Chasing Darkness (Rune Alexander Book 10)
Page 21
He saw no weapons or resistance—only food. He leapt at me, and I swung.
Blood and a milky white substance flew from his throat, and his head fell nearly to his chest. I kicked him in the stomach, and when he stumbled back, his clawed hands reaching beseechingly for me, I followed him and swung the machete once again.
His head smashed against the pavement like a mushy coconut, and there it lay.
His body joined it a couple seconds later.
I drew back my booted foot and kicked the head. As it rolled across the parking lot, I shoved my machete back into its sheath, then ran to the child.
I knelt beside her, then reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “It’s okay now. I killed it.”
She didn’t move.
She wasn’t dead—I could see her chest moving, and her exhalations rasped dryly against her hands.
“Little girl? Come on, now. You can go home with me.”
Nothing. It was like she didn’t even hear me. And other than her breathing, she didn’t make a sound.
I glanced around, my eyes narrowed against the bright sun. I saw no movement, but it was only a matter of time before another mutant found us. They traveled in groups—and even when one strayed from his group, the others weren’t usually far away.
I stood, then leaned over her small body. “I’m going to pick you up, kiddo.” I hoped that once I lifted her up, she’d come out of her shock and be able to walk again. I had a cart to shove home.
If it came down to it, I’d grab a wheelchair from the front of the store and push the kid home, then come back tomorrow for the cart.
It looked like it was going to come down to it.
But when I slid my hands under her and grunted with the effort of lifting her lax body off the pavement, she came to life.
She flapped like a fish on a line and slipped from my hands. She landed hard, but was up at once, and she didn’t make a sound as she reached out to take my hand.
She still didn’t look at me, but with her head down, she tugged gently at my fingers.
I left the spare machete on the ground and began walking beside her.
“Where are we going?” I let go of her long enough to transfer her hand from my right hand to my left. “Are you hurt?”
As soon as I’d slid my fingers out of her hand, she’d stopped walking.
I asked her no more questions. I needed to listen for enemies, and I had to be more careful than ever. I now had someone to protect.
She wasn’t going to answer me anyway.
We walked all the way across the parking lot and around to the back of the mall. Halfway to the end, she stopped beside one of the huge dumpsters that sat against the buildings. Some had been toppled over, but most of them sat exactly as they had before the world ended.
A little rustier, maybe, and splattered with brightly colored bird dung. I knew before she pointed at one of the dumpsters that a person had taken cover inside.
And that person had probably sent the little girl for help.
I heard a quiet, strangled sound inside the metal box she’d pointed out.
“Shit,” I whispered. I pulled a knife from my belt and handed it to the child. She stared at it for a second, then grabbed it. It disappeared somewhere inside the bulky coat she wore.
“No,” I told her. “Keep it out in case you need it while I’m…” I gestured at the dumpster. “While I’m dealing with this. And let me know if you see anyone coming, you hear me?”
She nodded.
I swallowed hard, leaned the machete against the side of the dumpster, then grasped the lid. Maybe there was another kid in there.
Maybe the little girl was a decoy used by a gang of baddies…
I pushed up the lid.
I cringed as I lost my grip on it and it banged against the side of the filthy container like some sort of hellish dinner gong for monsters.
When I glanced down at the girl, she was staring straight ahead, her big blue eyes empty, one finger to her lips.
Shhhh…
“That’s some creepy shit,” I muttered, a little pissed off.
Fear did that to me.
I didn’t need my flashlight—the sun lit up the interior of the dumpster. I grabbed the side of the container and peered somewhat reluctantly into the depths.
The smell wasn’t that bad. I mean, it was bad, but it wasn’t the sort of smell that usually came from dumpsters. Everything in it must have had a chance to…fade, I guess. Or maybe the woman inside had simply chosen one that was slightly clean.
The woman.
She was staring at me. Her eyes were wide with terror or pain or both. Her face was so pale it had taken on a greenish cast, and her parted lips were broken and bloodless.
She rested on a high bed of what appeared to be old newspapers and half full garbage bags. Bloody, filthy blankets were tangled around her tortured body, but her bare legs stuck out like white sticks covered with oozing sores.
“Help me,” she said. Her voice came out in a gasping half-scream, as though her pain was so large she could barely speak.
And I believed it was.
Once my mother had written about a corpse that’d been dragged out of the river. She’d described the character’s bloated, ripe, discolored body…
And that’s exactly what this woman’s belly looked like.
I recoiled in shock, but after chewing my fingernail for a long moment, I once more peered into the woman’s bed.
She was in the process of giving birth.
But the baby must’ve been stuck. Even as I watched, the woman’s belly rippled and I could have sworn I saw the tiny imprint of a face pressing against her flesh.
She screamed, but her screams were almost silent. Her mouth opened wide in the mask of pain she wore, and her eyes stayed full of awareness and the worst horror I’d ever seen in my life.
I was young, but I’d seen horror.
I’d seen pain.
Just not like this.
She didn’t cry. Maybe she was too dehydrated to cry. Likely she was beyond crying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “So sorry. I’ll take care of your little girl if you…if you can’t. And the baby,” I added, quickly. I doubted the infant would survive the birth, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
For one second, the look of relief on her face was stronger than the pain. But only for a second.
“This…monster,” she whispered. “Not baby.”
“Hold on,” I said. I looked around, found a bucket, then turned it over and stood on it so I could lean over and get closer to the suffering woman. “What about the baby?”
She grabbed her stomach with bruised, dirty hands, arched her back, and screwed her eyes shut. The only sound that emerged from her gaping mouth was a high-pitched wheeze. Her skin stretched across her sharp cheekbones so tightly I was sure it would split like her dry lips split as she silently screamed.
Her swollen stomach was going to burst. It would have to, if that kid didn’t find its way out soon.
I wanted to cover my ears and close my eyes but I remained stoic and strong and stayed with her. It was the least I could do.
Finally, she exhaled a breath that seemed to go on for five minutes—a long, wheezing end of life breath, and then spoke. “Kill me. Kill it.”
I tried to swallow but my throat was too dry. “Your man is dead?”
She shook her head violently. “No man, no man. Just them.”
I drew back. My stomach began to hurt and my heart was beating so fast I couldn’t breathe. “What do you mean?”
“They did this.” Her voice was louder with its rage and remembered horror. “This baby is one of them. You have to kill it. And…”
“What?” I whispered.
She held up a shaking hand for me to hold and God help me, but I couldn’t bear to touch it.
I wanted to. But I couldn’t.
“Don’t let them catch you,” she said, her raw voice as shaky as her fingers. “The
y won’t keep you for food. They’ll do to you what they did to me. You’re old enough.”
Before I could even process her words, she threw back her head and began clawing at her distended belly. Her agony was unbearable.
“Ahhhh,” she cried. “Ahhhh.”
I lifted my machete, because there was nothing else to do for her. I couldn’t save her, and I would not leave her in that dumpster to die on her own in hours or days or however long it took her to die.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
“I…”
“Kill it,” she begged. “Kill it. Kill us both.”
And she didn’t stop begging and crying and pleading. She didn’t stop until I drew back my machete and began to chop up her belly and the thing tearing its way from her body.
And her.
I don’t know how long it took me to gain control of myself. I just don’t know.
When I managed to stop, the sun was in a different place, the woman was lying in bloody chunks, and the little girl was gone.
~.~
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Table of Contents
Note from the author:
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
Secondary Character List
About Laken Cane
A preview of UNBREAKABLE
A preview of WE, THE FORSAKEN