But there had to be more to it than that, surely? It didn’t explain the rise of the Madness, and how so many of the population died out so quickly. Could the Madness simply affect people? Could it merely be a switch that went off in people’s heads and turned them into feral creatures?
Dylan watched Vex and Belle a little longer before heading off around town to continue his rounds.
Psycho Joe’s Garbage Lot, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario
“I ain’ts goin’ t’ask again,” the man said, raising the shotgun to shoulder level.
He was a strange guy to look at. A dark-colored ten-gallon hat, riddled with holes and grime, perched on his head. He wore a tank top that drowned his form, exposing skinny arms that seemed too long for his body. His shorts left little to the imagination, and his beard grew in patches.
Caitlin struggled to determine the guy’s age. Judging by his size, he could’ve been in his twenties. But in his filthy state, he looked to be sixty.
“Gets the fuck off ma land, ’fore I lets old gunnie ’ere do the talkin’.”
Kain raised his hands in the air almost instantly. Mary-Anne growled, and Caitlin took a deep breath and stepped towards the guy.
“We didn’t mean to trespass, friend,” she began, giving him her warmest smile. “We’re merely wanderers through this land, trying to find our way to the nearest town. Could you maybe help us with some directions, and we’ll be on our way?”
The man eyed Caitlin suspiciously. “Wand’rers, you say? Ain’t hads wand’rers round ’ere in s’long as I can ’member. Only folks round ’ere who wander are those goshvermant lunas. All hours of ta day. It’s a full-time jobs ta keep ol’ Violet safe ’n sound.”
Kain lowered his hands and shrugged. Caitlin studied the man, noting that the shotgun in his hands was shaking.
“How about you tell us your name, and a little about these…‘lunas’…and maybe we can help you?”
“Yeah, help the madman with the gun. That’s smart,” Mary-Anne said, her eyes burning red now.
The man saw Mary-Anne’s eyes and a look of terror fell across his face. He struggled with the gun, tried to cock it back—obviously forgetting he had already done so a moment before—then aimed it her way and fired.
The blast exploded through the trees, the bullets finding their mark in a tree trunk directly behind where Mary-Anne had stood moments before. Jaxon burst into a fit of barks, his hackles raised and teeth bared.
“Luna! Luna!” the man cried, cocking the gun back again, his hands fumbling and most likely sweating given his lack of control of the weapon.
Caitlin took her chance and darted forward. Jaxon ran beside her, leaping into the air and catching the barrel of the gun in his teeth. As the weight of his body came down, the gun came with him, and Caitlin seized the moment to place her sword against the man’s neck. From up close, she could see the tendons stretched across his throat and could smell the staleness of his breath. He looked up at her, his eyes pooling with tears.
Jaxon shook the shotgun like a stick, yanked it from the now limp hands, and cast it aside. He turned instantly and growled again at the strange man.
“Good work, Jax,” Kain said, appearing at Caitlin’s side with his swords at the ready. “Who in their right mind would give a psycho a shotgun?”
Caitlin pressed the blade against the man’s skin. “Okay, here’s the situation now. Tell us who you are. Tell us what the fuck ‘lunas’ are. And if you try to shoot any of us again, we’ll aim the barrel at your own dick and force you to pull the trigger.”
The man nodded his understanding. “I sorry, I sorry, I sure am. It’s justs, it’s been so long since Joe’s seens folks who ain’t turned, y’knows? The gov’nor trusted Joe, he sure did, and alls I gots to do is keep the lunas away, that’s right, so it is.”
Kain rolled his eyes and smacked the man in the face.
“Kain!” Caitlin scolded.
“We need answers, right? What the fuck are lunas?”
Joe looked at them both as if they were the crazy ones. He brought a hand to his nose to dab at the tiny beads of blood that began to trickle. “Y’all tellin’ me y’alls ain’t never seens the crazies with bright eyes and blood on their teeths? Goshvermant lunatics everywhere.”
“Oh…” Kain said as realization dawned on their faces. “You mean the Mad?”
“Ev’ry which ways I look it’s madness, for sure.” Joe seemed to remember something then, his eyes growing wide again. “Your friend, I hates to tell you, she’s turning, for sure she is. I seen them looks before on those folks, and that’s how its starts. Red eyes, red teeth, black hearts. Now, where’d she go?”
He tried to whip around again, but Caitlin held his arm firmly.
Mary-Anne appeared behind Joe, her eyes blazing red now. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear. “I’m not a lunatic, Joe. But if you try to blow my body to smithereens again, I will be your worst fucking nightmare.”
Joe swallowed and nodded.
Caitlin watched the man with pity. Maybe he had been a regular nobody at some point in the past. Maybe he had been this way since he was born. Either way, it was hard to tell. All she knew now was he was a guy protecting his property and scared shitless of the Mad. Understandably, he was ready to pump his gun and blow anything that came close to causing him and his ‘Violet’ harm apart.
“Come now, Joe. We’ve been on our feet all day. Would you mind showing us a place to shelter and rest up? If Kain, here, doesn’t rest up, he’ll look worse than he would if you’d shot his face off.” Caitlin yawned a little too theatrically, but Joe didn’t seem to notice. “You’ve got to have a place around here somewhere, right?”
She waited for Joe to answer, but instead, her attention was drawn to Jaxon’s growls. A couple of barks were followed by a few more growls as Jaxon faced into the trees ahead. In Caitlin’s moment of distraction, Joe twisted away and grabbed his gun from the floor. They all turned towards where Jaxon stared, seeing then that several pairs of red eyes now hung suspended in the darkness.
Joe cocked the gun, a hideous grin on his face. Kain smacked it out of his hand.
“What are you thinking, fuckwad?” Kain hissed through his teeth. “Your last shot is probably the reason they’re coming this way. Mad are attracted by sound. How do you not know that?”
They were still some distance away, but the sky was beginning to lighten. The four Mad wandered clumsily through the brush, making no effort to hide their noise. One of them stumbled and caught their foot on something on the ground. Another bumped into a tree, spun a one-eighty, then began walking away from its companions.
The entire time, their eyes didn’t blink. Those red dots seemed to scan for them like lasers, all their instincts apparently telling them to chase after the thing that made the big boom in the forest.
What kind of backward-ass logic is that?
Caitlin leaned close to Joe. “Hey, Joe. About that shelter?”
Joe nodded, turned, and with surprising speed, began running into the thick of the garbage piles.
Jaxon streamed off after him immediately.
Mary-Anne and Kain followed while Caitlin hung around for a second longer. The Mad kept a steady pace, seemingly unable to see her from where they were. She noted that one had a missing arm, while the other seemed to have lost half of its face at some point along its journey.
For a half-second, Caitlin found herself back at the Carter Manor, staring down the wide steps as the Mad entered Mary-Anne’s house. Only then, Caitlin had been unaware of her own abilities, her heart thumping as she struggled to take down the Mad. She’d nearly been bitten from behind until a vampire had saved her.
Now, with a sword at her side and confidence she could only have dreamed of, she strode towards them. A silent assassin in a whispering wood.
She’d return to Mary-Anne, Kain, Jaxon, and Joe in a moment. Just as soon as she’d taken out the trash.
Chapter Three
; Psycho Joe’s Garbage Lot, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario
Caitlin caught up with them several minutes later, slightly out of breath and with a thin veil of sweat on her head.
“Subtle,” Mary-Anne side-mouthed.
“What?”
Mary-Anne tapped her ears. “Super vampire hearing, remember?” She looked around conspiratorially. “They didn’t touch you?”
“Didn’t even get close.” Caitlin winked.
Kain walked ahead of them both, keeping his eyes locked on Joe as he twisted and turned through the labyrinth of his own creation. The strange man’s internal compass was nothing short of impressive
They passed toppling piles of scrap and what looked like deep holes which had been filled to the brim with junk. The closer to the center of it all they got, the more the trash turned into structures that looked akin to walls, doors, and bridges. They marveled at it all as they jogged and kept pace. How had one man managed such construction? It was beyond reason.
Joe slowed as he removed his hat and passed through a doorway which the rest of them had to squeeze to get through. Flanking the sides of the entrance were semi-decomposed bodies, corpses, and bones—presumably from the Mad Joe had defended himself against over the years. At least, they hoped that was what they were. From the outside, the whole thing looked like a large igloo, and when they entered, they found the image apt.
They were inside what appeared to be a house. Several doors led off to different rooms, but the outer shell was made of compressed metal, alloys, and various other compound materials mashed and merged together with craftsmanship that left them in awe.
Joe waited for them, his expression stern, a finger over his lip. “Y’alls best be nice and quiets, yes? No wakin’s Violet, no way, no how, or Joe ’ere is goin’ get mighty pissed.”
“Sorry, Joe, but who is Violet?” Caitlin asked.
Joe pottered around as if he hadn’t heard her.
He showed them to a room off to the right. The doorway was tiny, but the space inside was impressive. Though Joe watched Mary-Anne suspiciously as she went ahead, he played nice and left them to it. Maybe he wanted to ask about her red eyes, but maybe he didn’t want to know the answer. Whatever it was, Kain and Caitlin certainly weren’t ready to tell him that she was actually a vampire and the glowing pupils were kind of their thing first.
It was so unbecoming for zombies to steal vampires’ style.
They took it in turns to sleep while one person stayed on watch. Even though Joe had opened his home to them, they would be stupid to trust a stranger.
Caitlin took the first watch, sitting by the door with Jaxon’s head resting on her lap and listening to Joe pottering around and mumbling to himself on the other side of the wall. A couple of times, she heard him call out to Violet but heard no response.
Caitlin let her mind wander over who the hell this Violet might be. Perhaps she’d be introduced when they all woke as the sun set. They didn’t plan on staying long, but she had to admit that they were lucky enough to find shelter before the sun came up and roasted Mary-Anne to cinders.
They had discussed it at length before they had set off from Silver Creek. The logistics of traveling with a nocturnal companion were part of the reason that Caitlin was determined to keep the company’s number small—that and the fact that she had already saved the twenty or so Revolutionaries from New Leaf, so she was hardly ready to put them at risk again.
One suggestion had been to take the casket they had forged out of the components of the abandoned airship. They had used this to transport Mary-Anne from the ship to Silver Creek before the liberation. Even with Kain’s strength, though, it didn’t make sense for them to carry a coffin around during the day when they could just as easily walk together at night.
At some point in the early afternoon, Kain awoke and switched places with Caitlin. They heard Joe head out through the front tunnel, still mumbling, then all went silent.
“Strange kind of bloke, that Psycho Joe, don’t you think?” Kain said, taking a seat with his back to the wall while Caitlin lay down in his place still warm from his body heat. Jaxon trailed behind Caitlin and settled down beside her, his ears down, and eyes shut the moment he rested his head. “Madder than a box full of zombies in a nuthouse.”
“I’d watch what you call him while he’s around.” Caitlin sighed. “Might not take that much to set him off, and as strange as he is, he’s given us his hospitality. I doubt many people around here’d do that for a stranger these days.”
“Yeah, well. He’s not around, so I can call him whatever I want,” Kain said and stuck out his tongue. “You should hear what I call you when you ain’t around.” He paused and chuckled. “‘Lunas.’ Can you believe it? We’ve not even made it to the next town yet, and we’ve already crossed the language barrier.”
But Kain’s words fell on deaf ears. Within minutes, Caitlin slid into sleep, tension easing from her body with each breath.
In her dreams, she found herself playing among the trash, hunting for relics from the past that she could give to Monica—pieces of guns and old parts for machines she could never comprehend. Occasionally, she’d find another weapon, a sword, an ax, or a crossbow, but even in her dreams, she chose her own sword every time. Nothing else compared—at least, not to her.
She found herself wondering what the purpose of the scrapyard was, and what kind of man guarded a rubbish pile for years on end. What was it the governor had offered in return for Joe’s service? Money? Love? Power? What promise could make a man so fiercely loyal for years on end, even when there was no sign of hope that the promise would ever come to fruition?
As Caitlin snored gently, Kain laid his head back and yawned.
He closed his own eyes, still tired from their trek.
He needed to rest them for a little bit.
Just a little bit.
Silver Creek, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario
“You know, I don’t think this will ever get old,” Alice said, rolling over in bed so the thin cloth outlined her womanly curves. The sunlight filtering through the windows reflected off her body, making her look like a canvas painting.
Ash lay on his back, his bare chest exposed to the world as Alice cuddled him. “You know, I think you’re right,” he said and kissed her forehead and held her close.
She looked up at him, her eyes twinkling.
It was almost impossible to think that a short while ago, she had woken up at the crack of dawn to see her ‘man’ off to work. She’d made breakfast, cleaned the house, and lived in fear of the guy many called ‘Big Bill’ who would rather clobber her with a slap of the hand than kiss her cheek.
Back then, she could never have dreamed that one day, she’d wake in the arms of a fella she actually liked, let alone a man who had proven himself worthy enough in combat of the honor of his new position as the new second in command at Silver Creek. Ash was now the new deputy captain of the guards, and Alice knew he deserved it.
Oh, and not to mention her discovery of how badass she was with twin daggers, though that seemed to come second now to how good she seemed to be in the sack.
It’s always better with somebody you like.
Alice stood and let her bare body absorb the late-morning air. She strode to the window, deliberately swaying her hips, and pulled the curtain wide. A man outside with a large ginger beard looked up, caught sight of her, and flushed bright red. She waved, and he lowered his eyes to the ground, running off down the street and almost bumping into several people as he went.
“I hope you’re not giving away all the good stuff,” Ash said as his arms appeared behind her and wrapped around her stomach. “You know you’re mine, and mine only, right?”
He kissed her neck, and she melted.
“I belong to no man. Not anymore,” she replied with little conviction, turning around to plant a deep kiss on his lips and push him back onto the bed. She straddled his lap.
“You know I can’t go for round
two,” Ash said as she began to gyrate on top of him.
“Two? I thought we were on four? Or was it five?”
Alice loved to watch him squirm. There was something powerful in being able to manipulate a man with nothing more than touch.
Even if Ash was a darn sight stronger than she was.
He grabbed her hips, lifted her up, and placed her back on the bed, sealing the movement with a kiss.
“Look, why don’t you accompany me on my rounds? I’ll show you the town, and you can meet the folks of Silver Creek. It’ll be good to get some fresh air.”
Alice sighed, smiled, then stood up. “Fine. But when we get back, we can make the air stinky again, okay?”
Ash’s nose wrinkled. “Bad choice of words.”
“You know what I meant.” She grinned.
They both dressed and headed outside.
The sunlight was bright. It was certainly a beautiful day, especially with the view that greeted them as they headed along the parapets. Back in New Leaf, the most Alice ever got to see was trees, trees, and…
Oh, wait.
Guess what?
More trees.
But here, as she looked down at the patchwork of streets to her left and the canopy of forest over the walls to her right, she felt like a queen of the world.
“They’re really out there somewhere?” Alice asked, shading her eyes and doing her best to see the furthest reaches of the forest. She thought of Caitlin, Mary-Anne, and Kain and wondered where they were right now. Somewhere out there kicking ass and taking names. She had been a little vexed to discover they had gone without her, but after Dylan had spoken to her and the other Revolutionaries, she kind of understood why.
“Yup, though I hope they’ve found somewhere to hide from the sun, for Ma’s sake,” Ash said, squinting and shading his own eyes.
The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set Page 27