The Gristle & Bone Series (Book 1): The Flayed & The Dying

by Roach, Aaron

  Thaniel gave a hesitant half-smile.

  Delphi glowered. “Take them.”

  The Rangers rushed in, shoving hoods over the heads of Thaniel and Maldonado and disarming Francesca before covering her head too. They bound their hands behind them. When they pulled Thaniel from the dumpster they saw that inside the metal container with him, among some trash, were three large packs. They snatched those away as well.

  As Musky moved to tighten Maldonado’s binds, he saw the operator still held the dead agent’s earpiece in his hand. Through his hood, the operator must have sensed Musky staring at it, because he dropped it at his feet and announced, “Might as well let them know.”

  Musky grunted and pulled the ropes taught before picking up the earpiece and bringing it over to Delphi. She put it into her ear and clicked it on.

  [Delta, what’s your status?]

  “Your agent is dead, as are the others you sent. Please inform your Command that Thaniel Briends and the evidence he brought from Neyra’s project have been remanded into the custody of the Rocky Frontier Independence Movement.

  “The people will know. You will be exposed. We are coming.”

  As the Rangers led their prisoners out of the alleyway, Delphi fell into step behind them, crushing the earpiece beneath her heel.

  “Welcome to the Frontier, eastfooters,” she said, ostentatiously, raising her voice over their heads, “and the rebellion.”

  -94-

  Don gasped in the dark, reaching for the fire inside him, a blazing point of light that traced along his arteries. Don tore at himself to get it out. Out! The more he dug, the more his mind swam for it, a lifeboat on fire in a dark, raging sea. When he reached it, the fire exploded and consumed him. He burned, and through the suffering, he considered letting go of the flotsam, to drop backwards into the black until the fire disappeared altogether.

  But he held fast, and the light grew bigger, louder, until it became noise.

  Screaming.

  Don awoke to the sound of his own violent agony and with his remaining eye he saw his own hand ripping away long strips of flesh from his body. He tore until the hidden structure of bones beneath was revealed. Much of his skeleton had been broken from his encounter with the alpha, and now he felt the pieces snapping back together, healing at odd angles.

  Excruciating.

  He tried to retreat into the dark, but the fire wouldn’t let him. It wrapped him in tendrils of flame that clung to him, melting him – reshaping him.

  I am in a forge.

  It was hours until the agony died down to embers – a dull welcome heat after the inferno.

  When Don awoke again, he stood hesitantly, awkwardly. He crouched lower onto all fours so that the knuckles of his hands would carry some of his weight. He took a tentative movement forward and felt a slippery mass, the folded wet loops of his insides, fall from the cavity where his belly once was. He grunted dismissively, stood, and walked past them. He knew by instinct that these were useless to him now.

  He sensed Others nearby tittering at the edge of his consciousness. He reached for them, but they shrugged away the connection and he was left confused and alone.

  Answer me! He called into the void.

  Nothing.

  Then Don heard it. Whimpering. He turned his one eye and saw the broken alpha pulling itself across the grass. It was withering, its body caving in even as he watched.

  “You,” Don spoke. His voice was still his.

  Don approached the enemy alpha, which rattled off a poisoned groan as Don grasped it by one of its antlers. He yanked hard and snapped the antler off, bringing up the calcified points for inspection while the enemy squealed at his feet. Don’s gaze followed the length of the antler until he saw his own ossified hand gripping the end. He peered down at himself.

  What happened to me?

  “You,” Don repeated, staring down at the dying alpha who had resumed its crawling retreat across the grass. He put his foot on the back of the thing’s shoulder and shoved it to the ground. It shrieked as it was pinned.

  Don brought the antler up high and stabbed it down through the top of the alpha’s cranium. The horn went all the way through, exploding through cartilage and bone and stapling the creature’s skull to the earth. The thing seized and jerked for several moments before it eventually stilled.

  As the alpha faded from life, Don felt small pinpoints of light pierce through his consciousness, growing the ember at his core into a blaze. At first, only a few came through, like sunbeams puncturing through an early morning fog but soon those beams were joined by more, hundreds of them, then thousands, drowning him in light.

  He felt them all.

  Their hunger and their suffering.

  The Others.

  END

  OF

  BOOK

  1

  Coming Soon…

  KING

  BLOOD

  EAGLE

  A Novel of Gristle and Bone

  About the Author

  A.G. Roach knows the zombie apocalypse is coming – it’s only a matter of time. He has prepared for the inevitable rising dead by training Brazilian Jiujitsu, learning to survive on his sailboat, and travelling the west coast of the USA in his purple 1977 motorhome in search of potential sanctuaries. His wife, Tanya and an old pup named Coffee Dog also join him on these adventures, though they don’t entirely believe the end is coming.

  Before he started writing, A.G. Roach was a traveler and educator, having spent a number of years living and teaching in Honduras, China, Australia, and the U.S. More recently he has hunkered down in Portland, OR where he tries to find balance between writing, teaching online, and training martial arts.

  The Flayed and The Dying is A.G. Roach’s debut novel

  and the first book in his Gristle and Bone series.