Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (17 page)

‘If you’ll all just calm down a bit and… and…’ said Tom, faltering as other opinions, whispered by unseen ghostly lips, briefly demanded his attention, ‘and as I said, look past the corpses… try to look at what you’re actually seeing. Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble here… see it for what it is.’

One by one they each turned to look back at the corpse covered railings.

‘They’re all f…facing outwards,’ said Kai, clicking his fingers as the realisation of what he was seeing suddenly struck home. ‘It’s an a...alarm,’ he continued, a smile spreading across his face as his dark eyes sparkled triumphantly.

‘Damn! You’re right,’ agreed Fran, with a nod. ‘They’re on guard duty aren’t they…they’re like a fucking watchdog… someone’s using them to watch out for the living.’

‘Yeah, that’s my guess too,’ nodded Tom, tilting his neck to one side to look at Fran who, in the cramped confines of the driver’s seat, practically had her head perched on his shoulder. ‘Now the only question is, is the guard dog to keep people away full stop, or just to warn whoever’s inside when someone’s approaching.’

‘Could it be abandoned?’ asked Sam, hopeful they wouldn’t have to meet the person insane or genius enough to think of using the corpses in such a manner. ‘I mean, who knows how long they’ve been there... whoever did this may be long gone.’

‘N…no,’ said Kai, shaking his head. ‘The Dead, they’re m…moving, they’ve seen someone r…recently… someone alive.’

‘Guess there’s only one way to find out,’ muttered Tom, giving Star’s reins a sharp flick, urging her onward. ‘Let’s get a closer look… see who’s home.’ He went on to say, his voice finally fading away until his lips only moved in unspoken and mute dialogue with those much less corporal.

***

‘Well I suppose we should follow him,’ said Fran, looking at the open doorway that only moments ago had framed the teenage boy who had watched their approach with disinterest.

‘Stay close… both of you,’ whispered Tom, his grip on his blades subconsciously tightening as he shot Mike a look of warning.

A few minutes earlier, after Star had pulled them past the wall of limbless corpses secured by their necks and waists to the railings surrounding the church yard, they had come to a stop by a small covered archway. Beneath it and wedged open by a brick, was an intricately designed wrought iron gate unadorned by any of the mutilated Dead; the lack of corpses here clearly indicating that any visitor to the church was to use this and only this as the single point of entry.

‘Apparently we’re at Mrs. Bradbury’s Trading Post,’ Tom had said, reading aloud a hand painted sign that someone had left leaning against the open gate.

‘Warning! Shoplifters will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,’ said Fran, noticing a smaller second sign that had been wired to the ironwork of the gate. ‘Oh, and she’s put a nice smiley face at the end to show there’s no hard feelings,’ she added, with a chuckle. ‘How polite of Mrs. Bradbury… Right, so what do we need, what have we got to trade and who’s coming?’ she went on to say, wondering if Tom could control himself long enough to get past the row of corpses without hacking them to pieces.

As it turned out Tom had assured her he would be okay and after only a brief moment when he had first stepped out of the cart, his presence excited the Dead further, and Fran had caught him muttering to himself through gritted teeth, he had managed to get to the gate without incident.

‘Looks like someone didn’t take Mrs. Bradbury’s warning seriously,’ Mike had said, dropping down to a crouch to look at a particular corpse, its jaws snapping, desperate to get to the living flesh so close yet forever beyond its reach.

‘Why?’ asked Fran, afraid she already knew the answer.

Sure enough, as she looked at the corpse that had caught Mike’s interest, the single word printed across a home-made badge that was pinned to the cadaver’s stinking rags confirmed her fears; it simply read ‘thief’.

‘Oh, great,’ she said, looking back at Tom, who seemed transfixed by the writhing corpse. ‘Now what do we do? Tom… Tom, I said what should we do?’ she continued, concerned he may be losing his internal battle to remain in control.

‘Fran!’ Mike had suddenly hissed beside her, nodding as he rose to his feet. ‘We’ve got company.’

Spinning, Fran, and thankfully also Tom, turned to see the slim figure of a boy of about twelve years old now leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe of the church; a look of total boredom on his face. Certain that he hadn’t been there moments ago, Fran wondered where the boy had silently popped up from but more importantly for just how long had they been under his watchful scrutiny. For a few seconds more the boy watched them, unmoving; his eyes flitting from Fran to Mike until finally coming to rest on Tom, or rather the wickedly sharp blades he held in each hand. Then, as if he had made up his mind about something, he simply nodded and turned away from them, disappearing through the church’s large heavy oak door behind him.

‘Mike, stay behind Fran,’ whispered Tom, as the three of them stepped beyond the shadows of the covered archway and out onto the cobbled path running through the crammed vegetable patch that presumably had once been the church’s small graveyard.

‘Perhaps…. this isn’t such a good idea after all,’ mumbled Fran, eyeing the darkness of the open doorway and wondering what really awaited them inside.

‘I doubt they would have posted the warning if they really planned to ambush us,’ said Tom without looking back at her, ‘but just in case, don’t let your guard down and if the shit does hit the fan you just get back to the cart, both of you…. I’ll try and buy us some time… Don’t wait for me,’ he finally said after a pause, his tone telling Fran the statement was not up for debate.

‘Come into my web said the spider to the fly,’ Mike muttered to himself, nervously moving their sack of tradable goods from one hand to the other.

‘Just stay calm,’ said Tom, pausing on the threshold of the church to spare Mike a reassuring glance.

And then with the voices of unseen spectres demanding he go back to reap his violent retribution upon the tethered cadavers still whispering in his ears, Tom took a deep breath and stepped forward.

‘Now, you won’t be needing your weapons,’ came a woman’s calm yet firm voice from the shadows. ‘I run a respectable establishment here.’

‘Mrs. Bradbury I take it?’ said Tom, his gaze urgently sweeping the immediate area as soon as his eyes had adjusted to the change in light.

‘The one and only,’ said the sturdy looking woman in her late forties sat behind a counter on the other side of the cage that enclosed Tom and the others just inside the church doorway.

‘And you really are a trading post,’ stated Fran, sounding somewhat relieved as she looked past the woman to the rest of the dark building that was crammed high with shelves groaning under the weight of the goods heaped upon them.

‘My family has had a shop here in Milestone for over two hundred years,’ Mrs. Bradbury replied, her eyes twinkling with pride. ‘Floods, wars… they’re all the same,’ she went on to say with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘People need things and I provide them. I wasn’t going to close up shop just because the Dead decided they preferred being up and about more than rotting in their graves where they should be.’

‘But what about Raiders?’ asked Tom, noticing the young boy from earlier was now sat in the shadows beyond Mrs. Bradbury, using the meagre light filtering through a narrow stained glassed window to read a book.

‘Them? Huh!’ barked Mrs. Bradbury, her upper lip curling in distaste. ‘Bullies, the lot of them. We can spot them a mile off, don’t you worry. They don’t usually get this far.’ she went on to say quite matter-of-factly.

‘Oh, yes?’ asked Fran, suddenly unsure if the woman before them was quite as friendly as she seemed.

‘Yes, dear,’ Mrs. Bradbury replied with a smile, nodding to the doorway behind them before pointing to something above.

From Mike’s sharp gasp of surprise it was clear someone now stood behind them and as Fran let her gaze drift to the area above their heads she noticed a man and a young woman sat in the shadowy rafters of the church; each with a bow resting in their laps, arrows primed and ready.

‘See,’ smiled Mrs. Bradbury, safe in the knowledge that any attacker would be struck down before they reached her, ‘as I said, this is a respectable establishment… and to be frank, dear, you’d also be dead by now if we thought you’d come here to make trouble.’

‘So you’ve been watching us since we arrived in Milestone,’ stated Tom, kicking himself that he hadn’t seen anyone and it was only by pure luck that they hadn’t walked into a trap. ‘We had no idea…well done… I must say, you certainly have a gift for it,’ he continued, slowly turning to give a congratulatory nod to the bearded man now stood in the doorway, who simply bobbed his head in acknowledgment.

‘But anyway,’ said Mrs. Bradbury, softly clapping her hands together; suddenly playing the polite proprietress once more, ‘enough of that unpleasantness… How can I help you today?’

‘Well first, there’s a house out on its own, about a mile or so out of the village,’ Tom started to ask before Mrs. Bradbury held up her hand, stopping him. ‘Is it…’

‘Tut, tut!’ she said, tilting her head to one side. ‘Everything is a commodity these days and everything has a value, even information…. So, what will you trade?’

‘What?’ laughed Tom. ‘You want us to trade something for the answer to a question? Forget it! From what we’ve seen and what you’ve already told us then I already have my answer.’

‘Oh yes?’ asked Mrs. Bradbury, a smile twitching at her lips. ‘How so?’

‘Well, you’ve probably got most of the wandering Dead from round here already tied up outside,’ he began, jerking his head to signal the railings outside. ‘Probably adding to them whenever more turn up… and you clearly keep an eye on what goes on in your village, so I doubt you’d be happy letting anyone dodgy take up residence so close to home… so... so my guess is the house will be fine… okay for one night at least,’ he added, in case Mrs. Bradbury and friends weren’t too happy about new neighbours moving into the area uninvited.

‘Looks like you saved yourself a trade there then,’ smiled Mrs. Bradbury. ‘Anything else?’

‘Erm, yes I…’ said Mike, stepping forward, the sack of chosen items to trade in his arms, ‘I need some things… if you have them.’

‘Okay… and just what can I do for you, young man,’ she asked.

‘Well, I know it’s a long shot but powdered milk or some of that all-in-one protein milk shake stuff… erm… sleeping tablets, I need sleeping tablets… oh, and vitamins…’ he continued, trying to remember what else Sam had said to ask for.

‘Do…do you have a baby with you?’ said Mrs. Bradbury, her smile suddenly tinged with a genuine concern.

‘Don’t answer!’ barked Tom, stopping Mike from replying. ‘Trade you?’ he went on to say, hoping he wasn’t pushing his luck with the canny woman in front of them or her armed guards above.

Mrs. Bradbury simply looked at Tom, her face becoming blank as if shocked that someone had turned her very own tables on her. Then with a deep rolling laughter suddenly exploding out of her mouth, she slapped her hand down on the counter.

‘Deal!’ she laughed, pushing herself off her stool to shuffle over to search in a particular box on a shelf. ‘I’ll trade you this for the answer to my question,’ she went on to say returning to her counter, a single pacifier dangling from her fingers.

‘Yes,’ said Mike, glancing briefly at Tom as if asking for permission to speak, ‘my daughter, Poppy.’

‘Poppy, what a pretty name,’ smiled Mrs. Bradbury. ‘Here, dear, you have this,’ she continued, urging Mike to come forward, ‘and you take it with my blessing… Now, as for the other things, what have you got?’

For the next twenty minutes Fran, Tom and Mike haggled with Mrs. Bradbury for what they each needed; far too much of that time being used to dispute the merit and worth of a single tin of rice pudding. Eventually Mike relented, taking the deal that had been offered, and despite not getting quite the number of vitamin tablets he thought it was worth, in the end he was pleased with his barter, knowing that overall a fair deal had been struck for both sides.

‘And there’s nothing else?’ asked Mrs. Bradbury, knowing it had come time to bid farewell to her customers.

‘Oh, erm…’ said Tom quite off-handedly, as if almost hoping to trip her up. ‘White Oak Park, you heard of it?’

‘Trade?’ asked Mrs. Bradbury, her tone strangely hopeful.

‘I think you cleaned us out,’ smiled Fran, clutching a prized bottle of bleach to her chest. ‘We’ve nothing left we can afford to do without I’m afraid.’

‘Oh… you’re sure?’ asked Mrs. Bradbury again, looking slightly crestfallen by Fran’s refusal. ‘Well…’ she finally went on to say when it became apparent she would get nothing more out of them, ‘well, you have a safe journey and be careful… and do pop in if you’re ever down this way again. It’s always nice to see a return customer.’

‘Sure,’ said Tom, gesturing to Mike it was time to leave, ‘Mrs. Bradbury, it’s been a pleasure,’ he continued, tipping an imaginary hat in farewell. ‘And now I think we’ll be on our way.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she replied, a sad and quite brittle smile on her lips, ‘you’ll be wanting to get to the old Webster place before you lose the light.’

‘Exactly,’ Tom agreed, with a nod.