The Dead Saga (Book 6): Odium VI

by Riley, Claire C.

  The door to the clubhouse opened and O’Donnell looked inside, her gaze going over the clubhouse until it landed on me. She jerked her head at me and I frowned and stood up, wondering what she wanted but glad to be getting out of there for a bit all the same.

  I met her outside and followed her around the back of the building to where the NEO trucks had been unloaded, their weapon stock being sorted with the rest of the items the groups had collected. My eyes went wide at the size of the armory we had now. Every weapon you could imagine was there, barring a tank and perhaps a grenade launcher.

  “Wow,” I said.

  O’Donnell smiled. “Yeah, I know.” She was sorting the guns and bullets, checking the amount for each weapon, because while we had a lot of guns, from the looks of it, the bullet stockpile wasn’t as big. “You good at counting?”

  “I know how to count to twenty in French, if that helps,” I joked, and then I got down on my knees and started to count with her.

  She matched up the bullets with their prospective weapons and made a note on a sheet of paper since I had no idea what bullet belonged where. The more I counted, the more I was glad that I relied on a machete to get me through the dark days because I’d had no idea that there was such a difference in bullet types. When we’d finished counting and making notes, I sat back on my haunches as O’Donnell swung her backpack off her shoulders.

  She’d been pretty quiet since we’d left the Haven, and I wondered if she regretted ever meeting Mikey, or if maybe she was just scared—scared of the future and of what it might or might not hold. I knew I was.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said, looking over at her. She shrugged so I continued. “Well, not to be blunt, but do you think we’re going to die?” I asked O’Donnell, though I guess it was really a question to myself more than to her. I also knew the answer to it, so there really wasn’t any reason for me to voice my question, and yet I did.

  She glanced up at me. “That’s you not being blunt? Jesus,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “I know, sorry, I think I have Tourette’s or something. I can’t help but say what I’m thinking.” I shrugged.

  “And you were thinking about dying?”

  “No, I was wondering if you thought we were going to die.”

  O’Donnell was filling a backpack with ammo and weapons. She’d been there the first time the Rejects had tried to put an end to the Savages, and from the looks of it, she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I have this feeling in my gut.” I clutched a hand to my stomach. “So? What do you think?”

  “No, I don’t,” she finally said.

  “Really?” I asked in surprise.

  “Yeah, for real. I mean, just look at the monsters still roaming around like it’s a Saturday at the mall! We’ll die, but then we’ll live again. If that makes sense.” She didn’t stop her packing as she prattled on, and I stared at her in horror and awe until she paused to look at me. “What?”

  “You just brought my worst fear to life, that’s what.”

  “You mean the whole living dead thing?” She scoffed with a wave of her hand. “Please. If that’s your biggest fear, then you have nothing to worry about.”

  I couldn’t quite get my mind around what she was saying without wanting to punch her in the throat. If she didn’t have that huge stick thingy with the chains on the end, I probably would have, too.

  “No one wants to die, Nina, but death is life now, if you think about it,” she said matter-of-factly. “And if death is life, then it stands to reason that life is also death—like, we’re already dead anyway. So maybe the dead roaming the earth and eating brains isn’t exactly the best thing to ever happen to the world, but I don’t know…I just think maybe people look at it wrong sometimes.” She shrugged and sat down on a turned-over crate.

  “Look at it wrong? Like there’s a different way to look at the death of millions and millions of people? At the suffering of so many innocent people—men, women, and children? Like there’s a better way to look at the fact that once we die, we’ll come back to life, forever doomed to walk the earth in hunger, chasing down our own family members to kill? I’m sorry, but there is no different way to look at that. And if I’m honest, I’m more than shocked by you right now. Of all the things I’ve heard, and of all the people I’ve met, that has to be one of the most messed up.”

  She shrugged again. “I’m not stupid—I know all of that is horrible. More than horrible. I get it. My point is, what if this is just our evolution?”

  “Are you shitting me right now?” I scoffed. “You think this is our evolution?”

  “Well, why not? We multiplied and multiplied until we were killing our world, destroying it to the point that there was no turning back, and now look. No matter what happens to the world now, we’ll survive it, so we’ve won, right? We evolved to withstand our own destruction.” O’Donnell looked at me, her chin raised in defiance, and I was all about set to end her misery because clearly she was batshit crazy. “Global change killed the dinosaurs, then the great floods came and wiped out most of the world, and now we have this. It stands to reason, if you stop acting so horrified and consider it seriously.”

  Mentally, I was already sharpening my machete, ready to take down the bitch. I was just waiting for the right moment. Surely there wouldn’t be any repercussions once I explained that she’d lost the freaking plot. It was basically a sympathy killing. Right?

  And then she started to laugh.

  And laugh.

  And laugh.

  And then I got it and let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “I thought you were serious!” I yelled, half laughing myself and half terrified by how convincing she was. “Oh my god, I was going to kill you.”

  She wiped away the tears under her eyes and grinned at me. “In truth, that’s what my mom actually believed.”

  When I looked at her in shock, she nodded her head.

  “Seriously. She was…well, let’s just say that she was a fantasist and a raging hippie. She thought the first week of the apocalypse was a bad trip she was on because of some bad shrooms she’d eaten.” O’Donnell laughed, but I sensed that it wasn’t really funny to her. “Would you really have killed me?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  She smiled, though it seemed sad. “Nina, if I ever start thinking like that, or hell, if I ever die…end me, okay?” When I didn’t reply, she took a step forward and grabbed both of my hands, causing me to drop my machete. It landed on the ground with a loud clang, but I paid it no attention because I was so lost in the ferocity that had grown in O’Donnell’s eyes. “Back at NEO, we make each other that same promise, but for some reason you and I keep ending up fighting next to one another, so now I’m demanding it of you. End me, okay?” she repeated, and I nodded. “Good. Because I don’t want to end up like one of those things. My mom turned and I couldn’t do it for her…Now she’s out there somewhere.”

  She let go of me and stepped out of my personal space. I chewed on my bottom lip, wishing I could say something to make her feel better, but I couldn’t. I could sympathize with the guilt that she must have felt, but for me it had never been an issue killing people that had turned. I’d had to do it many many times already, and I had no worries about doing it again. I wasn’t heartless, I just did what needed to be done.

  I picked my machete back up and examined it in the light. It was a great weapon, though I wished I still had the katana.

  “I wish we could have met under different circumstances,” O’Donnell said as I was staring at my weapon.

  I looked over sharply and she gave me another sad smile before pulling the straps of her backpack onto her shoulders. She shrugged and looked away.

  “Me too,” I replied, and I meant it too.

  Timbo jogged around the corner, panting heavily. “Zombies!” he wheezed. “Zombies at the
gates. Lots of them. Knew I should have stayed at NEO.”

  O’Donnell and I shared a look as we headed to the front gate, but we smelled and heard the deaders way before we saw them. Shooter, Gauge, Butcher, Axe, Aiken, and a whole bunch of other men were standing a foot back from the heavy steel gate, looking out on the horde that had gathered. Butcher looked back at me and O’Donnell as we got closer, his heavy brows practically knitted together. He stalked toward us, his frustration clear, but more so was the fact that he was so close to death’s door he was practically painting it a new shade and laying out the welcome mat.

  His skin was green, his eyes unfocused, and his lips were dry and flaking. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was still talking, I would have already thought he was dead and used my machete to take his head clean off. Probably should have, in hindsight, because it would have been kinder to the man.

  “No idea where they came from,” he said, his words coming out slurred, like speaking was physically hurting him. There was a stench in the air that had nothing to do with the zombies at our front door and all to do with the rotting stump of his arm. “There’s over a hundred of them,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes closed. “Need to get outta here and get to the Savages before it’s too late.”

  “You okay, Butcher?” O’Donnell said, ignoring his last statement.

  He raised his hand and attempted to swipe away the sweat that was running rivers down the sides of his face, but his hand was shaking so much it took him three attempts before he could.

  “Don’t worry ’bout me,” he grunted out. “Just get me to those Savage bitches. Wanna make ’em pay for what they’ve done to me.”

  Butcher suddenly coughed and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground at our feet, his shoulders falling forward and making him hunch over as another cough tore through his body. He looked back up and coughed, reaching forward to grab O’Donnell for support, and blood splattered across the fronts of both me and O’Donnell.

  He started to speak, but his body was racked with more coughing and more blood, and then we both jumped back as he began to fall forward. He landed on his knees, still heaving and choking on blood, and clawing at his throat as he tried to catch his breath. His eyes were bloodshot as he leaned forward, and his body hit the asphalt.

  O’Donnell dove forward to him. “Butcher!” She called his name like he was a big brother—with a mixture of love, affection, and anger. “Come on, you’re okay, you’re okay. We’re nearly there, the endgame!”

  The other men around us all turned to look at what the commotion was, their eyes going wide when they saw Butcher on the ground, surrounded by blood, his body convulsing. They ran to help quickly, pushing Butcher over onto his back. He coughed again, blood splattering up into the faces of his brothers. His bloodshot eyes were rolling back into his head, but he was still trying to stand up.

  “Get me up, get me up,” he growled out, choking on words and blood.

  “Stay down, brother,” Anvil said, kneeling next to him.

  He shook his head, still trying to make out like everything was okay and he just needed a shot of whiskey and a cigarette to get him through it. But it was clear to everyone watching that Butcher’s time was up. That was his ending; right there, on the clubhouse grounds, before the fight even began.

  “I’m okay,” he mumbled before choking on another lungful of blood.

  Shooter stepped forward, with Gauge on one side of him and Scar on the other. Shooter looked down with a look of sadness, his cold blue eyes assessing the situation quickly before he turned to look at Scar, his expression all business.

  “He’s done for,” he said coldly, even though Butcher wasn’t even dead yet. He held out a hand to Scar. “You ready to step into his shoes before we go save your prez?”

  It was like punch to the stomach, and though I understood the importance of why Shooter was doing it right then, before Butcher was even gone, I still couldn’t stop myself from being disgusted with him.

  Scar looked down at Butcher on the ground, his face expressionless. There was no pity, no sadness or grief, no nothing. Scar was a pit of emptiness as he watched his brother dying in front of him.

  The Rejects men were busying themselves trying to make Butcher more comfortable. Someone had fetched him a whiskey and another had lit a cigarette, and another had grabbed a jacket from somewhere and put it under his head. O’Donnell looked up at them, tears in her eyes and grief drenching her features, and I knew what she was thinking, wishing, praying. It was the same thing that we all thought when we saw it happening. When we felt so helpless and empty. It was the same thing I’d thought a thousand times over as I’d watched people turn in front of me.

  Why won’t somebody do something?

  Butcher reached out and grabbed her arm, and O’Donnell let out a small scream of fright as she looked down at him. His eyes were open, but foggy in the same way that water freezes into ice, distorting everything when you tried to look through it. One of the bikers pulled out their gun and aimed it at his head, ready to put an end to him and this, but then I saw Butcher’s lips were moving. And not in an “I want to chew your face off” way, but in a, “I’m telling you something super important” way.

  “Wait!” I yelled, drawing Shooter’s attention to me. “He’s saying something!” I moved forward and Shooter was instantly at my side, ready to protect me despite the pain I’d caused him.

  He placed a heavy hand on my back. “Nina,” he warned.

  “It’s okay, he’s saying something to her,” I mumbled, getting closer to Butcher than I wanted to, but I had to. You only ever got one chance at dying, and those were his deathbed words. They might have been total shit, or they might have been important.

  O’Donnell leaned over, closer to him and those teeth that were going to turn violent and death-filled any moment. Closer than I’d want to be to them right then. She frowned, struggling to understand what he was saying to her, and then Butcher cried out loudly, his whispers a distant memory as his back arched upward abruptly, like someone was pushing at his spine. O’Donnell clawed at his hand as his grip began to tighten around her, his eyelids fluttering closed as he coughed and choked on more blood, grunting out a painful, sorrow-filled cry. And then his body dropped back to the ground and he lay still and silent—the kind of silence that only accompanied one thing.

  Death.

  We all stared down at Butcher for long moments, the angry horde of undead at the gate our noisy backdrop. Shooter’s hand was on my lower back and I shrugged out from under his grip to go and help get O’Donnell free.

  “He’s going to turn,” I said to her when she looked at me in shock and surprise.

  His fingers were already like ice, cold and solid as I started to pry each one of them off her arm as quickly as I could. One of the bikers leaned down and began to help me, while another one aimed a gun at Butcher’s head again, ready to do the kill shot when the moment came. But all I could think was do it now. Do it now, before he turns. O’Donnell’s words from earlier came back to me, and I made a vow to myself that I’d do that for her if that point came. That I wouldn’t let her turn, but instead I’d end it for her before the poison of the virus infected her blood and brought her back.

  I helped O’Donnell to her feet as we finally wrenched Butcher’s fingers off of her, and we stood up and quickly took a couple steps back. It didn’t take long for Butcher’s body to begin to twitch. Slowly at first. The movements, had we not been waiting for them, so small they would have gone unnoticed. It was his eyes first, twitching behind his closed lids like he was dreaming. Only he wasn’t dreaming, he was being reborn into the Devil himself.

  “I can’t watch this,” O’Donnell said, and pushed away from me.

  “Finish him,” Scar said, stepping forward.

  All eyes turned to him as he lit a cigarette casually, like his friend and leader hadn’t just died. Like the death was nothing to him. I guess it wasn’t.

 
; “I’m your president now, now finish him.”

  The biker with the gun aimed at Butcher’s head fired off a shot and Butcher stilled for the last time. I did a silent prayer and then turned to look at Scar, wondering what came next.

  I sensed that Shooter was close by, his woody scent strong as he stepped just in front of me. Masculine enough to show me that he was the protector, but equally giving me enough space to show me that he knew I could handle myself.

  “And now?” Shooter asked, his voice rough like gravel.

  And wasn’t that the question we were all thinking?

  What now?

  Would Scar still help us to take out those psychos, or would he take his men and go? Drag was their leader, their president, but there was no promise that he was still alive. And if he was alive, then Scar would no longer be in charge—a title he was clearly ready to accept.

  Scar grinned and blew out a mouthful of smoke. He took a step forward, coming toe to toe with Shooter. The Highwaymen bikers stepped closer to Shooter, and the Rejects? The Rejects didn’t know what to do anymore. And I couldn’t really blame them. I mean, I could, obviously. But I totally understood their predicament. They were soldiers ready to follow their leader, but they were torn as to who their leader was then, and who they wanted it to be.

  Before any of us could argue it out, though, there was the screech of metal upon metal by the gates and we all turned and stared in horror as a truck barreled into the gates.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Oh my god,” I called out as the horde of deaders turned and started beating their hands against the sides of the truck that had just crashed.

  There were too many of them, and they were too close to the truck for me to be able to see who was inside, but I didn’t need to. The screams coming from inside told me everything I needed.