Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (12 page)

‘Then there can’t be much difference between the level of the road and the river,’ she completed, comically punctuating the point with her finger as if she had just had a ‘lightbulb’ moment. ‘Yeah alright,’ she continued, smiling as she rolled her eyes, ‘I’ll give you that one… Tom?’

‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough,’ Tom replied, glancing back at Fran and Kai. ‘Now… who wants to deal with the corpse when we get there?’

‘Corpse? Oh, crap,’ huffed Fran noticing the cadaver that had appeared stumbling through the broken gate.

As she watched it almost fell but at the last minute managed to find its footing amid the clumps of weeds choking the base of the gate and made its way out onto the road.

‘Well, I guess….’ she began to say, reaching for her crowbar when Kai spoke.

‘I’ll d…do it,’ he said, his hand closing over hers.

‘Kai, you…’ she started to protest.

‘I n…need the practice,’ he continued, ignoring the worried look that sparked behind her eyes. ‘Y…you know I do… and there’s o…only one.’

‘He’s got you there… on both counts,’ said Tom, looking back at Fran.

Fran looked from Tom to Kai and knew they were right. There was nothing she could say that would deter him and no real justifiable reason why Kai shouldn’t put down the cadaver on his own. But he was wrong in one thing, by saying there was ‘only one’ he had immediately and quite out of hand, belittled and underestimated the threat that he would face and Fran knew such an underestimation could very quickly end up getting you killed.

‘Okay, Kai, this one’s yours,’ she at last agreed, removing the crowbar on the cart’s wall to hand it to him. ‘But I’m coming with you… just to make sure more of its Dead friends don’t suddenly pop up out of the blue,’ she quickly added. ‘Deal?’

‘You d…drive a hard b…bargain,’ he smiled, testing the weight of the metal bar in his hand. ‘Okay, deal!’

‘Well, going or not… it’s show-time,’ whispered Tom, pulling on Star’s reins to bring her to a halt.

‘Show time,’ repeated Fran, the brittle smile on her lips doing little to hide the worry she felt. ‘Go in fast but controlled,’ she went on to say, her hand hovering over the bolt on the hatch as she gave Kai a brief impromptu pep talk. ‘We don’t know if any more of them are nearby so try to make your strike before it starts moaning if you can, … oh, and mark your target the moment you starting moving, you may not have time to think about it once it’s seen you.’

‘Fran,’ whispered Kai, ‘I have d…done this a f…few times.’

‘I know, sorry, it’s just,’ she started to say, her love for him making her overly concerned for his safety. ‘Well… you know.’

‘Yes, Fran,’ he whispered in reply, leaning in to kiss her gently on the lips. ‘I know.’

Looking into his dark eyes, Fran could feel herself falling; welcoming the loving and all-encompassing darkness about her. Fearful lest she lose herself in the moment completely, Fran forced herself to look away, before slowly sliding the bolt free to swing open the hatch.

‘I’m right behind you,’ she said, her voice barely even a whisper as Kai moved past her and lowered himself silently down onto the road.

No sooner had his feet touched the road surface, than he was moving; charging toward the decaying shell of a man standing only a few metres away. So determined was Kai to make contact with the Dead man before it could vocally respond to his presence that Fran hardly had time to remove herself from the cart before she saw his crowbar swinging through the air. The cadaver, naked apart from the filthy remains of a ripped shirt and his underwear, was surely a sorry mass of torn flesh and deep maggot ridden wounds. His gaunt grey tinged face, what was left of it, writhed with the squirming larvae as they gorged themselves on their walking carrion buffet and the sight of its undulating skin almost made Kai falter; but with the swing of the crowbar his plan was already being put into play, condemning the corpse to the oblivion of true death.

With a loud ‘snap’ the metal bar connected with the corpse’s kneecaps; the impact of it hitting them was with such force not only knocking its legs out from under it, sending him crashing to the ground, but also partially ripping free its right leg in the process. But Kai knew this was only a temporary reprieve from the threat the cadaver posed and as soon as he saw the creature crumple to the ground the crowbar was flying again, this time arching through the air toward its head.

‘How’d… I… do?’ he panted, pressing his foot against the lifeless man’s cheek bone for leverage so he could pull the end of the crowbar free from his shattered skull.

‘Good,’ she replied, ignoring the sucking sound as the metal bar was pulled free of the stinking brain matter while she looked back along the road the way they had come for any sign of the Dead. ‘But next time,’ she continued, walking over to the broken gate to cautiously take a look in the overgrown meadow beyond, ‘empty, good.’ she stated more to herself than to Kai before returning to her conversation with him. ‘Sorry, yeah, next time don’t waste time trying to get it on the ground… you’re tall enough, you could’ve taken him out with a single over-hand head shot, easy.’

‘Okay,’ he agreed, with a nod; bowing to her greater knowledge and experience.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she went on to say, walking back to the open hatch on the cart, ‘that move is great for buying yourself some time when there’s multiple threats but you needn’t of bothered for this one.’

‘G…gotcha,’ said Kai, watching as she lowered Bob down from the cart before reaching back inside for two large drawstring sacks and a bucket.

‘Bob,’ said Fran, looking down at the roughly cut animal, ‘stay close, boy... we don’t want to lose you, not now that you’re part of the team. Okay?’

Seemingly unmoved by Fran’s sentiment, Bob promptly walked over the crumpled cadaver at Kai’s feet to give it a sniff.

‘No, Bob,’ said Fran, wanting to break the dog’s habit of eating the rotting flesh of the Dead as soon as she could. ‘Come here, boy… leave that, you won’t need to eat any of that anymore. Come on, Bob… Kai, can you…’ she continued, gesturing for him to pull Bob away from the body.

‘Come on m…mate,’ smiled Kai, bending down to pick up the small dog, clearly reluctant to abandon the chance of a meal, no matter how rank its source. ‘Not for you.’

Satisfied that Bob could no longer reach the corpse’s flesh, Fran walked to the front of the cart, around Star, giving her a friendly pat as she went, and over to the opposite side of the road where the huge weeping willow awaited her.

‘Wait here,’ she whispered back to Kai, lowering the bucket and the drawstring bags to the road. ‘I’m just going to make sure it’s all clear… I’ll be right back.’

‘Be c…careful,’ he whispered in reply, watching as Fran disappeared behind a curtain of moving greenery.

With the whisper of leaves falling back into place behind her, Fran suddenly found herself enclosed within the dome like canopy of trailing willow branches.

‘Wow,’ she found herself sighing, struck by the unexpected beauty of the scene.

Standing hidden on the gently sloping bank, Fran could see that the large old tree reached far out across the slow moving river in front of her, enclosing an area some eight or nine metres in diameter with its softly swaying curtain of yellow and green foliage.

‘Well at least it looks like nobody’s home,’ she muttered, cautiously walking through the tall grass down to the river’s edge; watching each of her steps just in case the grass hid any nasty surprises.

But with nothing untoward hindering her progress, she soon found herself standing by the slow moving water, looking out through a moving curtain of willow fronds. With the veil of yellow and green leaves slightly less dense over the water than those behind her, Fran could make out the opposite bank and what looked to be a road running parallel beyond it.

‘
Not ideal
,’ she thought, realising if the breeze got up, there was a small possibility they could be spotted from the opposite bank. ‘
But it’s as good as it’s going to get… and no immediate threats, so can’t complain.
’

‘Right, it’s okay,’ she softly called, already walking back to the wall of green obscuring her view of Star and the cart back on the road. ‘It’s all clear, Kai, you can come in. It’s fine.’

No sooner had she spoken than Bob’s head appeared poking through the trailing fronds; briefly checking out the small hidden area before darting forward, bounding through the tall grass to greet her.

‘Sorry, he g…got away from me,’ said Kai, with a shrug of his shoulders; pushing aside the screen of leaves so he could step through after Bob.

‘He got away from you?’ repeated Fran, her eyebrows arching sarcastically as she looked from Kai down to Bob who had already grown bored with her and was now happily sniffing around the base of the tree. ‘Yeah, I bet he did… come on,’ she continued, already freeing her feet from her boots one foot at a time as she started to quickly unbutton her trousers, ‘let’s crack open one of the shampoo sachets we found, get him washed and then we can start work on doing a bit of laundry.’

‘Laundry?’ sighed Kai, stepping close to her; dropping the crowbar as he did so that his hands could playfully encircle her waist, her exposed bare skin tantalisingly smooth under his touch.

‘Yes, laundry,’ she smiled, as his hands slowly slid down to cup her buttocks; his thumbs hooking the waistband of her underwear. ‘Come on, Kai… play fair,’ she laughed, the sound sending a shiver of desire through him despite the fact she was already stepping backwards, slipping from his grasp.

‘Urgh,’ he groaned, desperate to feel the touch of her skin once more. ‘You’re the one n...not p…playing fair,’ he went on to say, shaking his head as his gaze purposefully dropped from her sparkling eyes down to below her waist.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she chuckled, at last shaking herself free of her trousers before pulling her top over her head, ‘I’m a real tyrant.’

‘The w…worst,’ he replied, running his hands briskly through his dark hair as if trying to clear his head of the unfulfilled desires that bubbled there. ‘Just as well I love you anyway,’ he finally added, watching as she slowly began to wade out in the water in nothing but her underwear; an apprehensive looking Bob held in her arms.

With the water lapping about her knees, Fran turned.

‘And I love you too…’ she said, winking as she looked back at him. ‘Now go and get that shampoo… and hurry this water’s fucking freezing.’

***

Just as Fran had expected, Bob hadn’t taken kindly to his bout of forced bathing and as she stood knee deep in the river watching him shake the water from what was left of choppily cut fur, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘Sorry, Bob,’ she laughed, already reaching for the another item from her pile of dirty clothes, ‘rule in the cart is, no-one’s allowed to smell worse than Tom… and don’t give me that look, you were well beyond that,’ she continued, smiling at the way Bob seemed to look back at her with an expression of shocked innocence on his face. ‘Yes you were, you were rank!’

Somehow knowing he wasn’t going to convince her otherwise, Bob promptly turned his back on Fran, walked over to a patch of already crushed down grass and sat down; looking back at her with his head placed on his paws as if the weight of the world rested upon his small furry shoulders.

‘Oh, great,’ said Fran, looking over at Kai who had similarly stripped down to his underwear and was now vigorously rubbing the soapy fabric of a pair of jeans together to rid them of ground in dirt, ‘I’m getting a guilt trip from…. a dog,’ she finally completed, her train of thought temporarily distracted as she watched the cold foamy water running down the pale skin of Kai’s muscular arms and splashing across his smooth bare chest.

‘Eye’s f…front,’ Kai laughed, suddenly realising she was watching him. ‘You had your ch…chance.’

‘What?’ she gasped in mock surprise, dunking a grimy t-shirt into the slow moving river. ‘I’m not doing anything… just doing my washing.’

‘Hmm, s…sure you are,’ he smiled, plunging his soapy jeans beneath the surface of the water to rinse them.

‘Well,’ said Fran, wringing the wet t-shirt before submerging it again, ‘no harm in looking is there?’ she continued, finally tossing the now slightly less filthy garment into the bucket filled with soapy water for a proper wash. ‘And anyway…’ she started to say until the expression on Kai’s face as he glanced past her through the curtain of leaves, immediately silenced her words.

‘How many?’ she whispered, immediately reaching for the machete she had earlier wedged blade first in the mud of the river bank.

Cursing as an unseen stone, hidden somewhere in the mud, suddenly scraped noisily against the metal of the blade, Fran glanced at Bob and hoped he had been around the Dead enough not give them away. Beside her, she saw Kai mutely hold up four of his fingers, indicating the number of cadavers he had seen, and then nod to the road beyond the tall weeds on the opposite bank. Before she could even turn to see for herself he increased the number to five as he noticed another corpse, possibly that of a child, trailing far behind the other four just coming into sight.

‘No sudden moves,’ whispered Fran, hopeful the curtain of foliage around them would obscure them from view. ‘Now… very slowly,’ she continued, her voice barely audible over the soft gurgling of the flowing water around them, ‘get your crowbar… just in case.’