Broken World | Novel | Angus

by Mary, Kate L.

  “Look, lady, I don’t give a shit what you tell people, that’s your thing, but I’m too old to play games. I got no clue what these things are or how to get rid of ’em, and I ain’t lookin’ to try. All I want is a safe place for the two of us. Hear me?”

  The High Priestess had finally glanced at Vivian, her gaze moving over the other woman appraisingly but not giving away what she was thinking. Then she’d turned her translucent blue eyes back on Angus. “I take it your brother is gone?”

  Angus’s shoulders slumped, and he didn’t have to look Vivian’s way to know her eyes had filled with tears. His own were stinging as well, and he had to swallow down his emotions so he could reply.

  “He is.”

  “And you’ve taken his wife as your own?”

  Vivian had snorted out a laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “Don’t gotta be so offended, Blondie,” Angus said, although he’d been as repulsed by the idea as she was. After everything they’d been through, they were as close as family, and it had been a couple decades since the idea of sleeping with Vivian had appealed to him. Not since before her mom died.

  The High Priestess looked at Vivian again, narrowing her eyes like she was considering striking her. “You should be honored to keep the savior’s bed warm.”

  “Fuck me,” Angus had muttered under his breath.

  “I’m honored to be Angus’s friend,” Vivian replied. “That’s more than enough.”

  “Very well.” The High Priestess had flipped her hand in Vivian’s direction as if shooing away a fly, then addressed Angus again. “If you have no other woman, allow me to offer my youngest daughter. She is young and fertile, only seventeen, and a virgin. She can bear you many children.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Vivian snapped. “You would hand your teenage daughter over to an almost seventy-year-old man? Are you sick?”

  The High Priestess’s icy eyes flashed, but before she could say anything, Angus had stepped between the two women.

  “I got no need for your girl. None.” He’d shaken his head to emphasize the point. “I’ve loved and lost three times, and I ain’t itching to start over at this age. Especially not with a kid.”

  “Very well.” The High Priestess had relaxed and nodded once, the gesture somehow coming across as regal despite the crazed expression in her eyes. “We would be honored to give Angus James shelter until He is ready to deliver us from this plague. You will have an apartment—” Her gaze once again flicked to Vivian, and she pressed her lips together. “Both of you.”

  “Thanks.” Angus’s tone had been less than grateful.

  The High Priestess’s head dipped once in response, and that had been the end of their interaction. She’d returned to her throne-like chair at the front of the room, lifting her hood to once again cover her silver-blonde hair, while one of her many followers had led them to their new home.

  It was the same building Vivian and her family had lived in before the CDC fell—although their apartment was on a different floor—and while it was comfortable, their life in New Atlanta was anything but. In their apartment, they’d been able to live a mostly normal life, but whenever Angus roamed the settlement, he was bombarded by people. They all wanted to know when he was going to save them and how he would wipe out the hybrid zombies—no one believed Angus when he told them he couldn’t.

  The people of New Atlanta were getting restless. Their wall was twice as high as the one that had surrounded Senoia, but the creatures still occasionally got in, and going out after dark was no longer safe. Angus and Vivian had known it was only a matter of time before the city fell. Unfortunately, no one in New Atlanta seemed to be willing to accept the truth.

  Despite his desire to keep a distance, Angus went to the High Priestess, insisting the city prepare for the eventual attack. She’d refused to listen, and as predicted, Angus and Vivian’s time in New Atlanta had eventually come to an end.

  People had called out for Angus to save them as they died. He’d heard it with his own ears, his name echoing through the night as the creatures attacked. People begging for him to provide help and salvation he had no way of giving. He’d never added to The Church’s crazy teachings, never played along—with the exception of the day they’d stormed the CDC—and had done absolutely nothing to encourage people to worship him. Yet he’d still felt like he failed. Still felt like he should have been able to save the people crying out to him. Should have been more, done more.

  He and Vivian had prepared. After living through the creatures’ attack on Senoia, they’d made sure their windows were boarded up, had reinforced the front door and added more locks, and had even gotten in the habit of scooting a large piece of furniture in front of it when the sun went down. That night, as the sounds of breaking glass shattered the silence and howls and screams filled the air, as people cried out for Angus to help them, he and Vivian had huddled together in the back bedroom—the only room in their apartment with no windows—and waited. They were armed, just in case, but they’d done what they could to protect themselves, and had stayed safe throughout the long, horrible ordeal.

  The cries of agony had died down about halfway through the night, but the creatures hadn’t left the city. They’d screeched through the building, howling—their numbers had grown, thanks to the bloodbath—and it wasn’t until the sun began to rise that things finally quieted down for good. Angus and Vivian had crawled out of their hiding place then and packed their bags, knowing they needed to get as far away from the city as they could before night fell again. The settlement had fallen, and staying in the area would be too risky. Hundreds of people had lived inside the walls, and most—if not all—of them had turned the night before. It would be too many creatures to fight. Too many to safely avoid. They would need to find another place.

  Once they’d gathered their things, Angus and Vivian pushed the cabinet away from the door. As he’d worked to undo the locks that had kept them safe, she’d turned and scanned the apartment one final time, her expression sad and bitter.

  “It’s harder than it should be to leave,” she’d said. “Axl and Meg and Margot never even lived here with me, but it still feels like I’m leaving them behind.”

  Angus had taken her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “They’re with you. Watchin’ over you.”

  She looked his way, a sad smile on her lips that barely touched her eyes. “When did you become a religious person, Angus?”

  “Don’t know that I am, exactly,” he’d replied, thinking it through. “I just like believin’ the people we love stay with us after they’re gone. It’s a nice thought, is all.”

  “It is a nice thought.”

  He’d released his sister-in-law and turned back to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob so he could take a deep breath to prepare himself for what they would find once they left the apartment. It was going to be bad.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Vivian said when he didn’t move.

  He’d nodded once then pulled the door open.

  The hallway had been splattered in blood. On the floor, the ceiling, the walls, and doors. It had pooled in places and dripped from the ceiling. Doors had been pulled from their hinges and lay discarded on the floor, others had been smashed through, and still others just hung open. Every single one except theirs. All of them broken down, all of the apartments beyond empty. Silent. Deserted. Like a tomb.

  They’d walked side by side in silence, their footsteps the only noise in the building, and Vivian had once again slipped her hand into Angus’s. He’d given it another squeeze, knowing she needed his support, but needing hers as well. Occasionally, they passed a body that had been too ripped apart to turn, and the sight was even more disturbing than the creatures. The hybrid zombies weren’t dead, which meant humans didn’t turn if they died. When that happened, the creatures usually came back to the body to feed, and the result was grotesque. Bodies ripped apart, their insides torn out and feasted on, their faces shredded as if the
creatures had made it their goal to strip the corpses of anything that made them human. Angus had been unable to decide which fate was worse. Being one of these creatures or being fodder for them.

  Vivian made a muffled sound, and Angus turned to find her hand over her mouth, her face pale, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he’d told her.

  She hadn’t responded.

  There was more carnage in the stairwell, as if people had been caught trying to flee, and even more on the first floor. Outside, the street was just as horrific, and the windows of every building they passed were shattered, telling them that if they took the time to go inside, they would find more of the same. Not that they had any plans to.

  Angus had hoped they weren’t the only survivors, had prayed someone else might have been able to hide and stay quiet long enough to avoid detection, but the silence that had settled over the normally bustling morning told him he was being overly optimistic. He and Vivian were all that was left.

  It wasn’t until they reached the front gate that the shuffle of footsteps had finally broken the silence. They’d stopped walking, waiting and listening as the sound drew closer, and only a few minutes later, she’d come into view. The High Priestess.

  “You made it,” Angus called.

  Her eyes had grown wide when she froze. She was fifteen feet away at most, her red robe flowing around her, her silver-blonde hair a tangled mess and her icy blue eyes seemingly on the verge of popping out of her head.

  “Angus James.”

  It wasn’t a question, so neither he nor Vivian had responded.

  The High Priestess started moving again, faster this time and with more purpose, her focus on Angus. “Why? Why didn’t you save us? Why didn’t you do what you promised?”

  “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” he’d said loud enough that only Vivian could hear it. Then louder, “I told you, I ain’t no god, and I didn’t promise you shit. I’m just a man. That’s all.”

  “No,” she’d said, moving faster now. “No. You saved us before. You did!”

  She finally reached them and fell to her knees at Angus’s feet, her head down, her hands grasping at his legs. “Please. Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me there’s a way to fix it!” Her head had snapped up, her eyes more wild-looking than ever. “You can bring them back, can’t you? You can bring them all back!”

  Angus had stepped away from her, shaking his head.

  Vivian was the one to speak. “You’re a slow learner.”

  The High Priestess’s gaze snapped to her.

  “He can’t do anything,” his sister-in-law continued. “You could have, but didn’t, and now they’re all dead.”

  “I thought he would protect us. I thought he came here to protect us.”

  “That’s because you didn’t listen.” Vivian turned her back on the woman, grabbed Angus’s arm, and said, “Let’s go.”

  They did, leaving the High Priestess on her knees in the middle of the road. She was crying and praying to Angus. Still. Her hands clasped in front of her as she begged him to come back and fix things, begged him to forgive her for her transgressions.

  She was still sitting there when they walked through the gate and left New Atlanta behind.

  Angus and Vivian had traveled on foot, not sure where they were going but hoping to find somewhere safe. They’d walked all day, taking shelter at night by barricading themselves in old buildings, but every town they came to was the same. Empty. Deserted. Silent.

  They’d been on the road for two weeks when they were forced to take a break. Vivian had come down with a cold that had quickly turned into something worse, and Angus woke to find her raging with fever. The house they were in was small, easy to fortify, and they had nowhere to be, so the obvious solution had been to sit tight until she got over it.

  Assuming she did.

  Three days passed. Vivian spent most of that time sleeping, and Angus had done what he could to keep her body hydrated and fed. He killed a rabbit and made some stew and woke her every couple hours to force some of it—as well as some water—down her throat. But her fever hadn’t eased, and he started to worry.

  Other than hunting and scavenging the nearby houses for supplies, he’d had nothing to occupy his time but sitting at her side, and when she woke on the third day and opened her eyes to find him there, she’d smiled.

  “Remember when we thought I was dying?” Her voice was hoarse and scratchy, and talking had made her wince, but her smiled hadn’t faded. “Before the zombies, I mean.”

  “I remember,” he’d said.

  They’d been traveling together for such a short time, and the virus was still working its way across the country, and when she woke with a fever, they’d thought the worst. Thankfully, it had ended up only being strep throat, but that illness had changed things between Vivian and Axl. Had pushed them together even more.

  “I wanted to leave you,” Angus had said, frowning at the memory. “Not sure if I ever told you sorry ’bout that.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Angus,” she’d said, patting his hand.

  He nodded even though he hadn’t agreed. “I remember Axl wouldn’t leave your side.”

  “He took really good care of me.” This time, her smile was sad. “I don’t know if we would have gotten together if not for that.”

  “You woulda,” Angus told her. “I always knew it was gonna happen. From the first moment we met.”

  “How?” she’d asked. “How did you know?”

  “’Cause you was meant to be.” He gave a small shrug to let her know it should have been obvious. “Anybody could see it.”

  “I couldn’t,” she’d said. “Not until after I got better.”

  Angus thought back to that time, to how he’d shared a room with Trey and Parv. To what a dick he’d been.

  That had been something he hadn’t wanted to think about.

  To deflect the attention from himself, he’d grabbed a lock of Vivian’s hair and waved it in front of her face. “Blame the blonde hair.”

  She’d smiled, but at that moment, Angus was struck by how sickly her eyes looked. They were sunken like she’d lost a lot of weight over the last three days and rimmed in dark circles. It was the color, though, that had concerned him the most. Not white, but more yellowish. That was when he’d accepted the truth. She was dying.

  Vivian had rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, sighing. “I love you, Angus.”

  “Love you,” he’d said, then pressed his lips against her greasy hair, closing his eyes against the tears fighting to get out.

  They’d done their best to stay quiet at night, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, but Vivian’s cough had grown progressively worse, and there was nothing left to treat it with. It was on the fourth night that one of the hybrid zombies found them.

  Angus was jolted from sleep by the bang. They’d reinforced everything as best as they could and just one of the creatures wouldn’t be able to get in, but he couldn’t help thinking of the two attacks they’d lived through. Senoia first, then New Atlanta. If more than one of these things showed up, they would be in trouble.

  Vivian tried to cover her mouth when another cough broke out of her, shaking her body and making her eyes tear up, but it had been no use. It was too loud and stretched out for too long, and the creature already knew they were there. It had slammed against the door harder and howled.

  “Angus,” Vivian said between wracking coughs, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Blondie.” He helped her sit when the coughing stretched on, patting her back. It was a useless gesture, but it was literally the only thing he could think to do. “It ain’t like you planned it.”

  Her face seemed thinner than even the day before, gaunt, her hair limp and dull and plastered to her scalp, her face moist with sweat. She’d looked like she was on death’s doorstep, and it had terrified him.

  Vivian was still
working through the coughs when Angus grabbed the washcloth from the bowl of water on the table, wringing it out.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he’d whispered as he wiped her sweaty forehead and cheeks. “We’re gonna get through this.”

  Once he’d cleaned her up, he left the damp cloth on her forehead and pulled her against him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Her face was on his chest, her skin burning him through his thin shirt. She was shivering despite the blankets covering her, but he didn’t need one. Her raging fever was keeping him warm.

  “I’m so glad you’re here with me,” she’d said in a raspy voice.

  Her fingers had tugged at his shirt like she was trying to hold on to him.

  “Me too,” he’d said through the emotion clogging his throat.

  The creature had continued to bang.

  They’d drifted in and out of sleep as the onslaught continued, thuds and howls haunting their dreams. Vivian had continued to cough, and her fever had raged on, and all the while, dread built in Angus’s gut.

  The attack finally eased as dawn approached, and even though Angus had intended to go hunting at first light, he was too worn out. So, they’d slept. All morning and through the afternoon, not waking until evening set in. By the time Angus dragged himself from the couch, his throat felt like the Mojave Desert, and Vivian’s lips were dry and cracked. She was still asleep, her breathing labored, and one press of his hand to her forehead told Angus her fever still hadn’t let up.

  He’d gotten some water and the rest of the soup he’d made, then woke Vivian so he could force some into her body. She’d barely registered what she was doing, and despite how long she’d slept, she didn’t seem to be able to keep her eyes open for more than a few minutes. The dread in Angus had grown.

  The attack started back up as soon as the sun went down, but Vivian slept through it.

  She was dying. He knew it, and he also knew there was literally nothing he could do to stop it from happening. Even if he could get out of the house, things like antibiotics were long gone, and he had no clue what else to do for her. Food and water and rest. That was all he could think to do, but it wasn’t working. Still, Angus made up his mind. He’d go out at first light and see if he could figure something out. Find help, or maybe stumble upon some of the miracle antibiotics the CDC had made when they were still up and running. They’d be old and probably useless, but it would be better than nothing—which was what he had now.