His grip tears into her arm as she’s dragged to her feet. Cupping her opposite hand, the small blade slides up into the sleeve of her shirt before she is shoved in front of him and forced to walk toward the kneeling Brother George.
“A caring one we have here, don’t we priest?” Barnett chuckles and then squats in front of Brother George. Their faces are barely inches apart. They both watch her approach. “Do you think she’d care enough to take care of some of my men here? Maybe have you watch the skills you have taught her while surrounded by the failure of your people rotting on the ground next to her? She looks like one raised and bred just right for servicing, doesn’t she?”
“Please…” Brother George whispers and then lets his head drop.
“I think that will be enough my good man,” a new voice calls out, a wet and raspy sound that startles all the soldiers within earshot.
Several check weapons and back away, their attention now drawn to the darkness coming from the dead husks of homes that was their village. Bent and limping, a creature approaches and the look on Barnett’s face turns sour. Kelly takes what strength she can from that look to grab the knife with a firmer grip before sliding it out and slipping it into her own pocket.
“What do you think you are doing?” Barnett barks. “We told you we’d come and get you after we found out what this man and his dead flock were hiding. I thought you wanted to spend your time with that ‘brother’ of yours we left you behind with.”
“His time will come, my pet. There is nowhere for him to go and so much more work to be done here,” the creature says as he draws closer.
With a clearer look, it is not an it, but a he. Bunched beneath a pile of wet clothes layered haphazardly and looking more like a living stash of dirty laundry than human, a trail of slime and mud trails behind a man freshly dragged from the sea. A snail who not even trained killers approach but Barnett refuses to back away.
“Watch your words. I’ve spent a lot of time indulging your fantasies and turning the other way with your ‘collecting’, but I will not be spoken to like this in front of my men.”
Snail man waves his comments away with an arm draped by wet clothes and steps to the side to approach Brother George. The look on her father’s face turns hard as granite.
“Now this is a surprise, cousin. You are definitely the last person I thought I would find here. I thought maybe ol’Uncle had given up on this little experiment of his. I guess even the best of us get it wrong sometimes. But this definitely makes things more interesting,” the stranger says.
“I am not of the same blood as you and you disgrace my father by claiming as such,” Brother George answers and begins to draw himself back to his feet.
A long spindly hand with a crooked finger and a nail longer than a tongue presses down on the sweater’s shoulder and he stops to settle back on the ground.
“But you were the first to claim that all beings where children of your father. Isn’t that how you had it written down, or is that just another lie you had buried beneath all that pretty language? More beautiful lies to keep the sheep in check, are they?”
Brother George turns away.
“Who gives a fuck who this man’s father is? All I want to know is what he has to do with the infected,” Barnett storms before grabbing and spinning the stranger around. “You have done nothing but feed me rumor after rumor about what these people have been doing and what has it gotten me so far? I’ve lost good men and nothing to show for it. If you don’t give me a reason in the next two seconds why I shouldn’t leave you dead here with these pathetic people, you’ll be worm food, which honestly smells a lot better than you fucking do at this moment.”
“Tsk, tsk,” the stranger says.
A white hand of skin wrapped bone shoots out and hits Barnett in the chest sending the fat man tumbling into the dirt and weeds. Men raise their weapons and Kelly edges her way backward. No one is paying any attention to her. She looks at Brother George whose eyes meet hers.
She hesitates, and the slightest curl of his lips precedes his look moving from her to a point away from the violence and the death. The road that leads out of town is silent and empty. Anymore fighting and they’ll never see her go.
“You stupid, sadistic, son of a whore!” Barnett storms as he rolls on the ground and finds his feet. His face looks about to pop and his hands shake so much he can barely wrap his fingers around the grips of the pistols laying on the ground beside him. “All that I have given you and this is how you repay me? For this fucking little town?”
The chuckle that leaves the stranger is deep, and it echoes through the depths of the dead village. Dark birds lift high into the air, their cawing a menacing sound as they flee into the shadows of the darkened day.
“Given me?” the stranger asks.
His laugh shakes the entire pile of wet towels. Barnett reaches him in a half dozen heavy steps and the pistol in his hand does not waver.
“I will take more from this world than any that has ever come before me. The remnants of the horror I have wrought will be written in the new histories and my name will be screamed by the tortured upon their dying breath. My brothers will never equal what I have done. My father will see that I have learned all there is to learn, and I will rise by his side. My rightful place, earned and paid for with the blood of all you insignificant fools!”
Barnett goes to squeeze the trigger, but the bony hand is out faster than a blink of an eye and with a single arm the large bastard is lifted from the ground by the throat where his feet dangle like a little child’s.
“Do not think to pester me or give demands to those who will squash you like the little bugs that you are. Pawns in a game of chess played by beings who insignificant thought is longer than a single lifetime your species sees on this world. You are nothing but grains of sand passing in the wind. You will bow down to me and worship me with your last breath in hopes that I show mercy where you deserve none,” the man says.
A gun shot fires and the impact of the bullet is nothing more than a pebble thrown against a wall. Green pus spews from the opening formed in the layers of wet cloth and everyone freezes, even Barnett who stops kicking.
Kelly begins to back away. A step or two, then more as the sudden urge for distance becomes more than a need but a propulsion forced by a firm hand ushering her away from the violence. She cannot turn away as the distance grows. The green liquid sizzles and spews a white gas as it hits the dirt. The man who fired the shot sits still, his rifle lowering.
“Have it your way,” the man says.
Kelly can still hear him even though they have forgotten her entirely, and she has cleared Nicholi’s body. Barnett goes flying like a weightless shirt as the stranger begins to laugh and a chanting picks up into the air. The soldiers open fire, their guns a thunder that shakes the ground and burns the air.
Turning and running, Kelly covers her ears, but the storm is too loud. Cracking with pain, her ears pop as louder than the martial thunder of gunfire, the demonic words take on a calling she can almost recognize. The language is foreign, the tongue nothing like she has ever heard before, but the urgency is real.
Inside she can feel its pull for her to turn and come back, but crying and running, she easily breaks free of its hold. Ahead the darkness unfolds and begs for her to enter. Shadows stretch, and she is running into a world she knows nothing about. Legs burning and chest pounding, she pushes on as the monsters and demons of the darkness begin to take shape.
Veering right and then left, she does not know where to go. She can’t turn around. Certain death awaits if she goes back, but ahead shapes appear and disappear before her. Even hundreds of feet away from the church she can still feel the words.
The pounding of boots on pavement approaches and she dives to the ground. Crawling, a hedgerow of bushes lines the beaten path leading into the village and she curls into a ball to lose herself in the shadows.
A stampede shakes the ground she lies on as whatever it is
draws closer.
There must be hundreds of them. Pulling the knife from her pocket she holds it against her chest for what comfort it can give. Within moments the first of the creatures emerge. A slow twisted jog at first, the infected shambles up within sight of the first building. Nose risen into the air, it sniffs a wet sound as blood and pus leak from open wounds. A broken tooth smile stretches across its face as the words of the call grow louder and the dull eyes of others begin to appear.
Kelly can smell nothing but rot and filth in the air. Like mold baking in the sun, the putrid smell of decay precedes the army that follows. She wants to scream at the sight of them, but her mind is lost in fear and pain. There are hundreds. A monstrous army with the feeling of unrelenting hunger following in their wake.
An explosion rocks the earth as a dark plume of smoke rises from the center of the village. The infected heed their master’s call and charge past the first of the buildings. Screams of monsters and people fill the air.
Kelly rolls away from her small shelter and runs in the opposite direction. There is nowhere to go. This world is lost. Everything is dead and soon she will be as well. Cold hand gripping lifeless steel, she runs, and the fire of her tears is no match for the flames licking at her heels. She must put as much distance between her and this place of nightmares.
She will not stop.
She must keep going.
If she doesn’t, they will catch her.
If they catch her, then she knows she will die.
21
Should Have Left It Behind
The choice is made and the regret sets in all too quickly. Deserted streets. Empty buildings and mangy cats. Rats as big as dogs looking for food and their eyes of fear and suspicion watch as Merchant walks the streets.
It is hard to distinguish the difference between the looks in the eyes of the people who live here, and the animals left to fend for themselves. They are scared. Clothes lines swing in the dry air, empty clips twisting as sheet metal bends and ripples a song of emptiness and regret. The soldiers have left them behind. To fight a war they may not return from. For in this world just stepping outside your door is a risk. Those few who remain to guard hardly look at one man walking the street with a woman held closely before him.
Dark clouds rumble overhead and anyone who isn’t beneath a closed roof keeps their head down and the two passing along the empty road do not look their way. Strangers in the evening, their image is hardly a memory that will hold for more than a moment as the minds of those within this world slip further away from sanity.
“I’m so hungry,” Red trembles.
“Quiet now,” Merchant whispers. “You’ll have whatever you want to eat the moment we get outside the city gates.”
Red stumbles.
One foot drags over another and she trips forward. With quick hands, Merchant wraps an arm around her body and hauls her back to standing with little effort. The disease has already taken so much of what was returned to her. Back to the depths of her insanity, she is little more than the clothes he wrapped her in to get her out the door. Baggy denim pants. A filthy shirt smelling of week old sweat and mildew. Its gray color is either a trait or a symptom and it’s hard to tell which. The thick leather boots, worn thin at the front toe, clap like clown shoes against the hard dirt beneath their feet.
“Slowly, Red. We are almost there,” Merchant says.
Teeth snap at his neck and she tries to spin on him, but a squeeze of his hand forces her to remain with her back toward him.
“Watch it now,” he adds, his voice growing deeper.
“Sss… sorry,” she stutters. “It is harder this time to fight. I’m so hungry. It’s like my thoughts aren’t my own and there are gaps in my memory. I… I don’t even remember where we came from.”
“Then stay quiet. Follow my lead and keep your head down. We’ll get this fixed and we’ll find the one who did this to you.”
Red nods her head before wiping away at the drool sliding from her lips.
The large wall looms before them. Huge doors of iron and rust locked shut and the shadow it casts grows darker. Silhouettes of the men who patrol the top move back and forth. They remain unchallenged. Night approaches and with the darkness comes the battle.
Tonight, there will be none. Those who fight and claw their way through waves of bullets and war to feed on the flesh of the people within are not here. They have an easier target this afternoon. Softer flesh with less fight to keep back their hungry appetites.
Merchant does not hesitate as he approaches the locked barrier. There is no way to open it from the outside. Up within the guard tower there must be some control that pulls it open and shut. Letting Red slip behind him, he turns along the wall toward a set of stairs that lead to the top. Metal creaks beneath his boots and he can feel Red’s body practically press against the back of his bag as they climb upward. Her presence and weight hardly noticeable against the pull of the burden.
“Any of you looking for some help tonight?” Merchant asks as he reaches the top.
Leaving the last step, the stairs open into a wide square platform with a thatched roof of aged grass pulled tight. Two men look up, their eyes darkened with exhaustion and the cards on the three-legged tray table between them showing the one on the left is having a far luckier night than the other.
“Who the fuck are you?” the one on the right asks.
All facial hair with no cleaning. Knots and snarls curl their way beneath his hat and the skin beneath is pasty and white. He’s quick to put down his hand and turn away from the game. Probably ready to lose again.
Neither of them turns their eyes from Merchant.
Good.
“I’m the new guy in town. Halton said while everyone is out that any useful hands were to report here to the wall. I figured you’d be expecting the same fight you had the other evening,” Merchant says.
“You mean we have every night,” the one on the left answers. He drops his cards on the table face up. More kept than the other, this one is clean shaven, though the long brown hair beneath his cap reflects the light of burning candles with a sheen at least a week old. Three Kings hit the table, and he quickly wraps both hands around the small pile of coins sitting between them. “Tonight better be different or we are all in for a hell of a fight. Damn assholes took eighty percent of the regiment and left us with barely a skeleton crew. Who isn’t here on the wall is spread thin as it is to patrol the streets and keep the damn looters out. Every fucking time to. Every. God. Damned. Time.”
The loser of the two waves the other off with the back of his hand and stands. Both wearing army fatigues stained and worn with age, he extends his hand. Merchant shifts the bag over his shoulder so he can free his own arm and takes the young man’s hand. Early twenties, if he’s lucky. More like a child than a man as Merchant gives it a good squeeze and keeps the grip.
“Name’s Merchant,” he says with a small tug that pulls the soldier a step closer. “I was wondering, is this the tower that opens the gate down there?”
Counting the coins he has stacked in front of him, the other flips one into the air and catches it before letting the light of the fading sun catch it with a flash.
“Both sides technically have a switch but ours is the main control. Box panel is over there. One lever opens and the other closes. Just hope the assholes on the other side don’t get up to their usual bullshit and try closing everything before whoever is coming or going finishes. Nothing short of a damn tank can stop those doors once they go to being shut.”
“Good to know,” Merchant says and with a crack of the wrist, drops the one still within his grip to his knees.
“Ow!” the man tries to yell but stumbles as Merchant’s elbow finds him square in the throat.
Red’s brittle hair waves in the air as she spins around Merchant like a shadow and pounces on the other. Chips and coins fly into the air as cards spill in every direction. The table falls with a cheap plastic sound before quickly
being followed with the wet sound of breath pushing through a gaping hole in one’s throat.
With a twist of the wrist, Merchant forces the other back to his feet and then to backpedal to the far end of the tower. The young man looks down at the bloody mess Red is leaving behind and his face pales while his eyes bulge at the sight.
“Keep your eyes on me, boy,” Merchant growls. “Let’s get those doors open and we’ll make sure she is full of your friend here before we leave. Fuck with me and she gets a dessert. Do you understand?”
The man’s lips begin to move but Merchant is quick to twist his grip harder and the soldier’s knees begin to buckle.
“Concentrate! Open the controls and release the door. There are two ways out of this and by the look on your face, you don’t want to choose that one.”
With a nod, the man pinches his lips shut and shifts until he is looking at the control box. Pulling keys from his pocket, his hands shake and the half dozen keys rattle until he settles on one. The scratching of the surface as he stumbles to finish the job does little to hide the sound of Red feeding. Her growls of hunger and pleasure are feral and inhuman. Merchant doesn’t know if he’s made a mistake by letting her get it out of her system, but it is not like he has much of a choice. A little food will help keep the sickness at bay. He has more beef sticks, but there isn’t a supply in this world that can feed what she has. There is only one way to do that, and he isn’t ready for that option.
“Hurry up, boy. She looks like she is about finished,” he warns.
Merchant can feel the strength in the young man’s arm weaken as he rushes to get the box unlocked. With a final click he throws it open and as promised the inside is little more than two leather wrapped control levers.
“Which one is it?” Merchant asks.
The soldier turns to look as the sound of bone being crunched beneath teeth rattles the air. A bulge grows in the man’s throat and his lips pucker as Red pulls a long sinewy tendon from the dead man’s shoulder with her teeth and the blood on her chin glistens wet and thick.
Traveling Merchant (Book 2): Pestilence Page 23