“And Shamblers become Ferals when they have ample food too,” I whispered.
It felt like I had been punched in the gut as I stared at the man in the pathetic white lab coat. A man who squirmed in Ben’s grasp, turning his face away from the condemnation he saw in mine.
“Live prisoners. Where are they? Now!”
He pointed further along the corridor and I hurried along, Ben dragging the man behind us and Lisa beside me. I caught sight of two more Reapers in their glass cages and a burning rage grew within me.
Another door that was opened with his ID badge and that Lisa led the way through. I followed her and stopped in horror at what I saw.
More cages, larger with space for many people to be crammed together. They lined each side of the walls and between them were aluminium tables, slick with blood and viscera. Carts filled with blood-covered body parts sat beside each of those tables and large men in blood-stained aprons used cleavers and knives to hack apart the bodies on the tables before them.
My vomit splattered against the damp floor and I staggered, wiping at my mouth as Lisa looked back at me. There was no pity or amusement in her gaze, just an anger that matched my own and a question besides.
“No,” I said. “Can’t kill them. They will be punished but not yet. Find Gregg.”
She nodded and ran off towards the nearest cage. The butcher men watched us but didn’t speak or move from where they were. It was then that I saw the heavy steel chains attached to a thick collar around their necks and leading up to the ceiling.
They were prisoners then and not volunteers. Still, their actions sickened me and I was sure that they would face justice. But first, I needed to find Gregg.
“Here!” Lisa called and I ran over to her side.
“Hey, Boss,” Gregg said.
He was naked and seated amongst a handful of other men and women, all of whom were equally naked. They watched us with fear in their eyes and I turned to Lisa.
“Find a way to get this bloody door open.”
“I don’t think so,” a rough voice said behind us and I swung around to see a thickset man with a pistol in his hand, its barrel pressed against the back of Ben’s skull.
CDF troops spilt into the room from behind him, each of them armed with those cattle prods we had seen on the others.
“You can make this easy or hard,” the man said. “Either way, you’re coming with me.”
Chapter 19
I counted four of them, plus a terrified woman in a torn and stained shirt and jeans. She, I assumed, was one of the parents of the children we had found. Her days in captivity hadn’t been kind to her.
With one eye swollen shut and her nose clearly broken, her face was covered in her own blood and tears and her hands had been zip-tied behind her back, much as our own had. While she curled up in the foetal position over in the corner, my own people knelt with backs straight and stared our captors in the eye.
Their leader, a brutish looking fellow if I ever had seen one, paced in the centre of the open space, a radio in one hand that told me there were more of them around.
A short woman with her red hair pulled up in a ponytail sat atop a stack of pallets, a long-barrelled rifle resting before her and her eyes fixed to the scope as she kept watch through the windows.
There was a thin man with a neat goatee standing over by the door. He was the one who had greeted me so warmly when I had arrived. There was a madness in his eyes that I recognised and I figured he would need to be the first to die else he would be a problem.
Standing over us, an assault rifle cradled in his arms was the final of the four. A stern face, narrow waist and broad shoulders. She had her hair cut severely short and watched us like a hawk watches a mouse.
They weren’t soldiers, or at least I didn’t think so, but they may well have been at one time. I couldn’t shake the impression that they were on the ragged edge of violence, ready to beat the ever-loving crap out of us at any moment.
It was a thrilling thought.
Since the Reaper had escaped me, I had been itching for a challenge.
“Who are you?” I called loudly.
The leader stopped his pacing and turned his head to face me. I saw no anger there, not much emotion at all. For him, I suspected we were just a nuisance to deal with as they tried to complete their mission.
And mission it was. They were all dressed in the same camouflage gear and beneath it, camo-fatigues and lace-up boots. Their equipment was well tended and they were clearly not going hungry and kept themselves cleaned and groomed.
That spoke of a base and more than that, a safe place. One they had left for a clear purpose and I very much doubted that purpose included bringing others back with them.
He made a curt gesture and the broad-shouldered woman took two paces towards me. I grinned and said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
The leader of the little group held up his hand and gave me a curious look, before turning his head to look at each of my minions in turn.
“What the fuck’re you supposed to be?”
“We are the Dead,” Jenny said, her words echoed by the other two.
“Truer words have never been said,” Goatee said with a snigger.
“Shut up, Lucius. Watch the fucking yard.”
“Aye, aye, boss man.”
I noted the venom in his light-hearted reply and filed it away. Could be useful later.
“Dawn, step back,” the leader said as he strode over to us.
She complied but kept her finger near the trigger of her weapon and her eyes fixed on us. The leader stopped before me, a good three feet away and crouched down so that he could look me in the eye.
“What’s that supposed to mean then?”
“We protect those who cannot protect themselves,” one of the minions said and the leader glanced dismissively at him before looking back at me.
“That right, huh? You building an army, are you? Fighting the good fight and all that?”
He scratched at his chin with one corner of the walkie-talkie he held and grunted, the faintest trace of a smile crossing his lips.
“Not much of a fucking army if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” I said and he nodded, smile growing.
“Nah, mate. You’re right there I suppose.”
He glanced over at the partly open door to the warehouse and then back at me, expression thoughtful.
“Why you here?” he gestured with his radio in a manner that suggested he meant in the town. “We saw you arrive. A lot of you, all dressed in black and running through the streets searching for something.”
“Food,” I said with a half-shrug of my shoulders, pretty much all the movement I could make with my hands bound. “Survivors too.”
“Oh aye, that what it is then? You want some new women to keep you warm on a night?”
I tilted my head as I stared at him, watching his face and trying to discern whether he was playing a part or not. I was somewhat familiar with such behaviour and I could recognise the signs. He was clearly trying to goad me but there was something there in his face, that told me it was an act.
Interesting.
“Perhaps I could ask you the same,” I said in response and nodded my head towards the bound woman.
His eyes darkened at that and he gave a grunt as he slowly nodded.
“Aye, I guess I deserved that one.”
Once again, he looked at each of us in turn and nodded slowly to himself as he considered his words.
“Now see this,” he said. “All these lads in black come swarming into town and each and every one of them is wearing a cloth hood. Except you.”
“Makes me wonder, you see, why that is. And I reckon, it’s because you’re special, like. A boss man maybe.”
I saw no reason to reply to that and assumed it to be a rhetorical question, though I always found it hard to tell.
“Now if you’re the leader of this merry little band. What’re they all gonna do when they f
ind you missing?”
“They will tear this town apart,” one of my minions said and I struggled to avoid rolling my eyes.
“That’s what I figured, which is why we have a bit of a problem.”
“And what would that be?” I asked politely.
Since being inside the warehouse I had been searching for a reason that they would be there and I suspected I had found it. Not that it made sense, but if I were right then it raised some interesting possibilities and the longer he talked, the more likely it was that I would find the answer.
“Would it be something to do with that?”
I gestured towards a stacked pallet with my chin and he turned to look at where I pointed. When he looked back, his brows were drawn down angrily and I smiled brightly.
“Clever lad indeed,” he said with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Yeah, we’re here for a reason and we’ve gone to great pains to make sure we weren’t gonna be noticed. Then you turned up.”
He tapped his chin again with the radio and scratched at the stubble on his cheek.
“Causes a bit of a problem for us, see?”
“Because you don’t want people to know about you or that nice, safe place you have?” I asked and grinned as I saw that I scored a hit.
“Just kill em, Isaac,” Lucius said, glancing back at us.
“Shut up, Lucius.”
“He’s not wrong,” Dawn said from right behind me and the hairs on the back of my neck rose up as I realised I’d not noticed her move.
She could be the bigger danger of the four.
“Where you from?” Isaac, the leader, asked me.
“We have a place of our own.”
“Just you lot? There’s two ships down in the harbour and I figure there must be more of you.”
“There are… a few of us,” I admitted.
“Fuck!” Dawn said. “How many of you?”
There was a definite tone to her voice that made me curious. She was alarmed by the idea of us and that was strange indeed. I considered my options and decided that the best course of action would be honesty if I wanted any real answers.
If nothing else, it might give me some insight into what so alarmed them about that.
“There are some twenty-five thousand people in our camp,” I said and enjoyed how his eyes widened. “The newly elected government runs the place with the aid and support of the royal navy.”
“Fuck,” Dawn breathed. “They’ll need to know this, Isaac.”
“Where are they?” he asked, ignoring her.
“Perhaps that’s something we could discuss later,” I said and twisted around to show my bound hands. “When we are friends.”
He grinned then and it did meet his eyes. He pulled a combat knife from his belt and held it in his hand for a moment as he looked at me. I simply stared back at him. I’d no fear of torture.
Dawn put her booted foot against the back of one of my minions and pushed him forward. He sprawled on the floor beside Isaac who reached down and gripped the back of his neck, holding the minion in place with one hand as he brought the knife towards his neck with the other.
“How about, you tell us or we kill your friend?”
“I die so you may live,” the minion shouted in response and I just smiled as the other man blinked in surprise.
“He serious?” Dawn asked and Isaac shrugged, a little of the confidence gone from him.
“Yes,” I said and as the leader’s eyes turned back to me, added, “You can threaten to kill me too but that won’t help either.”
“Fucking fanatics,” Isaac spat. “Seen this before. These fuckers won’t talk.”
“Kill them then and let’s go. We can come back later for the lime. No one else will be taking it,” Lucius called.
Lime? So that was what they were after and why they were in the town at all. For the life of me, I had no idea why they needed it or what it could be used for but I had no intention of letting them just wander away. Or of killing me of course.
“Boss! We got a problem,” the red-haired sniper called out.
“What is it?”
“Movement. All I see is a lot of black moving through the town.”
Isaac turned back to me, eyes thoughtful and I smiled as innocently as I could.
“We have the chance to be friends,” I said. “Let’s not lose sight of that.”
“Aye, maybe so.”
He didn’t look entirely convinced of that and I watched my minions from the corner of my eye, noting the slight movements they were making with their arms and I smiled, as I did the same.
I had been held captive before, with my hands bound behind my back and little chance of help coming my way. The last time it had happened, I had managed to free myself with some difficulty and had long ago decided that wouldn’t happen again.
My fingers slipped inside the waistband of my jeans, feeling for the small pocket I had sewed there. The same pocket that I had instructed all of my minions to sew and, most importantly, a pocket they were to tell no one about.
“We could just kill them and leave,” Dawn added. “Lucius is right that no one else will bother with the stuff. We can make it to the hill and hide in the grass there till the heat dies down, then come back.”
“How long will that fucking take?” Isaac snapped back at her. “We’re on a clock here.”
“They will forgive our being late if we bring them some important information,” she countered.
There it was again, the hair rising on the back of my neck as she spoke. I had questions aplenty and it seemed so did they.
Isaac scratched his chin once again as he thought, eyes distant and lips moving silently as he calculated in his mind. Finally, he nodded once and raised the radio to his lips as he turned to stare directly at me.
“Jer, you there?”
“Yes, boss,” a tinny voice replied from the walkie.
“Hold your position but listen close. We might need a distraction.”
“Roger that.”
Isaac dropped his hand and moved over to me. I pulled my own fingers away from the secret pocket and pasted a bland smile onto my face as I waited for him to speak.
“Okay,” he said as he crouched down before me. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter 20
I had always wanted to help others, and when the end of the world began, that changed to wanting to save people. All of the people. While I might have accepted that some people were beyond saving, my primary goal remained the same.
So, when faced with a choice of fighting those CDF troopers who had sworn an oath to do the very same thing as I had or standing down and ending up in a cage beside Gregg, I chose to fight.
As my eyes opened and I lifted one hand to press against the side of my skull, I only wished I could remember how it had gone. Judging by my condition, I would say, badly.
“Hey,” Cass said softly. “Go slow, you took quite a blow.”
“What happened?”
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I breathed a soft sigh of relief. No cage, just another meeting bland meeting space. Judging by the firm surface beneath me, I was laid out on the table. Cass, seated beside me, held my other hand as I probed gently at the lump on the side of my head.
I winced at the pain and she smiled as she said, “I did warn you.”
“Yeah, you did,” I grunted as I sat up and looked around. “The acolytes?”
She hesitated and shook her head slowly.
“They just brought you in.”
“Not gently,” Lou added.
I turned my head to see him leant against the wall beside the door, then winced once more and squeezed my eyes shut at the sudden burst of pain that brought.
There was blood on my uniform fatigues and after a brief examination, I was able to determine that it wasn’t mine. I couldn’t decide whether or not to be relieved about that.
“How long?”
“You were brought in about fifteen minutes ago,” Cass said.
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She paused and it was clear she wanted to ask but didn’t want to rush me. I gave her a smile and a squeeze of her hand.
“He’s alive. Stuck in a cage down in the deepest level but definitely alive.”
“Thank you.”
“Not that we’re much help in here,” Lou said. “There’s a guard on the door so I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”
“I’m not leaving without Gregg!”
“No one said we would,” I assured her. “But we need to know what’s going on first.”
That was an easy question with no clear answer and I held back the wave of despair that threatened to wash over me as I swung my legs off the table and pushed myself off. Cass held me steady as I staggered and once assured my legs would hold me, I pressed my hand against my stomach and walked across to the window.
There was blood on the pale reflection of my face that I saw in the glass. It was smeared down my left cheek and matted my hair. Someone had hit me hard then and it was no wonder my head hurt so much.
I just hoped they hadn’t decided to get a few extra kicks in when I’d been down on the ground. Though, I was pretty sure I would have felt that anyway, I couldn’t help but worry.
A knock on the door caused me to turn, a little too quickly and I almost fell. Cass was on her feet and at my side in an instant, her face the very picture of worry. I offered her a weak smile of thanks but it was the best I could do.
The door opened and two CDF troopers came in, cattle prods in their hands. A sharp gesture was all it took to have Lou retreat back to our side of the table, his hands raised in the air to show he was unarmed and no threat.
He walked through the door and into the room like he owned it. A swagger in his step and a look of clear disdain on his face. He waved his men away dismissively and they filed out of the room. That told me plenty about him and I didn’t like any of it.
“Colonel! What is the meaning of this?” Cass demanded and I sighed inwardly.
I was finally in the presence of the man that minister Shahid had put in command of the CDF troops on the island. The man who the government had appointed when Admiral Stuart was banished to sit on his ship out in the bay with the rest of the naval forces.
War of the Dead Page 14
