The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  “Metal merchant?” I asked, cocking my head to one side as I looked at Highlander.

  “Aye, gonna check this place out, grab a couple of things, and then hopefully send the boys back for a big supply run in a couple of days.” Highlander brushed the hair out of his face and rolled his shoulders. His grin had fallen, even though his tone was still light. “Used to get all my stuff from here, back in the day.”

  He was back in his own memories, his eyes squinting up at the squat building in front of us with its faded red roof. His expression darkened further and I wondered what he was thinking about—what memory was making this normally jovial man seem so sad and distant, like he was lost in the past. Or maybe not lost, but found in the past, remembering a time when things were better.

  Despite the sadness engulfing his features, I bet he would have liked to stay there in those dark thoughts and memories. In a time when things were better.

  “All right, weapons ready. Be quick, be quiet, be efficient. We don’t know what’s going to be in there. Could be empty, could be filled with the rotters. So be ready for anything.” Shooter looked around at all of our faces, his cold blue eyes holding mine for a moment longer, and I knew in that moment that he was wishing—not for the first time, no doubt—that he hadn’t allowed me to come along. Despite me showing him that I could fend for myself, he hated the thought of willingly bringing me toward any kind of danger. Some things changed in life, but that never would.

  Crank threw his cigarette to one side and cracked his neck as he gripped his hammer in his right hand. “All right, let’s do this then.”

  Wordlessly we all headed toward the main gates. There was a big padlock on them, but a couple of swings of Crank’s hammer destroyed it easily and it fell to the ground with a heavy metallic thud. I rolled my shoulders, the throb in my joints from doing too much too soon making me look around uneasily. I really hoped the place was empty because I wasn’t sure how much more I could swing that thing. The material was beginning to rub, and the extra weight pulling on my arm was growing more and more uncomfortable.

  It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? How something can be perfectly fine one minute and then the next not. That was me right then. I couldn’t say anything though, or Shooter would know that he had been right all along and it had been too soon for me to go out, acting like we were Sid and Nancy again.

  The main doors had metal shutters pulled down, and after a quick inspection, Highlander began walking around the side of the building. Around back it was just as quiet, though there were some notable dark stains on the ground that could have been oil or mud, but were more likely to be dried blood.

  There was a large pull-down shutter at the back, but that one already had the lock broken off it and the shutter was lifted a foot or so, which was both good and bad. Shooter’s brow furrowed deeper as he glanced over at us all and then led the way toward it.

  We stood to the left of the entrance, listening intently for any noise coming from within, but it was as silent as the rest of the place. Deathly quiet. Crank dropped to the ground and then rolled underneath and into the darkness, and we all stayed, waiting quietly to see what he reported back. After several minutes he stuck his head back out.

  “Nothing that I can see,” he whispered, and Shooter nodded. Crank disappeared back inside, and one by one we dropped to the ground and rolled underneath the shutter also, heading into the darkness within.

  I let my eyes adjust for a moment or two before standing up and getting my bearings as I looked around us. The place smelled of damp and mildew, and rows of racking were spread out before us. But there were no deaders, so that was a win in my book. It was hot in there, and the sound of flies buzzing was enough to turn my stomach, which was ridiculous considering some of the things I’d seen in my life, but there it was. I hated flies. Despised them, in fact. Gross little dirty poo-eaters! It was one of the worst things about the early apocalypse days: so many goddamn flies. Everywhere you went they were just there in huge swarms, buzzing around you, waiting to see when you would die so they could basically puke on you and then suck you up.

  The men had started to move further into the darkness, and I followed, looking around warily. My gaze fell to a small makeshift camp that looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. There was a sleeping bag that was dirty and covered in black gore (cough) blood. Someone had been staying there at one point, but by the looks of things, it hadn’t ended too well for them.

  I felt a pang of sadness in my chest at that thought. There weren’t many of us left in the world, and to see that someone had been alive—alone, but alive—so close to the clubhouse and a new form of civilization, but was now dead…well, that just sucked. That wasn’t the right word, and I knew that, but there seemed little point in searching my brain for a more appropriate word when sucked would be sufficient enough. Dead was dead and it sucked no matter which way you looked at it or what word you used.

  “Nina.”

  I looked up at the whisper of my name on Crank’s lips. I hadn’t realized that I’d stopped and was just staring down at the destroyed camp on the ground. Cans of food lay open on their sides, their contents long gone, blankets were dirty rags, and an old camp stove stood amongst the ruins like an offering to some long-forgotten god.

  Crank came to stand next to me, the scent of his masculinity filling the air. He stared down at the ground with me, a sad sort of longing on his face.

  “It sucks doesn’t it?” he said with a heavy sigh.

  I didn’t have time to reply as he turned on his heel and walked away, and I followed him without word.

  Because yeah, it sucked, but there was nothing we could do about it.

  My footsteps resounded around us no matter how quietly I tried to walk, and as I caught up to the others, Shooter turned to glare at me. Highlander grinned like a hyena and I gave him the middle finger, which only served to make him grin more.

  “Ain’t no dainty ballerina, are ya?” Highlander whispered to me, mimicking me stomping across the floor, and I couldn’t help but smirk this time.

  “Shut up,” I bit out, pushing the smile away. I turned my attention back to Shooter. “Seems pretty empty.”

  “Nah, there’s someone here,” he replied immediately. “That shit out there, that’s a ploy.”

  “A ploy?” I asked incredulously. I looked over at Crank, who was already pulling out his spear from a sheath on his back, no questions asked.

  “Aye,” Highlander agreed readily. “And they’re smart.”

  “Not that smart,” Shooter rumbled. “They’re about to die. You ready, Nina?”

  I nodded, holding my arm up in front of me, my machete attachment still covered in the dried blood from the earlier deaders. My heart pounded in my chest, making me feel a little nauseous. It was my first time out of clubhouse in months. I only had one actual arm, and it was only the second time using my fancy new arm contraption. And there I was on a killing spree like I was Xena, warrior princess, ready to take on the world.

  “Deaders up ahead,” Crank said, making the situation ten times worse, a fresh cigarette dangling between his lips.

  “Crank, Nina, you two go take care of them. Highlander, you’re with me,” Shooter ordered.

  My heart just about fell out of my ass at his words, and yet I followed Crank into the darkness toward the sound of the dead. I was pretty sure I heard Highlander say “atta girl” at my retreating back, but I was too scared out of my mind to say anything in return. Besides, I was pretty sure he meant it in a good way. If not and I made it out of there alive, I’d kick him in the nuts later.

  13.

  Nina

  The deaders looked like little kids, like eight or nine years old, but I still felt nothing as I swung my machete into their heads and their gray brain matter sloped off the edges of their skulls as they fell to the ground. If anything, I felt glad that I could finally end it for them.

  A girl of no more than ten came toward me, arms outstretc
hed, cloudy eyes unfocused, steps stumbling over her fallen brothers, and I took a deep breath and sighed before swinging my katana across her little neck. My aim wasn’t as accurate anymore—not that it had ever been amazing, but it was definitely worse after so long of no practice. My katana skimmed across her face, shaving some of her features off, and I grimaced, feeling guilty and a little grossed out.

  “Dayum, Nina,” Crank said from my left. He’d replaced his spear and was using his hammer. “That was vicious.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I retorted, and took a step backwards to give myself the proper space to swing again.

  She was relentless in her pursuit of me, and even with half her face shaved off and splattered down her faded flowery shirt she continued onwards in search of food, aka me. I swung again, that time with my machete, and I lodged it in the side of her skull. She paused, like I’d hit a button, and then her body sagged. I pulled my machete out and she fell in a heap at my feet.

  “Jackpot!” Crank said, and patted me on the back. “Round one goes to us.”

  I glared at him. “They were just kids.”

  “Dead kids that would have eaten you and I alive,” he said.

  He was right, and I knew he was right so there was no reason to feel angry at him, and yet I did. I felt angry that those little kids had had to go through all of that. That they were dead. That they had become tiny little murderers in their afterlife.

  “Don’t think on it so much,” Crank said with a raised eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “I’m an overthinker. It’s what I do best.”

  His face broke out in a huge grin. “Nah, girl, you insult people in the best possible way. You make most of us quake in our boots. You fight like a warrior, you look hot in tight leather, and I bet you’re great in bed. Overthinking ain’t just the only thing you do best.” He winked and started to walk back toward Shooter, and I hated that I felt my cheeks heat from his words.

  Heading back toward Shooter, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being watched. Like there were more of those dead little children hiding in the shadows, waiting for us. But the dead don’t wait, they attack on sight—but it was a small comfort.

  Shooter and Highlander had been on their own little killing spree when we found them; kids again, I noted with a shudder. They were just finishing them off when we arrived, and Crank swung his hammer straight into the face of a teenage boy, smashing a huge hole in the center of his skull. Everything caved in—nose, cheeks, eyes, mouth—and I was grateful when it fell backwards, finally dead.

  “Brother, you need something…” Highlander was staring at Crank. “…a little less…”

  “Brutal,” I said, interrupting. “He needs something a little less brutal.”

  “Agreed,” Shooter said, staring down at the thing at our feet. Crank was grinning, looking satisfied with his kill.

  I wafted a handful of flies away, muttering angrily. “Not dead yet.”

  “All right, Highlander, where to?” Shooter asked.

  Highlander was already moving toward what I supposed used to be a reception desk where you would order what you needed. H reached the desk and picked up the small sign from on top, a quirk at the corner of his mouth as he examined it.

  “Fucker finally did it,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. But then he turned to us, holding it up. “Ed was my buddy. He’d been trying to make partner for years.” He held up the name plate, which read Ed Clarke partner.

  He looked at it once more before placing it back down and heading behind the desk. He shook his head, a smirk on his face as he rummaged through the paperwork. Finally, he pulled out a stack of papers and quickly scanned them.

  “Aisle 34 and 19 are where we need to be.” He looked up, glancing past us toward the darkness. “We should head to the workshop too, check and see if the equipment is still there. If so, we need to grab that too when we come back.”

  We all turned to stare further into the large warehouse, blackness entombing the building. It was obvious that none of us were too keen on heading back there—who knew what was hiding in the dark?—but we had no choice.

  “This place had been used for a base,” Highlander said. “Ain’t too keen on heading into pitch black, my friend.”

  “Maybe it was just these kids,” I said with a shrug, but I knew I was wrong.

  “Nah, they were left behind for security,” Crank said. “Did you see the weapon strapped to their backs?”

  “One had a mask hanging from his waistband too,” Shooter said.

  “A cult maybe?” I suggested.

  “Whatever it is, or was, I don’t like it. Masked, weaponized children are my Achilles heel.” Highlander pulled out a small hip flask and took a sip, and I shook my head at him, one eyebrow raised. “Och, don’t look at me like that.”

  “Masked, weaponized children…” I tutted. “Since when did you realize that that was going to be the one thing to make you crumble? Was that in between bloody battles with hordes of the undead, half-starvation, and the end of mankind as we know it?” My words were serious but my tone was not.

  “It was right around month nine of no sex, actually, Queen B. A sex-starved and hungry man has many epiphanies. This was my main one.” Highlander held my stare, and I couldn’t decide if he was messing with me or if he was being serious. Either way I rolled my eyes and looked away. “But we need this stuff, so I’ll face my fears. We’ll need to clear this place of anything or anyone that don’t belong here and get our boys back to retrieve the machinery.”

  “Agreed,” Shooter said. He looked up toward the roof, where I noted that there were small windows along the top of the building. They’d been covered by something to stop any light from getting in, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. Who would go to the effort of doing that just to make this place even creepier?

  “Okay, so let’s get going. Keep your weapons tight and be ready for anything. Dead zombie kids aren’t going to be the only surprise in there, that’s for damned sure,” Shooter said with a heavy sigh.

  We set off, back into the darkness, our gazes checking all of the dark spaces where people could hide. It was a scary, scary world when you had to worry so much about other people and the zombies became the least scary thing about the end of the world.

  Why couldn’t everyone just live in harmony? Just try to get along? Fight the dead, not each other? Yet that would never happen. People were greedy for power, for control, for whatever they could own. It had been a simple fact when the world wasn’t a rotting corpse, but it was even simpler now.

  People wanted power.

  They lusted for it.

  They killed for it.

  They would do anything for it.

  You could dress it up as survival or as cleansing the world or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, but it was always control and power, really.

  Every man ever in power would tell you the same thing. Every type of world leader, whether it be a president or an army sergeant, knew this. And if you couldn’t control it, then you killed it.

  And we were no better now.

  Stalking through that dark and haunted place, hunting for whatever lay within it, ready to kill them at a moment’s notice. Dead or alive, it was survival of the fittest, it was the ones who held the most power that would walk away.

  A flash of something to my left caught my eye and I frowned into the darkness, wondering if I’d imagined it. I poked Highlander in the side, and when he looked over I pointed into the darkness. He nodded, his gaze narrowing as he stared between the shelving slats intently.

  We reached a fork in our path: left, right, or straight ahead. Left was black—like total blackness, right wasn’t much better, and straight ahead was through a doorway that had the lock torn off it and a sign tacked to the front of it that read in crude handwriting, Door number one.

  Shooter looked back at us and we all nodded in complete and total silent agreement. We wanted to see what was behind door number one.

  I st
ill wasn’t certain that we weren’t being watched; the hairs on the back of my neck told me that we were in more danger than we realized, but we were also too far into this thing to turn back.

  Shooter placed his hand on the doorknob and pulled it open quickly. He had a huge hunting knife in his hand, with a large, serrated blade that was already covered in zombie goo, and he held that up now as he looked into the room beyond. A couple of seconds went by before he stepped inside and we followed blindly, wondering what the hell we’d gotten ourselves into.

  Room number one was not what we expected. In a good way.

  There was a huge throne—honestly, that was the only word for it—at the far end of the room. It looked like it had been built from all the miscellaneous parts that had been found there, Game of Thrones style but with less finesse. The rest of the room was fitted out with tables and chairs, beds, and racks of food and water. And we realized, all too late, that we had walked into someone’s camp. Like, we had known there were people there, but by the looks of this place, it wasn’t the amount of people that four people could take on.

  And it was way too late to back up and leave.

  Whispers sounded out from the shadows, and I saw little white faces darting between the shelving.

  “Och, what did I tell you about weaponized children?” Highlander said in a hushed voice.

  “Should have gone for backup,” Crank added.

  “Fuck,” Shooter added as people came forward.

  Lots of people.

  Or should I say lots of kids. Either kids or dwarves.

  Each one of them wore a mask. They were white, with crudely painted lines and faces across them. And each one held a long spear.

  Worse, none of them looked frightened by us. I mean, it was kind of hard to tell because of the masks, but they stalked forward as one, weapons in hand and no hesitation, so I was guessing that they weren’t in the least bit frightened by us.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Shooter said, holding his hands up as he tried to placate them.