Ben jumped at the sharp crack of the of gunshot. New fear spread across his face and he looked to Tom. “Stay behind me,” Tom said, taking his kukri in hand and picking his way down the shoddy steps, two at a time.
As he did so, Tom heard pounding steps from the other end of the hall. Dust and Eric raced to join, calling out questions and concerns in a series of jumbled shouts. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Tom stepped wide around the corner, just inside the doorway to the kitchen. The scene before him was unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected.
Mike was just picking himself up off the floor. With one hand, he pushed his body vertical while the other held his pants around his waist. His rifle was on the floor, barrel pointing at the Turned that lay in the doorway. It's legs still twitched on the now mostly collapsed deck. What was left of it's head was spread across the ceiling above the door and dripped steadily onto the swollen, splitting boards of the kitchen floor.
While Dust, Eric, Ben and Tom stared open-mouthed, a red-faced Mike fumbled with his pants button. When he secured it, he buckled his belt and bent to retrieve his rifle. Mike spat on the exposed back of the creature on the kitchen floor and ran a shaking hand through his hair before turning back to the others.
“What are you looking at?” He shouted, his face cherry-colored.
Eric and Dust exploded with laughter. Though genuine, it was tinged with the hysteric lilt of rapid-onset panic. While Dust pointed at Mike, Eric clapped Tom on the shoulder before doubling over. Between fits, they gasped to each other about how they couldn't believe what just happened.
“We can't stay here,” Tom spoke with quiet urgency, intent on returning their focus to the danger that would revisit them presently.
Eric wiped tears from his eyes, moved closer and clapped his team mate on the shoulder. “Thanks, Mike. Think we needed that.”
Dust was shaking his head, shoulders still twitching from the occasional chuckle. “Hold tight, stranger. We're still short a few people and I won't leave 'till I'm satisfied they're no longer here.” Seeing Tom ready to object, he raised a hand. “No buts. We can give Red and Summers another few minutes before that mob is anywhere near us again.”
Tom fumed. “Where will we go when we do leave, if the others don't rejoin us?”
Dust blinked, surprise evident on the small band of his face visible between cap and kerchief. “Uh...”
Tom's rebuke died on his lips as he saw the team lead began to grow another head from between his neck and shoulder. It was much smaller and covered with thick, gray skin. What was left of its hair clung in stringy, greasy splotches on a mottled scalp and it smiled a toothy rictus when it locked eyes with the Shepherd. That smile was disturbingly similar to one Tom saw earlier in the day, when the Old Man had been talking to Rujuan. Of course the head didn't belong to Dust, but rather the Turned that was peering around the doorway from the front room perhaps a yard away.
Tom was again struck by the disparity he saw on most of the Turned he encountered. The eyes were simultaneously wild and focused. The face was slack, as though the very idea of emotion was a thing long forgotten. The body structure seemed a semblance of a person, where in reality it was merely a vehicle for strictly inhuman drives and urges. Tom imagined it was how an anthropomorphisized animal might look in some artists demonic rendition. However monstrous the visage, the expression on its face was unmistakable: food.
The Shepherd hesitated. The life you save is the life you keep. The life you take is the soul you reap.
The team lead regarded Tom, no doubt formulating a response to the Shepherd's question. He only became aware of something behind him when he saw Mike's anger give way to fear and by then, it was too late. Before he could so much as look over his shoulder, Dust was wrenched back into the doorway. He had the presence of mind to grab at the wooden frame, but that only delayed the inevitable. Another pair of gray hands closed on one of his arms, while a fourth hand splayed it's long fingers over the man's kerchiefed mouth. Wide-eyed, Dust looked at the Shepherd before disappearing behind the wall in a shower of splintering wood when the frame gave way.
The desperation of that look sparked a thought in the Shepherd: could I have saved him? Should I have saved him? He saw something in his mind's eye and felt it froze him in time: Dust clinging frantically to the door jam with another image superimposed over that, of Dust crippling Knife-man and leaving him for the horde. Remorse or rage, it was done. The time to debate it would come later. Now was the time to survive.
The Shepherd could see other shapes moving in the front room, just beyond the doorway. Before Tom could offer a warning, Mike pressed through the space Dust had occupied only moments earlier, making way to the front room and screaming for his team lead. Eric watched as Tom did, similarly frozen as events unfolded around him.
Tom looked down at Ben, saw the child staring up at him. The pleading look in the boy's eyes provided the motivation the Shepherd needed to break the paralysis gripping him. Aaaand we're out, he thought.
Taking the boys hand, the Shepherd bolted through the back door and on to the porch. The dozen steps from the porch through the tall grass to the trees passed in a blur. Tom glanced toward the front of the house and had his suspicions confirmed: another handful of dark shapes were climbing in the first floor windows. Just before the trees removed the structure from view, Tom saw Eric emerge on the porch, looking over his shoulder as he fled the house of horrors. If continuing to draw breath was not motivation enough for Eric, the bone-chilling screams that flowed from the doorway provided him with renewed incentive. It seemed as though the sound of Mike's death cry offered some supernatural force that propelled Eric forward.
Tom waited just long enough for Eric to see him and the boy. With that, the three resumed their flight, intent on leaving the small, dilapidated house and the terrible events it contained far, far behind. They ran west-southwest, as that course took them directly away from both the house and the road. They wove between trees and around brush and undergrowth, keen to minimize both the amount of noise and sign their passage would leave. Shortly, they found themselves on a corridor of grass beaten down in a narrow, straight line for several yards in either direction. Game trail most likely, Tom reasoned. Turning right, the Shepherd led his companions along the game run, further from the Turned he knew to be near the house and road behind them. Not ten paces later, the three heard running water and twenty paces after that, the trail dumped out on the bank of a small brook.
1.12
Both Eric and Ben lurched toward the brook, crouched to drink where the water lapped at the mud. Tom advised them, in a low voice, to drink slowly and with a care for its taste. As his companions rested, the Shepherd surveyed their surroundings. Mid-morning sun dappled leaves, pine boughs and shrubs with an uneven spread, offering streams of bright light upon not only the ground, but in dancing pools on the brooks surface. Deeming the place clear enough, he finally sheathed his long knife.
After allowing them a few moments respite, Tom murmured a quiet question to Eric. “Where are we?”
The other man softly slurped from his cupped hands. “Maybe half a mile from the road. This would be Sharpe's Creek, I think.”
That would put the river right around a mile and half downstream, Tom calculated. “Anywhere between here and the river we could conceivably rejoin Summers?”
When his question went unanswered, Tom turned to Eric, ready to ask again. He saw the other man still crouched at the water's edge, face long and staring unblinkingly at Ben. He finally responded with one word, uttered in a low mono-tone. “Holding.”
Watching Eric closely, the Shepherd let his right hand drift back to his belt. “Where's that?”
Eric responded in the same low mono-tone, his eyes never leaving they boy. “The house they were set up in 'fore the school was refit. Figured they could use it for other things even after they moved out, so they kept up the maintenance. Heard it's been used as a halfway house for folks who were waiting to joi
n the group, sometimes as a quarantine area during sick outbreaks. Truth be told, all I've ever seen it used for was to detain folk who've broken the law. 'Till their punishment was decided, that is.”
The Shepherd had to know. “How are those folks punished?”
“Depends on the crime. Exile's most common. Hangin's not unheard of.” Eric was still watching Ben, but what he said next told Tom he was aware of the Shepherd's precautionary stance. “No need to worry, stranger. Ain't gonna do the boy no harm. Mighty curious, though.”
“About what?”
Eric poked his tongue into his cheek before replying. “Whether he got out of the house somehow or gave the slip to his escort on the way to it.”
Tom licked his lips and shook his head. Awareness, patience, reason; admirable traits for any leader and Eric had all of them on display this morning. Unable to stop himself, he asked, “Why weren't you in charge of the team?”
Eric gave the boy several seconds to satisfy his curiosity. When that didn't happen, he replied to the Shepherd, instead. “Dust was senior to me and did what he was told. Loyalty and obedience count for a lot, sometimes more than ability.”
Turning to Tom, he asked a question of his own. “Speaking of Dust; why didn't you help him?”
Tom fixed Eric with a measured stare before responding. “You saw how many of them were there. What could I have done to help? Charge in blindly? How well did that work for Mike?”
Eric's eyes flashed with anger. “He wasn't a coward, just lazy and none too bright.”
Then he had no business being out here! Tom wanted to yell, but knew that would only further aggravate things. Instead, he offered something more diplomatic. “Let us do justice to his memory by remembering to think before we act. The Turned are creatures with animal cunning. They will only be that bold if they are in greater numbers or if they believe their prey is weak.”
“If we'd all gone after him together, we might-”
Tom's own anger was mounting and he interrupted Eric's speculation harshly. “Then we would have been surrounded when the rest of the pack came in and more of us, maybe all of us, would be dead!” Scowling, he took a breath and continued in a more level tone. “What's done is done. I'm sorry for your loss, truly I am. But the fact of the matter is that we're still out here with a horde somewhere behind us. Best we move on and sort out our emotions when we have adequate shelter.”
The two men stared at each other, blood up and breath quickened. Finally, Eric nodded once and ground his teeth. Still watching the Shepherd, he stood and spit onto the bank of the creek before moving downstream.
“We'll have words later, then. Let's go,” he muttered as he passed Tom.
Tom let the other man move ahead a bit before following, striking a balance between giving him the privacy he might need to settle his thoughts and keeping an eye on a man who might now harbor him ill will. As he began to walk, Ben fell into step beside Tom. All but forgotten to this point, the boy spoke quietly to the Shepherd.
“You coulda grabbed him. Dust, I mean.”
Tom regarded Ben with a neutral expression. The boy looked back at him, a mix of childish innocence and ignorance naked on his face. “I was right beside you. You saw the monster before it grabbed him. You coulda got Dust outta the way. Why did you let him die?”
“I didn't let anything happen. What happened to Dust wasn't up to me. That was God's will.”
The boy stopped and stared at the Shepherd with the mute indifference of youth, challenging the man to refute his childish certainty. Noting the lack of effect this had on the boys reason, Tom offered a more practical explanation that had less to do with spiritual convalescence and more to do with self-preservation. “Would you have saved him, if you could? After what he did to that man who had been traveling with you, yesterday?”
Ben offered no response, just continued staring with a blankness that bordered on mockery. A few moments of this silent judgment was all Tom could bear. He motioned downstream, in the direction Eric was walking.
“After you,” he said, indicating the boy should move ahead.
The child stamped his foot and shook his head energetically, short, dark hair flying in all directions. It was an act that would have been funny, were the situation less dire. Tom squatted on his haunches, looked Ben in the eye and addressed the petulance he saw there. “It's time for us to go. Unless you can lead the way, we need to follow Eric. The only question left is whether you go under your own power or not. So, which'll it be?”
Several heartbeats passed, after which the boy merely pushed his lower lip out further and crossed his arms over his chest. The Shepherd sighed, his own face turning a frown. “Have it your way,” he said, scooping up the child in the same fireman-style carry he had used earlier on the road. Settling the smaller person over his left shoulder, he stepped quickly to rejoin their guide.
It didn't take long for Ben to begin wriggling on Tom's shoulder. Shaking his head, the young man spoke to the boy in a quiet, firm voice. “Struggling won't help. This is what you chose, so you need to deal with it.” At this, Ben squirmed with a singular burst of energy. Tom stopped so as to retain his balance and tightened his grip on the boy. He was now using enough strength to squeeze a pained breath from the child. Louder and much more sternly, Tom said, “Now, stop. The sooner you accept this, the sooner it will be over.”
The Shepherd looked ahead, saw Eric watching him and the boy with a mixture of amusement, curiosity and concern. That mix of expressions become one of complete alarm when Ben began screaming, “Put me down! Put me down!”
Something inside Tom was ready to snap. Perhaps it was his reception the previous evening, where he had been greeted with suspicion instead of welcome. Perhaps it was the night of broken, restless sleep in what he was fairly certain was a prison cell. Perhaps it was the tense stand off he'd been a part of when they found the tire tracks an hour ago. Having their temporary shelter overrun and losing half their party twenty minutes earlier did not help matters. Now this child was not only uncooperative in keeping pace, but willfully placing all three of them in danger by screaming his ungrateful lungs out when only God knew how many Turned were following them. Some combination of these things took hold of Tom's patience and bent it right to the breaking point.
Tom grabbed Ben with both hands and flung him to the ground. They boy bounced on the soft, green earth and gasped, his wind clearly knocked from him. Eric stepped towards the pair, hands raised. “Just a second-”
The Shepherd didn't need to think about it. He saw Eric approaching and in his current state of mind, deemed that action to be threat enough. Unbidden, the revolver was in his hand and leveled at the other man. Eric's eyes widened a bit and before he could speak further or take another step, the young man thumbed back the hammer. The Shepherd's voice was deadly quiet when he said, “Only a matter of time before they come to check out the screams. Maybe they need to find something to slow them down when they get here.”
The two men watched each other from either side of the gun, their whole world reduced to the figure on the other side of the revolver's sight. Somewhere between them, a sentiment drifted along paths of thought that intersected at a single point: decoy. When the Shepherd saw the terrible dawn of recognition on the other man's face, he spoke again in that same calm, quiet tone.
“Let's keep it simple, friend: you get us to holding. No more, no less and there's no trouble. Otherwise...” The young man squeezed the trigger, the click of the GP's hammer being released audible even over the gurgling of the creek. Maintaining eye contact with the other man, the Shepherd caught the hammer with his thumb, easing it forward until it came to rest against the plate.
Eric was tense. With careful concern, he asked, “What happens when we get there?”
“We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.” To himself, the Shepherd thought, I have an idea, but needn't concern you with the particulars just yet.
Weapon still pointed at the older man, the S
hepherd turned to the child. Ben had begun to cough but was still laying on the moist, mossy ground. Seeing the Shepherd looking down at him, the boy tried to ease his coughing fit.
“Are you coming with us?” The Shepherd's voice was deep, his eyes blazing with intensity. Absorbed by the gaze, Ben could only nod in awe. “Then you do what I say, when I say it.” Another series of rapid fire nods. “On your feet.” The boy stood, regaining his breath with one more short cough.
“One more thing,” the Shepherd said while looking from the child to Eric and back again. “The next time you put us in danger, you're on your own.”
Eric seemed aghast at the statement. “I know you're sore, but there's no need to take it out on the boy.”
Tom blinked at the other man. “Let's do ourselves a favor and keep quiet for a while.”
After making sure Ben was ready to move under his own power, Tom again spoke to Eric. “Lead on.”
Eric was working his jaw fiercely when he resumed his march downstream. Tom and Ben followed, much closer this time. They walked briskly and with renewed purpose, listening for the tell tale rattle of branches or rustle of leaves that would announce the arrival of the creatures believed to be following them. They moved with speed, hoping the brook would mask much of their noise. Still, they left nothing to chance and spoke not a word while they were in passage. Truth be told, the three needed time to settle and collect their thoughts. One and all felt wronged in some fashion by each of the others, so they used the journey to walk off as much of their anger as possible.
Book II: Holding
2.1
What Comes After (Book 1): A Shepherd Cometh Page 8
