Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel (31 page)

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, standing upright again, her free hand already pushing the door inward.

If Kasey had thought about it just for a second longer or even been more used to dealing with the Dead, she may not have so tragically misread the bloody footprints that led away from the refectory. She may not have assumed that they simply indicated something no longer part of God’s plan had come through these doors in search of the living flesh hiding elsewhere in the castle. She may have shown some caution as she pushed open the gore spotted door and she may have even been able to escape the brutalised body of Brandon lunging toward her, a bloody and savage hunger burning in his white milky eyes.

‘No!’ she managed to scream, when Brandon’s corpse barrelled into her, knocking her back out into the hallway.

As the two bodies, one Dead and one damned soon to join it, collided, their momentum sent them both sprawling to the floor with a crash. Kasey cried out in pain and fear as the air was violently forced from her lungs by the much heavier corpse landing on top of her. But it was the flash of stars dancing across her vision as the back of her head made contact with the already blood covered stone floor that worried her most. Fighting the blackness that promised with it her ultimate demise, she flailed her arms about in front of her, desperate to keep the creature that had once been Brandon from gaining a firm grip on her. Her small delicate hands slipped sickening again and again across Brandon’s blood soaked jumper, its pattern now distorted by the swathe of deep red, each time momentarily knocking his arms away as she fought to keep him at bay. Yet Kasey knew this was a battle she could not win, the very size of Brandon’s body and strength compared to her own spelt her very doom. She knew her time bathed in the grace of her God was to be measured in seconds rather than minutes yet she could not give up, she could not give in.

At one point the thumb of her right hand was bent painfully back as it caught on something deep in the gaping wound on Brandon’s neck. Crying out at the unexpected jolt, her other arm involuntarily slipped, giving Brandon’s cadaver just what it wanted, an opening. Darting forward, mouth agape dripping bloody saliva, the savage corpse latched itself onto her left shoulder.

‘No!’ Kasey hysterically screamed, her eyes wild with panic as she felt the pressure against her shoulder building as the creature’s teeth bore down on her, surely bringing with it her damnation.

‘Kasey!’ a voice suddenly boomed out of the blue, a mix of furious anger and concern somehow battling for the word.

And then a shadow loomed over Kasey, tall and imposing; a shadow reaching out to grab the back of Brandon’s cadaver, a shadow promising her salvation. Yet even as Father Matthew’s fists tightening about Brandon’s blood caked jumper preparing to pull him back, Kasey felt the sharp pain in her shoulder.

‘No!’ she cried again, her terror-filled eyes briefly locking with Father Matthew’s just before the unholy creature’s savage face appeared in front of her own blocking her view.

And then it was gone, thrown violently against the wall as Father Matthew bellowed in rage. With her hand automatically reaching to support her shoulder, Kasey watched Father Matthew grab hold of Brandon’s corpse again only to then toss it angrily to the floor like some unwanted doll.

‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ Father Matthew roared, as he stamped down hard on the skull of the creature now lying at his feet. ‘I will fear no evil.’

Unable to tear her eyes away from the violence before her, Kasey watched in stunned horror as Father Michael’s attack rendered the face of Brandon’s cadaver to a fleshly pulp. Yet even now the beast could not give up its battle to tear and render the living nearby flesh and with seemingly renewed efforts it clawed desperately at Father Matthew’s legs. 

‘For thou art with me,’ Father Matthew continued, stamping down again and again on the head of the thing that until recently had been a friend, while within his fist he tightly held the silver crucifix hanging about his neck, ‘thy rod and thy staff… they… comfort…’

With a stomach-churning snapping sound, something at last gave way beneath the torrent of Father Matthew’s blows and after a brief choking sound escaping its throat, the Corrupt shell of Brandon was at last still.

‘Me,’ finished Father Matthew, panting for breath.

Taking no triumph in his win, he looked down at the broken figure of Brandon beneath him.

‘May God have mercy upon your soul,’ he continued, sucking in air as he pried one of Brandon’s lifeless hands from its grip on his trouser leg.

With a ‘slap’ the limb fell to the floor, the sound at last pulling Kasey’s gaze from the sight of Brandon’s now misshapen skull. Her mouth agape in shock, Kasey simply shook her head back and forth as if to deny what she had seen; yet there was no denying it, not for Father Matthew and not for her.

‘Kasey?’ Father Matthew started to ask, noticing the way her right hand cradled her left shoulder. ‘Kasey… you’re hurt.’

‘Father, I,’ she whimpered, her wide eyes once again flitting to the pulpy mass that had been Brandon’s head. ‘I’m fine, Father… My soul is… it is still pure, Father, still pure… I still walk with God by my side. I still feel his grace within me... I still feel him, Father!’

‘Oh, my dear child,’ Father Matthew simply replied, the red spot a blooming between the fingers of her hand telling him another story entirely.

‘No, Father,’ she managed to say, her eyes welling up with heavy tears, ‘please, I… I still feel God’s grace is with me… please, Father.’

‘Kasey,’ said Father Matthew solemnly, knowing she was already lost to the God she so longed to cling to.

‘No!’ she snapped back, her fear adding force to the word as she awkwardly used the wall behind her to push herself to her feet. ‘God is still with me, my soul has not fallen. I will not become one of the Corrupt, He will save me. God will save me!’

‘You know that can’t be, Kasey,’ said Father Matthew, at last stepping away from Brandon’s body. ‘Once the taint of Corruption is upon you, you… you are no longer of His creation.’

‘No, no, no,’ Kasey continued to say, shaking her head as she spoke over his words; as if to not hear them denied the very truth they held.

‘Yes, Kasey,’ he calmly continued, stepping gingerly towards her. ‘I’m sorry but you know I’m right.’

‘How do you know! You know nothing!’ she suddenly screamed back at him, shocked by the ferocity and heresy of her own words.

‘Kasey…’ Father Matthew started to say, taking another step closer to the distraught young woman whose mortal existence could, at best, be counted in days.

‘No!’ she cried, taking a shaky step back. ‘Stay away from me. You stay away from me!’

But Father Matthew knew he could not let this Corrupt vessel wander the halls of the castle, no matter how much it pleaded or how pitiful a face it wore. This creature before him was damned and put simply, all that was truly Kasey had died the moment the Corruption entered her body; from then she had been lost to him and forever lost to God.

‘Stay back!’ Kasey screeched, her blood covered hand impotently reaching out in front of her, hopeful to keep some distance between herself and Father Matthew.

‘Kasey, child, I…’ he began, his words of consolation suddenly halted as Kasey unexpectedly bolted down the corridor away from him.

‘Damn!’ he barked, admonishing himself for not making a grab for her when he had the chance. 

Kasey ran, she ran for her life and she ran for her soul. In her wild panic she dashed around corners, crashing into walls and barrelling through doorways, not caring who or what was alerted by her passing presence. She had to find a way off St Michael’s Mount before Father Matthew caught up with her again; that was all that mattered now. She was nothing to him now, she knew that for certain. In his eyes she was just a sentient shell awaiting its destruction, already damned and already a rotting corpse with the stench of death upon her lips. But she knew her God had not judged her; and she had not been found wanting and cursed with a living death. She could still feel Him with her, His love and His grace lighting her soul like a beacon of hope; a hope she would cling to.

Father Michael had been so wrong about the Corrupt, she saw that now. He had fooled them all. With his words and charisma he had spun his tale, reworking the truth to fit his own ends. He had written off so many that came to their door as tainted or unworthy of God’s grace, turning them back to surely face their deaths among the Corrupt.

‘
No
,’ Kasey thought to herself as she ran, angrily correcting her own words, ‘
not the Corrupt,
the Dead.’

Racing down a corridor, her hammering heart seemingly determined to break free of her chest as she gulped down air to feed her burning lungs, Kasey made up her mind nothing would stop her now, not Father Matthew and certainly not his divine proclamations. But as she threw herself round a corner, her bloody fingers tracing a path on the wall as she turned, she noticed just too late the stunned figure of Odelia stood right before her. With a cry, both women tumbled to the floor, bringing with them a framed oil painting of some long-gone rural idyll crashing off the wall.

‘You stupid girl!’ spat Odelia, separating herself from the tangle of limbs she unexpectedly found herself in. ‘Haven’t you heard the screams? The Corrupt are in the castle, they’ve…’

But Odelia could not finish her chastising sentence and instead stared transfixed at the bloody mark on Kasey’s shoulder.

‘Odelia, I…’ Kasey started to say unaware of the look of horror and disgust spreading across the woman’s face as she glanced briefly back along the corridor, expecting to see the imposing form of Father Matthew charging after her at any moment.

‘Get away from me!’ Odelia almost growled, swiftly grabbing for part of the picture frame that had broken when it had been knocked to the floor.

‘Odelia, please!’ Kasey begged, self-consciously covering her wound with her hand as if ashamed by it.

‘I said get away!’ hissed Odelia, waving the pitiful length of carved wood in front of her to keep Kasey at bay. ‘You’re one of them now, unclean in the eyes of God. You’re one of the Corrupt… you’re one of the damned.’

‘Bullshit, Odelia!’ Kasey snapped back, taking a step forward as anger blazed in her eyes, ‘You think we don’t see that you only pay lip service to Father Matthew’s crap about the Fall and the Corrupt? You never believed, not really, not like some of the others or like me. You just said whatever you thought wanted to be heard. You’re a fraud Odelia Weaver and so is Father Matthew… damn him for it. There is no Corruption, no curse or eternal damnation from God... because I believe, Odelia. I believe God is still with me and no matter what happens. He always will be. He…’

Out of the blue a man suddenly appeared from around the corner, throwing himself violently onto Kasey’s back and sending them both sprawling back to the floor. With a panicked scream, Kasey briefly saw a flash of red fabric and thought for a moment Father Matthew had finally caught up with her. But unfortunately she was wrong, so very wrong, and as she twisted in the man’s grasp the bruised but strangely drawn face of Brother Alex appeared before her eyes.

‘No!’ Kasey managed to cry out just before Brother Alex lunged toward her neck open mouthed.

With the terrified screams from Odelia mingling with her own, Kasey felt the skin of her throat pinch and then begin to break off her under the pressure of Brother Alex’s teeth. She watched impotently as he slowly drew his head back, the skin and flesh of her neck still held firmly between his teeth. Until, with more pain than she thought physically possible exploding through her brain, her blood erupted, splashing across the face of the thing that had previously been Brother Alex.

‘Dear God!’ wailed Odelia, rooted in place by her fear as she watched Brother Alex’s corpse chew hungrily on his strip of stolen flesh.

Trapped beneath the savage cadaver and despite the taste of her own blood in her mouth, Kasey still fought for her life; what was left of it. With her body starting to go into shock from the attack, her pathetic blows did little to deter the creature and as it eagerly returned to claim more of her flesh she found herself praying her death would be a swift one. But Kasey was not to be given even this small blessing and as frenzied bloody fingers tore wildly at her clothes to expose more of her milk pale skin, she suffered the tortuous pain of bite after bite after bite. At some point Alex’s corpse returned to the bloody wound at her neck. Only this time, purely by chance, something vital and pumping snagged between its teeth.

‘
Please!
’ Kasey screamed silently through her shock induced haze, begging her God to finally let her suffering end.

And then with a tugging ‘pop’ her prayers were answered and the blackness swiftly claimed her.

Odelia watched frozen in place as the blood drenched shell of Brother Alex gorged itself on  Kasey’s flesh, yet even in the maelstrom of her paralysing horror she still managed to think it a blessing when Kasey’s carotid artery was finally ripped out, at last ending the girl’s torture. But it was only when a pair of milky eyes happened to glance from its bloody prize in her direction, that Odelia’s self-preservation at last overwhelmed her terror. She knew Kasey’s flesh would not hold the interest of Brother Alex’s cadaver for long and when whatever it was that drew it to the living finally dispersed she would quickly become the next focal point of its cannibalistic desire.