Monica broke through the creatures and ran through the long grass of the meadow. The same cackling laugh Max had associated with her insanity, it now came out of her with the wild abandon of a child. She spread her arms wide as if hugging the sun. For the first time in years, she was finally free.
Clop! A diseased slammed into Monica from her right. It hit her so hard her hair flayed out in a wild arc. She crashed to the ground and twisted to be free of the first diseased, but quickly ended up beneath another one. And then another.
Max let out a hard sigh as he locked the gate behind him. He had both keys in his pocket, ready to leave them at the palace for the asylum’s inmates.
His legs tired, his eyes sore, treacle ran through Max’s veins as he slowly trudged towards his friends. The barp from the asylum on his left, scatterings of diseased close by. When he got to within six feet of one, Mad Max returned, the diseased wearing his brother’s face.
Max slid the blade down his belt at the back of his trousers. He gripped his war hammer with both hands and brought it down on top of the closest diseased. His eyes burned with tears and his throat locked. He sobbed as he walked.
Maybe he would have seen it sooner were his eyes not blurred with his grief. Now he’d gotten closer to the palace, he couldn’t avoid it. Cyrus stood on the roof, a shirtless hunter behind him with a knife to his throat. Max froze. “Fuck!”
Chapter 43
“It feels so good to be out of there,” William said. He filled his lungs, his eyes still sore from the change in light.
Artan had helped William up and waited with him on the roof. The others had already set off back to where they’d left Matilda and Cyrus.
“William!” Olga’s shrill panic sent ice through his veins.
William took off, Artan beside him. His feet twisted and turned on the angled roof. He charged over the first peak and halted. “Shit!” And then to the man who had a knife to Cyrus’ neck, “Why are you doing this to him?”
The hunter, topless like Hawk had been for so long, shook when he shouted, “Come any closer and I’ll slit his fucking throat.”
Smaller than even Cyrus, but stocky like Hawk, the hunter stood much closer to Matilda than any of William and his group. She sat on the roof, holding her thigh.
“Hawk?” the hunter then said. “Dianna? What are you two doing here? What, you’re some kind of turncoats, are you? Traitors?”
Hawk stepped a pace towards the hunter, who pulled his knife tighter to Cyrus’ throat and said, “Stay back!”
Cyrus cried, his nose glistening with snot, his chin trembling with his grief.
“It’s not about being a traitor,” Hawk said. “Grandfather Jacks never had my loyalty. I came here to free Dianna, and these people helped me. They’ve shown me more care, love, and respect than Grandfather Jacks ever did. Besides, he’s dead. What are you doing here? How did you survive?”
The hunter’s voice still ran loud and then quiet, wavering with his fury. “There was a group of us who managed to find somewhere to hide. Most of them saw a boy standing amongst the diseased outside the palace. He wasn’t infected. It made them believe he could help.”
William said, “We saw that.”
“You know the boy?” the hunter asked.
William shrugged. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
“To not die.”
“Let Cyrus go and we’ll move on. We don’t want to stay here, and we have no desire to kill you. Just let us all go.”
“How do I know I can trust you? The second I let him go, you’ll kill me. I have no one left. I had one friend, and he’s now dead. We got separated by the diseased. We hid in different rooms. When I got to his room, I found him in a wardrobe.”
Olga looked across at William.
“That was you?” the hunter said.
William’s stomach tensed. Any bargaining power had been lost in that one glance. But then he saw Max climb up onto the roof. If he could buy him time … “Well, not exactly,” William said.
“What do you mean, not exactly? You either did kill him or you didn’t. There’s no grey area.”
Max drew closer to the boy, walking along the roof on his tiptoes. Thirty feet between him and the hunter with the knife. Too far away to act.
“The boy attacked me first. It was an accident. I shoved him back and he fell into the wardrobe. A peg went through the back of his head. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear.”
Tears filled the hunter’s eyes and he shook his head. He trembled more than before, blood leaking from where he pressed the knife to Cyrus’ throat.
Before William could say anything else, the hunter yelled and dragged the blade across Cyrus’ neck. Blood sprayed away from the cut, and Cyrus went down, gasping and gargling as he fell to his knees.
“No!” Max screamed and launched his knife.
The hunter turned around in time for the tip of Max’s knife to sink into his face. It turned him instantly limp and he fell to the tiles while Max screamed again, running towards Cyrus.
On his knees with Cyrus’ head in his lap, Max screamed for a third time, his pain coming out of him in waves. He stroked the boy’s face. But it was too late. Blood drained from Cyrus’ neck and he stared up at Max through dead and glazed eyes.
Chapter 44
William wrapped Max in a one-armed hug, his friend’s clothes sodden with sweat from where he’d dug Cyrus’ grave. A few hours had passed, and all that remained of their kind friend was a small wooden cross and a mound of dirt. “Come on, mate, we need to get moving before it gets dark. It’s a few days’ walk to Gracie’s community, and we need to find somewhere safe to spend the night that isn’t here. Somewhere Matilda can rest her thigh to let it heal.”
Max hadn’t spoken since Cyrus had died. His voice weak, he nodded and said, “He was a good person.”
“The best,” William said, his throat sore with grief. A tug on Max’s shoulder, he said, “Now come on.” The cries of diseased in the distance, they were yet to come into view. “We need to get out of here.”
William led Max away. Both of them stumbled on weak legs. Rest would do little for them now. Grief was a process. They had to keep moving. They needed to leave the palace behind them and live life one step at a time.
The sky had turned orange with the setting sun. They’d find somewhere to stay within the next few hours.
William walked beside Max.
Dianna and Hawk helped Matilda hobble along.
Olga and Artan walked side by side.
Gracie led them towards her community.
None of them spoke.
The swish of the long grass.
The caw of an occasional bird.
The tone from the palace grew distant.
Barp! …
Barp! …
Barp! …
End of book seven.
Thank you for reading The Asylum - Book seven of Beyond These Walls.
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Lik
e most children born in the seventies, Michael grew up with Star Wars in his life, along with other great stories like Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and as he grew older, the Alien franchise. An obsessive watcher of movies and consumer of stories, he found his mind wandering to stories of his own.
Those stories had to come out.
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Also by Michael Robertson
The Shadow Order
The First Mission - Book Two of The Shadow Order
The Crimson War - Book Three of The Shadow Order
Eradication - Book Four of The Shadow Order
Fugitive - Book Five of The Shadow Order
Enigma - Book Six of The Shadow Order
Prophecy - Book Seven of The Shadow Order
The Faradis - Book Eight of The Shadow Order
The Complete Shadow Order Box Set - Books 1 - 8
The Blind Spot - A Science Fiction Thriller - Neon Horizon Book One.
Prime City - A Science Fiction Thriller - Neon Horizon Book Two.
The Alpha Plague: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller
The Alpha Plague 2
The Alpha Plague 3
The Alpha Plague 4
The Alpha Plague 5
The Alpha Plague 6
The Alpha Plague 7
The Alpha Plague 8
The Complete Alpha Plague Box Set - Books 1 - 8
Protectors - Book one of Beyond These Walls
National Service - Book two of Beyond These Walls
Retribution - Book three of Beyond These Walls
Collapse - Book four of Beyond These Walls
After Edin - Book five of Beyond These Walls
Three Days - Book six of Beyond These Walls
The Asylum - Book seven of Beyond These Walls
Beyond These Walls - Books 1 - 6 Box Set
The Girl in the Woods - A Ghost’s Story - Off-Kilter Tales Book One
Rat Run - A Post-Apocalyptic Tale - Off-Kilter Tales Book Two
Masked - A Psychological Horror
Crash - A Dark Post-Apocalyptic Tale
Crash II: Highrise Hell
Crash III: There’s No Place Like Home
Crash IV: Run Free
Crash V: The Final Showdown
New Reality: Truth
New Reality 2: Justice
New Reality 3: Fear
Beyond These Walls (Book 7): The Asylum Page 17