‘Yes, Fran,’ he whispered in reply, leaning in to kiss her gently on the lips. ‘I know.’
Looking into his dark eyes, Fran could feel herself falling; welcoming the loving and all-encompassing darkness about her. Fearful lest she lose herself in the moment completely, Fran forced herself to look away, before slowly sliding the bolt free to swing open the hatch.
‘I’m right behind you,’ she said, her voice barely even a whisper as Kai moved past her and lowered himself silently down onto the road.
No sooner had his feet touched the road surface, than he was moving; charging toward the decaying shell of a man standing only a few metres away. So determined was Kai to make contact with the Dead man before it could vocally respond to his presence that Fran hardly had time to remove herself from the cart before she saw his crowbar swinging through the air. The cadaver, naked apart from the filthy remains of a ripped shirt and his underwear, was surely a sorry mass of torn flesh and deep maggot ridden wounds. His gaunt grey tinged face, what was left of it, writhed with the squirming larvae as they gorged themselves on their walking carrion buffet and the sight of its undulating skin almost made Kai falter; but with the swing of the crowbar his plan was already being put into play, condemning the corpse to the oblivion of true death.
With a loud ‘snap’ the metal bar connected with the corpse’s kneecaps; the impact of it hitting them was with such force not only knocking its legs out from under it, sending him crashing to the ground, but also partially ripping free its right leg in the process. But Kai knew this was only a temporary reprieve from the threat the cadaver posed and as soon as he saw the creature crumple to the ground the crowbar was flying again, this time arching through the air toward its head.
‘How’d… I… do?’ he panted, pressing his foot against the lifeless man’s cheek bone for leverage so he could pull the end of the crowbar free from his shattered skull.
‘Good,’ she replied, ignoring the sucking sound as the metal bar was pulled free of the stinking brain matter while she looked back along the road the way they had come for any sign of the Dead. ‘But next time,’ she continued, walking over to the broken gate to cautiously take a look in the overgrown meadow beyond, ‘empty, good.’ she stated more to herself than to Kai before returning to her conversation with him. ‘Sorry, yeah, next time don’t waste time trying to get it on the ground… you’re tall enough, you could’ve taken him out with a single over-hand head shot, easy.’
‘Okay,’ he agreed, with a nod; bowing to her greater knowledge and experience.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she went on to say, walking back to the open hatch on the cart, ‘that move is great for buying yourself some time when there’s multiple threats but you needn’t of bothered for this one.’
‘G…gotcha,’ said Kai, watching as she lowered Bob down from the cart before reaching back inside for two large drawstring sacks and a bucket.
‘Bob,’ said Fran, looking down at the roughly cut animal, ‘stay close, boy... we don’t want to lose you, not now that you’re part of the team. Okay?’
Seemingly unmoved by Fran’s sentiment, Bob promptly walked over the crumpled cadaver at Kai’s feet to give it a sniff.
‘No, Bob,’ said Fran, wanting to break the dog’s habit of eating the rotting flesh of the Dead as soon as she could. ‘Come here, boy… leave that, you won’t need to eat any of that anymore. Come on, Bob… Kai, can you…’ she continued, gesturing for him to pull Bob away from the body.
‘Come on m…mate,’ smiled Kai, bending down to pick up the small dog, clearly reluctant to abandon the chance of a meal, no matter how rank its source. ‘Not for you.’
Satisfied that Bob could no longer reach the corpse’s flesh, Fran walked to the front of the cart, around Star, giving her a friendly pat as she went, and over to the opposite side of the road where the huge weeping willow awaited her.
‘Wait here,’ she whispered back to Kai, lowering the bucket and the drawstring bags to the road. ‘I’m just going to make sure it’s all clear… I’ll be right back.’
‘Be c…careful,’ he whispered in reply, watching as Fran disappeared behind a curtain of moving greenery.
With the whisper of leaves falling back into place behind her, Fran suddenly found herself enclosed within the dome like canopy of trailing willow branches.
‘Wow,’ she found herself sighing, struck by the unexpected beauty of the scene.
Standing hidden on the gently sloping bank, Fran could see that the large old tree reached far out across the slow moving river in front of her, enclosing an area some eight or nine metres in diameter with its softly swaying curtain of yellow and green foliage.
‘Well at least it looks like nobody’s home,’ she muttered, cautiously walking through the tall grass down to the river’s edge; watching each of her steps just in case the grass hid any nasty surprises.
But with nothing untoward hindering her progress, she soon found herself standing by the slow moving water, looking out through a moving curtain of willow fronds. With the veil of yellow and green leaves slightly less dense over the water than those behind her, Fran could make out the opposite bank and what looked to be a road running parallel beyond it.
‘Not ideal,’ she thought, realising if the breeze got up, there was a small possibility they could be spotted from the opposite bank. ‘But it’s as good as it’s going to get… and no immediate threats, so can’t complain.’
‘Right, it’s okay,’ she softly called, already walking back to the wall of green obscuring her view of Star and the cart back on the road. ‘It’s all clear, Kai, you can come in. It’s fine.’
No sooner had she spoken than Bob’s head appeared poking through the trailing fronds; briefly checking out the small hidden area before darting forward, bounding through the tall grass to greet her.
‘Sorry, he g…got away from me,’ said Kai, with a shrug of his shoulders; pushing aside the screen of leaves so he could step through after Bob.
‘He got away from you?’ repeated Fran, her eyebrows arching sarcastically as she looked from Kai down to Bob who had already grown bored with her and was now happily sniffing around the base of the tree. ‘Yeah, I bet he did… come on,’ she continued, already freeing her feet from her boots one foot at a time as she started to quickly unbutton her trousers, ‘let’s crack open one of the shampoo sachets we found, get him washed and then we can start work on doing a bit of laundry.’
‘Laundry?’ sighed Kai, stepping close to her; dropping the crowbar as he did so that his hands could playfully encircle her waist, her exposed bare skin tantalisingly smooth under his touch.
‘Yes, laundry,’ she smiled, as his hands slowly slid down to cup her buttocks; his thumbs hooking the waistband of her underwear. ‘Come on, Kai… play fair,’ she laughed, the sound sending a shiver of desire through him despite the fact she was already stepping backwards, slipping from his grasp.
‘Urgh,’ he groaned, desperate to feel the touch of her skin once more. ‘You’re the one n...not p…playing fair,’ he went on to say, shaking his head as his gaze purposefully dropped from her sparkling eyes down to below her waist.
‘Yeah, I know,’ she chuckled, at last shaking herself free of her trousers before pulling her top over her head, ‘I’m a real tyrant.’
‘The w…worst,’ he replied, running his hands briskly through his dark hair as if trying to clear his head of the unfulfilled desires that bubbled there. ‘Just as well I love you anyway,’ he finally added, watching as she slowly began to wade out in the water in nothing but her underwear; an apprehensive looking Bob held in her arms.
With the water lapping about her knees, Fran turned.
‘And I love you too…’ she said, winking as she looked back at him. ‘Now go and get that shampoo… and hurry this water’s fucking freezing.’
***
Just as Fran had expected, Bob hadn’t taken kindly to his bout of forced bathing and as she stood knee deep in the river watching h
im shake the water from what was left of choppily cut fur, she couldn’t help but chuckle.
‘Sorry, Bob,’ she laughed, already reaching for the another item from her pile of dirty clothes, ‘rule in the cart is, no-one’s allowed to smell worse than Tom… and don’t give me that look, you were well beyond that,’ she continued, smiling at the way Bob seemed to look back at her with an expression of shocked innocence on his face. ‘Yes you were, you were rank!’
Somehow knowing he wasn’t going to convince her otherwise, Bob promptly turned his back on Fran, walked over to a patch of already crushed down grass and sat down; looking back at her with his head placed on his paws as if the weight of the world rested upon his small furry shoulders.
‘Oh, great,’ said Fran, looking over at Kai who had similarly stripped down to his underwear and was now vigorously rubbing the soapy fabric of a pair of jeans together to rid them of ground in dirt, ‘I’m getting a guilt trip from…. a dog,’ she finally completed, her train of thought temporarily distracted as she watched the cold foamy water running down the pale skin of Kai’s muscular arms and splashing across his smooth bare chest.
‘Eye’s f…front,’ Kai laughed, suddenly realising she was watching him. ‘You had your ch…chance.’
‘What?’ she gasped in mock surprise, dunking a grimy t-shirt into the slow moving river. ‘I’m not doing anything… just doing my washing.’
‘Hmm, s…sure you are,’ he smiled, plunging his soapy jeans beneath the surface of the water to rinse them.
‘Well,’ said Fran, wringing the wet t-shirt before submerging it again, ‘no harm in looking is there?’ she continued, finally tossing the now slightly less filthy garment into the bucket filled with soapy water for a proper wash. ‘And anyway…’ she started to say until the expression on Kai’s face as he glanced past her through the curtain of leaves, immediately silenced her words.
‘How many?’ she whispered, immediately reaching for the machete she had earlier wedged blade first in the mud of the river bank.
Cursing as an unseen stone, hidden somewhere in the mud, suddenly scraped noisily against the metal of the blade, Fran glanced at Bob and hoped he had been around the Dead enough not give them away. Beside her, she saw Kai mutely hold up four of his fingers, indicating the number of cadavers he had seen, and then nod to the road beyond the tall weeds on the opposite bank. Before she could even turn to see for herself he increased the number to five as he noticed another corpse, possibly that of a child, trailing far behind the other four just coming into sight.
‘No sudden moves,’ whispered Fran, hopeful the curtain of foliage around them would obscure them from view. ‘Now… very slowly,’ she continued, her voice barely audible over the soft gurgling of the flowing water around them, ‘get your crowbar… just in case.’
Nodding his understanding, Kai waded as slowly and as quietly as he could back to the grassy bank and the crowbar he knew he had left resting on top of his bag of washing. Behind him Fran, standing motionless, barefoot and stripped down to nothing but her underwear, watched the group three Dead women and a Dead man, approach; ready for what may come. Studying the corpses so she would know her enemy should she need to fight them, Fran noted from what was left of its gore splatted attire that the Dead man had been a priest of some denomination in life and even as she watched it shamble along, the set of rosary beads about its emaciated wrist swung back and forth with each painfully slow and laboured step.
‘Fuck!’ Kai suddenly heard Fran hiss from behind him, just as his fingers closed comfortingly about the cold hard metal of his ad hoc weapon.
Fearful the Dead had spotted them, Kai span, ready to fight for his life and for the woman he loved. But his less than smooth movements, combined with the uneven pebbly surface beneath his feet, caused him to slip; promptly dropping him down to one knee with a splash. Biting back the sting as a something sharp cut painfully into his shin, Kai was about to push himself back up when Fran’s hand shot out; silently holding him place.
‘No,’ she whispered, staring intently at a wild haired female corpse on the opposite bank that seemed to have reacted to the sound of his fall.
Terrified he may have just made things ten times worse, Kai did as he was told and purposefully ignored the pink tinge in the water around his submerged leg; for any wound he had just received was nothing in comparison to what could occur if the Dead attacked and he knew it. But the Gods must have been looking kindly upon them, for even as Kai watched her through the softly moving wall of willow fronds, the Dead woman’s milky gaze drifted lazily across the river, their willow tree hiding place and then back again to the road ahead of her. It was only as he watched this female corpse re-join her sisters in death in their ceaseless quest for the living that Kai actually noticed what had surprised Fran in the first place. For there, coming down the road on a slow but steady collision course with the Dead was what could only be described as a huge upturned rectangular wicker basket rolling along on a set of four bicycle wheels. In fact the contraption was so large that, just like their own cart, it was clearly used to hide whoever was inside from the Dead as they made their way among them.
With a soft click of her fingers, Fran got Kai to look back at her, where she then gestured to her forehead; silently indicating that the presence of this woven screen had an obvious connection between the man that had attacked him earlier and this new unexpected arrival. Nodding his agreement, Kai glanced back at the basket-like vehicle and wondered at the bravery or just plain stupidity of whoever was inside it. It was bad enough travelling among the Dead behind the solid wooden walls of their cart, he could only imagine how harrowing it must be to have only a flimsy screen of woven sticks between oneself and a horde of hungry corpses. As if to put his point to the test, the first of the Dead women ambled dangerously close to the wall of wicker; her blackened and decaying shoulder brushing unnoticed against it. He may have been mistaken but Kai could have sworn he saw the creature pause for a fraction of a second, as if it knew something living was close by yet was confused by being unable to locate it. But if it did somehow sense the unseen person it made no attempt to reach them and as the bicycle wheels continued to turn, whoever was embarking on this perilous journey, left the woman’s corpse behind them; oblivious and forever hungry. And so it was that this unknown traveller safely continued on, slowly rolling past the second Dead woman, her withered chest an exposed mass of maggot ridden torn flesh, and then onward to encounter the corpse of the cadaver with the wild hair, its priestly companion not far behind it.
‘The crazy bastard!’ thought Fran, watching as the wild haired woman was gently nudged aside by the front of the huge upturned basket.
Out the corner of her eye she could see that being submerged in the cold river was finally taking its toll on Kai, causing the muscles on his shoulders and arms to shiver.
‘You can get up now…’ she whispered, knowing that there was only the Dead priest and the child’s cadaver further down the road still to pass by. ‘But move…’
She was about to say ‘slowly’ when a sudden and horrifyingly unexpected sound froze the word in her throat. She instinctively knew the source of the sound and as she made a grab to pull Kai up from his knee, she knew what she had to do.
‘Come on!’ she said, letting go of his arm as soon as he was back on his feet. ‘I’ll take the priest!’ she continued, all sense of stealth abandoned as she hurriedly began wading out into the river as fast as the splashing water around her thighs would allow. ‘Forget what I said, just aim for their legs!’
‘Fran!’ Kai called after her, his wider strides quickly closing the gap between them just as she pushed aside their camouflaging vale of greenery; his free hand grasping her arm. ‘W…Wait!’
‘Kai, we have to!’ cried Fran, snatching her arm angrily free of his grip. ‘I have to!’
With that Fran went splashing across the river towards the opposite bank; towards the road, the basket and the Dead that awaited her; all the
while the stomach twisting sound of a baby crying coming from inside the wicker box spurring her onward.
***
Back in the cart Tom sat in the open hatchway, his legs dangling freely as he studied the folded up map in his lap.
‘I know, darling,’ he mumbled, the unseen spectre of his eldest daughter whispering in his ear distracting him, ‘Daddy’s seen them, he’ll deal with them soon enough.’
‘But they’re getting nearer,’ she whined, her ghostly lips surely forming a sulky pout, ‘and I want you to cut them. Cut them up, daddy.’
With an exasperated sigh, Tom looked up from the map to check on the two Dead men he had spotted earlier; slowly shuffling along the road towards him. Since he had first spotted them, both corpses had also become aware of his presence and even though their painfully slow pace hadn’t really increased noticeably, they now both walked with their arms outstretched; blackened fingers flexing in anticipation of ripping into his warm bloody, living flesh.
‘Daddy!’ his younger daughter abruptly chimed in, joining in with her sister’s demand for retribution; her tone clearly holding the promise of a building tantrum.
‘Okay, okay,’ said Tom, reluctantly pushing himself off the lip of the open hatch, before placing the precious map carefully back inside the cart, ‘you win, you win… you always do.’
Now that his hands were free, he reached behind him and with the singing of metal brushing against metal, withdrew his two curved blades in one smooth well practiced motion. With a quick look behind him to make sure the road was still clear, Tom strode forward to meet the two Dead men head on. The first corpse, ahead of its rotting companion by only a few metres, was missing much of the right side of its face; the remnants of mouldy curling strips of flesh exposing the upper jaw, cheek and orbit bone. It was also missing a sizable chunk of muscle from its upper arm and even as Tom blankly registered this, the blade in his right hand was flashing through the air to add further injury to this brutalized cadaver.
Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead Page 10
