Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel (20 page)

‘I… errm,’ mumbled Brother Christopher, clearly taken aback by Emily’s unexpected reaction; his helping hands still hovering mid-air, unaccepted.

‘Well, don’t just stand there, Christopher,’ chided Father Matthew, gesturing for the young man to move out of their way.

‘What? Oh, yes. Sorry, Father,’ the young man replied, realising his offer of help had suddenly become more of a hindrance to Rod’s progress.

‘Dad!’ came the sudden cry of a teenage boy, his voice cracking with overwhelming emotion as he appeared ahead of them further down the road. ‘Dad, Dad!’

Almost as one, the group forgot the uncomfortable awkwardness of Brother Christopher and focused their attention on the young man running at them at full tilt, his arms waving wildly as he fought and failed to keep at bay the heavy tears and choking sobs of relief at seeing his father returned to him alive. All of a sudden that stubborn mask of independent adulthood that all teenagers have held in place, slipped and once again Graham Adams was instantly the child his parents knew him to really be. Running toward his mother and father, Graham no longer cared how he looked or what others thought of him; his dad was alive and his family was whole again.

‘Dad!’ Graham openly wept, falling to his knees as he wrapped his arms about both his parents. ‘We thought they’d got you. If only I’d known… I’m so sorry, Dad. I would’ve come to find you, I swear… I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, hey, it’s alright, Graham, it’s alright,’ said Rod, slipping his arm from around Father Matthew’s shoulders to kneel down and embrace his son, his own tears falling freely. ‘I’m okay, it’s okay. I’m here, I’m back. I came back for you and your mum… everything’s going to be alright.’

‘Graham, why don’t you help your mother take your Dad home,’ suggested Father Matthew, gently patting the young man’s shoulder. ‘I’ll send someone down from the kitchens with something for you all to eat and I’ll get Brandon to drop by later with something for your Dad’s chest.’

Graham looked tearfully up at Father Matthew, let out a long shaky breath and nodded, the mask of adulthood already subconsciously slipping back into place.

‘Yes, Father Matthew,’ he simply replied, wiping his tear streaked face in the crook of his elbow before helping his mother pull his father back to his feet.

The moment both his parents were back on their feet, Graham turned to Tom and with his mask of adulthood firmly back in place, stuck out his hand.

‘Thank you,’ said Graham, taking Tom’s hand to give it a vigorous shake. ‘Thank you for bringing my Dad back to us.’

‘You’re welcome, lad,’ chuckled Tom, still able to see past the boy’s mask no matter how grown up he tried to be, ‘but it’s not me you should be thanking, it’s Fran here… she’s the one that found your Dad up on that roof.’

‘Oh,’ said Graham, his hand pausing mid-shake as he looked over at Fran, who smiled back and raised her own hand in a small friendly wave.

Hesitant as what to do next, Graham glanced back at his father but with only a comically raised set of eyebrows for reply, Graham let go of Tom’s hand and stepped over to Fran.

‘Erm... thanks,’ he said again, a little more self-consciously than before.

For a moment the group could see the visible confusion in Graham’s face as he decided whether to offer the young woman his hand to shake but after a brief hesitation, where his sincere gratitude battled with his awkwardness, he pulled her into a brief but fierce embrace.

‘Thank you,’ he repeated, releasing her but not before Fran felt the flutter of powerful emotion dancing within the young man’s chest.

‘Think nothing of it,’ she replied, a forlorn smile of understanding reaching her lips.

Fran knew just what it meant to lose a father. Her own was long gone, taken from her by the Dead five years ago when the world first fell apart. But to be given a second chance, a chance to hear her father’s voice or feel his arms about her once again, she could only imagine the pure overwhelming joy that Graham was feeling. There was no denying it though, as much as she was glad to have been part of bringing such happiness to another person there was always that guilty voice in the back her mind screaming that it wasn’t fair, why should they be spared the gut-wrenching heartache that she and nearly every human on the planet had experienced. What made them so special?

‘Well, let’s get you home, you old fool,’ laughed Emily Adams, her words snapping Fran from the jealous thoughts that crept through her mind. ‘Graham, can you?’

‘Sure, Mum,’ Graham replied, eagerly stepping away from Fran to take the bulk of his father’s weight from his mother.

Now that the emotional reunion was over with and with mostly Graham now holding Rod upright, Emily turned to Fran and Tom.

‘I owe you two more than I can ever repay,’ she said, a fresh set of tears welling up in her eyes. ‘If there’s ever anything I can do for either of you, please just ask.’

‘Well, I’m not sure we’ll be staying long enough to...’ Fran began to reply.

‘Oh,’ interrupted Emily, a little surprised that Fran would choose to go back to the mainland to live among the Dead that had claimed it as their own. ‘Well, while you’re here then, please don’t hesitate... even the smallest thing I can do for you, you only have to say.’

‘We will, Emily,’ said Tom, before Fran could say it wasn’t necessary. ‘Thank you’ 

Tom knew the quickest way to end this conversation and for Rod to actually get back to his own bed was to give Emily Adams what she wanted, the promise that somehow she would be repay the favour.

‘Good,’ she replied, wiping away an errant tear with her free hand. ‘Now don’t you forget… anything at all.’

‘We will come banging at your door at the first sign of our need,’ said Tom, politely bowing his head and placing his hand over his heart in mock seriousness. ‘I promise.’

‘You do that,’ Emily replied, a smile twitching at her lips as she realised Tom was gently poking fun at her. ‘Anyway, if you do need to find us,’ she continued, ‘our cottage is opposite the harbour wall on this side of the island, it’s the one with the blue door… or just look for the Black Princess, Rod’s boat. If it’s moored in the harbour, that’s where we’ll be, probably up to our elbows in fish guts.’

‘Well, you certainly know how to sweeten a deal, Emily,’ chuckled Father Matthew. ‘How can they resist?’

‘We can’t, obviously,’ added Fran, giving the woman a smile to reassure her she knew her offer was sincere.

‘Well the offer’s there,’ Emily finally said to no-one in particular, while she and Graham, with Rod hobbling painfully between them, made their way to the only turning off of the island’s main road.

Stopping at a severely weathered signpost which only just about had the peeling letters spelling out ‘Harbour Walk’ painted on it, Emily paused to wave back at them.

‘The cottage with the blue door,’ she called cheerfully back to them. ‘Don’t forget.’

‘Just get that Godless husband of yours to his bed, Emily Adams,’ Father Matthew barked back, before bursting into a deep booming laughter.

Startled by the sudden noise, a pair of seagulls that had been resting on one of the struts of the Purity Arch, fled to the air, loudly screeching their protest as they rode the swirling eddies of the light breeze.

‘Now, let’s get the rest of you sorted,’ Father Matthew continued, once Rod, Emily and Graham had finally disappeared from view along Harbour Walk. ‘Something warm in your bellies, some clean clothes and who knows, we might even be able to rustle up some hot water for a bath.’

‘A hot bath!’ said Tom and Jane almost in unison, causing Fran choke back a laugh.

‘What?’ said Tom, shrugging his shoulders innocently at Fran. ‘It’s one thing to have a quick wash in a bowl of cold water, it’s another thing altogether to have a long soak and really get rid of that deep-down grime.’

‘And cleanliness is next to Godliness, young lady,’ added Father Matthew, chuckling to himself as he strode ahead of the group, leaving them a little unsure just how serious he was being.

***

‘God, that feels good,’ sighed Jane, allowing her shoulders to slowly slip further below the water until only her face, the top of her breasts and her hunched up knees were left exposed to the cool air. ‘It reminds me of my honeymoon,’ she continued, her submerged ears causing her to subconsciously raise the volume of her voice. ‘It was a gift from Dave’s parents. I think they felt bad what with my Dad paying for the wedding and all.’

‘How is this like your honeymoon?’ asked Fran, lazily, lifting the hot flannel from her face to look over at Jane in the metal bath next to her.

‘What?’ she replied, knowing Fran had said something from the muffled sounds reaching her ears below the water-line.

‘I said, how is this like your honeymoon?’ she repeated, raising her own head a fraction higher out of the water.

‘We went to the Dead sea, two weeks, all in,’ Jane replied, huffing at the irony of its name considering the current state of the world. ‘It’s was warm and salty, a bit like this, that’s all.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Fran sighed, allowing the warm flannel to flop back over her face and the rare moment of total relaxation to envelop her.

She had been a little reticent when Father Matthew had first explained to them that any bath water they would be having would simply be heated seawater. Yes, she obviously understood the need to conserve fresh drinking water, which on St Michael’s mount could only be replaced by rain water, but even so she didn’t exactly have fond memories of the cold brown waters that seemed to forever haunt her childhood holidays by the British seaside.

‘We do filter it… kind of,’ Father Matthew had assured her, rather unsuccessfully, as they had made their way through what passed for the main hub of St Michael’s mount but was in fact just a cobbled lane lined with squat cottages either side.

‘And just how do you do that?’ Fran had asked him, unsure she really wanted to hear the reply, for whatever answer Father Matthew gave her she knew it would somehow make the upcoming bath a little less relaxing.

‘It gets passed through two boiled bed sheets to catch any obvious debris and then of course boiling it kills of any of the smaller nasties that we can’t see,’ He had told her as the group made their way along a tree-lined path where the cobbles gave way to large uneven slabs of lichen and moss covered rock.

‘Almost there,’ Father Matthew assured them, shooing six hens that had been happily scratching through the dirt, out of their way so they could pass. ‘They’re a lot more intelligent than you think,’ he had continued, noticing the way Jane had looked at the scrawny birds. ‘We let them roam free during the day and then when evening comes, we just ring a bell and they all come trotting back to the coop, happy as Larry.’

When Peter had then asked who Larry was, Fran had been forced to hide her smile so not to upset the young man; Father Matthew on the other hand held no compunction to restrain himself and once again his booming laughter echoed around them, startling any wildlife within earshot. Yet there seemed to be no malice in Father Matthew’s amusement, and even as he ruffled Peter’s hair, making the young man smile and somehow making him feel included in the joke, Fran found it hard to marry the man she saw before her with the image Rod had painted of him.

As her conflicting thoughts and perceptions of Father Matthew began to run through her head again, Fran slowly wrung the threadbare wet flannel between her fingers, letting the warm water splash over her chest and run down her wrists. She was just about to shift her position in the bath, raising her shoulders above the water level so her knees could benefit from a fresh rush of warm water over them again, when there was a knock at the door. Instantly, Fran regretted leaving her knife with the pile of clothes that she had unceremoniously dumped on the floor. She had stupidly even made sure to place them well out of the splash range of the two bathtubs, only now realising she had also put them well beyond arm’s reach too.

‘Crap,’ she mumbled under her breath, cursing her own stupidity as she looked from the knife handle back to Jane.

‘Yes… who is it?’ she cautiously called out, slowly rising herself from the water to place a foot down onto the cold stone floor.

‘Fran?’ hissed Jane, unsure why the young woman was acting like this.

What Jane didn’t know was that the last place Fran had thought to be a safe haven had turned out to be little more than a prison; a prison of sick, dark and perverted secrets from which she had barely escaped with her life. Since then she had promised herself never to let her guard down again, not even when everything around her told her she was safe.

‘Hello,’ came a woman’s muffled voice from the other side of the thick door. ‘Father Matthew asked me to bring you some clean clothes… may… may I come in?’

Deftly stooping down to grab the towel she had left at the base of the metal bath tub, Fran quickly tossed it to Jane and then silently tip-toed over to her pile of clothes. Ignoring the chill against her naked body as the cooling water ran down her legs and torso, she soon felt the reassuring roughness of the knife’s handle against her fingers and as she pulled it from the pile of clothes, Fran moved to stand in the space behind the door.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Jane urgently mouthed, as she wrapped the towel about herself, terrified Fran was about to attack whoever came through the door.