The two women stared at me, indecision warring with fear on their faces before finally, they nodded. Whatever they thought about what I had just said, they clearly considered me to be a better option than the alternatives.
With a final smile, I turned and carried on walking, pushing through the long grass, clothes soaked through. As the sun made its way above the horizon we came upon a farmhouse with weeds in the yard and ivy covering much of the wall and obscuring the doorway.
No one had visited the place in some time but even so, I bade the women wait while I walked quickly around the property, searching for signs of threat. When none presented, I pulled aside the ivy and forced open the door, before stepping into the darkened interior.
A thick layer of dust covered every surface and cobwebs hung wherever there was space for the spider to spin a web. I stuck my head out the door and waved the women forward. Once they were inside, I pulled the ivy back into place and closed the door.
The women were exhausted and I gestured for them to sit while I rummaged through the cupboards. Most of the food that had been left there had either rotted or been devoured by rodents, leaving only a few tins of food long past the expiration date.
My stomach growled again, seeming not to care about expiry dates, so I gathered those tins of food on the table and found a tin opener and three spoons. I opened each of those tins and gave each a quick sniff.
They seemed well enough. No foul odour nor slime on the contents. I passed a vegetable soup to the first woman and minestrone to the other. The tomato I kept for myself and we ate in silence. The food, while cold, was filling and as soon as I was finished I left them there at the table and began to search the house.
Much of what had been left behind was of little use but in the larger of the three bedrooms, I found some clothes that, while dusty, were still wearable. I gathered all that I could carry and took it down to the women.
“Find what fits you as best it can and dress,” I instructed. “If you have any open wounds I will clean them as best I can for the moment.”
Again, the women shared a look and I cocked one brow impatiently.
“What then?”
“Then? What do you want? I can leave you to find your own way or you can follow me north. If you stay with me then you will be agreeing to obey my commands and you will learn to fight and kill. I won’t die because you don’t do as I say, and I will kill you if you attempt to cause me harm.”
“You would have us be your slaves?”
“No.” My brow furrowed at that. “The choice to serve is yours, but it is a choice and once made, it is not easily reversed. I have a war to wage, and I need warriors to fight it. Those who, like you, have been beaten and abused, who have been victims, they carry my fury with them and show no mercy to my enemies.”
“Who are your enemies?” she asked, a tremble of fear in her voice.
“Anyone who will harm another,” I replied simply. “The monsters who make victims.”
The other woman laughed, a short and bitter sound full of pain.
“Why should we think you’re any different than them?”
I thought before making my response, wishing not for the first time that Lily was there. She was better at dealing with people, especially those who had been hurt and needed compassion. I couldn’t offer that but there was something I could give them.
“You do not know me, and you do not have any reason to believe me. I don’t care about that and I can’t prove it anyway. I am a killer. A murderer, in fact.” Their eyes widened in surprise at that and I almost laughed. “But I made a promise to someone who is important to me that I would only kill those who deserved it. It’s a promise I have tried to keep, and I will tell you now that I have no interest in harming you.”
“Should you choose to leave here, I will not stop you. I will offer what help I can and then I will continue on my way.” I paused then and looked each of them in the eye. “But, if you choose to stay. You will fight and possibly die making sure that no one else endures what you have.”
“The question is, do you want to join me?”
Chapter 22
“Where’s the damn picture?”
Charlie raised one eyebrow at the tone of my voice, and I waved an apology as I ground my teeth and waited for the screen to show me something, anything!
A few more keystrokes and the screen came to life showing a view from up high as one of her drones flew over the southern coast of Wales. It had taken some time, but she had the satellite into position and the signal being transmitted from the mobile control centre that had been sent south with Samuel and his cultists.
I leant forward, eyes narrowing as I studied that screen. The city of Cardiff was a ruin and even though I had been told what it would be like, I hadn’t believed it. Seeing it with my own eyes was something to behold.
“It’s all like this?”
“Most of it, yeah,” Charlie said, watching the screen with me. “Some places are worse.”
How they could be worse than what I was seeing I couldn’t say, and I didn’t really want to know. Crumbling shells of buildings and piles of rubble filled the landscape. Blackened stone told a tale of fire and I shuddered as I imagined the panic of the populace as the bombs fell.
One of the last-ditch attempts to maintain some kind of order by the government had been to evacuate to the naval fleet off the coast. As the undead overwhelmed those forces on the shore, the order was given to unleash holy hell upon them in an attempt to stall their advance.
It hadn’t worked and tens of thousands of refugees had died as the missiles and bombs had fallen all across the city. Flames had reached above the buildings as thick black smoke had blotted out the sky.
The worst part was that it hadn’t made any difference or allowed them to save any more people. In fact, it allowed some who were infected to be taken on board along with the other refugees and in the chaos, they had gone unnoticed until too late.
Those ships were on the seabed, their crews and cargo of refugees lost. It was heartbreaking to see the wreckage, the devastation that had been left behind. Burned-out cars and craters large enough to hold a score or more people.
“Any sign of them at all?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper in the silence of the command centre.
Charlie tapped on her keys and the drone turned, heading north and then east towards the edge of the city. There, beside a reservoir was a nature reserve that still bore signs of life. The homes nearby had been fenced off, some two hundred or so of them.
“This was where they were living,” she said, reaching up with one finger to tap on the screen. “Sizeable community. Water for filtering and drinking and looks like they had been attempting to grow food on the nature reserve.”
“What happened then?” It didn’t make sense. “It was a decent setup and must have supported them for some time. Why did they turn to violence?”
“The nukes.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the onset of a headache. It seemed that no matter how many years would pass, he would always be the cause of some new problem or other.
With a heavy sigh, I lowered my head. I could tell myself it didn’t matter, that the Silures were still a rapacious and violent group who were responsible for some horrific acts, but there was a nagging voice that said they were only that way because of what Ryan had done for his children, for me.
The fields that had been ploughed had grown wild and while some newer plots of land had been marked out and tilled, it didn’t seem like much was growing there. The lower temperature right after those bombs had fallen had likely killed their crops, then, faced with starvation, they had turned on their neighbours.
I could guess that they had been able to sustain themselves at least partly and had only begun attacking other groups when needed. Most likely when they had been unable to scavenge any more food to supplement what they could grow.
“So, where are they?”
/> “Not here, Boss.” Charlie gave a slight shrug of her shoulders as she moved the drone, sending it flying eastwards. “Or here.”
Another village, this one with neat little houses and well-tended gardens. The cars and vans that littered so many towns and village roads had been moved to form a rough square around the village. It had likely kept out those few zombies that came by, but it hadn’t stopped the Silures.
“What’s that?” I asked, tapping the screen.
“Firepit.”
The drone dropped lower, and it soon became clear exactly what had been cooked in that fire pit. My stomach lurched and I swallowed back the sudden nausea.
“Okay, so they hit that place not so long ago.” I ran a hand through my hair, reminding myself once again that it needed cutting. “Those bones are fresh. How could they have lived so close to the Silures without being attacked before now?”
“They were allies,” Isaac said, breaking his silence for the first time since he had arrived. “Probably raided together, but times changed, and the larger group turned on the smaller.”
The screen went dark as Charlie released control of it back to the handler in the mobile command centre. They had left two weeks ago and had found no trace of the Silures. No encampments, no supply caches or tracks, nothing but a trail of bones and blood.
“Where the hell are they?”
“Could have gone up into the hills,” Isaac said, and I blinked for a moment until I realised that I had spoken that out loud. “Plenty of valleys to hide in.”
“You don’t think so though, do you?”
“No.” His expression was unusually troubled, and he had yet to regain any of his brash confidence of before. “I have a couple of ideas.”
“Well, out with them, big man!” Charlie said, her own concern for him showing.
“Aye, bring up the map.”
Charlie didn’t need to ask which since we had been poring over it for weeks. A map of Wales and the neighbouring counties of England appeared on her screen. Isaac tapped his finger over the City of Cardiff on the southern coast before moving it eastwards, following the coast and then a little north.
“Coleford. We know they were here two weeks back, yes?”
“Yes.”
“We made it there in a day of travel with the vans. They’re walking so I doubt they can move anywhere near as fast.” He paused and scratched at his beard as he pondered. “We know that to the north-east is Birmingham and their rivals, the Riders.”
“While they might hit a few of the communities along the border while the Riders are distracted with whatever fresh hell is plaguing them, they know about us.”
“You think they’re coming north?”
“I suspect so.” He nodded as though confirming his thoughts. “They saw us. Clean clothes and bodies, some shaved but most with our hair kept neat.”
“And short,” Charlie added. “Damned lice.”
“Aye, a problem when you’re out on the road,” he agreed. “My people had weapons that were all made the same and the blue naval fatigues we inherited from Admiral Stewarts ships. Wouldn’t take much for them to assume we were some rich community worth raiding.”
It made sense and I really hated the fact that it did. I glanced over at the map and measured the distance and the route in my mind.
“From Coleford, they have a direct route up through Hereford, Shrewsbury, Wrexham and then they can head through Chester towards Liverpool or follow the road up to us, here.” That set my heart beating heavy in my chest with a sudden wave of fear for my children. They could be watching us even as we searched for them! “Get Samuel back!”
“There’s no reason to think they know where we are,” Isaac said.
“Ah, there’s one more community between Coleford and Wrexham,” Charlie said. “They know where we are.”
Crap!
“Have they a radio?”
“Yeah, sure…”
“Contact them.”
Charlie gave me a funny look at the tone of my voice but did as I asked. She connected to the radio and dialled in the correct frequency before speaking into the microphone. There was silence for several long minutes before she spoke again.
“There should be someone listening,” she muttered. “They always listen in for others who might be out there.”
“Try again.”
Fear was clawing its way up my spine as I desperately pushed it back down. I had faced the undead hordes, the infected, reapers and raiders. I was no stranger to violence, and I had survived, but since having my babies….
“No reply.” Charlie’s voice was small and her hand trembled as she took off her headset. “I don’t know when we last heard from them.”
“Where exactly was this community?”
“Oswestry,” Charlie replied instantly. “Straight to the south of Wrexham.”
Barely forty miles. A group could have travelled that distance in a reasonable time if they pushed hard. My mouth was dry and I licked my lips, before swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat. I needed to get back to my children. I needed to protect them.
“Call Samuel back,” I said. “And contact the island. We need more people.”
“My folk are ready,” Isaac said. “We won’t let you down again.”
I gave a curt nod of my head.
“Get patrols out and about. I don’t want them to catch us unaware and double the night-time guard. Let everyone know to lock their doors.”
“You think they’re coming here?” Charlie asked, glancing nervously at the door.
“I think we need to assume they are,” I said, hands curling into fists as I set my jaw. “We need to be ready.”
Chapter 23
I pressed myself back against the wall and peered around the corner as I held up a hand for the women to stand back. They gripped their knives, fear writ large on their faces as they waited for the all-clear to be given.
A patrol, four raiders on horseback, turned right and disappeared from view. I flashed a grin at the women and gestured for them to follow me before setting off around the corner.
For weeks they had been relentless in their searching and I had been forced to avoid them as much as possible while trailing the newest of my Furies. It seemed that my gift to their leader had not been well received since the numbers that had been sent out looking for me were staggering.
Many of them would be fairly green, colonists from the Birmingham enclave who had been pressed into service to bolster the numbers. Hardly a threat, but mixed in with them were the real raiders and they were very much so a problem that I would need to deal with.
“Seven, you keep watch,” I said as I gestured for the other to follow me. “Eight, you gather anything edible.”
I didn’t wait for a reply as I ducked into the office building. Supermarkets, shops and even many of the houses would have been the first targeted for supplies. But, as I knew from experience, plenty of people had a stash of food or snacks in the office and we’d had some luck scavenging in such places.
Seven, the first of the two women I had found, still spoke little. As the bruises faded, I guessed her to be around fourteen, short and slim. She needed time to rest and some good meals before she could learn any serious fighting skills.
Eight, on the other hand, was perhaps twenty-five, with raven-black hair that hung to her shoulders and an easy smile that had come often since being freed. She had a genuine pleasure in learning how to use a knife and I could see in her eyes that she was picturing herself using it as she went through the motions.
Both of them had accepted their new names without reservation or complaint, and only a little confusion. I let them think there was some reason behind it other than the fact that I just wasn’t that interested in knowing their names and they were happy enough with that.
We moved through the office block quickly, ignoring the various computers and files that had spilt across the floor. The stained walls and shattered windows were so familiar no
w that we barely paid them any notice.
Eight went through the desk drawers while I searched for the kitchen on each floor. Most office blocks had them, a place where staff could make a drink and eat their lunch. I ignored the fridges as anything in them would have gone off years before and focused instead on the cupboards.
The first floor had coffee and teabags, but little else. I took a packet of sweetener and slipped it into my pocket before moving to the next floor. There I found a pot noodle and an entire pack of powdered chicken soup. Just add hot water and it would be a meal.
It was alarming how much it pleased me to have found that pathetic little stash of food and with a chuckle at myself I moved up to the next floor.
By the time I returned to the ground floor, Eight was already waiting with Seven, both smiling as they shared an old chocolate bar.
“Found you one too,” Eight said, holding it up before me.
“You two have it,” I said as I showed them my own finds. “Soup and a pot noodle along with some teabags that might have some flavour left in them.”
“That’s not much,” Eight said. “But better than nothing.”
I knew what was coming next and I shook my head, raising my finger to cut her off before she said it.
“You’re not ready.”
“We are.”
I couldn’t deny her eagerness but Seven looked more scared than anything. At any other time, I would have put them both through the same test I had given the other Furies. And I would likely spend their lives as easily as I had those too.
But I couldn’t quite do it. Not when I had finally given in to the realisation that I would be back on the island at some point and be confronted by Lily. That very thought lent a certain reticence to my choices as I knew that I would tell her the truth of my journey, no matter poorly it showed me.
“Look,” Eight pressed. “We know they carry food in their saddlebags. One patrol, just four of them. I saw what you did the night you freed us!”
“So?”
“Well, I know that you can do it. Especially if we’re there to help.”
Killing The Dead | Book 22 | Fury Page 14
