Added to the fact that we were going to battle it was no wonder I was having nightmares. Still it terrified me, the thought of losing my family was unthinkable. I felt shook up because Frankie was the strongest person I'd ever met, if she couldn't survive was hope did I have?
I wrapped my arms around her as I tried to get back to sleep, I brushed it off as simply a nightmare and while it was horrible to see I knew better than to give into fear. Frankie wasn't going to die, neither were my family, because I wasn't going to let them die, I would protect them with my life.
The next morning after breakfast we all gathered round the table to discuss the plan, from what we could gather there were ten of the cannibal's and twenty of us. Though four of us were children so there would be sixteen of us that could fight, although a few of us would have to stay behind to look after the children Lottie pointed out. Brooke, Lottie and Poppy would stay behind which meant that there would be thirteen of us going.
I could not help but feel increasingly nervous as we made our plans, I wanted to scream and shout that we shouldn't go through with it but I didn't because I knew that my pleas would fall on deaf ears.
We decided to sneak up on their camp at night and take them by surprise, hopefully they would be asleep so they should be easy targets. I was filled with dread, there were knots in my stomach. We readied ourselves and gathered all of our supplies, Rob had insisted that before we make our move we should hide the vaccine and food in a safe place nearby just in case anything went wrong. So that's just what we did, back at Whitmore there was an old tree house in wooded area that had been built by children many years ago. It would make the perfect hiding place, the group trusted Frankie, Delilah, Rowena and I to hide everything.
We packed up all of our things and got ready to leave, I could feel my heart beating faster with anxiety. As we let Rob open the gate I wondered again if we were doing the right thing, I looked at Frankie who was walking with new a determination while I silently prayed that we all got through this.
We reached Whitmore a short while later, this had once been a beautiful village. Looking at it now this desolate place made me feel sad, we had picked every place nearby clean of food and supplies. No one had any reason to come here, we had cut most of the trees down to use as fire wood; we had taken windows out of houses to repair our own when a storm destroyed parts of our house. There we no birds nor other animals here, it was a truly empty place.
'I think we should split the supplies in two,' said Frankie suddenly breaking the silence.
'What do you mean?' Delilah asked sounding puzzled. 'What are the chances that something happens to any of us? Leaving all the supplies in one place is too risky, we need two hiding places,' she looked glum as realisation of the extent of the danger we were putting ourselves in hit her.
We all stood for a moment thinking, Frankie was right if anything happened to us and our group got split up we would all need supplies.
'Where do you propose we hide the rest of the supplies?' Rowena asked quietly. 'In the Veterinary Clinic, no one would think to look in there,' Frankie replied solemnly.
We split up into pairs, me and Frankie went to the clinic while Delilah and Rowena went to the tree house.
As we walked to the clinic I felt that now is was the time to tell Frankie how I really felt about the plan, I took a deep breath to prepare myself for what would no doubt be a harrowing conversation.
'Frankie, I have to tell you that I have my doubts about this plan,' I said seriously.
'I know you do, but we will be fine,' she replied as she leaned over to kiss me.
'You don't understand I had a dream last night, in my dream you died,' I told her fearfully.
'I promise you, nothing is going to happen to me. I know you're afraid and the dream was just showing you your fear,' she said comfortingly.
'Don't you think we should have a backup plan in case anything goes wrong?' I asked sombrely as I tried to change the subject.
'I've been thinking about that as well, if for whatever reason we get split up we should meet up at the clinic,' even when she was serious her voice still sounded soft and angelic.
'Sounds like a good plan, we could also tell people to go to the tree house as well just in case they can't make it to the clinic.' I replied feeling a little better now that we had a plan.
We stored the supplies in one of the cupboards in the storage room at the clinic, then went back to meet up with Rowena and Delilah.
'Everything go okay?' I asked Rowena as we walked back to the farm.
'A few dead heads, but nothing we couldn't handle,' she replied seriously. We got back to the farm to find that while we were away a little girl had been taken in, she couldn't of been more than six years old. She was a tiny little girl and looked like she hadn't eaten in some time, she had striking, long, curly, coppered coloured hair and stunning emerald green eyes. She was a pale child with a freckled face and she held in her arms a dirty rabbit teddy that she would not part with.
When Lottie had offered to wash the rabbit, the little girl screamed and cried. I learned that her name was Natalia, she had a family who had been travelling from Stoke. They had been taken by the cannibal's, her parents had told her to run and the cannibal's for whatever reason had not followed her.
She happened upon the farm and luckily for her our people had taken her in, much to my dismay this did not change our plan. As the sun set I could feel my anxiety growing again, we geared up and prepared to leave. I wanted so badly to tell the others not to go but again I did not because I knew it would be pointless. We sat and ate our dinner, which to my joy was a tomato omelette and chips, I loved having proper food to eat and not having to have small rations.
The children were put to bed and we said our goodbye's, Poppy opened the gate to let us out she would keep watch while we were out.
I looked around at the people I had come to know as family, they were all special and each had a role to play on the farm. Watching Jade hold Ash's hand filled me with joy, she deserved to be happy more so than most of us. Since I'd lost my family she had been like a mother to me, I feared that if anything happened to her I would be inconsolable.
Ash was good for her, he made her happy and allowed her to enjoy life once more. I knew that when she first developed feelings for him she had felt an incredible guilt over Cameron, but as we reminded her Cameron would want her to be happy. Looking at her now, her face was a mask of bravery and fearlessness.
You'd never have known that she didn't want to go through with this plan, I on the other hand could not have been more transparent. I was a bag of nerves and the others knew it, Frankie wrapped her arm round me as we walked and whispered in my ear.
'Don't worry we'll be alright.' As the sky grew darker and rain started to fall my unease grew, I did not fear for myself but for those I loved. Before we could even get close to the forest I heard noises coming from the bushes and no sooner than I had turned around arrows came flying at us. I ducked and pulled Frankie down with me, I could see the Rob had been hit though I couldn't see where as he was too far away. I tried to look and see where they were coming from but by now the sky was pitch black and at Rob's insistence we had not brought any flash lights with us. I saw four men jump out of the bushes with machete's in their hands, I jumped up and managed to dodge one of them as he swung for me.
Delilah sliced the top of his head off with her machete, I looked in disgust as I watched his brains fall out of his head. No matter how long you lived in this world you never got used to the horrific sights, I could see Rob and Bray laying dead on the floor. Rob had been shot in the head and Bray in the heart.
Angelina charged at one of the men, knocking him to ground. For a scrawny kid she sure was strong, she pounded on the man who was double her size. I could see Jade holding onto one of the men while Ash stabbed him in the head with his knife, she dropped him on the floor and went to help Angelina.
We were all so busy fighting that we didn't notice the me
n we had killed turn, one of them grabbed hold of Angelina and tried bite her. While she was preoccupied trying to deal with the biter, the man she had been beating kicked her in the stomach causing both her and the walker to go flying. I charged at that man with my metal bat and bashed his brains in, two down two to go. Marcel who had been holding back from the combat raced over to Angelina to make sure that she was alright.
Frankie and Kyle dealt with one of the remaining men while the other one had managed to escape. Rowena and Delilah killed the biter that had hold of Angelina while Frankie and Shea cornered the other dead head. Shea had home made spiky knuckle dusters and wasted no time in using them on the biter. She had to use all her strength to pull it out of the dead one's head, but she looked pretty damn pleased with herself when she saw that the spikes were still intact.
'Everyone alright?' Called Jade. 'We're fine, though we lost Rob and Bray,' replied Angelina kneeling down next to Rob's lifeless body.
'I'm sorry Angelina, I know Rob meant a lot to you,' I said sympathetically.
'Those bastards will pay for this,' she hissed angrily.
Marcel looked taken aback by her anger, I couldn't blame him, she was usually a quiet, kind girl who was not quick to anger. We decided much to my dismay to go a head with the plan and head to the cannibal's camp, we marched through the night like an army heading to war. We were soaked in blood and rain, but we did not let this deter us from our mission. The world is dark and full of terror's, I thought bitterly as I glanced back at Rob and Bray's bodies.
By the time we neared the camp, I could see the light from a camp fire burning brightly.
'So you've come to kill us off have you,' said a tall aggressive looking man.
'We won't stand for cannibal's in our backyard,' replied Jade warily. The man stood and laughed, but it was not a human laugh that came out of his mouth. It was a harsh demonic sounding laughter that made my skin crawl, looking at him I could see that living off human meat had an effect on his appearance. His skin seemed paler and tighter, his eyes were wild like an animals and there was a hunger in them that terrified me more than anything else had ever done. His long matted, silver hair was held together by elastic bands that were so tight I wondered if they hurt. The man had no facial hair, his chin was long and pointy with a dimple in the middle. The way he looked at us unnerved me, it was like we weren't people but talking meat.
Before the man could get out another word Jade charged at him, before I had time to react the bushes rustled and out jumped maybe fifteen people some of whom were children. I stabbed and sliced my way through three people before I got to Frankie, she was being dragged by her hair by a large formidable woman with long matted red hair and crazy looking eyes. I hurtled over to the woman and kicked her straight in the stomach, causing her to let go of Frankie. I quickly pulled Frankie up and watched as she grabbed her knife and stabbed the woman in the chest. Frankie turned to me and even in the midst of battle with blood covering her face she still looked beautiful, I wasted no time taking out two of the children. The scary thing was that I felt nothing as I gutted them, I felt as if I were in a trance. I saw the look of complete terror in their eyes as I ended their lives and did not stop to even think about it.
Delilah was taking on a small, grey haired man. He looked to be in his late fifties, he had overly pale, almost stretched looking skin. He was giving her the run a round, but I knew he was no match for Delilah. She seemed distracted though, I noticed both her and Finn watching Kyle closely during the fight. It seemed strange, no one except Rowena looked out for Kyle, well not to this extent.
Jade and Ash were dealing with the leader, but at 6'7 he was both taller and larger than either of them. He seemed to not feel their blows and was easily able to knock them on their asses, with blood still on my face I ran towards the man and went to stab him, but Marcel got there before me. He stabbed the man in arm, Marcel didn't mortally wound or kill him but it was enough to cause him to flee the scene.
Like me, Shea had killed the last of the children, though unlike me she seemed to fall to the floor looking horrified.
I couldn't make out any of the others, I turned just in time to stop a small dumpy man from stabbing me in the back. I whacked him on the head causing him to fall down, I stabbed him in the head while he was down.
I guessed that we had taken care of most of the people, but I watched in a daze as I saw the thick red blood swimming across the once vibrant green grass in the flickering fire light. It was only when I looked up after wiping the blood off my face that I saw the flames coming from my home, I screamed at the others to retreat as I ran for home. My heart pounded in my chest, my body ached from the fight but the fear of what I would find and the determination to save the rest of our people kept me going.
I did not see if anyone had followed me right away, I fled the battle field and watched in horror as the nearer to home I got the higher the flames seemed to rise. Delilah was the only one who followed me, she kept up with my pace as we reached our home.
We stopped at the front gate a while later and called for Brooke, I heard no reply. We called out everyone's names but I soon realized that there was not a soul inside who was alive, how was this possible? We had clearly underestimated our enemies, and now our loved ones had paid the price for our incompetence.
I froze unable to comprehend what I was seeing, yet again the place we had built our lives on had been destroyed. The flames grew higher, licking at our home, destroying everything in sight. I watched in horror as our house was engulfed, it collapsed in on itself and I felt my heart break. For all the memories we'd built there, all the laughter and the joy, it was gone in a moment and there was nothing we could do stop it.
We should have been more careful, we should've planned for this, tried to anticipate their moves. How could we think that the cannibal's would not try to stop us, that they wouldn't plan something themselves?
We walked back up the road a little ways to see if anyone had come back, I saw that the quiet, desolate road was empty, none of our loved ones had made it back.
'They've made it, I just know it,' Delilah said determinedly. I said nothing as we ran back to the farm, I prayed that someone, anyone had made it out alive. I slumped to the floor dropping my knife, I let the tears fall watching as the fire devoured everything that we had built. I couldn't think or feel anything at that moment, my life as I knew it was once again over. I saw no one behind me, I heard no noise or screams from the battle, was it possible that we were the only survivors?
My love, my family, almost every single person I loved was dead and I had nothing. If there was ever a time since all this began that I had wanted to join my sister, it was now. There was no hope, no faith, nothing to keep me in this world any more. I fell to the floor, letting the tears fall. I could no longer hold on to any semblance of humanity, if my family were truly gone then I had nothing left to be human for.
I shook those thoughts away, I would not give in, not now. I would not dishonour them by giving up, just as they would not give up if they were here. They were strong, fierce and it was about time I manned up and stopped being the sad little boy. They were alive, I just knew it. My family would not have been taken out so easily, Frankie would survive, she always did.
Somehow in the midst of just sorrow, I found the strength inside me. The will to carry on, to be the man my family would be proud of. As I rose from the ground I heard a voice, calling to me from the darkness. At first I thought I was imagining things, but Delilah heard it too. As we stood there in our darkest hour I looked up to see who it was that called my name, my heart skipped a beat as I dared to hope that it was my love standing before me. My disappointment was short-lived as I saw a figure of someone I had long since thought was dead.
Dead World Rising (Book 3): The Cure Page 35
