Hunting The Broken: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 3)

by Daniel Willcocks

  “Are you kidding?” Sid, a former high-security prison guard, had asked. “Out into the woods where those…things roam? Not for me, thank you.”

  The sound of a shotgun racking behind Sid made him jump.

  “Its be a whole lots safer for you out there than in heres right now. Yes, it do,” Joe, said, whistling with his words. A strange, short man with a ten-gallon hat and a love of his shotgun which rivaled that of his now-turned-Mad-wife Violet, Joe had the element of surprise.

  They had taken a double-pronged approach. Led by Christy—a woman who had worked for the corrupt Pastor Andrews as one of his Firestarters while they held her parents hostage—the residents of Ashdale started work on their side of the forest. Way down south in the depths of the forest, the Silver Creek townsfolk were led by Dylan and his team.

  The regular townsfolk—and even a few of the hardened guards—had quaked in their boots at first. Many had feigned sickness and disability to avoid the heavy work. But protected and shepherded by Caitlin and her band of Revolutionaries, they slowly began to make progress. They became accustomed to the intermittent attacks of the Mad when the defenders dealt with them without so much as breaking a sweat.

  “You ought to keep a kill count,” Mother Wendy had said one day as the sun beat down on them from a cloudless sky. She had tagged along to provide refreshments for the hard workers. And also, as everyone knew, because her curiosity and need for gossip was so great she just had to see everything for herself.

  “Who says we’re not?” Caitlin replied, picking up a rock and launching it into the trees. A moment later, there was a grunt and a Mad ran out, arms a-flailing. Caitlin took out Moxie—a sword Mary-Anne had given her that made all other weapons pale in comparison—and with a swift upward cut, slashed the beast’s stomach open.

  Blood and gore spilled over a patch of land Kain had just finished flattening.

  “Hey!”

  “That’s ten for me today,” Caitlin bragged. “What are your counts?”

  “Five,” Kain whinged.

  “And you, Ma?”

  “I’m not keeping score,” Mary-Anne mumbled beneath the folds of her day-cloak—an item she had acquired from a senile old lady in Ashdale which covered her entire body and blocked the sun.

  A very important acquisition for a vampire, given that exposure to direct sunlight was a big no-no.

  “Is someone afraid of a little competition?” Caitlin teased.

  “Wait until night falls and I’m not burdened by this damn frock, then we’ll see who’s afraid of competition.”

  They had made great progress, and now, they sat in the shadows of the trees. Caitlin, Kain, Mary-Anne, Christy, Dylan, and several other members of the Council of Revolutionaries made up the day’s work party.

  Only Jaxon, Caitlin’s German Shepherd, remained standing. He sniffed around the forest floor nearby, occasionally cocking his leg at a tree and letting his contents spray.

  “It’s not official until the pup has pissed on it,” Caitlin joked, eliciting a small chorus of giggles amongst the gang.

  “Here’s to Caitlin,” Dylan said, raising an imaginary cup to the sky. “You can’t say she doesn’t know how to bring light to a dark world.”

  “Hear, hear,” the group chorused.

  Caitlin smiled, still unable to fully believe it even after everything that had happened. Because of her actions and the incredible feats of the fighters she had gathered on her journey to oust the governor, the gates of Silver Creek remained open. For the first time in nearly a century—or maybe more—there was a clear path to a nearby town.

  Jaxon ran up to Caitlin and licked a fresh wet track of saliva on her cheek. She chuckled, ruffling the dog’s fur.

  “Jax, stop it.”

  Caitlin heard Kain mumble, “Lucky bastard.”

  They dozed in the sun most of the afternoon, only making their own way home when the light began to fade and the drink began to run dry.

  As Caitlin, Kain, Mary-Anne, and the CoR headed home, they chatted idly about the state of things. Kain stumbled several meters back, walking in zigzags and occasionally bashing into Joe who, since being given his new home in Silver Creek, had taken a shine to the wooden town.

  “Ooof,” Joe muttered as Kain knocked into the small man.

  “Sorry,” Kain hiccupped.

  “Y’alls better be,” Joe retorted, tapping his shotgun threateningly. He never went anywhere without it these days. Kain sometimes wondered how many bullets the guy had left.

  “Cheer up, sleepy Jean!” Kain suddenly bellowed, his voice like a howl in the forest. “Oh, what can it mean—”

  “Shuts up!” Joe said, his eyes alert. He looked up and down the track, studying the forest on either side as if expecting some kind of attack. “You’ll draw lunas from all around, yes, y’will.”

  “Oh, come on,” Kain said, rolling his eyes. “You can call them what they are, you know? They’re Maaaaad!”

  Kain raised his arms and legs, emulating a zombie walking.

  “Keeps it down, please,” Joe urged.

  “Everything all right back there?” Caitlin asked, breaking away from the group in front.

  “All is fine,” Kain slurred. “Ol’ Psycho Joe here was worried about a few little Mad coming and eating his face off.”

  The mood turned sour when Joe racked a shell and aimed his shotgun at Kain’s face.

  “Oh, really?” Kain said, speaking as though a child held a water pistol to his skull.

  “Joe! No,” Caitlin protested, standing in the way.

  Joe seemed to consider his chances of hitting Kain past Caitlin. Maybe if he could clip the edge of his face off, he wouldn’t hit her at all.

  But then, she’s been good to yous so much, yes, she has, hasn’t she?

  Joe lowered the gun. “I’ms just playing, Caitlins, yes I am. Though your lover boys needs to keep down the noise. Ain’t no telling what’s out in the woods beyond what our eyes can sees.”

  Caitlin bent to Joe’s level and leaned in conspiratorially. “I know, I know. Truth is, he’s all talk and no action, that one. Couldn’t get laid in a brothel.”

  Joe chuckled, the sound whistling between his mash of missing teeth.

  “Just keep him entertained and let him think he’s in the right, and he’ll be okay. Don’t take anything he says too seriously—”

  A series of sounds erupted. Bells rang, a slap sounded, and a loud “Hey!” finished it off.

  Caitlin turned and grew furious. Kain and Mary-Anne stood next to a post from which a long piece of rope hung. A series of these alarms had been planted at intervals as a security measure for anyone who found themselves in trouble along the newly finished road. The Mad were the most likely threat around there, but who was to say a bear, a wolf, or even a group of bandits wouldn’t be lurking somewhere in the trees on a lonely day?

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Caitlin demanded, storming over to Kain.

  “Wolf-boy wanted to see if there were any Mad nearby,” Mary-Anne said, holding Kain by the ear. “Isn’t that about the truth of it?”

  Despite his pain, Kain laughed. “A little.”

  Caitlin’s fury turned to mild pity. What was it about Kain that made him so self-destructive? In all the months she had known him, he wasn’t one to turn down drinks, hold his tongue, or generally consider his own wellbeing. Sometimes, she thought of him simply as no more than a childish brat.

  But the truth was, he had always been there when she needed him.

  Kain wriggled free of Mary-Anne, rubbing his sore ear. “I also wanted to try and up my score.” He grinned sheepishly, pointing behind Caitlin to where several sets of red eyes had appeared through the trees.

  Jesus Christ, here we go again, Caitlin thought. She looked at the sky, noting that it was near sunset. By her estimate, they were still at least an hour away from Silver Creek.

  “Well, hold on to your belt, Pooch, because Kitty-Cat wants nothing more than to defend her
title.”

  Three Mad ran from the trees, a horror to behold. Men and women infected with the Madness—an affliction which caused its bearer to lust after flesh and develop glowing red eyes.

  The male Mad was taken down easily. Not even a hint of emotion crossed his bearded face as he staggered, sliced by Kain, and fell.

  “That’s six.”

  Caitlin focused on the one behind him, drawing her blade and aiming low for the Mad’s legs. The blade cut through the flesh without resistance but jarred at the bone. The Mad fell to its knees but continued to crawl, its hunger for flesh never fading.

  Jaxon barked and danced around the crawling body, snapping his jaws near its flesh.

  “No, Jax. Back,” Caitlin shouted. Though she didn’t know with any certainty what would happen to an animal infected with the Madness, the last thing she wanted was for Jaxon to be the guinea pig.

  “Jax, heel,” Dylan shouted from the tree line, engaged in his own battle as several more Mad appeared on his side of the road. “Fucking hell, Kain. You couldn’t have just passed out as usual? You had to summon the whole fucking family.”

  But Kain wasn’t listening.

  “Seven!” he roared in triumph as he stuck his blade through the skull of the crawler. He poked his tongue out at Caitlin.

  “That was mine.”

  “Don’t count the death until there’s no more breath,” Kain teased.

  “You sonofabitch.” Caitlin grinned.

  Mary-Anne, busy taking down the third on their side, ripped the Mad’s head off in one simple tug and discarded the body in the trees.

  “How many’s that, Ma?”

  “I’m not counting.”

  Kain chuckled. “That means you’re losing, right?”

  They moved on to the other side of the road to join Dylan and the CoR. Joe stood back, his eye trained down the sight of his shotgun. Caitlin knew he was unlikely to use it unless something went seriously wrong and it could save a life. Only if a Mad came straight at him would he fire, or if one was about to tear into a comrade’s throat. The sound would be too much, drawing more Mad than he’d destroy.

  But it was useful as backup.

  Caitlin’s thoughts flashed briefly to Monica Chapman, Silver Creek’s own slightly deranged old lady with an affinity for firearms and a knack for fixing up relics of the old world. She made a mental note to introduce Monica and Joe the next time she had a chance.

  “Almost there, CoR!” Caitlin called to her band of misfits as they hacked and slashed and reduced the Mad to lifeless bodies on the forest floor. Before long, they were all down. Caitlin tallied the corpses and reached a count of twenty.

  Twenty fewer monsters to ruin the world, she thought, wondering how many more of them there were in the forest. How long had they been there? How many more were out there in the wide world, wandering around aimlessly and hunting for blood?

  How much of the world is left to infect? She patted the old piece of parchment she now kept tucked in her pocket. The map of the nearby areas the governor had left before he had found himself fleeing into the forest was a precious treasure.

  “Ha! Sixteen,” Kain said proudly, squaring up to Caitlin.

  Belle, a hardy and slight young woman with skill in the art of twin daggers, raised a finger as if to interrupt. “Erm…sorry, but I think you’ll find those last two were mine.”

  Kain shrugged. “I helped.”

  “In which case, I’m on forty today.” Caitlin smirked.

  “What?”

  “I pulled you all together. I’m responsible for you. Pretty much every kill belongs to me.” She walked past Kain and patted his head. “Don’t cry, Pooch.”

  His mouth fell open, and he looked as if he was about to protest until they heard shouts coming from the road in the direction they'd just come from. Caitlin strained her eyes into the distance, then sighed as the others approached at a run.

  “Oh, you’re in trouble now, Pooch,” Mary-Anne said, her vampire eyes easily picking up the features and faces of Christy and the Ashdale Pond gang, clearly racing to the alert the bells had tolled a few minutes ago. It had only been a short while since they had headed back to their hometown. Their journey in response to the alarm was wasted.

  Kain blushed and turned to Caitlin. “At least we know the alarms work.”

  Chapter Two

  Silver Creek, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario

  Dylan Harrison walked along the packed dirt paths of Silver Creek with a smile on his face. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was truly happy.

  “What are you smiling at?” Sergeant Tom Hitchcock asked—a rough-looking non-military man with an eyepatch who had given himself the title in his grandfather’s honor. “You look like you have fish hooks in the corners of your mouth. It’s creepy. Pack it in.”

  Dylan didn’t grace Tom with a response. He kept on walking, aware of the other men talking softly behind him.

  The foot traffic in Silver Creek was slowing in the fading light of day. A small town bordered by high wooden walls, Silver Creek had been through a fair few changes of late, and it showed. Since Dylan’s sister and her gang of Revolutionaries had liberated the town from the clutches of the governor, Dylan had found himself as the new figurehead who people looked up to. There was an air of respect as he passed, with even those who he barely knew nodding and sometimes, stopping to speak to him.

  “Beautiful evening, wouldn’t you say, sir?” one boy of no more than fifteen summers said as he rolled barrels in front of his house and stacked them high. Judging by their look, they were empty.

  “Hey, Gov. Scorcher of a day, ain’t that about the truth of it?” a woman in a low-cut apron laughed as she patted sweat from her chest.

  Dylan did as he usually did—merely nodded and uttered something along the lines of, “You know it,” or, “The hottest I’ve seen it yet,” and kept walking by.

  Sullivan was already waiting at Mother Wendy’s Tavern when they arrived. In front of him were several pints of an amber drink that could almost be called beer, though Kain would note that it was nothing like the old days.

  Dylan took his place at the table, sending a courtesy wave to Mother Wendy who batted her eyelashes and winked back. Tom, Vex, Jamie, Joe, and Ash took their seats and thanked Sullivan for their drink. Kain, who would ordinarily have joined them after a long day out in the sun, had already been guided back to his quarters by Caitlin to be scolded and sent to bed.

  “Long day in the sun?” Sullivan, Dylan’s number two, ventured at last.

  Dylan nodded, then raised an eyebrow when he noticed Sullivan trying to stifle a laugh.

  “What?”

  “You guys look redder than Mother Wendy’s lipstick. You’d think there was no shade in the forest anymore.”

  They each looked at each other, noticing the sunburn on their faces for the first time that day. Now that they were inside, their skin seemed to glow in the flickering light of the candlelit tavern. They touched their foreheads, feeling the heat from the burns and a slight twinge of tenderness at the touch.

  All except Joe, who took off his hat and smiled a goofy grin. “No burn for Joe, heck no! Joe takes care of his skins, yes he do.”

  A ripple of laughter made its way around the group.

  “You know that they used to have a thing in the old world which blocked the skin from the sun. A cream that prevented burning even on the hottest of days,” Jamie said. In the last few weeks, he had really come out of his shell. After being declared by Caitlin as a leader of Ashdale Pond alongside his girlfriend, Christy, he had grown bold. He now walked with his back straight, and his head held high.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Vex said playfully. “A cream that blocks the sun? You think that Ma wouldn’t have thought about using that to walk in the daylight instead of dressing head to toe in that fabric that makes her look like an inverted ghost?”

  “I doubt it would work on vampires,” Ash said as he took another si
p of his near-beer. He was still dressed in the armor of the guards. Now the Captain of the Guard, he looked almost regal next to the likes of Joe and Tom.

  Joe shuddered, remembering Mary-Anne’s glowing red eyes. He felt uncomfortable around anything from the Unknown World having lived with only his wife in the forest for several decades.

  “How do you know?” Vex said.

  Ash shrugged.

  “Ah, well, that’s all in the past, I guess,” Dylan rested his head back against the coolness of the wall. He suddenly felt tired. “At least we can bring a road back to the present, eh? Ashdale and Silver Creek, united at last. Who’d have thought it?”

  Jamie smiled. “Certainly not me. If it wasn’t for Caitlin, I’d still be turning potatoes, likely attending nightly congregation with the pastor and his Firestarters—the men in black.”

  “Sounds like you could make a good story out of that,” Vex chimed in. “The Men in Black. There’s coin in that, somehow.”

  “Whatever happened to the pastor?” Sullivan asked. Over the weeks, he had heard bits and pieces of the events at Ashdale Pond. At the time, he had been the sole guardian of Silver Creek in Dylan’s absence, watching over the flock. Part of him was thankful for that after hearing of the governor’s Madness-fueled rampage as he tossed bombs and set as much of the town on fire as possible.

  “Oh, he’s back to his old day job.” Jamie smirked.

  “What was that?” Ash asked.

  “Let’s just say that when people need their number ones and twos to disappear, the pastor makes sure that the Lord almighty delivers them to the outskirts of town and dumps them in holes.”

  “A shit sifter?” Vex exclaimed. “Well, he really has hit the bottom of the pile!”

  They all exploded into laughter. Several heads of other patrons turned around to see what was so funny before returning to their own conversations.

  “That’s what he gets for being so cheeky,” Tom added.