The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  O’Donnell smiled, but it was something bitter like she’d sucked on a lemon and I smiled back at her, knowing my smile was just the same. We were one and the same, O’Donnell and I. Both in love with a man we couldn’t have. One that would never truly be ours. We were strong, but broken, we were envious and full of disdain. But we still went…just like the little engine that could. That was us. We were engines, determined to keep on going despite everything that was thrown at us.

  Only, maybe one day soon I’d be done. My engine worn out and ready to retire. That was how I felt now. Weary, used up, my bones and muscles creaking from overuse, straining at the corners as sinew clung on tightly to hold my body together. But how long could it really hold on for?

  Battle raised his thick arm in the air and motioned for us to all stop. We did, and we crouched down as we all listened as carefully as we could. I glanced over at O’Donnell, who now had her eyes closed as she tipped her head to the side to listen harder. Her eyes opened suddenly and she looked across at Timbo and SJ.

  Water, she mouthed, and they both nodded.

  We looked between ourselves as we pulled out our weapons and readied ourselves to exit the trees and fight the battle beyond. I was already tired, exhaustion pulling at my aching muscles. My arm ached where the machete attachment was, still unused to the extra weight of the attachment. My head throbbed with the beginnings of a headache. Yet despite all of that, I was ready.

  I wanted it over with.

  I wanted it ended.

  I wanted…no, needed, to move on with my life, especially after hearing that O’Donnell and Mikey were going to get married. It was time to either settle properly with Shooter or move on and let him go. It wasn’t fair on either of us to keep stringing him along.

  One way or another, after today, things would change

  Battle gestured for us to move forward slowly and we did, creeping through the undergrowth, avoiding the twigs that would snap underfoot as we moved closer, the sound of water flowing growing louder.

  Ahead of us, sunshine could be seen through the trees, and bodies moved about. I frowned, confused at their strange movements. Nothing would shock me with these people anymore, and yet I couldn’t help but be puzzled.

  I nudged O’Donnell and she looked over at me, mouthing a silent what? I tilted my head in confusion and frowned and she mimicked my gesture, looking ahead of us, her brows furrowing further.

  We reached the edge of the trees and stopped in our tracks, our eyes falling upon Savage women standing with their backs to us, the stench of something rotten in the air. The waterfall was small but noisy, and it fell into a small lagoon before trailing off into a series of small rivers, several of which had obviously been carved out to control where the water went.

  A cooking pit was set up with small wooden stools crudely carved and placed around it, and smoke rose from within, the scent of cooking food mingling with the stench of something foul in the air.

  There was also what appeared to be a small lake with a fence all the way around it, and I guessed it was to stop the dead from falling into it and contaminating their water supply. I squinted, wishing my eyesight was better or that someone would move so I could get a better look.

  And then, as if they’d heard us, the two Savage women that stood by us moved forward to talk to another woman that walked into the clearing. I stared hard at the fenced area, realizing that it was barely a trickle of water that led to the lake, and that in fact it wasn’t a lake at all.

  It was a pit.

  A pit filled with deaders.

  I reached out and gripped O’Donnell’s wrist in my hand and I squeezed. She jerked out of my grip and glared at me and I leaned in close to her ear.

  “It’s not a lake,” I whispered. “I mean, there is a lake, it’s only small and that’s further back. Look,” I said, pointing towards it.

  “So what’s that then?” she asked, confused.

  “It’s a pit,” I replied, turning back to look.

  And now I could see it. Now it was perfectly clear. It was a pit of deaders. Hundreds of them. And the fence was to keep them in, not keep them out.

  As we watched, some more Savage women came from somewhere to the left. Trailing behind them was a handful of deaders stumbling with arms reaching, desperate to catch up and sink their teeth into the nice warm flesh of my enemy. I would have liked nothing more for them to catch up, too, but clearly that wasn’t the plan. They were led toward the pit, and as they got closer two Savage women opened the fences and the deaders were pushed into the pit with long sticks before the fences were closed behind them.

  The pit of zombies growled and snapped as the deaders fell on top of them and the whole herd surged forward, their franticness growing at the sight of humans so close. The Savage women paid them no mind at all, as if a pit of zombies was nothing to be worried about. My stomach tripped over itself and I couldn’t stop my thoughts from swirling in anxiety at the very dark realization that these psychos might be more psycho than we’d first anticipated. And that was a lot.

  The other deaders stumbled back up to their feet, barely acknowledging that their brethren had fallen on them, and then they continued as they were—arms reaching, jaws gnashing—as the gates were closed on them again. Their new contributions to their flock were accepted.

  Battle looked back at us all, his expression horrified, and I didn’t blame him.

  Savages we could fight and kill. Savages could actually die pretty easily; despite them being psychos, they were only human, after all. But if those deaders got out of the pit, then we were all completely screwed. Zombies added a whole new mix to this war with the Savages, and one that I hadn’t really contemplated.

  But the biggest question for me was why?

  Why did they have hundreds of deaders rounded up like that?

  Why go to the trouble?

  Why risk everything?

  Because if they did escape, those zombies weren’t just a danger to us, but to them as well.

  31.

  Nina

  “This changes everything,” O’Donnell hissed to Battle.

  “This changes nothing,” he replied back, his tone low and threatening.

  She opened her mouth to speak but Timbo, a tall guy with unruly hair and a Depeche Mode T-shirt on, stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Things must change. We must rearrange them,” he said seriously, but O’Donnell just glared at him. “All that I’m saying. A game’s not worth playing. Over and over again.”

  I stared at him in a weird kind of awe at his weird little riddle, but fully accepting of it. Because honestly, I couldn’t agree more.

  O’Donnell shrugged out from under his grip. “Enough of Depeche Mode, Timbo. Aiken wouldn’t want us to go in all guns blazing when there’s a pit of zombies there. We need to go back and regroup.”

  “No,” I snapped in a whisper, and she turned to look at me. “You go if you need to, but we’re going in and finishing this, now.”

  She shook her head and gave a dry, sarcastic laugh. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You weren’t there before. You didn’t see what they did, how they treat people. They’re vicious enough without a hundred zombies on their team too.”

  “What, you think the zeds won’t eat them? You think those zeds are only after our blood?” Linc sucked on his teeth and tsked her. “They have as much to lose by setting those things free as we do, and now we have the upper hand because we know that they’re there and the Savages have no clue that we’re here.”

  “They have a point,” SJ said. “I mean, I don’t like the idea of going in there with so many of those things close by either, but this is probably the best chance we’re ever going to get. Every day we let these people live, someone else dies. And if not today, then when?”

  Her words held so much truth in them and O’Donnell knew it. She’d lost friends to the Savages. They needed to die, and they needed to die today.

 
; “Okay,” she said, her voice hoarse like she even though she was saying the words, her throat was trying to hold them back. “But we have to make sure those zombies don’t get out of there. If they get out—”

  “I’ll handle them,” Gunner said, his deep voice interrupting us all. I was startled by him speaking because it had been so long since I’d heard his voice. He hadn’t really talked much before, but since the mess with almost dying he’d been even quieter.

  “God, can you stop talking all the time, Gunner!” I rolled my eyes and smirked at him, and despite the tense situation, Battle chuckled.

  Gunner’s cheeks turned pink and it might have been the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. Well, at least in a long time.

  “Nitro, I’ll need your help,” he said, not looking the other man in the eye.

  Nitro nodded and moved closer to him, and for just a moment I wondered if it was the right decision after all. If putting Nitro and Gunner together was wise. After all, they had a lot of history. Granted, it was history that Shooter had caused. He’d given orders for Nitro to kill Gunner back when we thought Gunner was hurting Amara. He’d almost killed the man. Gunner looked down briefly at Nitro and they shared a split-second look that I couldn’t read.

  “Okay, Nitro and Gunner will keep those zeds caged. The rest of us, we take out these bitches quickly and efficiently. None of them get away, you feel me?”

  Anne was looking up at Battle like she’d like to feel him in various positions, but now really wasn’t the time for that.

  Timbo rolled his shoulders, his heavy axe in his grip. He was standing close to SJ, and the two of them shared a look of solidarity. SJ was carrying a long thin knife which probably had some really cool name that I didn’t know. She nodded, and I could see her jaw clench as she looked away from Timbo and focused her attention through the trees.

  It was game time.

  Battle pulled out two knives from sheaths on his thighs. They were huge and shiny and I had no doubt that they were probably something like army issued because they weren’t the sort of weapon that you just found. “Linc, you, Nina, the big guy, and his woman go left to the lake.”

  “I’m not his woman,” SJ laughed a blush rising to her cheeks, and Timbo grinned.

  “Whatever. Don’t really give a damn who you do or don’t fuck. O’Donnell, Texas, and you two Joan of Arc wannabes, you’re with me.” He turned to face the clearing with the Savages and the deaders and what I was now affectionately calling the battle arena, and he seemed to give himself a moment to assemble his thoughts and perhaps his courage too before we headed out there.

  Silence encapsulated us momentarily and I watched his shoulders rise and fall as he took several deep, long breaths. I gave a moment’s thought to Shooter and the rest of the team that were heading into the mines, and I silently wished them luck.

  And then we were moving, quickly. And not silently.

  Battle charged forward at the same time Texas and Linc and Gunner and Nitro did, roaring like you saw in those old war movies, their weapons raised as they ran, and then the rest of us were following in their paths—though I refused to roar or scream my entrance into the clearing, and lifting the machete above my head only lasted a second or two before I felt stupid.

  We ran forward and my heart pounded when I saw the look of fear on the Savages’ faces.

  It only lasted seconds before their expressions fell back into something more fearsome, but it was okay. I had caught their fear, tasted it with my fingers, and I was holding on to it for dear life.

  They charged toward us as we all ran to where we had been instructed, and the sounds of fighting and calling out filled the air. Timbo thundered along beside me as we headed to the lake where four of the women were attempting to climb into a small rowing boat, and Timbo launched himself into the water. He gripped the side of it and began to drag it back to the shore with one hand while swinging his axe wildly with the other.

  SJ pulled out a gun and took aim, and Linc waded in and swung what I could only describe as a broadsword at one of the Savage women who was seconds away from decapitating Timbo. He swung it at her legs and she screamed and fell backwards off the boat and into the water, the water turning pink around them.

  I heard footsteps behind me and I turned, my machete raised, thankfully. A Savage woman with a head as smooth as an egg and eyes as dark as coal had a long thin knife in her hand and struck it toward me. My arm attachment took the blow and I swung back automatically, almost like I was backhanding her. Only it wasn’t the back of my hand that struck her, it was my machete, and she screamed wildly—an ear-piercing scream that made me feel sick. Sicker still when I realized that my machete had sliced off the front of her face.

  She threw her hands up to her face and dropped to her knees as blood pumped between her fingers. The slab of skin I’d taken off stared up at me accusingly, but before I could contemplate anything else she fell forward, whimpering, her shoulders shaking.

  I thought of all the things I’d heard about these people. The things they had done. Those they had killed. And I wondered how many people that woman had killed. And then I stood over her shaking body and I plunged the edge of my machete through her neck. Her body stopped twitching and I dropped to one knee, pulled out my knife from my sheath, and stabbed it through her ear, straight into her brain.

  When I stood up and looked around, I saw fighting at every turn.

  Blood being spilled.

  Bodies falling.

  Screams and cries and roars of anger.

  It was a horror movie, and the backdrop was the zombies who were going insane in the pit, the scent of blood hanging so strongly in the air driving them crazy.

  Gunner and Nitro were squeezing a liquid over them from bottles, but I didn’t have time to contemplate it as two Savage women ran toward me. They looked furious. Not the usually stoic expression they tended to have. No, these women looked enraged.

  Linc and Timbo were still battling it out with the women on the boat, only now just one remained, and there was the crack of SJ’s gun going off every once in a while, so this was on me.

  I sheathed my knife and raised my machete, blood already dripping from the silver blade. Not that the two Savage women seemed to care. They attacked front on and I planted my feet and swung with intent, the clash of my machete and one of their knives sounding out loudly. I grunted with the effort of swinging again so quickly as the other woman moved to my side and attempted to strike me.

  I stumbled backwards as I dodged the blow and I willed myself to be stronger. To not be the broken woman that O’Donnell and everyone else likely saw me as. I wanted to prove them all wrong. I had to prove them all wrong.

  Grunting, I gripped my machete tighter in my hand and put all of my strength into swinging at the closest Savage woman, a tall, thin redhead with long dreads down her back. I hit her in the side, and I felt my blade cut through the leather of her clothing and slide through the flesh at her waist. I pulled my weapon back out and blood sprayed the ground at her feet. Her hands went to the wound as she dropped her knife, and I took the moment to swing at the other woman.

  My first hit missed, but it didn’t matter as SJ’s gun popped loudly and the woman fell to the ground. I pulled out my knife and stabbed her through the back of her head, listening as SJ shot the other woman, and then I did the same to her.

  I was panting, bloody, and felt sick to my teeth from the smell and the blood and the fact that I was killing people so brutally. It didn’t matter what they had done; I was still accountable for my actions, and these actions would haunt me later.

  I stumbled back up to my feet and glanced around me, seeing no more Savage women anywhere, and I frowned, confused as to how it was all over so quickly. How it had started and finished within minutes.

  Flames now leapt from the pit of deaders as Gunner and Nitro set them alight. Not that it mattered to the deaders. They continued to claw and snap at the air in a feeble attempt to be free from their prison.
Flames leapt across their faces, licked down their reaching arms, and scorched their bone-dry throats as they growled for death.

  “Timbo!” SJ screamed, and I spun full circle until I was facing the water again, and I watched in horror as Timbo was dragged under.

  SJ ran toward the lake and waded in, even as Linc grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back out.

  “I’ll get him!” he was yelling in her face as I ran forward.

  Timbo’s face pushed through the water and he gasped for air before behind dragged back down. He was further away now and Linc waded in deeper. The next time Timbo’s head bobbed at the surface, Linc reached down and grabbed his shoulders and hefted him up. I ran in, the water swimming around my waist like ice-cold tentacles, and I grabbed at his shirt with my good hand and helped to pull Timbo from the water.

  Linc and I pulled and pulled, slowly dragging a groaning and bloody Timbo from the water and onto the shore as the reaching arms of a deader crawled toward us. I kicked at it wildly, giving a small scream and wondering why it was so short. As it came further out of the water, its hands grabbing at the sodden earth and pulling itself up, I realized that this had been the Savage woman that Linc had hit in the legs. In fact, he’d taken her legs off from just below the knees and then she’d sunk in the water and drowned.

  And now here she was.

  Timbo groaned and reached for his legs, and it was then that we noticed the tears in his jeans and the bloody teeth marks beneath them. SJ ran forward, a knife in her hand as she grabbed the Savage deader by the hair and held her face up so she could look her in the eye.

  “You bitch!” she yelled, and then she plunged her knife through the forehead of the Savage deader and released her head.

  SJ dropped to the ground beside Timbo, the shallow water soaking into her clothes, and she peeled back the torn denim from his legs, wincing at the sight beneath.

  “Is it bad?” he asked. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s fine,” SJ said with little conviction.