Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (18 page)

‘Well, goodbye,’ smiled Fran, as Tom and Mike stepped towards to the open door. ‘It’s nice to have met you.’

‘Yes… yes, you too, dear.’ she replied. ‘You take care… and…’ she continued, her faltering words causing Fran to pause in the doorway, ‘and… well, good luck.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fran, finally turning to follow Tom and Mike back outside. ‘You too… bye.’

‘Bye, dear,’ mumbled Mrs. Bradbury, her hand coming up a fraction too late for Fran to see her wave. ‘Be safe.’

***

‘You do realise they’re the ones they were looking for,’ said the bearded man standing in the doorway, his arms folded as he watched the three strangers walking along the cobbled path back to their cart. ‘Those two blokes that came by last week… not the one with the beard, they didn’t mention him,’ he went on to say, glancing back at his mother-in-law, ‘but the other two definitely.’

‘Hmm… yes, Jack, I know,’ muttered Mrs. Bradbury, busying herself with closing various drawers she had previously pulled opened.

‘Mum, you should have told them,’ said the woman still perched up in the rafters, sliding her arrow back into the quiver strapped on her back. ‘About White Oak, I mean. You should have warned them.’

‘You heard them,’ Mrs. Bradbury replied, glancing up at her daughter, ‘they… they didn’t want to trade.’

‘Oh, mum,’ sighed the young woman, shaking her head in disapproval as she turned to begin her descent.

‘I… I offered,’ said Mrs. Bradbury to no one in particular, her eyes dropping guiltily to the small pile of bartered goods in front of her, ‘they didn’t want to,’ she repeated to herself, her words for the first time somehow sounding hollow even to her own ears, ‘they didn’t want to trade.’

***

Chapter 4:

Fran’s eyelids fluttered open, a vague sense of unease and uncertainty greeting her. Had she just heard something, a noise, perhaps from outside permeating through the cloudy haze of her sleep to offer up its warning to wake her? Whatever it was, it had put her on edge and as she lay motionless, straining her ears, she watched the bedroom curtains moving slowly back and forth in the gentle autumnal breeze.

When she and Kai had earmarked this room the previous evening it had seemed welcoming, luxurious even. With its intricately patterned wallpaper, richly upholstered furniture and artfully coordinated rugs and accessories, the room had been a welcome respite from the hard life that the Dead had thrust upon them. But now as she lay in the dark, the room bathed in a sterile and uncompromising moonlight, it had somehow changed before her eyes becoming cold, lifeless; like a mere copy of what truly existed. Where before she had revelled in the feel of the heavy and clearly once expensive feather comforter laying at the foot of the bed, now it seemed damp, dusty, its printed floral pattern sad and fading, its weight nothing more than an oppressive presence threatening to creep up and smother them.

‘
Four-thirty
,’ she groaned to herself, tilting her wrist to read the glowing numbers on the watch she had at some point requisitioned from one of the Dead. ‘
Why the fuck am I awake at four-thirty in the morning!
’

As if to answer her own question she suddenly heard a strange grunt-like sound coming from somewhere in the garden below the window. Had this been what had woken her? Had she subconsciously roused herself, knowing that something was amiss; that unseen danger threatened as they slept? With her pulse starting to quicken Fran swung her legs out from under the blankets; thankful that despite the apparent comfort that the room had offered, she had gone to bed with her boots still securely on her feet. Slowly she pushed herself up from the mattress, the thick carpet beneath her cushioning any sound as she rose to her feet. With her eyes fixed on the open window beyond the moving curtains, as if some horror was about to burst through it, she reached down for the machete she had placed on her side of the bed earlier. It was only as her fingers encircled the sturdy wooden handle of her blade that Fran happened to glance behind her, back at the bed she had just vacated.

‘
Kai?
’ she thought, surprised to find the bed empty; the mere ruffle of pushed back blankets the only sign he had been there at all.

‘Shit!’ she spat, hoping he hadn’t heard the sound before her and gone to investigate himself. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

With scenes of blackened and decaying claw-like hands pulling a struggling Kai to the ground and ultimately to his death, flashing though her mind, Fran bolted to bedroom door.

‘Stay!’ she barked at Bob, the small dog enthusiastically jumping to his feet as she made a grab for the door handle.

Pulling open the door, Fran stepped out onto the cool landing. Pausing to get her bearings in the unfamiliar building, her gaze briefly flitted across the framed photographs hanging on the wall in front of her. Unknown happy smiling faces beamed back at her from the shadows, eager to remind her of a simpler time, a time before the Dead; and for a split second she wondered where these people were now. It was then that she distantly noticed the sound of Mike’s contented snoring drifting hypnotically to her through the darkness from the next room. It was such a simple thing, this rhythmic intake and exhalation of breath as the man slept, but instantly it seemed to have a calming effect on her; gently soothing her hammering heart and allowing her a chance to think. Perhaps she was overreacting. Perhaps Kai had simply gone to relieve himself and she was just fretting over nothing; after all they were in the countryside and surely there were countless possible explanations to what she had heard. But then her gaze settled on a dusty framed photo of the laughing family, their faces forever frozen in a single moment of blissful and loving joy, and as her hand unconsciously rose to touch it she instinctively knew they were dead; the Dead had taken them, each and every one of them. And with that single grim realisation crowding out all other thoughts, Fran broke into a run; once again sure their lives were in danger.

‘
Kai, you
idiot!
’ she raged to herself, a knot of sickening dread tightening in her stomach as she pounded down the hall, the thick but dusty carpet reducing her thundering footsteps to little more than dull thuds. ‘
You stupid bloody fool!
’

With her momentum increasing, Fran all but threw herself round the turn in the stairwell, grabbing hold of the bannister just at the last moment to stop herself from slamming into the opposite wall. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered the sound of wood cracking as the rail protested against the force her passing; but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered now but finding Kai and as she charged down the remaining flight of stairs, her machete inadvertently leaving gouges and scrapes in the expensive wallpaper as she went, she prayed she wasn’t too late.

Their bedroom had overlooked the rear garden, so Fran knew she would have to make her way back through the ground floor, away from the wide front door with its beautiful Victorian stained glassed panels and head towards the kitchen. No sooner had she left the final stair behind her than she noticed a door hanging ajar further down the hall, heading in the direction she needed to go.

‘
Kai!
’ she thought, knowing he must have come this way.

Before they had gone to bed she had made sure to close all the interconnecting doors on the ground floor, knowing it could buy them a few precious minutes if the Dead attacked while they slept. So to see door after door left open ahead of her she knew she was on the right track and as she finally charged into the moonlit kitchen it came of no surprise to find the back door standing ajar; tendrils of a dense fog slowly curling round the doorframe and along the tiled floor toward her.

‘Kai!’ she hissed, hopeful he was close enough to hear her whispered call. ‘Kai, are you there?’

With no reply Fran stepped into the kitchen, slowly skirted round the central isle with its dark marble counter top and gingerly pulled the door all the way open.

‘Kai!’ she called again, raising her voice as loud as she dared as she peered into the dense fog that seemed to churn before her eyes.

She was just about to take a step forward into the swirling mass when she head the soft ‘tap-tap-tap’ of claw on tile behind her.

‘I told you to stay,’ she muttered, glancing down at Bob who had clearly chosen to ignore her command; instead following her to now stand by her side, sniffing the cool night air. ‘Well, just don’t get in the way,’ she continued to mumble, afraid to admit to herself that she was more than a little grateful for his company as she finally took the plunge and stepped across the threshold out into the overgrown garden; at last allowing the smothering fog to swallow her whole.

‘
Where the fuck are you?
’ she thought to herself, slowly edging forward; the tall damp grass brushing against her legs quickly soaking through her trousers.

As she cautiously made her way onward she tried to picture the garden before her as she remembered it from the previous evening. The large expanse of overgrown lawn, choked with weeds and meadow flowers, the gazebo somewhere to her left groaning under the weight of the ivy and honeysuckle that had claimed it as their own and then there, straight ahead of her, should be the riotous flower beds gone to seed, slowly being swallowed up by the small woodland that the house backed onto; but try as she might she couldn’t get her bearings. She had never seen fog as dense and as cloying as this before, not even on the dankest of winter mornings, let alone in autumn and no matter which way she turned it seemed to twist and roll in ghost-like eddying currents.

‘Kai,’ she whispered once more into the opaque void surrounding her. ‘Are you…’

She was about to say more when she heard the sound again. Raw and almost animalistic, the grunt instantly stalling her words; choking them in her throat. Beside her a low growl began to rumble in Bob’s throat. Whatever was out there, he sensed its presence too and was not happy. Yet Fran could see nothing, the wall of swirling moisture around her reducing everything to shapeless shadows of darkness. But see it or not, Bob knew something was out there and almost immediately his growl intensified, his lips curling to bare sharp teeth; and then with jaws snapping in anger, he started to frantically bark. Fran knew whatever it was, it was close and getting closer. And then all of a sudden a shape seemed to form from the fog draped shadows in front of her; a shape large and charging towards her. Instinctively Fran swung the machete upwards, ready to fend off an attack. But then in a split second, the shape changed, suddenly coalescing into something solid and terrifyingly recognisable; it was Kai. Horrified to realise it was the man she loved, she instantly tried to twist the angle of her blade away to avoid him but it was futile and she knew it; he was running too fast and almost upon her. Already too close to change direction, he didn’t see the long blade in her hand until, with a terrifying gasp escaping his lips, it plunged into him.

‘No!’ screamed Fran, jolting as she felt the metal scrape sickeningly along his ribs and into his flesh.

‘Fran?’ Kai simply gasped, his dark eyes wide with uncertainty and surprise, as if questioning his own understanding of what had just happened. ‘I… I…’

‘No, Kai, no… I… You’re going to be alright, you’re going to be fine. I promise… you’re going to be fine,’ Fran babbled, feeling her world suddenly crumble about her as Kai fell towards her; his knees giving way beneath him. ‘No, Kai, stay with me… stay with me, please, Kai, stay with me…’ she wept, her own knees buckling under his weight; forcing them both awkwardly down into the tall damp grass.

‘F…Fran, I…’ panted Kai, his voice rasping and distant as his lifeblood pumped over her hand, still instinctively clutching the blade.

‘Tom!’ Fran frantically screamed into the air, praying he would hear her from the cart at the front of the house; all worry for stealth suddenly forgotten. ‘Tom! Help me! Tom, it’s Kai… it’s Kai,’ she went on to cry, her voice dropping to a sobbed whisper as she searched for something nameless in Kai’s face. ‘He’s… hurt.’

‘Fran,’ whispered Kai, his bloody fingers reaching up to gently touch her face; wet streaks of almost black looking blood left in their wake. ‘I…’

Whatever he was going to say was abruptly cut off by a painful wet cough that sent dark blood spraying from his lips; hitting her across her face.

‘Shush… shush…you’re going to be fine,’ she cooed, tasting the blood of the man she loved on her lips. ‘Tom will know what to do,’ she continued, her heavy tears falling freely, her words barely audible between her choking sobs. ‘He’ll know… you’re going to be okay, Kai,’ she went on to whisper, unsure just who her words were trying to convince; softly cupping his chin, she forced him to keep eye contact with her. ‘You’re going to be…’

It was then that she noticed a figure had appeared out of the fog and was now looming over them.

‘It’s too late,’ came a voice from the fog-shrouded shadow above her.

‘No, please, you have to…’ Fran began to protest recognising Tom’s voice; refusing to accept there was nothing he could do for Kai.

‘It’s too late,’ he repeated, his tone almost callous and unemotional, ‘you can’t save him.’

‘No, Tom… Kai,’ wept Fran, shaking her head in denial, as she looked down into Kai’s face, his breathing shallow and strained; his skin suddenly as pale as the moonlight itself. ‘Please, Kai... stay with me. Stay with me.’

‘No one can save him now,’ Tom continued, so final and matter-of-factly that Fran looked up at him, the dense swirling fog obscuring his features.

‘Tom… no, please,’ she said, searching the indistinct shadow for some semblance of hope and compassion.

‘He’s lost,’ stated Tom, ‘lost to you and to his humanity.’

‘Tom, what…’ she started to ask, unnerved by his strange turn of phrase.

‘There’s only one thing I can do for him…’ he continued, coldly ignoring her words. ‘Only one thing for us all.’

In that instant the churning fog seemed to swirl in front of her eyes, until, with a shard of moonlight suddenly piercing the gloom, it parted; exposing Tom’s figure bathed in a cool silver light. It took a second for Fran to process what she was seeing; Tom with his arm held aloft, the curved blade in his hand glinting. And then as the sickening realisation finally hit home, she watching in wide eyes horror as the blade began to fall.

‘No!’ she screamed, jolting herself awake; her heart hammering loudly in her chest as she wildly gasped for breath.

‘What?’ said Kai, startled awake by her cry, his dazed and partly sleeping mind racing to catch up with his body. ‘Fran. W…what… what’s the m…matter? What is it? W…What is it?’

‘Oh, Christ!’ panted Fran, frantically kicking her legs out from under the blankets as she buried her face in her hands; images of Tom’s blade charging towards Kai still flashing through her mind. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

‘W… What! Fran, what’s the m…matter?’ Kai repeated, wrapping his arms about her shoulders concerned that he had never seen her so upset.

‘Oh, Kai… I… I’m okay… it was just… just a dream,’ she managed to mumble into his chest before the emotion of her dream spilled out over into reality and she found herself sobbing in his arms.