‘But what would they use as c…currency?’ asked Kai, still rubbing the patch where the box had struck him.
‘Oh, don’t be such a baby,’ smiled Fran, smirking to herself as she dropped to her knees beside him and went to reach under the bed to retrieve the errant box of condoms. ‘I don’t know,’ she continued, finally answering his question. ‘Sex?’
‘Now, where the…’ she started to say, before ducking down to actually look at something that had caught her interest under the bed. ‘Kai, help me pull the bed away from the wall, will you,’ she went on to say, realising whatever it was it was lying just beyond her reach.
‘Sure’ he said, grabbing hold of the wooden frame and starting to pull.
With a screech the bed started to move, until with grunt, Kai lost his grip on the bedframe and he fell noisily backwards.
‘Butterfingers,’ said Fran, rolling her eyes sarcastically before noticing the gap between the bed and the wall was now probably wide enough for her to force her arm through. ‘Oh, it’s alright… don’t get up,’ she continued, clambering across the bed, ‘this’ll do.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ grumbled Kai, watching as Fran lost her arm up to the shoulder down the other side of the bed, ‘thanks for asking!’
‘Got it!’ cried Fran, triumphantly pulling out her prize.
‘What is it?’ asked Kai, pushing himself upright.
‘It’s….’ Fran started to say just as her hand popped out clutching a wodge of magazines. ‘Oh… it’s just porn, how disappointing.’
Tossing the magazines disinterestedly onto the bed beside her, Fran idly wondered if the busty woman on the top cover was still alive, she severely doubted it and somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if Brother Alex would have found her so attractive now even if she had been.
‘Come on, let’s try the next room,’ she at last said, realising there was nothing more they could learn from Brother Alex’s belongings. ‘Who did Odelia say had the room next to this one?’
‘K…Kevin Harrison,’ Kai replied.
‘Kevin Harrison? Oh, the chess bloke,’ nodded Fran, using the only point of reference she had for the man. ‘Well let’s go see what secrets Mr Harrison’s been hiding.’
***
As it turned out Kevin Harrison had very little to hide at all. Apart from his clothes, a few books and a wallet containing a few well-thumbed photographs, his proverbial cupboard was very bare indeed.
‘Well, there’s nothing here,’ sighed Fran, glancing briefly at the a picture of a slightly younger and healthier looking Kevin on his defunct photo ID pass for Cornwall County Council social services; the dark stain of dried blood that had seeped under the plastic lamination in one corner a testament to his terrifying exodus from the mainland. ‘Who’s next?’
‘B…Brandon Arkwright,’ Kai replied, as she walked past him. ‘Ch…chess man number two. He’s d…down the corridor and just round the corner.’
‘Oh yeah, the bloke with the jumper, I remember him now,’ said Fran, picturing the tall man with his receding hairline dressed in his strangely Christmassy knitwear. ‘Wasn’t he also the only person here with any medical training? I wonder what they’ll do now…’
‘Not our p…problem,’ shrugged Kai, as they followed the dim hallway round to another set of doors.
‘Yes, but for the moment we pretend it is,’ she whispered in reply, glancing back the way they had come. ‘So, until we work out who really caused all this and they release Tom, we just play along.’
‘And then w…what?’ asked Kai, really wanting to ask what they would do if they couldn’t prove Tom’s innocence but knew that was a bridge best crossed when they came to it.
‘And then we figure a way to get the hell out of here,’ she said pointing to a door for confirmation that this was the one Odelia had indicated was Brandon’s room.
‘Easier said than d…done,’ said Kai, the irony of the statement not lost on him as he nodded that the room had indeed been Brandon’s bedroom.
Compared to Kevin’s bedroom Brandon’s was overflowing with his belongings. Boxes, suitcases, piles of books and magazines littered every flat surface and as she opened the door the very sight of the amount of stuff they would have to go through made her heart sink.
‘Oh, crap!’ sighed Fran, realising it could take them the rest of the morning just to search this one room.
‘Start here and w…work our way round?’ suggested Kai, pointing to a pile of medical books stacked on top of two suitcases.
‘As good a place as any,’ she muttered, picking up the nearest medical text book, holding it upside down and shaking it loosely to see if anything fell out. ‘Book number one,’ she continued, giving the pages a cursory flick though before dropping the book to the floor and reaching for the next in the pile, ‘checked.’
Fran had been right about the amount of time it would take them to search the room but only when Ryanne arrived an hour and a half later carrying two bowls of steaming soup did she realise how tiring the process was too.
‘Thank you, Ryanne,’ said Fran, stretching her back before taking one bowl to pass to Kai, ‘it’s much appreciated.’
‘And have you found anything?’ sniffed Ryanne, peering disapprovingly into the untidy room while hovering in the doorway as if reticent to cross the threshold.
Fran thought for a second about how to answer Ryanne’s question and then with a shake of her head, decided it was unnecessary to sully the woman’s memories of a dead man. After all, Ryanne didn’t need to know the type of magazines Kai had found stuffed at the back of Brandon’s wardrobe; fetish magazines, dark and disturbing, that made Brother Alex’s stash of pornography seem positively pedestrian by comparison.
‘No, nothing yet,’ she replied, taking a mouthful of the thick vegetable soup and guessing from the woman’s pinched expression that she felt slighted that they hadn’t immediately believed Emily’s infidelity was to blame, ‘it’s proving to be a longer job than we first thought.’
‘Hmm,’ mused Ryanne, pulling her cardigan closer about her. ‘Well, Brandon wasn’t the tidiest of men.’
‘Clearly,’ agreed Fran, gulping down her soup, not only eager to get back to the task at hand but also keen to be rid of Ryanne’s watchful presence. ‘Thanks, again,’ she finally went on to say, handing back the bowl once it was empty. ‘My compliments to the chef, that was very tasty.’
With a rather strained smile, Ryanne took the bowl from her and waited for Kai to hand her his.
‘Thanks,’ he at last said, smiling as he dropped his spoon noisily into the bowl with a clatter, ‘that was nice, really hit the sp…spot.’
‘Yes, thanks again,’ said Fran, trying not to appear rude as she handed back Kai’s bowl. ‘Now don’t let us keep you… I’m sure you’re rushed off your feet as it is.’
‘What? Oh, yes… yes, I am busy,’ Ryanne replied, realising she was being dismissed. ‘There’s even more to do since…’
‘Yes, I’m sure there is,’ interrupted Fran, trying to look sympathetic about the increase in Ryanne’s workload despite the fact it was because people had died.
For a few awkward seconds Ryanne just stood there in the doorway holding the tray with the two empty bowls, saying nothing. In fact Fran was just contemplating if it was at all possible to tactfully close the door in someone’s face, when Ryanne turned and walked off down the hallway.
‘God, she’s an odd one,’ whispered Fran, moving to shut the door behind her.
The door was just about to close when Fran stopped; further down the dimly light hall a door opened, the soft murmuring of an unseen conversation coming from within. Although she couldn’t quite make out what was being said in the room, she instantly recognised the man that suddenly stepped out into the hallway; it was Max.
‘What?’ Kai started to ask, wondering what had caught her attention only to have his question silenced by a wave of her hand.
Holding the door as close to closing as s
he could and yet still able to see down the hallway, Fran watched Max start to walk away. He was just about to turn the corner when Fran saw a second figure, another man, appear though the same open door; it was Brother John.
‘Now what are those two up to?’ thought Fran, quickly closing the door as silently as she could as Brother John started heading in their direction.
Glancing at Kai, she held a silencing finger to her lips and listened to the sound of Brother John’s approaching footsteps. It was only when they began to recede again that she dared venture another tentative peek out into the empty hallway.
‘He’s gone,’ whispered Fran, looking back at Kai.
‘Who has?’ asked Kai, still oblivious to what had just happened.
‘Brother John,’ Fran replied, sticking her head out into the hallway to look in both directions, ‘and he was with Max.’
‘Max?’ Kai repeated. ‘Why w…would he be with Max?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fran, chewing on her lip as the possibilities raced through her mind, ‘but I intend to find out. You keep watch, see if anyone comes... I’m going to check out that room they came out of.’
‘Fran, wait!’ warned Kai, but he knew it was useless to try to stop her and even before he could say anything else she was already creeping off down the hallway. ‘Fran!’ he hissed after her as he stood in the doorway, only to have her shoo away his concern and mouthed ‘keep watch’ back at him.
Stopping in front of the room Max and Brother John had emerged from, Fran gave the hallway either side of her a quick glance, making a point to ignore Kai’s look of exasperation when she briefly locked eyes with him, and then softly pressed her ear to the door. When she was sure no sound was coming from within the room, she twisted the handle, the clicking of the lock mechanism turning sounding alarmingly loud in the dim hallway, and pushed open the door.
‘Right,’ she said to herself, stepping into the small bedroom that looked very much like Brother Alex’s. ‘Let’s see what you’re hiding.’
Just like in Brother Alex’s room there was a freestanding cupboard, a small chest of drawers that had been placed under the room’s only window, an uncomfortable looking chair and a single bed above which three shelves had been attached to the wall. Taking a cursory look under the bed, Fran was rewarded with yet more boxes of goods purloined during scavenging trips to the mainland.
‘So you and Brother Alex were business partners,’ Fran thought to herself, idly picking up a tin of custard. ‘Bet you had a very profitable racket going on here…’
Suddenly something on one of the shelves above the bed happened to catch her eye and as she stared at it, trying to process what she was seeing, the tin slipped, forgotten, from her fingers tips.
‘What the?’ she mumbled, slightly stunned as she scrambled across the bed to get a better look at the small framed photograph.
Gingerly she reached forward to pick up the small silver plated frame, still not truly believing what she was seeing.
‘It… can’t be,’ she said, looking down at the tiny framed photograph, its silver plating mostly worn away by years of handling.
But sure enough, no matter how much she doubted what she saw, the man in the photo was Max, a lot younger but definitely him; and more shocking was that of the two smiling children he held in his arms, the little boy bore a remarkable resemblance to Brother John.
***
‘And w…why aren’t we going straight to F…Father Matthew?’ asked Kai, pushing open the heavy door that opened out into the jerry rigged, yet surprisingly warm, polythene greenhouse.
For a moment Fran said nothing, holding a finger to her lips as she listened for the sound of anyone that could overhear their conversation.
‘Because we don’t know anything yet... not for certain,’ she replied, once she was sure they were alone, ‘and anyway, even if by some miracle Max and Brother John are related, how does that help us? I mean, why would they go on a killing spree when they’ve just found each other again? No, there are too many questions here and not enough answers.’
‘And you think J...Jane will be able to help us?’ said Kai, not looking too convinced with Fran’s plan.
‘Well, we don’t want to play our hand too soon,’ she replied, as they followed the winding pathway through the lush greenery, ‘and asking Dave is a non-starter, he’s hardly going to tell us anything that will incriminate his brother.’
‘And J…Jane will?’ wondered Kai, pausing briefly to pull a fat pea pod free from a nearby plant.
‘Oh, trust me,’ said Fran, reaching for a pod of her own as they carried on walking, ‘I doubt Max and Jane are best buddies... she’ll tell us whatever she knows.’
‘L…let’s hope so,’ sighed Kai, splitting the pod with his thumb to reveal the fat peas within.
As the two of them tossed back the contents of their pods, savouring the brief sweet taste of the peas, they arrived at the outside door and through its slightly rippled thick polythene covering Fran could see Rod sat on a stone bench under a nearby tree poking at the ground with the end of a walking stick.
‘There’s Rod,’ she quietly muttered, pushing open the door and instantly regretting it as a rush of cold sea breeze swept past her, ‘come on, we might as well tie up that loose end while he’s here.’
Waving to the man as they slowly walked over; she received a half-hearted welcome nod in response.
‘Erm… Rod,’ she began, unsure just how to tell the man his wife had been cheating on him.
‘Save your breath, girl,’ he wearily replied, as he lent back against the tree, ‘I already know, she’s told me.’
‘Emily?’ said Fran, just to clarify.
‘Yep,’ he nodded, the look of thunder that danced across his face doing little to hide the obvious hurt that flooded in in its wake. ‘She told me about her and that Brother Christopher.’
‘Oh… and… and you didn’t know before?’ she tentatively asked, at least grateful Emily had already come clean, if only because Father Matthew had prompted Rod to talk to her.
No sooner had the question fallen from her lips than the look of total desolation on Rod’s face gave her the answer she sought. No, he clearly had had no idea of what had been going on.
‘I’m sorry… I,’ she rushed in to say, her hand reaching out, wanting to comfort him but holding back in case a floodgate was opened, ‘I had to ask…you under…’
‘Understand, yeah… yeah, I understand,’ he interrupted, his words almost breaking. ‘She was crying when she told me,’ he went on to say after a pause, looking up at Fran with sorrowful eyes. ‘The only other time I’ve ever seen that woman cry like that was when Graham was born and when her dad died... it tore me up to seeing her like that… Guess that makes me a bit of a mug, doesn’t it? She cheats on me and I feel sorry for her.’
‘It’s your life, Rod,’ said Fran quietly, knowing she had no easy answers to give him. ‘Only you can decide if you still want Emily in it.’
‘Christ!’ he sighed, wiping away a single errant tear. ‘It’s not as if either of us can even move away and get on with our lives… we’re sort of stuck here together, regardless.’
‘No, I guess you can’t,’ she agreed, a sad sympathetic smile ghosting across her lips. ‘Erm…’ she continued, knowing she had one more question she needed to ask him, ‘Rod, I need to ask you something else…do… do you think Graham knew… about Emily and Brother Christopher, could he have known about their affair?’
‘No, what you’re asking me, Fran, is do I think Graham killed Brother Christopher and got all this horror show rolling?’ he replied, his eyes daring her to contradict him.
‘Okay, yeah, I guess I am,’ she replied, folding her arms defensively. ‘Well?’ she continued, still waiting for his answer. ‘He’s your son… what do you think?’
‘Please,’ Rod barked incredulously, ‘that boy wouldn’t say boo to a goose… he acts tough but that’s all it is, an act. He’s just a fifteen year old
boy that’s been forced to grow up too quickly.’
‘Yeah, an apocalypse can do that to a person,’ sighed Fran, knowing from what she had seen of Graham in action, Rod was probably right, he didn’t have it in him.
‘But whether he knew or not?’ Rod continued, with a sad shrug of his shoulders. ‘I don’t know… I hope not… a boy doesn’t need to be carrying round that sort of secret about his mother.’
‘No, I guess he doesn’t,’ mumbled Fran as she watched Rod use his walking stick to take out his frustrations on a stubborn tuft of grass. ‘And how’s the ankle, by the way?’ she went on to ask, feeling he needed a change of topic.
‘It’s been better,’ he grumbled, giving the grass another sharp jab. ‘Of course running from hungry corpses yesterday didn’t help.’
‘No,’ said Fran, smiling sympathetically, ‘I’m sure it didn’t. Oh, by the way,’ she continued, realising she was probably done here, ‘I’m looking for Jane, I don’t suppose you’ve seen her, have you?’
‘Yeah…’ Rod replied, pointing down the lane toward the cottages with his walking stick. ‘Last I saw of her, she was with her son. What’s his name? Riley, yeah Riley… anyway she’s with him and that slow bloke with the Alsatian, I think they’re planning on moving into old Frank’s place…now that it’s empty.’
‘Thanks… but what about the door?’ asked Fran as an afterthought, remembering the way it had been ripped from its hinges.
‘Oh, Father Matthew saw to it that someone fixed it this morning,’ Rod replied. ‘He’s keen on getting them settled… putting all this behind us and getting life round here back to normal… well his version of normal anyway.’
‘Ha!’ Fran chuckled. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Anyway, thanks again,’ she went on to say with a smile, as she signalled to Kai that they were leaving. ‘See you around, Rod…and try to keep the weight of that ankle. It’ll heal quicker.’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ Rod replied with a nod, his own smile a little too brittle and strained to be truly convincing.
Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel Page 34