Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel (44 page)

‘So he w…was in a fight with someone yesterday before he died,’ concluded Kai, at last nodding in understanding. ‘B…but with who? One of the D…dead? His killer?’

‘Would bruising have time to develop if it was done while he was fighting off one of the Dead?’ asked Fran, shrugging her shoulders. ‘Does your heart even need to be pumping for that sort of thing to show… I’ve no idea, have you? Or perhaps,’ she continued, pushing herself back up, ‘he was beaten so badly by somebody that he was the first one that died and then his death caused all this.’

‘No,’ said Kai, lifting one of the dead man’s arms and pushing back part of his blood caked sleeve to expose his wrist and forearm, it was missing large bite sized chunks of flesh, ‘I n…noticed this when I was carrying him in with B…Brother Mark… I think he b…bled to death.’

‘Okay, so…’ mused Fran, an idea slowly forming. ‘He has a fight with someone, and let’s face it, from what we saw of Brother Alex here he wasn’t exactly a charmer, so it could’ve been with anyone… anyway, so he has this punch up while at the same time the Dead just happen to be traipsing about the island or just about to. So the question is, was he conscious or unconscious when he was bitten?’

‘W…what does it matter?’ asked Kai, letting Brother Alex’s arm drop.

‘Because it may mean he had been left that way on purpose,’ she replied, looking down at Brother Alex’s bruised face and wondering if the man she suspected of doing this could’ve left him to be eaten alive. ‘Come on,’ she at last continued, shaking herself of her thoughts, ‘let’s go get these clues of yours… and then I want to find Scott and Lucy.’

‘Scott and Lucy, why them?’ asked Kai, following Fran out of the quarantine room.

‘Because he lied about not coming back to shore yesterday,’ she replied, waiting for Kai to close the barred door behind him, ‘and I think Brother Alex’s corpse just told us why.’

***

‘Well I don’t know if I’d risk my life for a bottle of vodka and a bit of out of date chocolate,’ said Fran, dropping the small bar of milk chocolate back into one of the boxes they had found under Brother Alex’s bed.

Purely by chance, when they had arrived at the castle they had bumped into Odelia and the first bedroom she had shown them to had just happened to have been Brother Alex’s. It was only when Kai thought to abandon the meagrely stocked wardrobe and chest of drawers to look under the bed that they had found anything of interest at all. There were bottles of alcohol to suit any and every palette, confectionary, a jumble of tins containing everything from Irish stew to lobster bisque as well as other items; items which Fran was more than tempted to help herself to; sanitary towels, packets of the contraceptive pill and boxes of condoms being the most interesting to her. Fran thought the last two items in particular were probably considered illegal contraband in Father Matthew’s eyes, what with all the God fearing babies that needed to be born, but a child was the last thing she needed right now, so she slipped a few packets in her jacket pocket and then after a moment’s hesitation, tossed a few in Kai’s direction as well.

‘Here,’ she whispered, glancing towards the doorway to make sure Odelia had actually moved on. ‘I wonder if Father Matthew knew about Brother Sam’s little black market enterprise?’ 

‘Ouch!’ said Kai, when one of the small boxes Fran had thrown ricocheted of his forehead and skittered under the bed. ‘How do you know it’s b…black market, anyway?’

‘I doubt he had much use for these,’ she replied holding up a hand full of tampons. ‘My guess is that he creamed off what he wanted from foraging trips on the mainland and then sold it on for whatever he wanted.’

‘But what would they use as c…currency?’ asked Kai, still rubbing the patch where the box had struck him.

‘Oh, don’t be such a baby,’ smiled Fran, smirking to herself as she dropped to her knees beside him and went to reach under the bed to retrieve the errant box of condoms. ‘I don’t know,’ she continued, finally answering his question. ‘Sex?’

‘Now, where the…’ she started to say, before ducking down to actually look at something that had caught her interest under the bed. ‘Kai, help me pull the bed away from the wall, will you,’ she went on to say, realising whatever it was it was lying just beyond her reach.

‘Sure’ he said, grabbing hold of the wooden frame and starting to pull.

With a screech the bed started to move, until with grunt, Kai lost his grip on the bedframe and he fell noisily backwards.

‘Butterfingers,’ said Fran, rolling her eyes sarcastically before noticing the gap between the bed and the wall was now probably wide enough for her to force her arm through. ‘Oh, it’s alright… don’t get up,’ she continued, clambering across the bed, ‘this’ll do.’

‘No, I’m fine,’ grumbled Kai, watching as Fran lost her arm up to the shoulder down the other side of the bed, ‘thanks for asking!’

‘Got it!’ cried Fran, triumphantly pulling out her prize.

‘What is it?’ asked Kai, pushing himself upright.

‘It’s….’ Fran started to say just as her hand popped out clutching a wodge of magazines. ‘Oh… it’s just porn, how disappointing.’

Tossing the magazines disinterestedly onto the bed beside her, Fran idly wondered if the busty woman on the top cover was still alive, she severely doubted it and somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if Brother Alex would have found her so attractive now even if she had been.

‘Come on, let’s try the next room,’ she at last said, realising there was nothing more they could learn from Brother Alex’s belongings. ‘Who did Odelia say had the room next to this one?’

‘K…Kevin Harrison,’ Kai replied.

‘Kevin Harrison? Oh, the chess bloke,’ nodded Fran, using the only point of reference she had for the man. ‘Well let’s go see what secrets Mr Harrison’s been hiding.’

***

As it turned out Kevin Harrison had very little to hide at all. Apart from his clothes, a few books and a wallet containing a few well-thumbed photographs, his proverbial cupboard was very bare indeed.

‘Well, there’s nothing here,’ sighed Fran, glancing briefly at the a picture of a slightly younger and healthier looking Kevin on his defunct photo ID pass for Cornwall County Council social services; the dark stain of dried blood that had seeped under the plastic lamination in one corner a testament to his terrifying exodus from the mainland. ‘Who’s next?’

‘B…Brandon Arkwright,’ Kai replied, as she walked past him. ‘Ch…chess man number two. He’s d…down the corridor and just round the corner.’

‘Oh yeah, the bloke with the jumper, I remember him now,’ said Fran, picturing the tall man with his receding hairline dressed in his strangely Christmassy knitwear. ‘Wasn’t he also the only person here with any medical training? I wonder what they’ll do now…’

‘Not our p…problem,’ shrugged Kai, as they followed the dim hallway round to another set of doors.

‘Yes, but for the moment we pretend it is,’ she whispered in reply, glancing back the way they had come. ‘So, until we work out who really caused all this and they release Tom, we just play along.’

‘And then w…what?’ asked Kai, really wanting to ask what they would do if they couldn’t prove Tom’s innocence but knew that was a bridge best crossed when they came to it.

‘And then we figure a way to get the hell out of here,’ she said pointing to a door for confirmation that this was the one Odelia had indicated was Brandon’s room.

‘Easier said than d…done,’ said Kai, the irony of the statement not lost on him as he nodded that the room had indeed been Brandon’s bedroom.

Compared to Kevin’s bedroom Brandon’s was overflowing with his belongings. Boxes, suitcases, piles of books and magazines littered every flat surface and as she opened the door the very sight of the amount of stuff they would have to go through made her heart sink.

‘Oh, crap!’ sighed Fran, realising it could take them the rest of the morning just to search this one room.

‘Start here and w…work our way round?’  suggested Kai, pointing to a pile of medical books stacked on top of two suitcases.

‘As good a place as any,’ she muttered, picking up the nearest medical text book, holding it upside down and shaking it loosely to see if anything fell out. ‘Book number one,’ she continued, giving the pages a cursory flick though before dropping the book to the floor and reaching for the next in the pile, ‘checked.’

Fran had been right about the amount of time it would take them to search the room but only when Ryanne arrived an hour and a half later carrying two bowls of steaming soup did she realise how tiring the process was too.

‘Thank you, Ryanne,’ said Fran, stretching her back before taking one bowl to pass to Kai, ‘it’s much appreciated.’

‘And have you found anything?’ sniffed Ryanne, peering disapprovingly into the untidy room while hovering in the doorway as if reticent to cross the threshold.

Fran thought for a second about how to answer Ryanne’s question and then with a shake of her head, decided it was unnecessary to sully the woman’s memories of a dead man. After all, Ryanne didn’t need to know the type of magazines Kai had found stuffed at the back of Brandon’s wardrobe; fetish magazines, dark and disturbing, that made Brother Alex’s stash of pornography seem positively pedestrian by comparison.

‘No, nothing yet,’ she replied, taking a mouthful of the thick vegetable soup and guessing from the woman’s pinched expression that she felt slighted that they hadn’t immediately believed Emily’s infidelity was to blame, ‘it’s proving to be a longer job than we first thought.’

‘Hmm,’ mused Ryanne, pulling her cardigan closer about her. ‘Well, Brandon wasn’t the tidiest of men.’

‘Clearly,’ agreed Fran, gulping down her soup, not only eager to get back to the task at hand but also keen to be rid of Ryanne’s watchful presence. ‘Thanks, again,’ she finally went on to say, handing back the bowl once it was empty. ‘My compliments to the chef, that was very tasty.’

With a rather strained smile, Ryanne took the bowl from her and waited for Kai to hand her his.

‘Thanks,’ he at last said, smiling as he dropped his spoon noisily into the bowl with a clatter, ‘that was nice, really hit the sp…spot.’

‘Yes, thanks again,’ said Fran, trying not to appear rude as she handed back Kai’s bowl. ‘Now don’t let us keep you… I’m sure you’re rushed off your feet as it is.’

‘What? Oh, yes… yes, I am busy,’ Ryanne replied, realising she was being dismissed. ‘There’s even more to do since…’

‘Yes, I’m sure there is,’ interrupted Fran, trying to look sympathetic about the increase in Ryanne’s workload despite the fact it was because people had died.

For a few awkward seconds Ryanne just stood there in the doorway holding the tray with the two empty bowls, saying nothing. In fact Fran was just contemplating if it was at all possible to tactfully close the door in someone’s face, when Ryanne turned and walked off down the hallway.

‘God, she’s an odd one,’ whispered Fran, moving to shut the door behind her.

The door was just about to close when Fran stopped; further down the dimly light hall a door opened, the soft murmuring of an unseen conversation coming from within. Although she couldn’t quite make out what was being said in the room, she instantly recognised the man that suddenly stepped out into the hallway; it was Max.

‘What?’ Kai started to ask, wondering what had caught her attention only to have his question silenced by a wave of her hand.

Holding the door as close to closing as she could and yet still able to see down the hallway, Fran watched Max start to walk away. He was just about to turn the corner when Fran saw a second figure, another man, appear though the same open door; it was Brother John.

‘
Now what are those two up to?
’ thought Fran, quickly closing the door as silently as she could as Brother John started heading in their direction.

Glancing at Kai, she held a silencing finger to her lips and listened to the sound of Brother John’s approaching footsteps. It was only when they began to recede again that she dared venture another tentative peek out into the empty hallway.

‘He’s gone,’ whispered Fran, looking back at Kai.

‘Who has?’ asked Kai, still oblivious to what had just happened.

‘Brother John,’ Fran replied, sticking her head out into the hallway to look in both directions, ‘and he was with Max.’

‘Max?’ Kai repeated. ‘Why w…would he be with Max?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Fran, chewing on her lip as the possibilities raced through her mind, ‘but I intend to find out. You keep watch, see if anyone comes... I’m going to check out that room they came out of.’

‘Fran, wait!’ warned Kai, but he knew it was useless to try to stop her and even before he could say anything else she was already creeping off down the hallway. ‘Fran!’ he hissed after her as he stood in the doorway, only to have her shoo away his concern and mouthed ‘
keep watch’
back at him.

Stopping in front of the room Max and Brother John had emerged from, Fran gave the hallway either side of her a quick glance, making a point to ignore Kai’s look of exasperation when she briefly locked eyes with him, and then softly pressed her ear to the door. When she was sure no sound was coming from within the room, she twisted the handle, the clicking of the lock mechanism turning sounding alarmingly loud in the dim hallway, and pushed open the door.