The Dying & The Dead 2 (17 page)

Chapter
Sixteen

Ed

“I feel as weak as Ed’s arms,” said
The Savage.

He shifted on the ground. The trees
were getting sparser now, but when they looked up, all they saw was a night sky
so black that it even smothered out the stars. After a full day of walking they
had decided to stop and rest. They could have lit a fire, but none of them
wanted to risk it. Ed didn’t even think he’d be able to sleep. All day he’d had
the feeling of something following them, and every so often, terrible shrieks
came from deep in the forest.

“Just get some sleep,” said Ed.
“We’ll talk in the morning.”

The Savage sat up. His movements were
weary, and rather than seeming like a puppy, now he reminded Ed of an old dog.

“Why risk it?” he said. “Prolong it
all you want, but we all know what you’ll have to do, Ed. Here.”

The Savage reached into his pocket
and took out a penknife. He threw it across the ground. Ed picked up the blade
at his feet and held it. He knew that he was going to have to give The Savage
his blood, but he couldn’t face letting another man drink from him. The idea
seemed brutal, like something no person should ever have to think about. No
matter how the idea sickened him, was he willing to let The Savage turn? Would
it be any better to see the man die and then have to deal with him as an
infected?

“We’re not getting out of Loch-Deep
anytime soon. Ripeech put paid to that,” said The Savage.

Bethelyn scoffed. “If this Ripeech
even exists, he’s just a wolf or something. Whoever blocked the shortcut, it
wasn’t your mythical beast. There are no monsters.”

This time it was The Savage’s turn to
scoff. “No monsters? Did you have your eyes shut on Golgoth?”

“That was different. The infected
aren’t monsters. They’re different, somehow. More like us than anything else.”

“Because they still have the faces of
the people you know?” said The Savage. “Sometimes they’re the worst,
sweetheart.”

Bethelyn rubbed her eyes. “Don’t call
me that.”

“So what now?” said Ed.

The Savage stretched his arms. “My
ship’s out of the question, obviously. The shortcut is blocked. That leaves us
one option. Cut through the heart of Loch-Deep and walk across Ripeech’s lawn.”

“And what about him? The thing that’s
out there?” said Ed. Unlike Bethelyn, Ed knew that the shrieks and cries they
heard didn’t come from a wolf or any animal like that. They were something
else.

“I don’t know,” said The Savage.

Ed leaned back in surprise. It was
the first time he’d ever heard The Savage entertain self-doubt. Something about
it worried him. He stared at the man’s face and saw the bags under his eyes. The
infection was waking inside him, and it wouldn’t be long until it swam in blood
and poured into every cell in his body.

He gripped the penknife in his hand.
He slid the blade up out of the plastic, and held it against his thumb. The
Savage stared at him with hungry eyes. Ed didn’t want to do it, but he knew
that without The Savage, both he and Bethelyn would die in Loch-Deep.

The Savage passed him a plastic
bottle. They’d found it in the woods nestled in a mound of twigs, and The
Savage had cut off the end of it to make it into a cup.

Ed pricked his thumb with the blade.
He jerked back at the pain. Blood welled in his skin where the knife had
pierced, and he held it over the container.  As he watched his blood drip into
the plastic, he wondered what kind of world he’d found himself in. At one point
in his life his biggest worry had been the prospect of having to get a job. He
wondered what would have happened if he had been infected. Would he have had
the survival instinct to drink someone’s blood, or worse, eat their flesh?

His blood looked thick as it ran down
the side of the plastic. Across from him, The Savage eyed it lustily. For a
second, he looked more animal than man.

There was no choice really, he knew.
Without this man, despicable as he was, they’d never get out of Loch-Deep. He’d
never find James. They lived in a world where this sort of thing was necessary.
Probably accepted, even. Ed shuddered when he imagined what had become of the
Mainland. Even if this Ripeech was real, he wondered if worse monsters awaited
him in whatever towns and cities that had survived.

James was out there somewhere. The
last member of what was already a small family, even before his parents died.
He had to get to them. But then there was Ripeech. It was following them. He
sensed it, and he smelled it. Sometimes, in the dark, he heard its cries shriek
through the forest, and there was something almost human about them.

“Here,” said Ed.

As he passed the container to The
Savage, his blood swished in the bottom. The Savage held it in front of him.

“What’s the matter?” said Ed.

The Savage held it to his eye level.

“My blood not good enough for you?”

“I just hate the taste,” said The
Savage.

He pinched his nose with one hand,
and with the other he tipped the blood into his mouth. He made a slurping sound
as he drank. At one point he moved the container away from his mouth and
retched, but he wasn’t sick. He took a deep breath and then drank the rest
down.

“You’ve got some on your mask,” said
Bethelyn.

The Savage wiped the mouthpiece of
his mask, and then fastened it back up.

“What if we refused to give you
blood?” said Ed. “What would you have done?”

“He’d have killed us,” said Bethelyn.
She glanced at The Savage. “Wouldn’t you?”

The Savage set the container beside
him. He thought about the question for a few seconds.

“I expect I would,” he said.

As they sat in silence, a cry pierced
through the night. It was so loud and so full of pain that a shudder ran
through Ed. He had the urge to run and find somewhere small and safe; somewhere
enclosed where he was sure of the walls around him and didn’t feel so exposed.

“So why don’t you just do it?” said
Bethelyn. “The blood won’t hold off the infection long, will it?”

“A couple of days at most,” said The
Savage.

“And flesh is different?”

“Flesh would keep it at bay for a
month.”

“So why lead us out of here? Why not
just stab us in our sleep and then cook us up?”

Ed sat up. He stared into The
Savage’s eyes. The blood on his mask was already drying around the mouthpiece.
He stared at his eyes and saw weakness in them. Finally, he understood
something about The Savage.

“I think you want us to stay with
you,” he said. “You want to stay human, that’s why you don’t kill us. You’re
worried that if you carried on the way you were going, you were turning more
monster than person. That about right?”

The Savage thought about it. He put
the container in his pocket and then lay back on the ground.

“Get some sleep,” he said. “And wake
me if Ripeech comes.”

Chapter
Seventeen

Heather

In the glimmer of the fire she saw
the cruel expressions of the Capita soldiers. She leaned forward and felt the
heat on her face, and the sensation sent prickles along her skin. Shifting
position was a chore with bound hands, and if she moved even an inch the
soldiers would watch her. Before tying her up, they’d checked her pockets and
taken the rock that she had concealed.

They hadn’t told her their names, so
she had decided to call them Stone Face and Grandpa. One of them had features
that looked like they had been carved into a rock. The other had hair so white
that she had to look up to see if it was snowing. Despite how grumpy Stone Face
looked, he had a soft voice. Grandpa spoke with a growl.

“You used to work at the camp, I
heard,” said Stone Face.

Grandpa put his hands against the
flames. He got so close that Heather almost felt her own skin burn, but the older
man didn’t seem to notice the heat.

“I was at Dam Marsh for a while,” he
answered.

Stone Face tapped his fingers on his
trousers as if he couldn’t stay still even when sat down.

“Is it true about the doctor?
Scarsgill?”

“What about him?”

“I heard he’s a freak. That he’s into
all sorts of weird shit.”

Grandpa pulled his hands away from
the fire. “I knew a woman at camp who used to sleep with him. He was a cold
bastard, but she told me that when he screwed her, the bed nearly collapsed. He
just went at it like an animal. Then when he was done, he would lay back, all
stiff-like and just stare at the ceiling.”

Stone Face smiled. “Weird.”

“Yeah. Apparently he couldn’t sleep
at night because of the sounds of the infected on the perimeter.”

Stone Face leaned in closer to his
friend.

“Is it true what they say about you?”

Grandpa huffed. “I told them not to
put me with a chatty partner,” he said. “And they sent me you. Think they’re
punishing me.”

“Come on. Just tell me.”

“Fine,” said Grandpa. “It’s true. I’m
infected.”

“So what do you take for it? Blood or
flesh?”

“Flesh. It means unpleasantness once
a month, rather than four times a week. You get to my age and you can’t face
looking at a cup of blood every other morning.”

Heather knew where the blood and
flesh came from. If she thought she’d even get a second to try it, she would
have pounced on Grandpa and smashed his face in. It sickened her that he could
talk so brazenly about having to eat another person’s flesh.

The night before, they’d stopped.
Heather had been so exhausted that she’d fallen asleep, but it wasn’t long before
she bolted awake covered in sweat. She’d dreamed of Kim, and she had seen her
in Camp Dam Marsh. Scared and alone. Watching the people around her get killed
and have their bodies drained of blood and stripped of their flesh. Somewhere
in her mind, Heather knew that would happen to her daughter, too, but she
couldn’t think about it. All she could focus on was finding her and getting her
back.

“So is it as bad as they say at Dam
Marsh?” said Stone Face.

Grandpa gave him a sideways look. His
face was so serious Heather doubted he’d ever given a real smile in his life.

“Worse in some ways. Depends what you
think about them.”

“Them?”

“The Darwin’s Children. You’re a
young guy, and you’ve probably had the Capita’s lessons planted deep in you.
You’ll probably go right up to your sergeant when we’re back in the Dome and
tell him what I’ve said. I don’t care anymore, to be honest. Here’s the truth;
Dam Marsh is a horrible place. It’s inhuman. And sometimes, I can’t even look
at myself.”

Stone Face looked at the ground. “I
feel that way too sometimes,” he mumbled.

“Then why do you think we do it?”

Stone Face shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll tell you why,” said Grandpa.
“It’s fear. That’s what makes us go along. I mean, look at me. The white hair
isn’t a fashion choice, you know. I’m getting old. Soon enough my body will
give out and I won’t be able to work as a soldier anymore. What do you think
the Capita will do to me then? Throw me a retirement party and buy me a gold
watch?”

“Then why don’t you do something
else?”

Grandpa leaned forward. “Like I said.
Same reason most people go along with Ishkur and his friends. Fear.”

Heather watched the men as they
chatted. It wasn’t an excuse, she knew. Being scared didn’t forgive your
actions. Fear was a dividing line that separated the good from the bad. The
people who gave in to fear didn’t suddenly get a clear conscience.

She thought about Kim at camp. She
wondered if the doctor, Scarsgill, had done something to her. Maybe he’d focus
on the adults first, and then work his way to the children. Heather didn’t like
thinking this way. She didn’t want her moral code to be tainted grey, let alone
black. But when it was your own daughter, morals meant nothing.

I sound like them
, she thought. But maybe that was the
only way to get her back.

She shuffled on the ground.

“I need the toilet,” she said.

Grandpa looked at her.

“Then wet yourself. I’m not falling
for the old ‘
I need a wee’
trick. In fact, I’m not letting you anywhere
near me.”

Stone Face got to his feet. “Speaking
of that, I need to go see a man about a piss.”

Stone face walked away from the fire.
As he left, his Capita uniform blended into the darkness around him, and soon
enough Heather was left alone with Grandpa. Sometimes he looked at her and he
got a sneaky look on his face, as if the cogs of his mind were trying to turn
and it wouldn’t be long until he let them.

This would be her only chance, she
knew. The problem was that her hands were bound, so there was nothing she could
do. She looked at the fire as it twisted and spat.
I’ll do anything,
she
thought. She braced herself. This was going to hurt, but it would be the only
way.

Before Grandpa could react, Heather
rolled herself over into the middle of the fire. The flames nipped at her skin,
and her neck started to sting. She couldn’t help crying out.

Grandpa got to his feet.

“Holy shit,” he said.

He rushed over to her. Heather rolled
across the ground, extinguishing the flames on the mud. The soldier got to his
knees and put a hand on her. Heather leapt on him, knocking him over onto his
back.

She moved her head forward and sunk
her teeth into his neck. Grandpa screamed. It was such a high pitched cry that
Heather was taken aback. She pulled away from him and spat blood out onto the
floor.

Hearing the cry, Stone Face ran over
to them. Heather panted. Blood dripped down her chin, and the air smelled like
burned hair from the fire. A dim thought flashed through her brain;
would
his blood infect her?
There was no point wondering about it right now. It
had gotten her close enough to both soldiers that she could do something, and
that was all that mattered.

“You crazy bitch,” said Stone Face.

His gaze darted between Grandpa and
Heather, as if he was unsure whether to tend to his friend or deal with the
woman in front of him. She knew she must have seemed animal-like to him now.
The truth was, that’s how she felt. Adrenaline rushed through her, and she pushed
back all the doubts and disgust and focused on one thing. Kim.

Grandpa gurgled. He lifted a hand to
his throat and tried to stem the blood, but it just gushed over his fingers, down
his neck and onto his chest. Stone Face kneeled beside his friend, eyes wide in
alarm.

Heather got to her feet. Her hands
were still bound, but she was able to swing her leg at Stone Face’s head, and
there was a crack as her boot met his skull. She was pleased to find out that
his body was made of flesh and not rock, and Stone Face fell to the ground.
Heather walked over to him and kneeled down, pressing her knees onto his arms.

“Where does Charles Bull live?” she
said.

Stone Face shook his head.

Heather reached down. Between her
bound hands, she grabbed his penis through his clothes and squeezed. His eyes
bulged, but he didn’t cry out. She could tell by the way his veins throbbed in
his temple that he was in pain.

“Tell me where the bounty hunter
lives.”

She knew she had to get to Charles.
If he was the only one who could get her through Mordeline and into Camp Dam
Marsh, then she would make him do it. She couldn’t trust him, but maybe she
could control him. She just had to catch him unaware.

The soldier stared at her with his
eyes wide and lips shut. The flames of the bonfire illuminated the blood on
Heather’s hands. Finally, Stone Face spoke.

“Think a woman like you could make me
say a damn word?” he said. His words were tough, but his voice was strained. “I
spent a week in the Dome dungeons having guys meaner than you do much worse. I
won’t tell you a bloody thing.”

She reached across to Grandpa. He
still gurgled, but the fight in him was gone, and his hands rested on his
chest. She smothered her bound hands in the blood from his neck, and then
turned to face the other soldier. She held her hands above him.

“Your friend was infected, wasn’t
he?” she said.

Stone Face didn’t speak.

“And he was taking stuff for it to
stop him turning,” she continued.

Her breath caught in her chest. She
watched the blood trickle down her finger and form a drop on her fingernail.
She held it above the soldier’s mouth. He saw the droplet of claret, and
suddenly he understood. He thrashed underneath her, but Heather pressed her
whole weight into her knees and held him back. It was times like this that she
was glad she’d put on weight over the years.

The drop grew larger, and she moved
her hands away and let it fall onto the mud.

“The next drop goes in your mouth,”
she said. “And then I’ll break your legs and leave you to turn.”

The words sounded foreign, as if it
wasn’t her saying them. For a second, she thought she might have been possessed
by Charles Bull. It was the sort of thing she’d say, and the kind of thing he
would take pleasure in doing.

Stone Face cracked and he blurted out
the direction to Charles’s house. It wasn’t too far away, and Heather knew that
she could make it before dawn. Stone Face raised his head, but Heather threw
her own head forward and connected with his. The blow stunned him again.

She got to her feet. She walked over
to Grandpa and, leaning over, took a knife from the inside of his coat. She bit
it between her teeth and frantically cut at the bonds on her wrists, glancing
every other second at the soldier next to her.

With her hands free, she walked over
to the horses. One of them took a few steps back, but the ropes tied to a stake
in the ground stopped it from fleeing. She cast a look behind her. Stone Face
stirred on the ground.

She thought she might have to kill
him. If she didn’t, he could follow her. Even worse, he could go back to the
Dome and then come back for her with a whole unit of Capita soldiers. Then she
looked at Grandpa. He was still now, and the blood dribbled from his torn-open
neck. Heather could still taste it in her mouth. She wondered if it would
infect her, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She had only one drive, and
she would listen to it. She didn’t care if she died, as long as she found Kim
and made sure she was safe.