The Plague Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Jones, Isla

  *

  Fifteen minutes had passed. I waited in the back room.

  I didn’t hear cries or screams. I suspected that Castle had muzzled him. Cries would attract the rotters.

  The thought of the photographs haunted me. I could only imagine what they showed, but they haunted me nonetheless.

  I got tired of waiting in there, alone. I flicked on the key-ring flashlight attached to my bag and aimed it at the door. Leaving the magazine on the floor, I slung my bag over my shoulder and crept out of the room. It was dark, even with the weak light of the small torch.

  My hand stretched out for the wall and I felt my way down the corridor until I reached the office. Castle had left the door open. I ducked inside and aimed the small flashlight at the desk.

  A manila folder was open on top of the desk. A bunch of polaroids were spread over it, their glossy surfaces reflecting the flake of light.

  I edged closer to the desk. A sick curiosity drew me in. I didn’t want to see the pictures, but I had to know I’d done the right thing by walking out of that shop-front. I had to know he was the monster Castle had told me he was.

  Billy’s eyes had betrayed the ugliness within him. But monsters who don’t hurt anyone didn’t have to die. Do they? Even if they’re dark and twisted inside of the deepest parts of their souls, are they really that bad if they don’t act on their urges? Before now, I would have said yes. I would have said every bad person, whether in action or thought should be culled from the world. But now, after leaving Castle with Billy … I wasn’t so sure. Because now, it was on my conscience, another mark on my soul.

  I reached the edge of the desk. My flashlight aimed down at the pictures. But my eyes looked straight ahead at the bland wall with chipped paint.

  If I looked at those pictures, and they really did show what Castle had implied—it would be forever burned into my mind. It would live with me forever. Was that worth the risk for someone like Billy?

  I shook my head.

  It wasn’t.

  With a heavy sigh, I turned my back on the desk and walked out of the office. I shut the door behind me, and perhaps on the scraps of goodness I had left.

  The door to the shop swung open.

  Castle froze in the doorway at the sight of me. His expression of shock swiftly melted into panic. Then, he was striding towards me.

  “Tell me you didn’t go in there,” he said. “Tell me you didn’t look at the pictures.”

  I gave him a tight, forced smile. “I went in, but … I didn’t look. I changed my mind.”

  Castle seemed to relax. His shoulders slumped and I heard the whisper of a breath come from his lips. He wiped his bloody hands on his jeans.

  “It’s not something you’d want to see.”

  “What were the pictures?” I asked. “I can’t look at them, but I have to know.”

  Castle bowed his head and looked at me. The shadows of his eyelashes stretched down his cheeks. “If I wasn’t here with you,” he said carefully. But he couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Ok.” My whispered word ended the conversation.

  I trusted him, I realised. And why shouldn’t I? We might not like each other all the time, or ever, but we’d formed something. Not a friendship, but a partnership. A bond.

  Castle checked his watch. There were spots of blood on it. I wondered, for a moment, if he tortured and killed people often in his line of work. Or was that darkness simply in him always? Was he Billy’s kin in that way, only with a different target, a different poison to bear?

  “Sun will be up soon,” he said.

  “When?”

  “An hour, maybe,” he said, and pulled his sleeve over the watch. “You’ve got the map?”

  I patted my bag.

  “We’ll find where we are,” he said, “and discern the fastest route to somewhere we can find gas. There’s not much fuel left.”

  “Just under half a tank,” I said. “How far will that get us?”

  “With a Jeep?” Castle sighed and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Not far.”

  10.

  At dawn, Castle rearranged our luggage at the Jeep. I stood at the hood, reading the map.

  With a red pen, I circled where we were and searched for the nearest mark that was worth checking out. There was a café a few miles down the road, but it didn’t promise anything we needed, which was petrol. But in the other direction was a town.

  “It’s far,” said Castle. “We’ll drain the tank getting there.”

  He loaded cardboard boxes onto the railing above the car. He would tie them there before we left. The ammo and guns were safer in the backseat, and I didn’t complain. I’d rather keep the boot free for us to sleep in.

  “But if we go to the café and we don’t find gas, we won’t have enough fuel to turn around and make it to the town,” I said. “At least at the town, we know there will be cars to syphon from. And we have all day, now. The rotters are back in their nests.”

  “People aren’t as predictable,” he said, draping tarp over the boxes. “There could be survivors in that town.”

  The implications were clear. Survivors like Billy.

  I huffed and ran my finger over the map, trailing the long road that curved around the green. We weren’t too far in the forest, not as far as I’d thought. But with less than a half-tank of gas and no guarantee of finding any, I felt as though we were stranded.

  “There’s a wildlife management centre,” I said. “But it’s in the direction we don’t want to go. Even if we found a bit of fuel, it doesn’t mean it will be enough to get us out of the woods.”

  Castle didn’t acknowledge my pun.

  I rolled my eyes and watched him loop rope around the boxes.

  The words stung the tip of my tongue—words that sprung to mind and I desperately wanted to say. But I didn’t. I kept them to myself and glanced back down at the map.

  Leo would know what to do.

  Castle settled on the wildlife management centre.

  I protested, but he argued that it was closer and away from the town where there could be survivors or nests. With just the two of us, other groups weren’t ideal for us to cross paths with.

  I relented and gave him directions as he drove. I wonder if he likes to drive. He never asks to take turns.

  It took twenty minutes to reach the centre. It was as I’d imagined it would be—a faded wooden exterior, overgrown grass licking up the sides of it, and completely abandoned. What I hadn’t expected were the three ranger 4WDs parked at the side of the building.

  Castle turned his face towards me, and while he didn’t smirk I sensed the gloating. I snubbed him and got out of the car.

  We took turns siphoning the fuel from the 4-Wheel-Drives. By the end of it, we had enough to fill our tank and two canisters. Castle raided the centre before we left. The loot was decent—fresh bandages, syringes, medicines and a packet of anti-biotics for me. It would help keep infection away from my shoulder.

  I smiled at him in thanks.

  We drove in silence.

  *

  It’s hard to talk about.

  Then again, it’s something you should know if you are to have any chance of ever understanding my relationship with Castle. Not that I truly understand it myself.

  We’d been stuck in the car for days. Whenever and wherever we could, we siphoned fuel. But we always kept moving. It had been 13 days since we’d been separated from the others. If anyone had made it to the meet-up point, they would move on to the next in a week. Three weeks of waiting at one meet-up point—those were the rules, Castle had told me.

  The meet-point was somewhere in the small town of Heaven, Oklahoma. I hoped it lived up to its name. And we’d make it there early morning if we didn’t face any obstacles. Yet, that’s all we’d faced since that night at the farmhouse.

  As dusk fell on our third day on the road, Castle drove to find a place for us to stay for the night. We would sleep in the car again.

&nb
sp; I pointed to the right. “Over there.”

  Castle traced my finger to where I pointed. It was a curve of bushes on soggy grassland. He turned the steering wheel and drove over the grass. After he parked in the curve of the bush, he jumped out and gestured for me to follow.

  With my hunting knife—Castle used his machete—I hacked off branches and leaves to camouflage the car. It was far enough from the road to blend in with the bushes.

  Apparently, it reminded Castle of the trick I’d taught him; when we climbed into the boot and tucked ourselves into the cramped space, he asked, “How did you know?”

  I kicked off my boots. “Know what?”

  He propped up a pillow behind him. Our legs crossed. There was no avoiding it in the confined space. “How did you know that covering yourself in another’s blood would camouflage you?”

  I rolled onto my side and studied his unreadable face. It was too dark to see the outline of his nose or cheeks but his eyes were the candles in the shadows. “I killed someone.”

  He shifted to lie on his side, facing me.

  “It ...” I’d never told anyone before. Not even Leo. “I was alone, back west. I’d found a cottage to stay in for the night and … I’d found my first diary there. Cleo and me—we spent the night. And in the morning, I searched the other cottages for food and supplies.” I paused and curled up into myself. It was a tight space in the boot; my feet still touched Castle’s shins. “There was a man in one of the houses,” I said. “A man like Billy. He attacked me. I didn’t even know he was there until he had me on the ground.”

  The glow of green darkened, and the image of Leo’s forest-green eyes sprung to mind. I couldn’t throw Leo from my mind. The thoughts of him crept back in every day. But by now, I’d spent more time with Castle than I had with Leo. I’d only been with the group—with Leo—for eleven days before we were pried apart.

  Castle and I had been alone together for two weeks.

  “What happened?” he said, his voice a low whisper. It reminded me of the growl to his voice when he’d found me by the office door at the gun shop.

  “We fought,” I said. “And he tried to …” I couldn’t say it. I don’t think I had to. “But I had a knife in my boot. I got it and I stabbed him. A lot. He was on top of me and I just kept stabbing him. When I stopped, I was covered in his blood. Cleo was too—she’d been trying to bite him. There was nowhere to clean up. I had to leave. I got Cleo and I ran out to the street. But our fight had been too loud.”

  I sighed and stretched out my legs. They pushed against Castle’s.

  “There were rotters, about half a dozen of them,” I said. “Their nest must’ve been close by. They looked at me and I just froze. I had nowhere to run. I didn’t have the energy to run. I wanted to, but I couldn’t move. And then, they just kept walking. I stood there and watched them, and it was if I wasn’t there at all.”

  “You were camouflaged,” he said. I nodded. “Does it work with rotter blood?”

  I shrugged. “Never tried it. I always thought that putting rotter blood on your body was a risk. If a drop of it gets in your eyes, mouth, ears or even a cut, you’re done for. But I tried it with mud. That worked.”

  “I forget that about you sometimes,” he said. His eyes washed over me, and I got that feeling again, the one I’d felt when I told him what was wrong with the Jeep. It was as if he’d never seen me before, as if we’d only just met. “You were alone for a long time,” he said. “I don’t give you enough credit for what you’ve been through.”

  I’d learned that Castle rarely said what he thought or meant. The meaning was to be found between the words, in the inflections of how he said it. A skill of mine was deciphering his veiled words.

  It’s dangerous for a woman to be alone in these times. I respect that you survived and fought your way here.

  I smiled tightly. We stared at each other for a while, as if speaking through our eyes alone. Then, Castle closed his eyes.

  Sleep took him quickly, and I followed shortly after.

  When I awoke, the duvet was draped over my body.

  It was cold in the boot of the car. We weren’t in the sun-beaten west anymore. The further east we drove, the closer we got to the cusp of winter. The nights were the worst. I could see the wisps of my breath in front of me, merging with Castle’s.

  Castle slept on his side. The goose-pimples on his skin showed that he was cold, but he didn’t clutch the duvet to his body.

  I shimmied closer to him.

  He opened his eyes as my legs pressed against his. My arm stretched over his and I tucked the quilt around us both. Castle dipped forward, pushing his arm underneath my head. I rested on it like it was a pillow and shut my eyes.

  I kept them shut when the warmth of his breath washed over my face. I kept them shut when the tip of his nose touched mine. As we drew closer together, I kept my eyes shut.

  I only opened them when his breath grew warmer on my lips.

  My lips tingled and I looked at him. Green burned beneath long lashes. Something tugged me toward him; the steady, secure sensation that enveloped me. I inched closer as he dipped his head; our eyes betrayed our sleepiness, the pull of dreams fighting for control. But before we fell into our sleeps again, our lips touched.

  It wasn’t the kind of kiss that ignited fire within me. There were no tongue wars, no gripping each other’s clothes, no wandering hands. It was firm; our lips stayed connected, unmoving, unsure. And then, Castle planted a gentle, final touch to my lips.

  He pulled back, guiding me with him.

  Castle rested his chin on my head as I melted against him.

  We slept, entwined, together.

  11.

  We were to link up with the others at the auto repair shop on the outskirts of the small town. It was on a long road that was dusted in a greying white already. The early snowfall of winter was creeping closer.

  It was midday when Castle parked far up on a dirt-road just off the main one. It was best to keep hidden until we were certain the place was safe. We’d have to stay for another week. But with the defected deltas out there, we couldn’t be too close to the main road.

  The cold was quick to fill the car after the engine turned off and took the heating with it.

  We stayed in the Jeep for a moment, rummaging through our bags for spare clothes. I tugged on a black parka. It reached down to my knees where my socks ended, and the hood was lined with fur. Even with socks, jeans, boots, a jumper and a winter coat, the cold shook my body. Its grasp reached my icy bones and prickled my skin.

  Beside me, Castle pulled on a parka too, though his was a rusty green. He handed me a pair of leather gloves before tugging on his own.

  We got out of the car and ventured into the chill of the air. A frosty cloud came from my lips. I huddled my arms around myself and followed Castle as he walked down the dirt-road to the main one.

  It might have been day, but there wasn’t much light. The sun was hidden behind a thick layer of dark clouds, and the ground was submerged in fog. I stuck close to Castle.

  “Do you think they can come out on days like this?” My boots scuffed the frosty ground beneath me, crunching on branches and stones. “The rotters, I mean.”

  “They can come out anytime.” His pace remained slow enough for me to keep up; my limp had gotten better, the pain in my ankle had dulled to an ache, but I still couldn’t walk properly. “You’ve seen them,” he said. “The ones without nests wander during the day. It’s only when they’re together in a pack that they become nocturnal.”

  “You ever wonder why?” I asked.

  Castle looked down at me. His fading tan revealed a smooth, pinkish glow to his cheeks summoned by the cold bite of the air. “The sun slows them down,” he said. “It’s the heat that does it. Even the ones who do come out during the day stick to shaded areas mostly.”

  I drifted closer to him. The arms of our parkas touched and made a horrid sound; one that reminded me of a zip. His indiffe
rent mask stayed firmly in place, but he didn’t pull away.

  Awkwardness had blossomed between us. It was the only indication I had that he remembered the kiss. But neither of us mentioned it. Castle isn’t one for talking about his feelings or discussing what happened between us.

  The flush of my cheeks burned into my skin. At least Castle would think it a side-effect of the cold breeze and not the memory of the kiss.

  “Doesn’t it worry you how smart they are?” I asked.

  “No.” He glanced down at me with those eyes that resembled the chilled air, with a sharp green beneath it, like a mint leaf frozen over. “They’re not as intelligent as we are.”

  I was reminded of when he’d compared them to packs of wolves. Organised and strategic.

  A silence swallowed us. The only sounds were our boots thudding against the frosted gravel. There were no chirps of the birds or howls of the coyotes. Sometimes I think we took those songs of nature for granted before the end. Now, the earth was in a stagnant state of silence—only interrupted by the whispers of stray survivors like us, or the hungry howls of rotters.

  “You still have two guesses,” I said. It was a long walk to the main road, and I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. Because in that silence between us, there were unspoken words about what had happened the night before. “Wanna play?”

  Castle dug his hands into his pockets and braced against the wind.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said.

  My brows arched as I tugged the hood over my head. It was surprising, I thought, that Castle would spend any time at all giving thought to me or my life before this.

  “And?” I pressed.

  “And I don’t believe it matters what your job was.”

  My lips creased into a flat line.

  “You could’ve been a barista, a surgeon, a lawyer—it doesn’t matter,” he explained. “Because whatever it is you did, you didn’t love it. It wasn’t a part of you. It was a means to an end, something to pay the bills and that’s all.”