The Condemned (19 page)

 
Beriael suddenly stopped and held a hand out in her direction, telling her halt,
then moving one finger to his lips, indicating she ought to stay quiet;
he had seen something. She moved the horse closer to him and stood still, looking around to try
to
see what had
sparked
his attention.
 
The change in motion had jolted Amato awake and he sat up quickly in the saddle with a quiet snort. He looked surprised and wiped a trail of drool from his chin with the back of his hand. Bits
y
seemed to be still sleeping, the weight at Leci’s back hadn’t shifted. She hoped the other girl didn’t drool all over her
shirt
.

  
‘Wha’s goin on?’ He slurred, his voice heavy with the weariness of someone disturbed from not enough much needed sleep. She watched as his hand instinctively went to the rifle at his back, resting on it but watching Beriael
, the sleepy look vanishing from his eyes fast and replaced with a sharp wariness as he realised something was happening
.

 
The Clone shook his head to signify that there was no bother, no need for the weapon
, not yet anyway,
and then pointed through the trees. Leci peered in the direction of his finger but couldn’t make out anything through the shadows of the trees.

  
‘See it?’ Beriael asked quietly.

  
‘Yep.’ Amato answered and Alecia frowned, straining to see whatever it was they were looking at
, was she freakin’ blind or something?
She cursed the darkened cell for causing her eyes to have such difficulty adjusting to varying light settings after four years of being subjected to either darkest black or harsh bright.

 
Slowly she began to perceive the
dim
shape of another cabin. It had been a while since they had seen one, three, maybe four hours ago
, though they had slowed down the pace a lot since they’d first set out
. The place looked dark and uninhabited but that didn’t mean anything and caution was always the safest way to approach an unknown dwelling
, surprising wary and potentially armed occupants could be fatal if you went about it the wrong way
.

 
Beriael handed the reins to her that he had been holding and at the same time
,
Amato slipped down from the saddle to the ground, pulling the rifle from his back.

  
‘Leci, wait here with the horses, we’ll go check the place out.’

 
She nodded and managed to suppress a yawn. God, she hoped the place was empty, her ass was numb from sitting on the damned horse for so long and she didn’t care where she dropped right now she just wanted to lay down and close her eyes. Not
only
that
,
but it would be nice to just have the option of relaxing for a while, sit and talk or sleep or whatever, just
not be running. A place this far out and this lonely, she’d stay here for days, weeks if she thought they could get away with it.

 
Bitsy had mentioned earlier that the forest creeped her out a little, the trees with their reaching branches ready to twist in your hair or slap back and claw at your face cruelly, the murmurings of the breeze in the leaves above like the sighing of lost souls and the hundreds of noises made by whatever creatures inhabited the undergrowth. Leci disagreed, to her it seemed peaceful here, serene and picturesque. She found the darkness welcoming, the trees were beautiful monuments that had stood the test of time and existed as remnants of an old life. The lulling sensation of the whispering above was more comforting than ghostly to her. It was nice, she could get used to it here.

 
A few minutes passed and she heard nothing from the direction the men had gone.

 
Alecia fidgeted nervously. She didn’t like that it was taking so long for them to see whether or not the place was empty, how hard was it to peek through a window and see if it looked lived in?

 
She was reaching a point where the temptation to follow them and see what was going on was becoming too strong to resist when she heard footsteps, twigs snapping underfoot, heading towards her. She eyed the foliage warily, half
expecting the men to have been killed by some crazy old weirdo who was now coming to finish the job.

 
She watched a scrawny, naked old man run from the trees, his emaciated body covered in wispy grey hair, all but the top of his head which was completely bald. A twisted, knotted beard grew f
rom his chin down to his navel
and over his head he swung a large axe that was covered in blood.
A necklace of teeth, human
teeth
, hung around his throat
like
some sort of sick trophy on a string,
she knew that he would
fashion their skins into leathery clothes, scalp her and use her hair as a wig to cover his
own bald, liver spotted pate.

 
Leci shuddered.

  
‘Gotta stop letting the imagination run away with you Walker.’ She chided herself beneath her breath as Amato emerged through the dense bushes, disintegrating the vivid scene she had imagined before her.

 
He had a strange expression on his face that Leci couldn’t read at all. Behind him, Beriael was stoic and he too gave nothing away. She held her hands out to the sides, palms up in a gesture that said ‘Well?’ A questioning look on her face. Amato saw her and couldn’t help grinning excitedly, he looked like a kid with a big secret and Leci felt her anticipation and eagerness growing and was desperately curious to know what they had found.

 
She turned and shook Bitsy by the shoulder. The Clone awoke
with a start and was only stopped from falling off the horse because Beriael had co
me up close and reached for her. H
e caught her as she began to slide down and set her on the ground with an arm around her waist to steady her until she fought off the clinging remnants of sleep. While he was stood
next to
the horse he reached into one of the packs strung over its back
and removed a pair of candles.
One of the places they had looted earlier had yielded a working torch and Amato had kept it in the pocket of his jacket, it was small and didn’t give off much light but it was better than nothing, he held it now in his hand.

    
Leci dismounted, a low groan escaping her as she straightened her legs and pressed her hands into the small of her back, massaging the dull ache there. It felt good to be stood on firm ground again but it would feel better to be laying on something, hopefully something soft.

    
She hooked both sets of reins over the branch of a nearby tree and moved to Amato’s side. He waited until all four of them were ready and then without a word
,
turned and headed back through the trees.

Leci followed, Beriael and Bitsy behind her walking hand in hand with one another.

    
It seemed eerily quiet and Alecia wasn’t sure if she should feel nervous or not, even the birds and bugs seemed to have respectfully toned it down around the cabin.

The place looked in relatively good shape, it looked as though somebody had put some effort into restoring and maintaining it
,
which to Leci was a bad sign and almost certainly meant that somebody lived here.

     The decking out front was rotten all the way through and lay in broken pieces around the front of the small structure, this was the only sign of disrepair about the exterior of the place other than the boarded up holes where she assumed there had once been windows.
It was a rarity, no, it was near impossible to find any building still standing with things like windows that were intact, it just didn’t happen, glass had been scavenged a long time ago
,
even in reclusive areas like this
. More likely though,
these boards served a
purpose other than just to block up a few places where the rain might blow in
.

    
It made
far
more sense to create a secure hideaway than to leave oneself vulnerable
,
and an empty hole in the middle of a wall was just a bad idea. The overall intention was fortification, keeping out anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there. Again, such measures suggested to Alecia that the place was not abandoned.

    
The building itself was quite small, cosy looking, from the outside Leci guessed at maybe four rooms. The front door stood ajar and Amato brazenly walked to it and entered. Bitsy and Alecia exchanged puzzled glances and then Beriael tugged
Bits after him as he followed and the two of them disappeared inside. Loathe to be left alone outside
alone,
and very much wanting to see what all the fuss was about, Leci stepped out of the slowly brightening day and into the dim interior.

    
Her initial reaction was one of disgust as she found herself gagging and holding a hand over her mouth. She could see nothing in the dimness, there was no source of light with the windows boarded over and the only thing she was able to register was the horrendous smell that assaulted her. She couldn’t place it, it was sickly sweet but at the same time rotten, like meat that had been left out in the sun for too long, it made her eyes water and bile rise in her throat.

     
‘Oh my God, what is that?’ Morgan, stood beside Leci,
was as shocked as she was by the assault on their senses that the men had failed to prepare them for.

     S
he was covering her nose and though Leci couldn’t see very well the other woman seemed to be
standing out very well against the gloomy background, her features pale and sickly
.

     
‘Just ignore the smell...’ Amato instructed.

     
‘Are you serious? How can you ignore that? It smells like something died.’ Leci retorted, disgusted that she had been brought into this place.

     
‘Exactly.’ Amato replied, sounding very pleased with himself.

     
‘Huh?’

    
Leci felt something being thrust into her hands and looked down to see the candles that Beriael had retrieved earlier.

     
‘Do us a favour
,
Firebug?’

    
She carefully lit the wick of one and handed it to Amato, then the other and passed it to Beriael. She wanted her hands free just in case, besides, she wasn’t even
sure she wanted to see the rest of the place now
. Accompanying the smell sh
e
notice
d a high buzzing sound like... l
ike an angry swarm.

Perhaps the sound was in her head, perhaps the smell was just too gross and she was on the verge of fainting...

    
Amato lifted the candle and the room was lit dimly. Leci allowed herself to look up, follow the path of the light. The place looked nice, it was in surprisingly good condition, there was even furniture
,
and
better yet,
it looked intact. A wooden table and two rickety looking wooden chairs stood at one end of the room beside rows of shelves that held several labelled cans and tins, to the side of it was a small fireplace with a cooking pot suspended over coals. The floor in the centre of the room was covered with what looked to be the fur of a bear, a small wooden table
was
sat on top of the bear-rug and around it were positioned a moth eaten couch and two chairs. The fabric of the furniture was worn and patched with holes, if it had ever held a pattern or colours other than dirty grey they were now indiscernible. They sagged
terribly in the middle but they were standing which was a novelty.

    
Amato moved over to the small table in the middle of the room. He held his candle at an angle and dripped some wax onto the surface then quickly stood the candle in it, the drying pool holding it
upright
. He flicked the small torch to life and panned back across the room.

    
On the opposite wall to the table were two doors, one was wide open and the buzzing seemed to come from inside, the other was closed.

    
Amato took a step in the direction of the open doorway and Leci reached for him, grabbing his jacket as though
wanting
to hold him back, he felt the tug and looked back, looked down at her hand and smiled,
appeared
slightly amused at her concern. He plucked her fingers away but didn’t brush off her hand and instead enclosed it in his own and then pulled her with him. Leci resisted initially but then went with him. She was afraid of the smell but she trusted him and was sure he wouldn’t be leading her into any sort of danger
.