“Why is that?”
If the guards had been compromised, then I would do more than punish them for their allowing an enemy within the walls.
“A bunch of pricks in hoods?” The man laughed. “They’re not in the same league as what we’ve faced. We’ll tear the fuckers apart.”
Three of them, each with a long-bladed knife. I had no doubt that they had other weapons secreted about their persons. They were most likely leading an assassination attempt which may or may not be a precursor to an attack.
Smart move. Kill Lily and there would be enough chaos that an attack might actually work. They could also be looking for me. After all, if they were part of the raider group I had spent a good part of my year killing, they would have cause enough.
“We gonna do this or just keep fucking yapping?” moon-face asked her boss. I cocked an eyebrow at her and followed that with a half-smile.
“Creepy fuck. Why isn’t he pissing himself?”
“Take the kids and he’ll soon be begging. At least when I’m done with them, he will.”
The large and ugly man was definitely going to die screaming.
“Who are you?” the leader asked me instead of replying to her companions.
“I believe that I asked you that first.”
“Just fucking kill him,” Moon-face snapped.
The leader's expression hardened as she replied to her companion with a half shrug of her shoulders. I allowed myself a smile of satisfaction. While I had promised Lily that I would stay, there had been no promise that I wouldn’t enjoy myself should the chance arise.
I looked down at my daughter, smile widening as I reached down and pulled the wooden knife from her hand. The killers laughed at that and I gestured for Angelina to step back beside her brother.
“Time for me to show you another lesson,” I said as I raised that wooden knife and looked the leader straight in the eyes. “One that will be fun for you.” I paused and risked a quick look back. “Gabriel, you might want to close your eyes.”
Chapter 13
My heart thundered in my breast as I ran towards the screams of pain that were coming from far too close to my home. To my children.
I ignored the white-sashed people waiting at my door, and the black-garbed cultists standing at their posts. Straight through the house and into the gardens at the rear.
A small crowd huddled at the edge of the trees just off the pond. Black clothing and face masks, and there, in between, was Cass. She was pushing her way through the crowd, my children’s hands clutched tightly in her own.
She saw me and hurried over. Gabriel, with tears running down his cheeks reached for me as Angelina looked back over her shoulder, almost being dragged along by Cass as though she was unwilling to leave the source of the screaming.
“What happened!”
Cass shook her head and pulled the children along.
“You need to deal with that. I’ll take them inside.”
My mouth dry and fear sending the adrenaline surging through my veins, I couldn’t understand what was happening and watched for a moment as Cass hurried past, dragging my children along with her.
I needed to know what had happened and I pushed through the crowd into the shade of the trees beyond. Another scream was wrenched from a throat that surely couldn’t continue for much longer and I stumbled to a stop in a cleared glade, stomach heaving at the scene before me.
Ryan had told me, when I asked why he had done those terrible things as he journeyed home, that the world was full of monsters and the only thing that scared monsters was something much, much, worse.
Standing there, his clothing stained with blood and a look of grim satisfaction on his face, was my beloved. The man who was my very heart, was forcing his thumb into a woman’s eye as she screamed and screamed, and I knew what he meant.
Another woman lay off to the right, face bloody and broken so that she was unrecognisable. The rock that had done the damage lay red and sticky beside her lifeless body. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond to the sight as the woman gave one last ear-splitting shriek before blood burst from her ruined socket and she lost consciousness.
Without missing a beat, Ryan rose to his feet and crossed quickly to the man who was desperately trying to crawl from the clearing. A trail of blood on the muddy leaves from the gaping wound in his stomach led from where Ryan had disembowelled him.
“Stop!”
The high-pitched cry was my own and I was startled by the amount of fear it contained. Ryan looked back, death in his eyes, and I took an involuntary step back.
As though seeing me for the first time, he shook his head, that darkness fading from his gaze as the man I loved returned. He raised a hand in greeting, seemingly unaware of the blood coated wooden knife he held.
“Hello, Lily.”
“What are you doing?”
He glanced back at the wounded people and then back at me, confusion crossing his face as though he truly didn’t understand the question. Which was very likely the case.
“Who are these people? Why are you doing this?”
Another glance back at the people he had oh so very badly hurt and he lifted his shoulders in a disinterested shrug.
“I was working on finding out who they were when you stopped me.”
“Someone cut through the timber of the new wall. A man died,” I said, mind racing. It couldn’t be a coincidence that had happened at just the same time three armed people had broken into the garden around my home. “It was them, wasn’t it?”
“Probably.”
The male whimpered as he dug his fingers deep into the dirt and pulled himself forward just a few more inches. I licked dry lips as Ryan watched me, waiting. He knew how I felt about such things and that I was intent on brokering a peace. But, they had invaded my home, where my children were.
Peace would come, but only if those raiders feared us and considered us stronger. We couldn’t show that strength by being passive. Battles would need to be fought, and won, to prove that they could not defeat us.
No matter how much I hated what had to happen, I understood that it was necessary. My mother had used to always use that silly little saying. ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.’ Well, it was time to break some eggs.
“Find out what you can.”
My voice didn’t waver as I gave that order and I didn’t flinch from the flash of ice in his eyes as the killer surged into control. It was who he was and if we wanted to win, if I wanted my children to be safe, then I would need to accept that he had to be the monster they feared, the one that only we could control.
If they wanted peace, they would have to obey our rules, else we would stop holding him back. As much as I detested the very idea, I had seen and experienced enough during the apocalypse to know that there were truly monsters out there and they wouldn’t meekly sit down and play nice because I asked them to.
“When you’re done.” I licked dry lips again, and forced myself to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Come back to the house. We have a war to plan.”
“As you command, my love.”
I stopped before I turned to leave, not wanting to watch what was about to happen. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know the answer, but I had to ask anyway.
“What were you doing out here with the kids?”
“Teaching them.”
“To do what?”
“Survive.”
Gabriel’s tear-streaked face flashed before my mind’s eye and that was swiftly followed by Angelina’s look of irritation as she was pulled away. The world was a different place to the one I had grown up in. The rules had changed.
I turned and walked away as a fresh scream filled the air. The cultists standing at the edge of the trees moved aside as I walked past and I ignored them, my gaze fixed on Cass who stood at the back door to the house, arguing with Angelina while trying to comfort a crying Gabriel.
My stomach was churning, heart bea
ting so fast that I thought it might actually burst and all I wanted to do was lay down, hug my children close and weep. But I couldn’t do that. The rules had changed along with the world and what was once unacceptable was now a necessity.
“What’s he thinking doing that in front of the kids!” Cass snapped as I came up beside her.
I lifted Gabriel from her arms and pulled him close. My sweet little boy, my sunshine. He made my heart sing every time he smiled and I needed to protect him from the darkness of the world.
“Angelina,” I said, heart breaking. “Go to your father.”
“What!” Cass’s outraged cry was only slightly higher than Angelina’s squeal of pleasure.
She was off and running across the grass in an instant, arms pumping as she sought to reach the trees before I could change my mind.
“Lily, what on earth are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that she’s just like her father.” My voice was low, full of the pain that I couldn’t escape. The world had changed and the rules along with them. “I’m thinking she needs to know how to survive in this world and he is the only one to really teach her.”
No matter how much I wished that wasn’t the case.
Chapter 14
They had all gathered by the time that Ryan returned to the house. There was a lightness to his step that had been absent of late and he wiped the blood off of his hands with a grimy rag. He seemed indifferent to that blood that had spattered over his face and clothes.
Angelina, my sweet darling daughter, bounced on her heels as she babbled excitedly to him. The smile she wore was unlike any I had ever seen her wear and her eyes glinted with the pure joy within her.
I wanted to weep.
Gabriel shifted in my arms and I cooed softly to him as I rocked him back and forth. He was far too sensitive to the horrors of the new world and he would need to get past that. He would need to grow stronger so that he could survive.
But there was time enough for that later. For that moment, he was my baby still and I would hold him until his terror had subsided.
Isaac watched my beloved enter with a look of distaste crossing his face. A long time warrior, he was well acquainted with what had to be done to complete the mission. Heck, he was hardly in any position to judge. After all, the first time he had come into our lives he had abducted Ryan to be tortured by the Genpact bosses.
Cass stood with arms crossed, eyes hard yet tinged with sorrow as she shifted her gaze to my daughter. She couldn’t understand and I knew, in part, that was because she couldn’t help but think of her own daughter and what it would mean for her, to grow up in this new world of ours.
Her brother, Gregg, merely nodded at Ryan and went back to chatting with Two, or trying to chat with her anyway. The young woman, so full of rage had little to say and eyes only for my beloved. There was no lust there, just fury at a promise yet to be fulfilled.
For once, Samuel didn’t bow as his messiah entered. Instead, he kept his face still and hands firmly at his sides. Once more, his cultists had failed and while reeling from the punishment that Ryan had already inflicted upon him, he doubtless wondered how much worse it could get.
After what I had seen in the clearing, I could only imagine it could get a lot worse.
“What did you learn?”
He didn’t respond to the tightly controlled anger in my voice, just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“They belong to the Riders. Their intention was to kill the leader of the group and then attack during the chaos and panic.”
“Then they’re out there, waiting?” Isaac pulled on his lengthening beard and muttered curses beneath his breath. “There’s too many damn places they could be coming from.”
“Will they know...” I trailed off as I realised I already knew the answer to my question. “Okay, they’ll have heard the screaming the same as everyone has and will probably realise their plan failed. So what will they do next?”
“Attack anyway,” Ryan said, as Isaac snapped a quick reply.
“Bullshit. They’ll retreat and evaluate before forming a new plan. The ambush was planned out, people who did that won’t rush in foolishly.”
Irritation flashed across Ryan’s face before he quickly smoothed it with only the slightest glimmer of anger in his eyes as he looked at the other man.
“You are thinking like a soldier. These are not that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, hoping to cut off the argument before it began.
He thought for a moment before replying.
“The ambush was planned, yes, but hardly well executed. We are still alive after all.” He dropped the rag that he had been using to wipe his hands and tilted his head to the side, thinking. “They could have stayed in the trees and fired their crossbows at us, but instead they rushed in.”
“Then there’s the three that tried to sneak into the compound. Admittedly bad luck on their part that I was nearby but if they had been watching us, they would have known that I spent my time in there every day.”
“So they didn’t have a line of sight on the house and grounds, doesn’t mean-“
“But it does,” he insisted. “These tactics they are using would work on the undead or the smaller communities full of terrified people. While there’s no doubt that these raiders are tough, they have learnt their trade fighting those zombies and small groups.”
There was a pause while he shrugged once more before adding, “They won’t react like soldiers would.”
“What do you think they’ll do then?” Isaac asked, sneering at my beloved.
“Attack. Not the main village, but with all attention here, it would be a good time to take out a few guards or a building or two. Sow chaos.”
While it was clear from the look on Isaac’s face that he didn’t agree, there was no reason not to err on the side of caution and be prepared.
“Isaac, increase patrols around the village. I want warning as soon as any are sighted.” I looked over to where Charlie sat at her terminal. “Drones too, please.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Charlie waved, rather than turning to acknowledge me and I smiled for a moment before the grim reminder of what had just happened rushed back to the forefront of my mind. “Tell us everything they told you, Ryan.”
“Why bother?” Cass snapped. “When you torture people they’ll say whatever you want them to just to make it stop. I’d rather ask why the hell he did that with the children there.” Her accusatory glare was thrown my way. “And why you sent Angelina back.”
“We can talk about that later.”
“No!” Her hand slammed down against the wood of the table. “Back before all this shit happened you would have been reported to the police and social services at the very least for something like this! We don’t have that option now so we have to look out for one another and sending her back wasn’t right.”
The heat in her voice could have melted ice as she threw the full weight of her anger at me. I took it stoically, knowing that as much as it pained me, it was the right thing to do. How the hell could I explain that and why should I?
“It was.” Fortunately, I didn’t have to justify it as Ryan answered for me. “She is not like you, and she would be best served by being guided in this rather than exploring it herself.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Ryan looked down at our daughter who was staring daggers at Cass, the woman who she knew was as much an aunt as Evie was. A chill ran down my spine at that look and I understood that I was seeing the precursor of what rose up in Ryan’s eyes as the killer came to the fore.
“I was little older than she is now when I killed an animal for the very first time.” He looked up from our daughter's beautiful face and directly at Cass. “It was a guinea pig. Pathetic as that sounds now, it was the only animal I could kill.”
“When my grandfather found me with the broken body still in my bloody grasp, he beat me. With a leather belt if I recall correctly.
Needless to say, his subsequent attempts to beat the evil out of me did not do very much to deter me. All it did, was destroy any relationship between him and my father. We stopped visiting after a time and I continued on with my dark urges.”
His laugh was full of bitterness as he reached down, touching the top of Angelina’s head and smoothing back her hair.
“While most teenage boys were in their rooms, fantasising about sex with all the beautiful people they could look up online. I dreamt only of murder. Every part of my being was spent attempting to control that part of myself.”
He paused then, eyes growing distant as he remembered those days of his youth.
“For most children, if another child hits them, they will hit back or run and tell an adult. The first time a child at school decided that he wanted to hit me, I very nearly killed him.”
“Christ, mate,” Gregg half-lifted his hand as though to reach out before thinking better of it and letting it fall back to the table.
“I do not tell you this pitiful tale to elicit any kind of sympathy.”
He could say whatever he wanted, but I knew him better than any, and the more formal he became in his manner of speech, the more difficult the subject was for him. It was his way of protecting himself, withdrawing behind that polite, well mannered, facade.
I doubted that even he realised he did it.
“Why are you telling us this?” Cass demanded, and he simply smiled before replying.
“Because Angelina is like me. The world she sees is not the one that exists for all of you. It is twisted and barren, confusing and broken in strange ways. It makes no sense and is a source of constant pain.”
“At first, it begins because you realise that others do not share that same hellish experience. For them, there is joy and laughter. Companionship is easily found and life is oh so very easy for them all when for us, it is a constant struggle.”
“The first time you kill, you are curious. You want to know what makes them so different from you and that desire to open them up, to find out why the world makes sense to them and not to you is overwhelming.”
“Afterwards, comes the anger. An all-encompassing rage that wells up inside of you because you can find no difference. They are just people, but for some reason, their mind’s are pure and unbroken while yours is not.”
Killing The Dead | Book 23 | Come The End Page 9