Into The Fire: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 2)

by Daniel Willcocks

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Joe called as he stumbled and fell. He rose again but didn’t make it in time to stop Kain from opening the door.

  Jaxon exploded into barks.

  The room beyond was no larger than a broom cupboard. There were spider webs in the corner and bones on the floor. A fetid stink burst forth in a thick puff of air, and they gasped.

  In the center of the room stood a decrepit old woman. A thick chain around her neck was fixed to the wall. The moment she saw them all her eyes lit up, and she gnashed and chomped in their direction, her hands reaching for them all.

  Caitlin instantly lost her appetite as she studied the sores and marks over the woman’s body.

  Joe turned ashamedly to the others. “Evry’ones. Meet Violet.”

  Chapter Four

  Psycho Joe’s Garbage Lot, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario

  Violet gnashed and growled, fighting against her restraints.

  She was haunting to look at. Caitlin had no idea how long she had been infected by the Madness, but they could take a guess and say a fair while.

  “Er…Joe. Fancy explaining what the fuck I’m looking at here?” Kain said, recoiling in disgust. He reached automatically for his blade but was stopped by Joe before he could get it out.

  “No! Please, I asks ya. Please!” Joe shouted.

  Violet reached for Kain, her arms inches from his chest. Kain turned to Mary-Anne and Caitlin and said, “What do you reckon, girls? Go for the kiss? She seems pretty into me.”

  Kain tugged for his sword, fighting against Joe. Caitlin could see the intent in his eyes.

  “Kain, no. Wait,” Caitlin said, already running to help.

  But it was Mary-Anne who sped to his side and now separated Joe and Kain. Her eyes glowed like Violet’s, though hers displayed sense. She pulled them apart and held them at arm’s length, her nose wrinkling at the smell coming from the cupboard. Caitlin caught up at last, tugging Jaxon by his collar and pulling him back.

  “Oh, come on,” Kain said, wriggling in Mary-Anne’s grasp. “At least let’s put her out of her misery.”

  “I can explains…” Joe said, spinning around like a Christmas tree decoration in Mary-Anne’s grip.

  Mary-Anne let Joe free. He stumbled as he was dropped on his feet, rubbing the scruff of his neck where Mary-Anne had held him. She turned to Kain. “Let’s not do anything rash, huh? Hear him out.”

  “Thanks, ma’am,” Joe groveled. “Thankings you so much.”

  Mary-Anne flashed her eyes at him. “You better have a good explanation for this, because if you don’t, I’m going to let him end her misery.”

  Joe nodded, looking miserably at the floor.

  When Kain calmed down, Joe led everyone back to the fire. He sat with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging down as he told them about Violet. Slowly, with halts and stuttering, he explained how they had been romantic partners in a world gone Mad, fighting in each other’s corner, always having each other’s back. He said it was amazing how easy it was to take the Mad down once you got them stuck in a maze of trash and separated them from the others. They’d set booby traps, then they’d pair up and hunt them down, clearing the junkyard and making it a safer place for Trisk’s visits.

  “But the guv’nor never tolds us he ain’ts comin’ no more,” Joe said, his voice cracked and blue. “Just stopped appearin’ ones day.” He stirred the stew as the smoke turned from white to black.

  It seemed the governor had grown bored of his visits and left them both to their own devices. Joe and Violet had carried on the work they had been assigned to do without question. They simply continued to exist in the only way they knew how. The only way that gave them purpose.

  “That is, until a few weeks agoes. Me and Violets had a big arguments about whether to keeps on keepin’ on.” Violet snapped away in her room as if trying to contribute to the conversation. Choked and gurgling sounds issued from her throat. “I tol’ her, I says, ‘We’ve got a job ta do. Now, it migh’ not be the prettiest. But it’s ours, ands our owns. If we don’t keep ta world cleans, then who wills? There’s a whole lotta folks doin’ somethin’ and it’s on us to do our part’.”

  He heaved a sigh and looked at Violet with nothing but love and sorrow. “But she was tired o’ it all. Wents for a walk ta clear her heads. Foun’ herselfs fightin’ off three lunas with nothin’ more than her bare hands. By the times I heard them, I was too lates to help her.”

  “How long did it take her to change?” Mary-Anne asked.

  “’Bout three days,” Joe said gloomily. “At firs’ we cleans them wounds good an’ proper. Lots an’ lots o’ hot water making’ her scream like a loon in the night ’til the bleedin’ stopped. Then the sores came. Then…well...”

  Caitlin looked up at the woman trapped in a recycled broom cupboard, never resting, constantly reaching forward for them the entire time but held back by the chain around her neck.

  The whole thing was awful. For Violet to have been attacked and survive but still lose her life…

  Where was the justice in that?

  “And you don’t know of any cure?” Caitlin said, hearing her heart’s soft melancholy in her voice.

  “No one do!” Joe said.

  Caitlin looked at Mary-Anne, who shook her head, then to Kain.

  Kain thought for a moment. “I’ve wandered enough to have heard tell of folks who think that they’ve found the cure. But you can’t trust nobody these days. Let’s just say I’ve never seen it happen myself, and I’ve seen a lot of people suffer. Whatever it was that brought this…monstrosity to the world, the answers aren’t going to be in a junkyard dog’s house, or along the lonely roads. You’ll want cities. You’ll want larger societies with medics and doctors.”

  “And they still exist?” Caitlin asked.

  Kain shrugged. “I’ve heard of some that do but haven’t seen them myself in years. Again, when a world falls to pieces and everyone in it is looking for hope, people don’t stop to check the facts or question the rumors. They’ll just blindly follow where strangers tell them hope is. It’s the way of it. Human nature.”

  Mary-Anne scoffed. “Pah. Humans.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kain agreed.

  Caitlin closed her eyes for a moment and thought it through. A city like the ones she’d heard the older folks tell her about in her youth, like the ones she’d seen in books and drawings with buildings taller than the trees and people wherever you looked.

  Were there any left out there in the world?

  She thought again of the governor and wondered what he’d really been hiding of the world outside. All the people of Silver Creek had trusted him with their lives, and he had hidden the truth from them all. Trisk kept them locked up like animals with no knowledge of what lay beyond the walls other than the very real danger of the Madness.

  Violet thrashed against her chains. Jaxon’s growls quietened but didn’t cease.

  Sure, the Madness was something awful and horrific, but there were plenty of scarier monsters out there.

  And the governor was one.

  Silver Creek, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario

  Alice sat and waited for them all to finish their drinks.

  Toby’s wife was beautiful to look at. She had been the first to arrive, leading a group of two men and two women. All presented a complete contrast to the man who had sprinted through the woods, covered in blood with his hair shaggy and clumped. Toby’s wife, with piercing blue eyes and blonde hair that spilled down to her breasts, now sat on a chair. The others sat beside her in undisguised shock as if not quite believing what had happened out there in the forest.

  They each slurped and drained large cups which Alice and Ash had provided them, water spilling down their chin and dampening their clothes.

  “Thank you. So. Much,” the woman said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and standing up to hug Ash. Tears were hot in her eyes—of course, they were, her husband had just died—but she did h
er best to smile.

  Alice offered her arms for a hug. The woman ignored her.

  She scowled under her breath.

  “Can we get you anything else? More water? Some food? We might have some plates left over from last night,” Ash offered.

  “Some food would be great…” The woman paused, providing Ash with a chance to say his name.

  “Ash. Deputy captain here at Silver Creek. This is Alice.” He pointed Alice’s way, and she gave a strained smile. “She’s—”

  “His girlfriend,” Alice said sharply.

  She already didn’t like the way that Ash eyed the woman.

  “I’m Laurie,” the woman said, sweeping her hair behind her shoulder and turning to her children. “And these good folks here are Harry, Nina, Maria, and Damon.”

  The others waved a hand but didn’t look up from their cups.

  “We’re awfully sorry about your husband, Laurie,” Alice said. “It sounds like you’ve all had one hell of a journey. We know from experience that the forests out there are awful for anyone to travel through, much less a family of five with young children. I’m from a small village just west of here, myself. Where did you come from?”

  Laurie pulled her hair into her hands and began to plait it as she spoke. Alice couldn’t help but notice her hands were visibly shaking. “That doesn’t really matter, I suppose. What matters is we’re safe.”

  “That’s right, for now,” Ash said. “Silver Creek is the safest town around. We’ll get you set up somewhere nice and warm and ensure you have plenty of food and water. We made a promise to your husband, and we intend to keep it.”

  Laurie smiled warmly then stood up.

  “Thank you so much,” Laurie said, approaching Ash and kissing his cheek. He flushed instantly, and Alice imaged the warmth he must feel with her against his body.

  Laurie then moved to Alice, who reluctantly offered her cheek, realizing a moment later that this was one of the strangers’ customs. They all rose and kissed both their cheeks.

  Alice and Ash glanced at each other as the final newcomer laid a wet kiss on Alice.

  “Yeah, yeah, all the thanks,” Alice said. “Let’s get you guys cleaned up.”

  Psycho Joe’s Garbage Lot, Silver Creek Forest, Toronto

  Joe stood at the doorway to his trash house and waved the three of them off.

  They had tried to convince him to join them—well, Mary-Anne and Caitlin had. Kain was a little less sure about the ‘psycho’ who kept his zombie wife around and locked in a cupboard.

  “The best thing he can do for her is to stab her in the heart,” he had said under his breath, receiving a walloping from Caitlin as she shushed him.

  Sure, it would have been nice to have him accompany them, but Caitlin understood his dilemma. This life was all he could remember. All he would ever really know. He’d continue to seek trash and bring it back to his piles until the day he died.

  And that was okay.

  Everybody had a purpose. That’s what made the world go round.

  They passed back the way they had come, aiming for the place where they had met Joe to continue their journey from there. Caitlin expected to find the bodies of the Mad she had killed, but instead, saw only dark patches of blood and tracks where the bodies had been dragged off. Maybe by some wild creature, she reasoned, or maybe by some other Mad.

  Who knew?

  Perhaps the Mad were growing intelligent, collecting their dead together to reanimate into—

  No! Bad thought, bad thoughts, bad thoughts. Stop now.

  They walked along in silence, all deep within their own thoughts. A couple of times, they heard creatures moving through the forest. An owl hooted as they passed beneath its tree. Somewhere up ahead, something rustled in the grass, a small creature by its non-threatening sound.

  The trees grew noticeably thinner as they continued. Soon enough, Jaxon skipped ahead and whined, his nose pointing skyward. They all looked up and saw several ribbons of smoke spiral into the air in the distance.

  “Over there,” Caitlin said. “Look.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Mary-Anne said. “Where there’s smoke—”

  “There’s fire,” Kain finished, a little more grimly.

  “And people?” Caitlin asked. “Surely where there’s fire, there’s people?”

  Mary-Anne nodded. “Unless there’s a forest fire ahead. But judging by the fact the trees are thinning and the ground is getting grassier, I’d say that we’re probably in the clear. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’re looking at the result of domestic fires. Except maybe that one there.” She pointed at a particularly thick and blackened column of smoke. “That looks more like some sort of bonfire to me.”

  “What’s a bonfire doing burning in the early hours of the morning?” Kain muttered and scratched his chin in a telltale sign of disquiet. “Don’t suppose it’s a load of naked vamps doing their dance around the flames?”

  “You need to sort out your fantasies, Pooch,” Mary-Anne replied.

  “Why don’t we go investigate?” Caitlin suggested.

  Eventually, the trees disappeared, and they came to the edge of a large field, the grass so high that it tickled their chests. It felt funny for Caitlin to feel real grass like that. Most of the grass in Silver Creek had been trampled and destroyed through years of footfalls. Even the grass in the forest was little more than short patches struggling to fight for sunlight.

  “Look here,” Caitlin said, holding the map out in front of her to catch the moon’s glow. “Edge of the forest. We’re not far now. I’m guessing that means we’re here, near…” She leaned in closer, bringing the map to her nose. “I can’t make out the name.”

  “Here, let me try,” Kain said, snatching the map.

  “Oh, because your eyesight will be so much better with smudgy words—”

  “Ashdale Pond.”

  Caitlin narrowed her eyes. “All right, then.”

  She folded the map and put it back in her pocket. They began walking through the grass and could soon see the rise of an old brick building off on the horizon. There was a spire on top with a small cross, the tiles either hanging off the roof or missing completely to reveal huge holes in its construction. Light flickered inside, and they could faintly make out the silhouettes of an undefined number of people inside.

  “There, that looks promising,” Caitlin said, doubling her speed.

  “Here’s an idea,” Mary-Anne said, placing a hand on Caitlin’s shoulder and pulling her back. “Before you go crashing about in a town where you have no idea whether the people will skin you or fuck you, why don’t you and Kain hold back, and I’ll do some investigatory work?”

  “What are you going to do? Taste their blood and see if they’re the good guys?” Kain said.

  “If that’s what it takes.” Mary-Anne licked her lips.

  Kain shuddered.

  Caitlin thought a moment. It made sense. Mary-Anne was fast and would likely be quieter than a human and a werewolf stomping through the brush and announcing their arrival. At least this way, they could get the lay of the land and work out a game plan together.

  “Go ahead.” Caitlin smiled. “We’ll hold back, but not for long. And if you need to find yourself a snack,” she looked at Mary-Anne and winked, “at least be subtle about it, please.”

  Mary-Anne’s eyes blazed red and her fangs extended. She bent low and sped off through the grass.

  “Y’know, it’s all well and good being on that bitch’s good side, but what happens if she turns on us and goes Maaaaad?” Kain held his arms in front, and his voice shook as he said that last part.

  Mary-Anne reappeared. “Call me a bitch again, and you’ll find out,” she said and slapped him before disappearing once more.

  “I guess just stay on her good side and you won’t have to find out.” Caitlin chuckled.

  They took a seat in the grass and waited. Jaxon sniffed at the ground, found interest in a butterfly that took the
air, and gave chase. Kain kicked off one of his boots and began shaking it, angling its opening to the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Caitlin asked.

  “I’ve had something in here since we set off from Silver Creek. It’s been driving me mad.” He paused. “Bad choice of words?”

  “Maybe a little.” Caitlin smiled. She thought for a moment, staring at the stars as her mind boiled and bubbled. “Do you think they’re real? Those big cities that you mentioned back at Joe’s? Do you really think there’s civilization out there somewhere?”

  Kain shrugged, digging his hands into his boot. “I don’t know. Maybe. Can’t be impossible, can it? There was a time when it was nothing more than a quick run down the road before you found one. People everywhere. Claustrophobic things, those cities. Though, ironically, super easy to hide in plain sight… Ah!” His eyes widened, and he pulled out a thorn that had lodged itself into the sole of his shoe. “Aha. Gotcha, you little shit.”

  “But you’ve not seen any recently?” Caitlin asked, ignoring the boot comment.

  Kain placed his shoe back on, his tongue sticking out of his mouth. When he looked at Caitlin, his shoulders dropped. “Look, I’ve been around a fair while in this fucked up era, and all I’ve seen are ruins. The old towns and cities I used to visit before my pack and I went off to find our own salvation were desolate aside from the Mad. Think about it, would you rather be out in the country to risk running into a couple dozen Mad, or slap-bang in the center of the city where there might be several thousand? That was the way of things when it all happened. When the shit went down. Some people just…turned.”

  Caitlin sighed, staring at the sky. She could see the constellations swirl above her, gleaming orbs and planets dotted out in space. Surely, somewhere, there was a group of folks living better than this?

  Kain put his shoe back on. He looked at Caitlin, noting how deflated she looked in that moment. “Cat, I like to hold on to hope and say that somewhere out there is something bigger and better where people can live safely. Maybe even with tech and electricity. But, kid…” He leaned closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “When the Madness came, no one saw it coming. I saw people change in an instant, as though suddenly struck by lightning. I can’t explain it, but it was like something in humanity just snapped. Some people were unaffected, others went batshit. That’s all there is to it. Do you think a city would survive something like that?”