Prey for the Dead (Book 3)

by Earl, C. A.

  ‘It...ends...now.’

  Sawyer’s eyes opened wide in terror. He gasped, throwing his head back as the mechanism clicked.

  Shhhhkkkkk!

  Slicing open his right cheek, the spike ripped through the corner of his mouth and sheared straight up through his nose, removing it completely. As the weapon fell with a clatter Sawyer threw his hands over his face and squealed in agony, rolling across the floor like a caterpillar on a hotplate.

  Ben watched in a haze as the man’s writhing figure landed in front of the open grill and was immediately grabbed by four spidery hands. Whipped into white-hot frenzy by the promise of warm flesh, they clawed at his shoulder and then caught hold of one flailing arm, pulling it back through to their side.

  Now a bloody, gurgling mess, Sawyer was unaware of losing a glove until he felt slimy jaws clamp down on his naked fingers and then bite into the meat of his palm. He shrieked, desperately trying to pull his hand back, feeling it dislocate in at least three places.

  Less than six feet away, Ben Reilly, utterly spent, flopped over onto his side. Through rapidly fading vision he watched as incredibly - unbelievably - Sawyer somehow managed to pull himself free.

  But he was not alone.

  Locked onto his bloody stump of a hand, its own bones dislocated in a dozen different places, was a tiny former child. Despite his injuries, Ben gasped in surprise as the figure emerged, pushed from behind by the buffeting hands of others too big to follow. The image of the infant, hitting him like a bolt of icy lightning, was almost too shocking to bear. The matted strands of lank hair had been shiny blonde pigtails at one time. The haunted, sunken eyes had been bright and full of life not so long ago. And the faded blue party dress hadn’t always been covered in blood and bile and shit. As much as it logic rejected what he was seeing, Ben knew it was her.

  The little girl from the train platform.

  It was her.

  His eyes flickered, becoming thin slits. Sawyer had already passed out, leaving the growling child-thing to gnaw on what remained of his hand. When it finished there it might move onto the bastard’s blood-covered face.

  And then of course it would turn to him.

  With no strength left to move, Ben gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes. The pain of his multiple wounds was actually fading away now, but he knew that wasn’t a good sign. As a living, breathing human being, he was fading away too.

  Ben Reilly could never have predicted that his life would end like this. Just a few weeks ago, on the cusp of his fortieth birthday, his only concern had been how much Katie would spend on their weekend in London. Now, in what seemed like ages since that fateful Monday morning, he found himself haunted by enough horrors to last a dozen lifetimes. Of the atrocities that he himself had committed, no matter what the reason, he knew there would come a reckoning.

  Amid the thudding sounds at the door and the random muffled gunshots from outside, he finally gave in and embraced the darkness.

  ~ 18 ~

  Of all the things Ben Reilly expected to hear in death, birdsong wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t been a believer in the afterlife but now here he was, in complete darkness, with that very sound in his ears.

  Strange, he thought, so this is what it’s like.

  Unable to move his arms and legs, he tried instead to open his eyes. His eyelids ached as they quivered and drew back, and at that point Ben knew that he was still alive; a general soreness and a burning pain in his belly confirmed it. His eyes began to water at the unexpected brightness of his surroundings. Wherever he was, it wasn’t the dingy maintenance room where he had fought with Henry Sawyer.

  Opening his mouth, he ran his tongue over his lips. They were dry, as was his throat. I’m lying down but I can’t move, he acknowledged, blinking repeatedly. His vision was kaleidoscopic, a slowly rotating jumble of bright, blurry images. Then, just as a nervous frustration began to build, the images started to solidify, growing increasingly clearer.

  The birdsong pealed again and he turned his head to the left, wincing at an aching stiffness in his neck. He saw a window, opened from the bottom by about ten inches, and from his prone position he could see outside to a cloudless, bright blue sky. A warm breeze, delicious on his face, drifted in along with the birdsong. Suddenly, there was another sound within the room, subtle like the rustle of clothing. He looked straight ahead, picking up on a figure facing away from him. The person, now completely in focus, was dressed in a white lab coat and had their brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Gulping, Ben cleared his throat and tried to speak.

  ‘H-Heather..?’

  Heather Mackie whirled around in surprise with her hand to her chest. A bottle of pink tablets slipped from her fingers and hit the hard floor, the contents scattering off in a dozen different directions.

  ‘Ben, you’re awake! Oh my God! J-just hang on a minute! I’m just...oh Jesus!’

  Ben watched as the woman reached for a door handle before wrenching it open and disappearing out of sight down an unfamiliar corridor. Still not fully compos mentis, he tried to lift his head up from the pillow but immediately abandoned the attempt. Exhaling loudly, he desperately tried to focus his mind. He was on a bed in a room that he didn’t know - but how did he get here and why couldn’t he fucking move?

  Oh God. Oh God, no.

  A terrifying fear suddenly took hold of him. It was often said that amputees could still feel limbs that were no longer there, itching toes that had long since been removed.

  That was it.

  His arms and legs were gone.

  Panic, raw and visceral, hit him like a freight train. He cried out, shaking his head wildly from side to side. Glistening sweat broke out on his forehead and flecks of white foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. He was utterly consumed with a marrow-deep despair; so much so that he was unaware of a group of people bursting into the room until one of them rushed over to place her hands on either side of his face.

  ‘Ben! Oh, thank God!’

  Shuddering, he looked directly into the woman’s eyes. Raw emotion surged through his body on seeing familiar, unmistakeable, piercing blue.

  ‘Katie...no...no..!’

  He began to cry, tears streaming down his cheeks as his wife leaned in to kiss him. Feeling grotesque, he tried to twist away while sharp pains jabbed at various parts of his body. The drugs used to stifle his agony were beginning to lose their potency.

  ‘Here, give him some water!’ said one of the other voices.

  Katie Reilly brushed her own tears away and reached out as someone offered her a glass. Then, turning back, she placed a hand behind her husband’s head and tilted it forward ever so slightly. Still sobbing, Ben took a trembling sip. And then another.

  ‘Not too much at first’ warned another voice from somewhere else in the room. This time it was an unfamiliar, older male voice.

  Katie lifted the glass away and gently lowered Ben’s head back onto the pillow. Heather Mackie was alongside her now, leaning in for a closer look.

  ‘How are you feeling, Ben?’ she asked softly, paying close attention to the whites of his eyes.

  Ben jerked his head away, almost laughing at the cruel stupidity of the question. Grinding his teeth, he glared at the two faces above him.

  ‘How...do...I feel..?’

  Katie frowned and put her hand on the side of his face. He flinched and gave a sharp gasp.

  ‘Listen’ said Heather, fiddling with something in her hands. ‘I’m going to give you something that will help you relax.’

  ‘No...’

  ‘It’ll help with the pain, Ben.’

  ‘No!’

  Before he could move his head again, strong male hands came in from both sides, pressing down on his forehead and holding his jaw, immediately stopping him from thrashing about.

  ‘Please don’t hurt him!’ cried Katie. ‘Please!’

  Acting as quickly as possible, Heather moved in with the hypodermic. Through muffled cries Ben continued to fight against
those holding him but to no avail. In seconds Heather was backing away again and a strange euphoric sensation started to course through his body. Almost immediately the white hot panic was gone, replaced with a heady feeling of tranquillity. Despite knowing it was induced, for Ben it felt like slipping into a hot bath after coming in from the cold on a bleak winter’s day. It took only seconds for his breathing to ease and then the hands holding his head were cautiously withdrawn.

  Katie leaned over him again. ‘You’re okay’ she said with a sniff. ‘You just need to stay calm, otherwise you’ll rip your stitches out and undo all the work that’s been done. Please promise me you’ll try to stay calm.’ Acknowledging his barely noticeable nod, she turned around to glower at someone behind her. ‘For God’s sake, can’t we take these things off now?’

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. ‘Katie, what...’

  All of a sudden there was activity around him again; people pointing and mumbling to each other while stooping down on either side of the bed. He heard the clink of buckles being opened, clips being undone and cords being loosened.

  He felt freer.

  ‘Sorry’ Heather said sheepishly. ‘We had to take precautions, y’know. We just had to be sure that-‘

  Ben didn’t hear what Heather Mackie said next. His whirling mind was already addressing more urgent concerns. Mouthing a silent prayer, he took a deep breath and then tried to move again. Relief surged through him as he slowly raised both hands in front of his face.

  ‘Oh...shit...thank...God! I thought I was...’

  Lifting his head off the pillow, Ben looked down and gasped at his toes wiggling beneath the covers at the base of the bed. Sinking back again, he put a hand to his brow and covered his eyes while his entire body shook with emotion. Not sure whether to laugh or cry, he gritted his teeth and thanked every single deity he could think of. For two agonising minutes he had thought himself a quadruple amputee. Now even his right arm, although incredibly sore, seemed to be working again.

  Ben wiped his eyes again and looked to his left. Previously unnoticed, a plastic intravenous tube led from his bruised forearm and snaked away to a stand beside the bed. He looked right, noticing another two lengths of tubing that ran from under the covers; one to another stand, the other to somewhere out of sight below the bed frame. An amber coloured liquid within the plastic tube combined with the pain in his groin made Ben realise what that was.

  ‘You’re okay’ Katie reiterated, seeing the incredible relief etched into his face. ‘We made it’ she added, taking his hand. ‘I don’t know how, but we made it.’

  He squeezed her hand and she leaned in, pressing her temple to his. He kissed her on the lips and then tried to sit up, wincing at the pain in his belly.

  ‘Be careful’ warned Heather, her head bobbing up just behind Katie. ‘Take your time. You’ve still got quite a bit of healing to do. You’re not out of the woods yet.’

  Ben grunted and gave a nod, wincing as Katie moved the pillow behind him to make the task easier. It was only now, after the raw emotion of the last few minutes, that he finally noticed the other people in the room. Besides Katie and Heather, there were another three.

  Standing on the left side of the bed was a face that Ben vaguely recognised. It took a few seconds for him to figure out that it was Sam Rickard, the straw-haired individual that had been part of the group keeping watch from outside the leisure centre.

  ‘So I s’pose I’m not getting my clothes back?’ the thin man jibed, reminding Ben of their most notable interaction.

  Ben smiled weakly, his attention already moving to two unfamiliar faces standing at the foot of the bed. The first belonged to a studious-looking, grey-haired man in gold-rimmed spectacles, resplendent in a tweed jacket, crumpled cream shirt and grey cardigan. Pinning a label on him, Ben took a guess that he was either a man of medicine or a Geography teacher.

  ‘I’m Doctor Kane’ said the stranger, confirming Ben’s first guess. ‘And you, Mr Reilly, are one extremely lucky chap.’

  Ben nodded in acknowledgment and then looked directly at the last person. Dressed in army fatigues, the tall, muscular individual looked as though he had been born on the battlefield with a gun in his hand. Around his fifties, he had a grey, buzz-saw haircut and a tanned face scarred with old war wounds.

  ‘This is Captain Miller’ chimed Katie. ‘He and his men came to the mansion. Then Ash led them to Paige and the others. It was them that saved you.’

  Miller straightened and put his arms behind his back.

  ‘Thank you’ gasped Ben. ‘I don’t know what else to say but...thank you so much.’

  ‘You were in quite a bad way when we found you’ said Miller, his voice grating like stone on stone.

  ‘Yeah’ added Sam Rickard. ‘We thought you’d turned already, what with all that blood on your face...’

  Ben touched his fingers to his lips, vaguely recalling biting off part of a man’s ear. The savagery of that moment came flooding back to him along with other random, confusing images. Still hazy, he was suddenly aware of the thickness of the stubble around his mouth. His heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Jesus. How...how long have I been out?’

  ‘Six days’ said Heather. ‘That’s why you needed the drip. You’d have died without it.’

  ‘Six days?’

  Lifting the covers, Ben looked down at the thick layer of bandages wrapped around his naked belly and also the two lengths of plastic tubing inserted into his groin and side.

  ‘You were lucky’ Heather continued. ‘You would have bled to death if Sam here hadn’t done what he did. He used electrical tape to patch you up until I could attend to you properly. Your throat was badly swollen too, so as we were dealing with your wound I took the chance to put a feeding tube directly into your stomach.’

  Ben’s mind replayed his final moments of consciousness in the maintenance room. The image of the little girl chewing on Sawyer’s mutilated hand suddenly appeared front and centre. He wanted to ask directly about her but something stopped him. Maybe in his barely conscious state he had imagined the whole thing.

  ‘What about Sawyer?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Dead’ Miller answered sharply, accompanied by a steely glare.

  Ben gulped. ‘So - are you saying it’s over?’

  Miller shifted his stance. All eyes were on him now.

  ‘It’s just a matter of time. We’ve completely regained the South and we’ve had word today that a situation in Suffolk is about to be resolved. At present, we have the enemy on the ropes. They don’t have the troops to back up their ambition and they still don’t have a functioning communication system. With them isolated and unable to access any intelligence, we’ve been able to get the upper hand. It may take weeks; possibly a month, but we’ve got this.’

  ‘So it was just us, then? I mean, it was just Britain?’

  Miller nodded. ‘Yes. The whole country is locked down for the foreseeable future but we’ve been promised support from Europe and America as soon as we can determine the nature of the virus. At the moment no one’s getting in or out. It’ll take time and it won’t be easy, but we will win this war.’

  Swept along by the soldier’s confident words, Ben squeezed Katie’s hand again. He smiled at her and she responded in kind, although her expression was tainted with uncertainty. Ben looked back at Miller again.

  ‘So who were they?’ he asked. ‘I mean, I know they sounded British but-‘

  Sam Rickard snorted and turned away. At the same time Miller took his hands from behind his back and rubbed his palms together.

  ‘We’re still investig-‘

  ‘What?’ Ben interrupted, looking around the room in disbelief. ‘You still don’t know?’

  ‘Oh they know, all right’ said Sam. ‘They’re just not saying.’

  Miller gave the straw-haired man a death stare and took a deep breath before focusing back on Ben.

  ‘You have to understand, Mr Reilly; this is a much more complex situation tha
n you realise. This enemy is unlike any that we have ever faced. Their...methods, such as they are, have never been seen before.’

  Sam sneered. ‘Oh, really? What methods, exactly? You mean methods like making dead people walk again? You mean methods like turning them into monsters that want to eat people?’

  Miller scowled.

  Ben shook his head. ‘I just don’t get it. Surely you’ve taken some of them as prisoners? Surely you’ve questioned them?’

  ‘Mrs Mackie?’ Miller prompted, inviting Heather into the conversation. ‘Can you please explain to Mr Reilly why this is not quite as easy as he thinks it is?’

  ‘They kill themselves’ Heather mumbled, ‘either with a bullet to the head or with poison. I’ve seen it on their bodies more than once; a hollow tooth with cyanide or something similar in it. That’s why none of them have been taken alive.’

  Looking for back up, Heather stared at Doctor Kane until he gave her a supportive nod.

  ‘So’ stated Miller, ‘now you realise what we’re up against. We are winning this war but it may be some time before we find out everything we need to know. Now, I’m sure that some of you have your conspiracy theories but I can assure you that my main aim, and the aim of my superiors, is to wipe this enemy – whoever they are - from the face of the earth. For all its faults, this is my country’ he added, gritting his teeth and showing real emotion for the first time. ‘I will not lie down and see it destroyed while I still have breath in my body.’

  Once again, Ben could not help but be impressed by the soldier’s words. Rather than question him again he just looked down, taking a moment to remember all those that had been lost these last few weeks. Once more tears welled in his eyes as he remembered one person in particular. ‘Katie?’ he croaked. ‘Matt’s gone. He’s dead. He turned...and I had to...I had to...’

  Katie’s lip quivered and a lump formed in her throat. Although already aware of the younger Reilly’s death, she had no idea of Ben’s role in it. Leaning over, she kissed the top of his head.