A cloth was thrown over my face and I had a moment to wonder what was happening before the water hit me. Fun fact. When you have a wet cloth pressed over your mouth and nose and water streaming down onto it, you very much feel like you are drowning without the actual death at the end of it.
I struggled in my bonds, gasping for air I couldn’t find as hands held my head still. A thoroughly unpleasant experience that seemed to go on without end. It was a glimpse of the hell that might await me were I a religious man, an endless dying without the final respite of death.
The water stopped and the cloth was removed. I sucked in gulps of air and spat errant water from my mouth, coughing and gasping all the while.
“That,” I said when I finally could speak again. “Was not as bad as I expected.”
No questions that time, just the cloth thrown over me once more and another bucket of water slowly poured over my face. I gasped and struggled in my bonds, I wanted to scream my rage, to kill them all, but all I could do was feel what it was like to drown.
Once more the cloth was removed and I spat water and sucked down as much air as I could. I coughed and forced a smile, weak as it was.
“Told you he wouldn’t be easy to break,” Isaac said and someone replied though I couldn’t quite hear what was said.
The pink haired girl came back into view and she looked down at me with something akin to pity in her eyes.
“How many people are on your island?”
“Would it upset you if I told you that I didn’t know?” I said with a burst of laughter.
I expected the cloth and when it didn’t come, I squinted up at the bright light, wondering what new torture they would try.
The chair back rose to bring me up to a sitting position and I blinked my eyes rapidly as I tried to adjust them, focusing as best I could on the people around me.
Two men, I recognised as the ones that had brought me from the cell stood over by the far wall, cloth and bucket in hand, waiting for the order. Isaac lounged against the wall beside the door, chewing a fingernail.
Pink haired girl stood beside another man, one I didn’t recognise. He held a large tablet and tapped on the screen as he spoke quietly with the girl.
Short, with wispy grey hair running around the side of his head and nothing on top but pale skin and liver spots, he had a bulbous nose that dominated his face and wide glasses balanced atop it. To my surprise, he wore a pale green suit complete with waistcoat and bow tie and his leather shoes were polished brightly.
He looked up and nodded slightly before turning his attention back to his tablet and tapping on it once more. He handed it over to the girl who placed it on her clipboard and took two steps towards me.
“Ryan Sawyer,” she said and I went still, wondering how she could know that. “Born in the winter of 1979. Never married, no major debt and no dependents. Not even a pet.”
I glanced at the old man, unable to fully hide my surprise at hearing her speak of things I had not mentioned since before the fall of the world.
“You received a police caution as a teen and had several complaints filed but no charges brought. Your DNA, however, was placed on file after your arrest at age nineteen.”
She licked her lips and looked back at the old man. He inclined his head, a barely noticeable motion but enough for her it seemed.
“Under investigation for the suspicious death of Sophie Ross after your DNA was found when she was not. There was never enough evidence to build a case and while you were questioned, nothing came of it.”
“However, while investigating the disappearance of three people believed to have been murdered, you were the prime suspect. A warrant was issued for your arrest on the twelfth of September, 2014.”
That was news to me and I couldn’t quite clear the grogginess from my mind to focus on what that meant. She could have been lying but that would imply they knew more about me than I suspected anyway. Why would they make up something about suspected of murder unless they knew I was a serial killer?
The date too, I recognised, as it was the day that Lily had knocked on my door.
“It would seem we have a serial killer in our midst,” the old man said in a voice that sounded like ancient leather being rubbed together. “And one, I might add, that owes us some thanks.”
He looked at me expectantly and I stared back, wide-eyed not sure what to say other than, “Why?”
“Because,” he said with a smile that could only be called sinister. “If we hadn’t unleashed the plague of undeath on the world, you would have been in prison for the past year.”
I simply stared at him, not entirely certain that he was telling the truth and for once in my life, not feeling totally in control.
“Now,” the pink haired girl said. “How many people are on your island?”
Chapter 13
There was something in the air, something that was affecting the good people of our island home. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but it was there. Visible in the faces of the people that crowded the street, in the way they laughed and danced and sang around the bonfires.
Perhaps it was the return of the CDF troops to their guard posts throughout the town or perhaps it was the ration of whiskey that had been provided when they presented their meal chits. Or maybe, it was just the tables loaded with food that they could pick and choose from freely.
Whatever it was, I could feel it. That change, that feeling of optimism and hope that hadn’t been there before. Things were finally starting to improve.
Not that there weren’t still a mountain of issues awaiting my attention, but for that moment, right then, I could walk through the fire-lit streets of Stornoway town and appreciate that I had managed to do something good.
“They’re having fun,” Cass said with a nod of her head towards the group of men and women dancing suggestively to the music coming from their radio. “I bet nine months from now there’ll be more than a few new babies.”
I laughed along with her and my hand went, without conscious thought, to rest on my own stomach.
“Speaking of, how’s your little one?”
“Sleeping, I hope. Teething troubles at the moment and she kept me up half the night then was cranky all day.”
I nodded politely and offered a sympathetic smile as I pulled my coat closer around me, feeling the chill despite the bonfires that seemed to sit at every intersection.
The festival was, it seemed, a success. With the limited time available she had managed to organise people into groups that somehow turned the limited foodstuffs we had available into a veritable feast of interesting and flavoursome dishes.
Bunting, made from colourful scraps of paper hanging from string, were strewn from the buildings, wood had been gathered for bonfires and patrols set up to ensure no one got carried away and did anything they would regret in the morning.
On the whole, though, people were behaving themselves. After my execution of Shahid and summary sentencing of her people, few were willing to risk their fate. Not that no one had. Our jail had increased its number of inmates in the past few days and soon enough the training would begin in earnest.
“Any word from Gregg?” Cass asked and I shook my head.
“Nothing.”
I couldn’t hide my worry but then neither could Cass as she slipped her hand into mine, seeking what little comfort I could give.
We carried on walking through the town, just enjoying watching the other people participate in the festivities. I took a bowl of food that steamed gently with a grateful smile to the middle-aged woman who gave it to me.
A hand grabbed the bowl from mine and I glanced back at my escort, irritation clear on my face. The woman who had taken the bowl lifted her hood enough to sniff at it and spooned a small amount into her own mouth.
I waited with as much patience as I could muster as the black-garbed bodyguard waited, bowl in hand, to see if she had just ingested poison.
“A little bit of an overrea
ction, don’t you think?” Cass murmured.
“Just a bit,” I agreed.
The woman who had provided the bowl of food watched us with some consternation and when her eyes went to the acolytes, they filled with fear. I had no doubt she hadn’t poisoned the food but some of the people had a definite fear of the Dead.
After what my bodyguard deemed a suitable time to see whether any poison would have taken effect, she passed me back the bowl of slowly cooling food and stepped back. I held back a sigh and tasted a spoonful myself.
“It’s very nice,” I said to the woman who handed a bowl to Cass.
“Do you..?” she asked, offering a bowl to the nearest bodyguard.
“No,” I said when they didn’t respond. “They will eat later. Thank you, though.”
She nodded and turned away, ladling more food into bowls for the festival goers. I carried on my slow walk through the crowd, chewing on the food and watching the people go about their business having fun.
It was hard, I realised, knowing that I was outside of that now. I couldn’t just join that group by the fire, dancing, laughing and kissing with free abandon. No, I had responsibilities and the fate of our entire species on my shoulders.
Not that I could blame anyone but myself for that. I had chosen my path and I wouldn’t change it. I would spend the remainder of my life working to ensure my people were kept safe, no matter the cost to myself.
“Penny for them,” Cass said with a sad smile.
“Just thinking of the work we need to do and what’s coming,” I said, lowering my voice as best I could.
She nodded and squeezed my hand, her smile fading and beautiful brown eyes glimmering with unshed tears. She understood, as I did, and had made her own choice. She too would do whatever she could to make a world worth living in for her daughter. She’d already paid her price for that choice with the death of her lover.
“I miss him, you know?”
“Ryan?”
“No, Pat,” I said and she had to blink away tears. “He was such a good man.”
“Yah, I know.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence and it was only as we approached the building that was our destination did I speak.
“Wait out here.”
“My Lady! No!”
Lisa, the black-garbed bodyguard who had fought beside me against the Ferals released by Shahid, too her job seriously and I knew she would die before letting harm come to me. She’d proven that once already by placing herself in the path of the undead to buy whatever time she could for me and the people I was with.
“Guard the entranceway. I won’t need you inside.”
“Let me at least clear the building!” she implored and I almost smiled.
“Samuel is inside waiting.”
I could practically hear the grinding of her teeth as she tried to decide what she should do. On the one hand, she needed to ensure the building was safe but on the other, if Samuel was indeed inside, she would be showing by her actions that she either distrusted him or didn’t think he could have checked the building himself.
“It’s fine,” I said, taking pity on her. “Leave the others outside and you can come with us.”
Her hand slammed against her breast in salute so hard that I suspected it would leave a bruise but she gave the orders for the others to play guard and pushed past us to enter the building first.
She stopped just inside the doorway, back stiff as she caught sight of the four acolytes lounging around the entranceway. They nodded in greeting to her, faces hidden by their black-cloth hoods, and I hid my smile at her obvious displeasure.
“Lead the way, Lisa,” I said softly and she saluted once more before walking past the bemused acolytes with her back straight and head held high.
Through the building we walked, allowing her the time to check each of the rooms we passed. It made the going slower but she was happier for it and I was willing to put up with a slight delay for that. It wasn’t her fault that she had been assigned to guard me and she was only wanting to do her job well. I could respect that.
She stepped through the final door and came to an abrupt halt, hand hitting her breast once more as she saluted Samuel, the principal leader of the cult she belonged to. Leader until Ryan returned at least.
“You may leave,” he said and she nodded, spinning on her heel and stepping out into the hall, pulling closed the door behind her.
“Samuel,” I said with a smile of greeting and then turned to the others. “Thank you all for coming.”
The assorted members of my new cabinet and Admiral Stuart all voiced their own greetings as Cass and I moved across the room to join them.
“Charlie,” I said with a nod for the girl who seemed a little dumbstruck with so many new people crowded near her computers.
“Boss.”
“Are you ready?”
“As I ever will be,” she said with just a hint of nervousness in her voice. I smiled reassuringly before turning back to the gathered people.
“Thank you all for coming.” I paused, taking a moment to look at each of them in turn. “I know you all have other things you’d rather be doing right now, but I’m afraid this is important.”
“As you know, Charlie here has been keeping a watch on our island with the aid of her drones. Her team have been doing an amazing job with the little resources they have and they have a few matters that you all need to be aware of.”
“Such as?”
I looked over to the woman who had spoken, Minister Shepherd. Her dark hair, streaked with grey was as greasy as the day I had first seen her and whenever I looked at the sharp angles of her face, I couldn’t think of any other way of describing her other than weasel-like.
As a minister under the previous government, she had often been at odds with the admiral and argued with him about everything he tried to do. For all that though, she wasn’t a supporter of the previous first minister and Cass believed she could be trusted to do what was right.
I was about to put that to the test.
“Probably better to show you,” Admiral Stuart interjected, not at all fazed by the glare she sent his way.
“Well show us then!”
I waved for Charlie to begin and she began tapping furiously on her keyboard. We’d opted to show them everything, for good or ill. I had no intention of hiding things from my own people.
They watched the screens in silence as Charlie ran through the same video recordings she had shown me just a few days before. I was all too aware that they were a week old and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing the new videos.
“Any questions? I asked as the videos ended.
“You took a risk showing us that last one,” Minister Jones said. “It speaks well of you that you did.”
“Aye, that fat bastard Wells wouldn’t have,” Minister Shepherd agreed. “Not sure I still entirely trust you but it’s a step in the right direction.”
“Do we have a location on the submarine?” Lou asked and it was the admiral who answered.
“Not as of yet. We have a ship on patrol but there’s been no new sighting.”
“Only one?” Shepherd asked with a bark of laughter. “I always thought you were too cautious but that’s ridiculous.”
“We have but the two ships capable of detecting that submarine, ma’am,” Admiral Stuart said coldly. “One is attempting to do just that and the other is holding close to the horde on the mainland.”
“About them,” Charlie said in a tone that told me I wasn’t about to be happy. “We have new footage.”
“Go on,”
She keyed in a command on her computer and a new image was displayed on the screen. It was from a drone that was hovering high about a swarm of undead that was almost twice the size of the one I had seen a week previous.
“Using the ship as a base for the drone I’m better able to keep track of them. The drone can recharge on the ship and I don’t keep losing them in the sea.”
> “It’s pretty clear that they’ve grown in number,” I said. “How?”
“They hit, like, five towns in a row. Most of the zombies had been there since the beginning and some of them clearly weren’t much use.”
She tapped in another command and the image changed, a difference scene above a town and the camera zoomed in as far as it could. I regretted eating the food as my stomach churned.
“Okay, turn that off,” Cass snapped. “We didn’t need the visual.”
“Sorry,” Charlie said with a smile that said she wasn’t at all. “They ate those that couldn’t keep up and moved from town to town. We estimate their numbers are around eighty thousand.”
“Damn,” I breathed.
My hand was pressed tight against my stomach and I didn’t dare remove it, a need to be protective of the life I carried in any way I could.
“This morning,” Charlie continued in the silence that followed. “We saw this.”
“What are they doing?” Lou asked, taking a step closer to the screen and narrowing his eyes.
“Preparing themselves,” I said.
Under the control of the Reaper, the Ferals were herding the Shamblers down to the shore. There, on the pebbled beaches, they were massing. Thousands of undead dropping to the ground and sinking their fingers in deep as though afraid to let go.
I watched in horror as they began their slow crawl, hand over hand, dragging themselves towards the waiting sea. The drone footage went on for seventeen minutes and not a word was spoken until it finished. We just watched as a horde of the undead purposefully crawled beneath the waves.
“W-where was that?” Jones asked, his voice cracking.
“Best as we can tell,” Admiral Stuart said quietly. “Less than fifty kilometres from where we stand and headed this way.”
Chapter 14
“What can we do?” Shepherd asked, her harsh voice softened by fear.
“We can fight,” I replied, simply. “It’s that or die.”
“How do they even know we’re here?” Jones demanded. “It’s not possible.”
“They’re smarter than you think,” Samuel said. “We saw ample proof of that when we fought against them in Glasgow. It most likely saw our boats heading here. You can see this island from the mainland after all.”
Killing the Dead (Book 14): Enemies Unknown Page 9