The Dead Saga (Book 5): Odium V

by Claire C. Riley

  “So Tim said that you’re all alone here,” I say, trying not to show the nerves that are making me tremble right down to my core.

  “That’s right.”

  “No visitors at all?”

  “No, ma’am. You’re the first for a long time.”

  “Small town like this, I’m surprised that there aren’t more people alive.” I look at the walls as I walk, taking in the signs of damp and clutter, fully aware that Clare and both dogs are watching me like hawks. I make sure to roll my shoulders every once in a while, because although it hurts to do that, it also makes me seem less of a threat.

  “When the outbreak happened, it hit us hard and fast,” Clare says her tone sad though she’s still smiling broadly. “No one had a chance to stop it, or to hide from it. It just came in and killed everyone and then moved on like a plague of locusts.” Clare’s voice goes softer and I look over and see her looking down at her hands in her lap. She’s twisting the blanket in her hands, her forehead crinkled in thought.

  “Well, not no one,” I say.

  Clare looks up in confusion, so I continue.

  “You hid from it. You and Tim survived, somehow.”

  Clare watches me quietly for a moment before answering. “Yes we did. It’s been hard, but Tim and I are making it work for us. We’re surviving, living.” She nods and smiles. “When times get hard, you just have to do what needs to be done, right?”

  My back teeth are clamped together painfully, but I pry them apart enough to reply to her. “Right.”

  The smell of food cooking drifts in to me from the other room, but I’m not hungry, despite having thrown up everything that Korah gave me earlier. Hunger really is the last thing on my mind. I can hear Tim whistling, and the sound is completely unnerving. Perhaps I got all of this wrong and these people aren’t so bad after all. Perhaps they really are good people, hoping to make a friend in the apocalypse and maybe even get out of this town, finally. I mean, who whistles while they cook these days? Who is that relaxed and carefree? Not even back at Camp Haven are we this off our guard, because you just never know what’s going to happen.

  I’m so close to the crossbow now that I could reach out and touch it if I wanted to. However, Clare and the dogs are still watching me closely, too closely for my liking, so I know that it’s too risky. Besides, looking at it up close now, it doesn’t look like there are any arrows for it, so what am I going to do? Smack everyone around the head with it? Nah, my death stick is the safest option for now.

  I glance over to Clare and see that her hands are still twisted in the blanket, but as I pass the crossbow I note that her hands loosen on the blanket. She’s concealing a weapon under there for sure.

  I hear footsteps, and seconds later the door swings open and Tim comes in carrying two plates of food. He looks startled when I’m not sitting where he left me, and even more startled to see me up and moving. I give him a pained smile.

  “Needed to stretch out my back,” I say.

  Tim smiles back. “No problem. Brought you some food—thought you might be hungry. It’s not much, but we’re both happy to share.”

  I nod a thanks and force myself to slowly hobble back to the small sofa and sit down. “You’re good people.”

  Tim comes over and hands me a plate of food before going to stand with Clare. He gives her a plate of food and a handful of tablets. When he sees me looking, he smiles.

  “My wife here is sick—long-term illnesses, nothing infectious, don’t worry.” He kisses Clare on the top of her head and smiles down at her. It would be a sweet moment if it weren’t for the fact that I believe them to be cold-blooded, crazy killers. Though I won’t lie: the more I watch them, the more I wonder if it’s me that’s the crazy one.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, not really sure what else I can say.

  Clare shrugs. “We make it work, don’t we, pumpkin?” She tips her face upwards and Tim plants a loud kiss on her lips.

  I turn away, looking down at my food, if it can be described as that. It looks like three-day-old, overcooked meat. I ate cat meat earlier that looked better than this, but when I glance over at Tim and Clare they’re both watching me expectantly, with happy smiles on their faces.

  “I um, I need the bathroom,” I say, really not wanting to eat this. It reminds me of the kebab meat that my brother used to get after a night out drinking with his friends. Smells like it too.

  Tim’s smile falls. “Sure, follow me.” He heads toward the door and I put my plate down on the sofa next to me and follow him.

  Candy jumps up to follow, but I shut the door on her, locking her in the room with Cane and Clare. I keep walking and hope that Tim doesn’t notice, or that he can’t hear Candy whining on the other side of the door, which thankfully seems to be the case. He leads me to a staircase and begins to climb, and it’s about now that my nerves start to kick in, because I can feel that something is wrong—different on some level—but I don’t know why.

  At the top of the stairs there are a lot of closed doors, and the faint odor of death is hanging in the air. I try not to scrunch my nose up, but it’s a strong smell so it’s hard. Tim points to the only door that’s slightly ajar, and I nod my thanks and go inside, quietly pressing the lock button on the doorknob after I close the door.

  I expect it to be a dungeon of some sort, or perhaps some crazy bondage room, but it really is just a bathroom with a toilet and sink. Though neither look like they’ve been used, or cleaned, in a long time.

  Of course that suits me fine, since I don’t actually need to go, but I make a few noises while I look out the window at the street in front of us so that if Tim’s listening he’ll think I’m doing my business.

  “Don’t be long or your food will go cold,” Tim says, his voice coming through the wooden door to reach me.

  I look back once at the door and then turn away. “I won’t be. You can wait downstairs if you want.”

  “I’ll wait, it’s okay. I don’t want you getting lost up here. It’s a maze of rooms,” he calls back, and I resign myself to him waiting for me.

  Outside, the horde of zeds are still right outside the store like they’ve gone into a form of stasis or something. I move from the window and open some of the cupboard doors to see if there’s anything useful in them, but there’s not so I close them quickly and head to the bathroom door. My hand is aching from gripping the chain on the death stick so hard, and I let it go for a brief moment so I can flex my fingers.

  A knock on the door almost makes me drop the stupid stick, and Tim asks if I’m okay. I look at the door and see the handle slowly turning, but thankfully I pushed the lock button in place so he can’t get in without brute force.

  “Everything okay in there?”

  “Sure. I’m coming out now.” I glance around me, annoyed that I haven’t found anything useful, and head to the door.

  I unlock the door and open it. Tim is leaning against the wall just outside. His gaze is on the door at the far end of the hallway and a small smile is on his face. I’m so engrossed in what he’s looking at that I almost don’t notice the gun in his hand.

  Unlucky for Tim that he isn’t aware how quick I can actually move, or the fact that I have my death stick in my hand and I decide that it’s now or never for me to get myself out of this situation. I use my stick to knock his wrist to one side and a shot from his gun goes wide. With my left hand I release the chains that hang from the top of the death stick, letting them dangle freely. Then I smash the length of the stick against his arm, pinning it to the wall.

  Tim is furious and cursing and smacking at me with his free hand, but he quickly lets go of his gun when I use my right knee to pulverize his nuts. He grunts, his muscles going slack, and by the time he’s dropping to his knees and preparing to curl up in a ball and cry for his mama, I’ve reached down, picked up his gun, and aimed it at the back of his head.

  He glances up at me, still winded, with tears stinging his eyes. He holds his hands up in surr
ender. “It’s okay, Kelly, I thought that you were up to something. It was my mistake. I don’t want any trouble. Neither of us do. Please, Kelly, please.” He pleads for his life, and I’m still warring with myself on whether I’ve messing up and he’s completely innocent or if he really is as bad as my instincts are telling me he is when I hear another voice.

  “Kill him,” the voice whispers.

  And it’s not so much the sadness and fear tainting the voice that makes me fire the gun, but the fact that I recognize it.

  I glance down at Tim, and as he tries to get to his feet so he can get the gun from me, I shoot him right between the eyes and blow his brains out the back of his skull. His body drops to the ground, still and silent.

  I turn toward the door at the end of the hallway, taking a slow step toward it. “Ricky?” I say quietly.

  “The one and only,” he whispers back, his voice sounding more like a seventy-year-old man’s than of the person’s I know.

  I rush to the door, all caution gone now, but when I try the handle the door doesn’t budge. I look back at Tim’s body, remembering the bunch of keys he carries with him, and I run back to his body, bend down, and pull them out of his pocket.

  Back at the door it takes three or four attempts before I find the right key. When I do, I push open the door, not sure what I’ll find behind it, but what I see is not what I’m expecting to see. Not even a little bit.

  Ricky is sitting in an old, empty metal bathtub. He’s completely naked and shaking from head to toe.

  “Ricky! Oh, thank god!” I say, running over to him.

  He turns to look at me, his movements slow and sluggish. His wrists are bound and are being held above his head, where the rope is hooked onto a chain. He’s pale and sickly looking, and as I get closer I can see why.

  Parts of him are missing.

  Both of his legs below the knee are gone, both of them tightly bandaged to stop the bleeding. Parts of his skin have been seared away from his chest, and chunks taken out of his side—deep, but not deep enough to kill.

  “Don’t thank him just yet, O’Donnell,” Ricky replies. “He ain’t all he’s cracked up to be.” He tries to laugh, but his face furrows in pain instead.

  My gaze roves over his body, not knowing where to look, or what to do. If I’m being brutally honest, there doesn’t seem like much I can do. He’s been kept on the brink of death, never allowed to topple over to the other side. The best thing I can do is put him out of his misery.

  “Jesus, Ricky—” The words die on a sob, and I hurry to untie the bloody knots at his wrists. They’re too tight and I can’t undo them, and the more I try, the more my gaze wanders over his body, or what’s left of it, and the more I freak out.

  After several failed attempts to untie him, I drop to my knees and start to cry. His head lolls on his shoulder and his gaze wanders to mine. His lips are dry, split, and bleeding.

  “Don’t cry, O’Donnell. It’s all gonna be all right now, you hear me?” His voice breaks and he starts to cough, which is what I need because it pulls me from my misery enough to focus on him and not myself.

  “Where are Phil and Mikey?” I ask, standing back up to try to untie the knots again.

  I’m aware that Clare is downstairs and probably heard the gunshot, but I’m also aware that she’ll presume that Tim shot me and not the other way around. I still need to hurry up, though, because despite being in a wheelchair, she seems like one tough cookie—and of course she has Candy and Cane defending her.

  Ricky smiles up at me. “Knew you had a thing for him.” He grins, and then his head rolls forward like it’s too heavy for him to hold up any longer.

  “It’s not like that,” I whisper, lying to him and myself. I place a hand to his cheek and he presses his face into it and lets out a shuddery breath.

  “I haven’t seen either of them since I fell asleep two days ago and woke up in this room tied up.” He glances up at me. “But I heard them. Can’t ever un-hear those screams.”

  My chin trembles and I reach down and wrap my arms around Ricky’s shoulders. I try not to cry, because crying isn’t going to help anyone, but it’s hard not to cry when your friend’s in pieces in a bathtub. I think I hear him sigh as I press my face closer to his.

  “How are you alive?” Ricky asks me, his breath hot on my cheek. “Are you an angel?”

  “I wish,” I say as I pull myself away from him. “You should know it takes more than a fall from a really tall building into a horde of zeds and then being left for dead to actually kill me,” I joke, using my arm to wipe away the tears.

  “You shouldn’t joke about stuff like that,” he says. His body twitches and his shoulders tense, and he gasps like something hit him. His face is scrunched up in pain and I look him over from head to toe and wonder what I can do to help him. But I already know what to do, I’m just being too much of a coward to do it. When the moment passes, Ricky opens his eyes and looks at me. His face is sweaty and pale, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Did you kill him?” he asks, his voice sounding rougher, like gravel.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah I did.”

  “Good.” He closes his eyes and sniffs up, taking a long breath inwards. When he opens his eyes again, he seems so much calmer. “Glad I don’t have to sit here rotting anymore.”

  “Ricky—”

  “I need you to finish me off now, please,” he begs.

  I shake my head, tears spilling from my eyes. “I can’t.”

  “You have to, O’Donnell. You have to, please.” His voice breaks on the final word, his chin trembling, and I nod okay.

  There’s a stand behind the tub and I look over the top at some of the things on it, but there’s nothing sharp. I pull open one of the drawers and find it full of knives of all different sorts. It makes my stomach turn even more, thinking about it.

  I reach in and pull out a simple but strong-looking blade. Ricky isn’t looking anymore, but his shoulders are tense again, like the sound of the drawer opening is one he knows far too well. It both sickens and angers me.

  “One last breath of you, O’Donnell, that’s all I need,” he says, his chin to his chest and his eyes closed.

  I use the knife to cut the rope around his wrists and then I gently lower his arms down. I kneel next to the tub and wrap my arms around his shoulders, and he places his head on my shoulder. I can feel him breathing, heavy breaths full of fear, regret, and sadness.

  “I’m so sorry, Ricky,” I whisper.

  “I kno—” he starts to say as I plunge the knife into the back of his skull as hard as I can, silencing his words and ending his pain for good.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here quick enough,” I whisper and kiss his cheek.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I lean Ricky’s head back against the bathtub and close his eyelids, and then I stand up on shaky legs. I take a deep breath and leave the room with a new sense of purpose. Closing the door behind me, I grit my teeth and move down the hallway.

  It feels wrong to leave Ricky in there like that, but it’s just a body now; it’s not him anymore. I have to keep telling myself that and let my anger fuel me onwards instead of letting the fear I have send me spiraling down a black hole.

  Plus, Clare and her dogs are still waiting downstairs for Tim right now, no doubt getting suspicious of how long he’s taking to string up his new victim. I stop walking when I come to Tim’s body because all I can think about is kicking the shit out of it. I know it’s pointless and doesn’t serve any purpose, but the anger is so real and vivid that I can’t stop myself from almost falling backwards with the desire to destroy his body like he destroyed Ricky’s.

  And what, I wonder, were they doing with Ricky? Why torture someone like that? For what damn purpose other than because they’re pure evil? I almost wish I wouldn’t have killed Tim so I could have asked him some of these very questions and perhaps enjoyed killing him more slowly. But hey, at least I still have Clare downstairs. I’ll ask
her and then make her suffer for her sins.

  I reach down and check Tim’s pockets for any more ammo (but they’re empty) before I head down the stairs, my death stick and his gun now in my hands. At the bottom of the stairs, I can hear at least one of the dogs sniffing at the bottom of the door and whining for their owner. I wonder if they can smell his blood and know that I’ve killed him. And then I wonder whether they’re going to attack as soon as I open the door. Because I won’t have time to shoot both of them and Clare without getting banged up myself. That’s a fact.

  Clare was most definitely armed with something hidden under her blanket, so it’s not like I’m going in against a defenseless woman. Before I can change my mind, I do something that I’ll either regret or will get me exactly what I want: I knock on the door.

  “Clare?” I say, loudly—loud enough that one of the dogs starts to bark, and the other one joins in.

  Clare’s silent for a second or two before she yells at the dogs to quiet down.

  “Kelly? Are you okay, dear?” she says in her sweetest voice, but it’s obvious to me that she’s just playing with me. “I hear a gunshot.”

  “No, not really.” I pause while I try to get a grip on myself, because I’m ready to snap.

  “Where’s my Tim?”

  I let out a small laugh. “Tim’s not doing too good either, Clare,” I reply.

  “Tim?” Clare calls frantically. “Bring him to the door right now!” Her voice breaks into a shriek on the last word and the dogs both start barking again.

  “All right, all right, calm down, I’ll go get him.” I head back up the stairs to where Tim’s body is on the ground, blood pooling around his head. I grip one of his arms and begin to drag him.

  “O’Donnell?”