Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel (17 page)

‘But then that beggars the question,’ interrupted Brother Gregory, his eyebrow arching quizzically as he tapped a finger to his lips to punctuated each word for emphasis. ‘Just where do you think you would go instead?’

‘Look, you may think you have it peachy here but as our friends clearly didn’t come this way after all, I doubt we’re going to be staying that long,’ replied Tom, holding Brother Gregory’s amused yet cold stare.

‘Really? How presumptuous of you,’ chuckled Brother Gregory, shaking his head as he turned back to the doorway, ushering Brother Mark before him. ‘You seem to be under the misunderstanding that the choice to stay is yours to make.’

With the sound of Brother Mark locking the door behind him Tom turned to Rod, his raging temper about to explode.

‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ he growled, the look on his face suddenly causing Rod to momentarily balk before he realised the man’s anger wasn’t actually directed at himself, ‘And what was that crack from ‘Holy Jo’ about the decision to stay not being ours? If he thinks he can keep us here he’s…’

‘No, no,’ interrupted Rod, trying to calm Tom down. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. You and you,’ Rod continued nodding from Tom over to Max. ‘You two probably won’t even be given the chance to stay longer than a day or so… not unless you’re a doctor or something like that, which no offense but neither of you look like you are.’

‘What! Why?’ exclaimed Max, jumping to his feet, his fists angrily clenched, clearly ready for an argument.

‘And what about the rest of us?’ said Fran, ignoring Max’s outburst, her eyes flicking nervously to Kai.

‘Oh, you’ll be asked to stay… both of you,’ he replied, noticing the brief movement of Fran’s gaze to the tall well-built young man, both of whom would be strong healthy assets to the island. ‘As will you two and your son,’ he continued, nodding towards the man, woman and boy that were clearly a family.

‘But what about Peter?’ asked Riley, anxiously looking from his father to Rod. ‘They’ll let him stay too, won’t they, Dad?’

‘Erm…’ began Dave, looking hopefully to Rod for an answer.

Even in the few minutes Rod had been with the other new arrivals it was clear to him that Peter had a mental handicap of some kind. Just whether Father Matthew would make an exception for the young man, Rod could only guess, but being trapped in a state of perpetual child-like innocence certainly went in his favour.

‘I… I can’t say either way. I’m sorry,’ mumbled Rod, looking at Peter who was fussing over the Alsatian, oblivious that his fate was even being discussed.

‘Look, Fran and I risked our lives to save yours back there at the gate, so, cards on the table,’ said Tom, looking Rod squarely in the eye, ‘just what have we wandered into here?’

For a moment the two men looked at each other, each trying to judge the other and then Rod glanced away, his decision made.

‘Well,’ he began, slowly limping over to stand on one of the bunks so he could stretch to look up into the rafters of the adjoining shop to check if they were already being observed, ‘the good news is that that wanker, Brother Gregory, is only second in command.’

‘And the bad news?’ prompted Tom, wary of what was to follow.

With a sigh he stepped back down from the bed, wincing as he put pressure back down on his swollen ankle.

‘The bad news is the bloke that’s actually running this joint is at best simply delusional and at worst a religious nut who believes he’s been chosen by God to lead those He’s deemed worthy into a new and better future… free of sin.’

‘Oh, great one of them,’ grumbled Tom, pulling off one of his boots to wring the water out of his socks.

‘Don’t get me wrong, many of us wouldn’t have survived those first few months if it wasn’t for him taking charge and organising everyone but… but Father Matthew isn’t just some desperate soul that suddenly found God when he was running for his life from the Dead. He believes one hundred percent, right down to his holy-roller bones, that the Almighty has chosen him to act out His divine will,’ Rod continued, mirroring Tom’s example and freeing his own feet from their sodden coverings, ‘and because of that, whatever Father Matthew says is treated as law, Holy law.’

‘And has anyone stood up to him, tried to give him any sort of reality check?’ asked Tom, beginning to unlace his second boot.

‘You ever tried to second guess a messiah?’ replied Rod, wringing dirty water from an equally dirty sock. ‘Well, it doesn’t go down too well let me tell you.’

‘But he’s only one man,’ said Fran, watching the filthy water puddle briefly at Rod’s bruised feet before running along the tiled flooring to disappear under his cot. ‘Surely, if everyone just stood up to him?’

‘I’m betting it isn’t as simple as that,’ said Tom, looking at Rod for conformation. ‘They believe him don’t they, or at least a fair proportion of them do. That’s how he’s managed to build this fantasy around himself and sustain it all this time.’

‘You can’t blame them I suppose,’ sighed Rod, shaking his head. ‘They were terrified, running for their lives. Fuck, most of them had just watched their friends and neighbours being torn to pieces and… and he created for them a haven, a safe place free of the Dead. He was the one glimmer of hope that shone out when hope was in dire short supply. Christ, he told them everything would be alright and it was. So to them it was just one small leap of faith to place their lives totally in the hands of the one man they knew had saved them… and most of them did.’

‘But I can’t believe he’s simply gone totally unchallenged for the last five years,’ repeated Fran, realising Rod had skirted round her previous question. ‘So what happens to those who do question his rule?’

‘You… you don’t want to know,’ Rod simply replied, his words barely above that of a whisper as his gaze lowered shamefully to the wet sock still in his hands.

‘Rod?’ Fran prompted again, knowing whatever was to come was likely to be bad.

‘Have you ever seen mob rule in action?’ he mumbled, at last looking up at the expectant faces looking back at him. ‘I mean
real
mob rule…. when people just lose themselves, just lose who they are on the most basic level. It’s happened here. Fuck! Normal, everyday, rational people… well, they... they became something savage, something wild… Christ it was monstrous, to stand by knowing there was nothing you could do unless you wanted to meet the same fate and… and all of them under the control of one man, the one puppet master pulling their strings en masse, making them commit the most brutal of acts in the name of his God.’

‘We need to know what we’ve got ourselves into here, Rod,’ urged Tom. ‘Tell us, tell them,’ he continued, nodding over to Dave and Jane. ‘They need to know it all and not just what this Father Matthew chooses to tell them if they’re to decide whether to stay or not.’

‘The worst of it is,’ Rod continued, tears clearly pricking at the corners of his eyes, ‘he actually believes he had no choice… Father Matthew truly believes he had to put them to the fire to keep the island pure.’

‘No!’ gasped Jane, guessing what Rod was about to tell them.

‘Two women and a man… they were burned alive by the mob.’ Rod finally admitted. ‘The fuckers sang hymns while the poor wretches screamed their way into the afterlife and then when it was done it was if nothing happened… it was as if they simply hadn’t existed and everyone went back to normal, just back to their regular selves again.’

‘My God, why do you stay?’ asked Dave, shaking his head in disbelieve as he instinctively pulled his son towards him.

‘It’s just like Brother Gregory said; where else is there to go?’ replied Rod, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. ‘Like you, I’ve got my wife and son to think about. It’s safe for them here… can I really risk their lives for what were a few moments of madness?’

‘But still…’ Tom began to say, before Rod held up his hand to silence him.

Above them the subtle creaking of someone shifting their weight from one beam to the other could suddenly be heard. As one, all in the room, with the exception of Peter who continued to obliviously play with Bella, looked up at the exposed rafters above them.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t my old friend Rod the fisherman,’ came the voice of an unseen man from the loft of the adjacent building. ‘Looks to me like someone’s got more lives than the proverbial cat.’

‘No thanks to you, Alex,’ snapped Rod, shooting Tom a quick look that told him their previous conversation was at an end.

‘Ah, ah?’ the voice corrected from the shadows.

‘Brother Alex,’ Rod corrected himself, through gritted teeth as if the very words caused him physical pain.

‘Better,’ said Brother Alex, the word dripping with self-satisfaction. ‘You know,  after all you’ve been through I do so hope you’ll make it through the night free of the Corruption… it would be a terrible thing to have to dash Emily’s hopes after raising them again like this.’

‘I’m not one of the Corrupt,’ replied Rod, ‘none of us are.’

‘Whatever you say, Fisherman,’ mused Brother Alex from the shadows, ‘I shall pray for your soul nonetheless… just in case.’

‘Yeah, you do that,’ mumbled Rod, finally averting his gaze from the rafters and back to Tom.

And as their eyes locked, something urgent and unspoken passed between them and in that instant Tom knew nothing more would be said about Father Matthew or the going’s on at St Michael’s Mount that evening, not with unseen ears listening in on them.

‘So,’ said Tom, with an almost forced cheerfulness to his voice as he nodded to a closed door set in the back wall of the building, ‘what’s through doorway number one?’

***

‘So I take it from your cheery disposition that you didn’t sleep too well,’ Tom chuckled, noticing the accusatory way Fran glared at her pillow.

‘Hmmm… you could say that,’ she replied, giving her socks a squeeze to see if they were still damp, ‘and when I finally did drift off I dreamt of drowning… well, not drowning really, it was more… Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ she continued, suddenly waving away her own words. ‘God, there’s nothing more boring than hearing about other people’s dreams. Anyway, so what’s the plan?’

‘Fran, I’m not your father and I can’t tell you or Kai what to do,’ he began, looking seriously over to Kai as he sat down next to Fran. ‘You two have to make up your own minds here. Stay or not, it’s your decision to make but you need to really think this out. Rod says it’s safe here as long as you tow the line and he seems to think you’ll certainly both be asked to stay, so…’

‘No, I can’t do that,’ said Fran matter-of-factly, making a face as she pulled a boot back on over an uncomfortably damp sock. ‘I mean, how can we make a home alongside these people knowing what they’re capable of?’

It was only when the word ‘we’ slipped past her lips that she realised she had automatically assumed that whatever the decision, Kai would be there alongside her.

‘Fran’s right. We can’t tr…trust these people, not long t….term,’ added Kai, his voice dropping in volume as his eyes flicked up to the adjacent rafters where one of the Brothers in red still dozed amongst the beams.

‘But from what Rod said they’re not all like that though,’ his own gaze following Kai’s, ‘but… but I do understand what you mean. It’ll be hard to live your lives walking on eggshells all the time, living in fear, afraid to say or do the wrong thing.’

‘You know what? No matter how rosy this Father Matthew paints it here, I think I’d rather be out there among the Dead,’ said Fran. ‘At least with those monsters, what you see is what you get and there’s no hidden bullshit.’

‘Just don’t make a rash decision, either of you. One way or another you’ll only regret it later,’ said Tom, realising that although he would miss their company, if they both decided to stay they could not let this small fact alter the possible course of their lives. ‘Despite the cons, you need to seriously think about any offer to stay before you just say ‘no’ out of hand… you may not get another chance like it. And that goes for you too,’ he continued, turning round to look at Dave. ‘You need to do what’s best for your family… and whatever you decide, take your brother ‘not being asked to stay’ out the equation.’

‘You know, I’m sick of you and your opinions,’ Max growled, storming across the small room, red faced, to stand over to Tom. ‘Why don’t you just mind your own fucking business and leave my brother to make up his own mind, Okay!’

‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,’ Tom calmly replied, looking up at him.

Tom knew that since the previous evening Max had been like a shaken bottle, waiting to explode at any moment and it looked like he had chosen Tom to be the recipient of this immanent frustrated release.

‘You fucking…’ Max began to snarl, his clenched fist drawn back, about to strike.

If Max had paused to think through this senseless attack even for a second he could have spared himself a whole lot of pain over the next few minutes but as it was he was a man of thoughtless action and he automatically let his fist fly. It came to a complete surprise to Max that Tom reacted even before his first blow had landed and as the explosion of pain from his groin sent him crumpling to the floor, gasping for air, it at last dawned on Max perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to attack someone whose strike zone covered such a delicate area.

‘Arughh…you… you fucker!’ he groaned, sucking down gulps of air trying to ease the seemingly unending riot of pain from his crushed testicles. ‘You just fucking wait, I’ll get you… you bastard! You watch your back, you fucking bastard!’