. Water and bile and the cat meat that Korah gave me earlier all come back up. And then my eyes are rolling into the back of my head, and everything blurs so much I have no idea what I’m seeing anymore. But I can hear.
I can hear the zed frantically trying to get to me—the metal cage rattling and shaking, the groaning and growling, the snapping of its jaws. And then even sound is spiraling away from me and all I can hear is a low humming, which might actually be me, but I’m not entirely sure.
Odds of survival are zero is my last thought before I succumb to the whirlwind in my head pulling me away from this world.
*
I’m not asleep, but I’m not awake either.
A shadow dances across me, swamping my vision with black. I’m sweaty and hot and my muscles feel like lead, heavy and unresponsive. I try to focus my eyes, but it’s like catching marbles rolling down the stairs.
The zed is still growling and rattling at the cage, and then there’s a sharp pain in my skull and I’m being dragged from the cage. The back of my head feels hot and bloody, pain radiating across my entire skull and penetrating deep within my brain.
I make a noise, a gargled squeak that erupts from the back of my throat mixed with bile and spit. And then something is roughly grabbing the bottom of my face and holding it up to the blinding light. I squint and make the squeak noise again. But it’s all good, it’s all good: all this moving and tugging is bringing me back around from the edge.
My eyes are beginning to focus. My muscles are still too heavy to move, but I can feel them now. The tips of my fingers are tingling with sensation, and I find if I concentrate really hard I can move them a little.
I’m in a heap on the floor, just outside the cage. The zed is dead next to me, its blood mixing with mine. Its cloudy eyes are staring into my face, its jaws open in a silent scream. Something is digging into my side, but I don’t know what. I just know it hurts.
The Dead Saga (Book 5): Odium V Page 20