The City Revolts: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 4)

by Daniel Willcocks

  “Who goes there?” a shaky voice asked, barely audible over the sound of the Mad.

  Mary-Anne dashed forward and stopped directly in front of the man. The tip of the blade rested against her chest.

  “Someone who could help you. Do you really want to risk it all by spilling my entrails across the floor?”

  The woman recoiled behind him. He tried his best to remain confident, but his facade slipped.

  “No,” he gulped.

  “Good. Then get me out of this pigsty and tell me what the fuck has happened to this town.”

  The Broken City, Old Ontario

  Caitlin took her time on her return journey through the city. Her head felt heavy, and the weight of her burden rested painfully on her chest.

  She strolled through the streets and barely paid attention until she approached a point at which the road was blocked with piles of rusting cars.

  “Eurgh,” Caitlin complained, looked at Jaxon, and wondered if he was agile enough to climb. “Up and over, boy?”

  His eyes seemed to agree. He nudged her with his nose, and she took that as a sign to at least try.

  Despite their advanced age, the cars were relatively stable. Only once did the roof of a vehicle buckle beneath her feet and almost break through into the cabin. Jaxon leaped nimbly along the shells of cars as if it was no obstacle at all.

  As Caitlin climbed, she wondered about Triston. How could a man choose such naivety over a reunion with his mother? How could a town that was so concerned with the safety of its citizens allow a host of water-soaked Mad to sleep on its shores?

  Where was the leader this town needed? Where was the person who should resolve the state of this city’s affairs?

  Caitlin shimmied onto her rear and swiveled on the metal of an old van. Her ears caught the complaints of something from within the mass of cars beneath. Jaxon was already halfway down the other side, but he turned and growled at something.

  “Easy, boy.”

  She moved more swiftly now, made it over the crest, and began her descent. As she lowered a leg onto the window ledge of what had once been a green Vauxhall, the car began to shake. A moan issued from the back seat, and she lowered her head enough to see the shape of a female Mad waking as if from a slumber. Its gaze now fixed on hers.

  Caitlin slid gracefully down several cars. She landed in the flatbed of an old pickup truck and checked over her shoulder.

  Half a dozen now—no, more than that—poked their heads out of the windows of the vehicles. They were ancient, some of the most decrepit she had ever seen. Their skin had taken on a greenish hue and those who had seen her dragged their bodies with great effort. The others who were now rousing looked around dazedly.

  Her heart pounded, and she smiled as she lowered herself to the ground. When her feet found purchase, she spun, drew Moxie, and faced them all.

  “Come at me, bitches,” she said loudly enough for all heads to look her way.

  Caitlin felt the adrenaline course through her veins. She felt good at that moment, as though she were in control. When all else failed, she knew she had the swordsmanship to take them all on. If the politics of the city were moving at a glacial pace, she could always count on herself to rid the world of a few extra Mad.

  The first creature to attack her might once have been considered a woman. Her hair was still held loosely in a greasy ponytail as she lurched forward.

  “Sorry, princess. Your reign is over,” Caitlin said and held Moxie directly in front with both hands so that the Mad impaled its own throat on the blade.

  Caitlin kissed the air a couple of inches from the creature’s face. “I’m sorry. The world has no place for you anymore.”

  She pulled her sword free as the next two approached, followed closely by a third. They seemed to have recovered somewhat and limped with alarming speed. She managed to shove the body of a woman into the one on the left as she twisted and sliced Moxie across the first Mad’s throat.

  As he moved his hands to his wounds, Caitlin kicked him into the third and they both tumbled to the floor.

  The Mad who Caitlin had thrown the woman into shoved the corpse aside with a screech, rose to its feet, and clawed at her.

  Caitlin took a step back, and the creature swiped at her again.

  She took another step back, and her attacker followed.

  His confused look melted into the ravenous gleam of rage.

  “I could do this all day,” she said and swung the sword into the top of the Mad’s leg. He cried out in pain and fell to one knee.

  “I dub thee, Sir Deadbeat. Arise, Sir Deadbeat.” She touched the sword to either shoulder.

  The Mad scrabbled and almost caught Caitlin’s thighs. She rolled her eyes but panicked as Jaxon moved to leap forward.

  “Back, Jax. I got this.”

  She took one last pitying look at her assailant.

  “Just when I thought we could be friends.”

  With a final show of strength, Caitlin drew Moxie back with both hands and drove the blade through the Mad’s neck. The head clung to the body at a strange angle, but the light died in his eyes.

  “I should really keep count in case Kain ever thinks he has even more numbers up on me,” she mused.

  She ran forward and no longer waited for the Mad to come to her. There were nearly twenty in total, and they scrambled down the hill of cars like logs down a stream. Their movements were so slow and cumbersome that she had no trouble and soon, there was nothing but a pile of bodies left on the ground.

  Caitlin leaned down closest to the Mad who had the least amount of dirt on her garb and wiped Moxie on it to clean the blood and goo off the blade.

  “You’ve served me well. Now, let’s see if I can keep at least one friend near me at all times,” she murmured as she shoved the sword into its sheath.

  Jaxon barked.

  “And you, too.”

  She took a moment to catch her breath and was almost at the end of the street when she heard a voice whisper. When she turned her head, there was nothing there.

  Her pace increased a little as she turned right and headed in the direction she believed the library to be in. A group of Weres watched from the shadows of the cars, about to make their own way over the pileup toward Caitlin.

  Silver Creek, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario

  Only a handful of Silver Creek’s citizens remained. The pair—whom Mary-Anne had learned were named Clive and Alison—led her through the deserted streets, past the market square, over the parapets, and toward the living quarters that the governor had once dominated until Caitlin brought liberation.

  The room provided a full view of the town. The vampire’s eyes were better than those of the others, and even now, she could see one or two Mad simply roaming the streets.

  “It’s really all fallen down the shitter, eh?”

  Clive nodded solemnly. “It had to happen sometime. We all knew it would. The Madness is more than a disease and seems to have a will of its own. It wanted to get into the town years ago, but it bided its time and waited until we had enough hope to open the gates. Then, it snuck in and took its turn. Once it gets in, the Madness doesn’t leave.”

  “A bit like you in the bedroom, eh?” Alison chipped in and elicited a chorus of laughs from the others. This was the first time Mary-Anne had heard anything from her, and her opinion of the woman had already raised.

  The others in the room were a strange collection. A half dozen in total were gathered there, some with bulk and brawn and others so skinny that if they turned sideways, they might disappear from sight. Yet they all had one thing in common.

  They were all as ancient as the great trees of the forest.

  “So what happened?”

  Mary-Anne sat with them in a circle surrounded by blankets and soft materials pilfered from the remains of those who had skipped town.

  They told her of the first incidents and about how quickly the Mad had spread and how there was little anyone could do. Dylan an
d the Revolutionaries had worked tirelessly to try and protect the townspeople, but every time they made any progress, more cases would pop up.

  “That’s what you get with such a tight-knit town. We’re like a box of gophers—”

  “Or rabbits,” one of the other old men snapped, and the words whistled between his toothless gums.

  “Or rabbits,” Clive nodded. “We’d been kept in a box for too long, and that doesn’t sit right with the world. You can’t block the outside world from coming in forever. We may think we can, but there’s nowhere that nature doesn’t touch.”

  Alison shuffled on her ass and adjusted her blankets. “Nature, schmature. You really think any of this shit is natural?”

  He fell silent.

  “So, where did everyone go?” the vampire asked

  A woman to her left leaned forward—to the protest of her creaking bones—and filled her in.

  She related Dylan’s speech about the “great book” they had found which gave them all the hope they were looking for.

  “And not a few hours later, they were all off. Packed, saddled, and ready to go.”

  “Well, I’ll be… I didn’t know Dylan had it in him.”

  “None of us did. After the Madness became unruly, we’d started to think he didn’t have the cojones to take the town on a trajectory to safety. But he’s definitely his sister’s brother, all right.”

  Mary-Anne smirked. They were right. There was something in the Harrison blood that she hadn’t seen in many years, something she couldn’t quite put a finger on but felt nonetheless. She wondered, if there really was a great beyond, if their parents looked down and smiled. Maybe they had been built of the same material and could have served the world if it hadn’t been so cruel to them.

  “So that leaves you guys,” she said. “Why are you all still here? Don’t you have the hope to live on and see the world?”

  One by one, they chuckled and shared knowing glances.

  “It’s too late for us,” Alison said.

  Clive straightened his legs. “We’ve had our travels already. We’ve seen the world, and we didn’t like it.”

  “You’ve all traveled? I thought you’d all been born and raised here and didn’t want to pull your roots from your hometown.”

  The toothless man shook his head with a smile. “Oh, deary, not at all. We were with the first convoys to leave the big city and make our way into the forests. Granted, that was some time ago, but we still remember the fear of the journey.”

  “The woods were treacherous,” Clive added. “Every shadow seemed to have a face. Every branch was a limb waiting to reach out and get you. Even though we journeyed tightly together, we still lost many along the way, ain’t that right, Vic?”

  The toothless man, Vic, nodded. “Far too many.”

  “So if this isn’t your hometown, where did you all come from?”

  They took it in turns to list their memories of their childhood, the city they had once known as New Toronto, and the mess it had become in a matter of days.

  “Imagine the situation here but on a much grander scale,” Alison explained.

  A group of the survivors there had packed up and traveled in convoy into the woods. Some of the strongest men and women that they had ever known had found a clearing, made it larger, chopped the wood, fought off the Mad, and created the town they now sat in today.

  “It was meant to be an outpost, a place farther out from the twin cities where we could look to expand the world—create branches of communities. But that all fell to shit over time, way before the governor even got into power. The communications came less frequently until they stopped altogether.”

  “And what of the twin cities?” Mary-Anne asked as she recalled the hazy silhouettes of a city she had seen across the water with Caitlin. “What was the other city’s name?”

  Alison’s brow creased as she wracked her brain. They all fell into thought. “I don’t remember.”

  The vampire opened her mouth to try to jog their memory but decided to let it slide. “And this book? What kind of book leads people boldly into the wilds with no other protection than weaponry?”

  “A book that contains the elixir that’s kept the Mad holed up in our jail cells alive for this long. They offered to leave us the recipe for the elixir, but do you really think we have the energy to gather ingredients and mix potions? Do you think we want to be anywhere near the Mad if we can help it?” Alison shook her head firmly

  “But you followed me there,” she said and raised an eyebrow.

  Clive looked at Alison. “We wanted to make sure you weren’t another Mad roaming the town. We saw you climb in over the gates and were pretty impressed and…if we’re honest…panicked slightly at the idea that the Mad had learned how to scale the walls.”

  They laughed. Even Mary-Anne laughed at the absurdity of it. After having seen countless Mad struggle to even run or walk, the idea of them climbing over the walls was pure lunacy.

  “I’m telling you, the book will lead them nowhere. They’ll get a few miles away, and the Mad will get them all. You mark my words. The last time I saw people trust in the power of words in a book, the World’s Worst Day Ever came. Even after that, there were believers. And even then, the second apocalypse came, and now, the Madness stalks our every move.”

  “Was the book a thick tome? Leather-bound and ancient-looking, filled with scribbles and dog-eared pages?” Mary-Anne asked.

  “I didn’t get the privilege of looking inside,” Alison said.

  Clive added, “It belonged to the short guy with the strange look.”

  The vampire saw it clearly in her mind. It was the same book Stump had used to find the recipe to prolong humanity as the body yielded to the Madness. It had been used to help the governor, and Dylan had found a way to utilize it for those who had fallen to Madness in Silver Creek.

  It was an honorable idea, Mary-Anne thought. Although, despite his best intentions, they were no nearer to an actual cure. Perhaps there really was something in there worth listening to. Perhaps something that Stump or one of the others had read in her absence had given them enough hope to actually pack up and leave the very town they all fought so hard to protect.

  “How long ago did they leave?” Mary-Anne asked.

  “Ooh, now that’s a question,” Clive said.

  “About twenty-four hours ago,” Alison answered.

  “Good, then I still have time to track them down.”

  “Good luck,” Vic scoffed. “You may be young, but you’re hardly a basset hound. What will you do? Try and sniff them out?”

  Alison rolled her eyes. “She’s a vampire, remember? She helped chase away the governor that time when Caitlin went missing for ages.”

  Vic concentrated hard, and wrinkles gathered on his forehead as he tried to remember. “Nope, it doesn’t ring a bell. Say, if you really are a vampire, do you fancy doing us a favor before you leave?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t you dare ask her to convert us into vamps to prolong our lives. The last thing I want is to be stuck inside this body for another several hundred years.” Alison smirked. “Maybe if we were a bit younger, but no. Not now.”

  “Oh. Fine.” Vic sighed.

  “Or how about this,” Clive said. “Do you mind doing a final sweep of the town? We heard some Mad on the way to find you that came from the opposite direction of the jails. Thanks to Sully and Dylan, we have a selection of swords, but I’m worried the sound will attract Mad from the forests to our gates and we don’t have the manpower to stop them if a horde smashes through.”

  Mary-Anne looked around at the pitiful group of elderly residents. In her days as a vampire, she had grown numb to the idea that normal people aged and crept closer to death at an alarming rate. Now, though, she felt a stirring of pity in her heart. There was a group of people wanting nothing more than to live and survive in the town they had grown to love. What reason wouldn’t she have to help them?

  Damn
, Kitty-Cat. You’re starting to rub off on me.

  She stood. “Of course. Anything for those who have served this town from its humble beginnings. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some Silver Creek-ians to track.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t like that,” Alison added. “We prefer Silver Creekers.”

  “No one has ever called us that,” Clive tutted.

  Mary-Anne laughed, wished them all luck, and hurried into the town.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Broken City, Old Ontario

  Caitlin had the library in her sights when she finally heard them.

  The sound of stealthy pursuit was unmistakable this time. She turned to catch a glimpse of something dark moving behind the glass in a nearby building.

  “Jax? You saw that, right?”

  Jaxon’s ears were up. His gaze darted from window to window of the building ahead.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Curiosity got the better of her, and she convinced herself that it was simply another Mad she could add to her kill count and totally piss Kain off. Caitlin half-drew Moxie and proceeded.

  As she approached, the sound of footsteps was unmistakable. She moved as quietly as possible and ducked into the building and a large marble reception area coated with dust.

  “I can hear you,” Caitlin whispered. “But where are you?”

  Jaxon sniffed the floor, then froze. His nose pointed toward the far wall where movement flashed near the door leading to the stairwell. A leg disappeared upstairs, and the sound of running followed.

  “There you are.” She smirked, gave chase, and sprinted upstairs. “Jax, stay close.”

  The dog obeyed.

  When she reached the second floor, the footsteps stopped. Caitlin entered through a door and her breath caught.

  She was in a makeshift bedroom. The windows were all blocked and painted with only a few slits of transparency which revealed the library at the end of the street. Blankets and bean bags had their contents spilled.