by Lopez, Rob
“I need that last kick,” said Cobb wistfully. “Bye, Breht.”
He squeezed the trigger and the hammer came down on the cartridge. Nothing happened.
“Looks like you’ve got a dud round, there,” said Breht, deadpan.
Fury consumed Cobb and he flung the revolver across the cobbles. “You tricked me.”
Breht looked at him. “You made your choice. No point blaming me, now.”
He walked towards the gate, and Cobb called out. “Wait.”
Breht stopped and turned.
“Finish me off,” said Cobb. “With the sword.”
Breht stooped and picked up the sword Cobb had dropped – Zak’s sword. “I should do to you what you did to Zak,” he said.
The sweat was slick on Cobb’s face, and he looked uncertain. “You haven’t got it in you.”
Breht looked down at the ground for a moment, tired, and tested the weight of the sword. “No,” he agreed. “I haven’t.” Lifting the Katana, he flicked up the catch on the gate. “But those things out there do.” As the gate smacked open, Breht walked swiftly across the cobbled courtyard, towards the tower, and jumped up onto the wall. Below him, the ground sloped steeply towards the gardens of the town houses. Beyond lay the fields of another life.
“Breht, you bastard!”
The undead swarmed in through the open gate, hands reaching for Cobb.
Breht glanced back once at Cobb’s struggling body and locked eyes with him for just that last, terror-filled moment. “I know you’ll remember me now,” he said.
Then he jumped.
Epilogue
It was a month after escaping Conwy castle that Breht returned, his chest wound barely healed. Closing the gate behind him, he sought out the people he once knew. Filipova, lurching down the steps from the battlements. Isaac, shambling about the inner bailey where he’d been torn to shreds. The toddler in a basement where he’d been hiding when the undead came for him.
And Zak, running as Breht knew he would.
He beheaded them all and freed them from their eternal wanderings. Erased their final memories, nullified their everlasting hunger and freed their souls from the grasping emptiness of their hijacked bodies. One by one they were laid to rest until the castle was empty and still.
Walking up to his quarters to retrieve the dropped revolver, he loaded his last bullet into it and returned to Zak’s body, lying sprawled on the grass near Kimberley’s grave.
“I shouldn’t have doubted you,” he said. “But you made it harder than it needed to be.” Each click of the revolver’s cylinder echoed faintly off the walls as he turned it, until the bullet was almost lined up with the barrel. A slow pull on the hammer finished the alignment. “We all make mistakes, I guess. And I made mine.” He fidgeted with the gun. “I missed you while I was gone. That showed me what I lost. I’m not ashamed to say I cried for you. I’m not saying I won’t cry still. I’m sorry I was so blind. And so stupid. I didn’t see how lucky I was, and I blew it. In better times, it might have turned out different. In these times... I don’t want to go on without you.”
Breht pressed the muzzle of the pistol against his ear. “I loved you, okay?”
No tears came – he was too numb – so he just pulled the trigger. The hammer came down, the primer snapped, but the powder in the cartridge didn’t ignite.
Breht lowered his head, and this time the tears flowed. Removing the dud round from the chamber, he gripped it tight in his fist.
“Okay. I hear you. God knows I don’t want to, but I hear you.”
Breht wiped his face and turned away from the sight of his mutilated lover. It wasn’t how he wanted to remember him.
“I’ll find him for you, even if it takes the rest of my life,” he said grimly. “And after that...” He looked up at the circling seagulls waiting to feed. “After that, I don’t know.”
End
By the Same Author
The Alien Infiltrators Series
Amped
Assembled
The Tollon Codex
Bunker 51
Arctic Run
The Alien Infiltrators Collection: Books 1-5
Undead UK
Remember Me Dead
Other titles
Callisto: Dead Colony
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