The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  Dread and curiosity settled in my gut as I peered out between the sheets of old newspaper stuck against the glass. It was faded and sunburned by the years of covering the glass from prying eyes. Most of the words and pictures had faded beyond comprehension but I could still see some of them. A new virus had been discovered. A flurry of break-ins. A new flu vaccine was being made. There was a new president. A new alliance between countries. A new war between countries. So many clues to the end of the world had been there and no one had realized. I wondered if it would have mattered. If we had seen the end coming, would we have been able to change things? Would we have even tried?

  My gaze moved between the yellowed newspaper pages to the world beyond until my eyes finally landed on the small group of dead shuffling through the streets. They moved together, a collective with a goal and a one-track mind. They never strayed left or right, instead moving with purposeful steps toward something, or someone, beyond our current scope.

  Aimee tapped me on the shoulder, and I was loath to look away from the dead moving through the streets, but forced myself to so I could look at her. Her face was hard, her expression stern, as she mouthed is this them?

  I held her stare for a long moment before looking back out. The dead had passed us and were coming to the end of the long, wide street as they began to turn a corner. Another deader slipped out from between two buildings to join the others and I frowned, watching as its purposeful steps continued the march forward to their new destination.

  My head was spinning.

  My gut twisting.

  Was this the Savages?

  And if so, how? How were they controlling the dead, and why?

  Memories hit me of my time in their captivity. Of the stench of cooked flesh. Of the screams that echoed throughout the caves as someone else was dismembered and cooked. Sickness burned in my belly and I realized, as Aimee put a hand on my shoulder, that I was shaking. My jaw clamped together so tightly that my entire face ached, and I knew that yes, this was them.

  I nodded slowly, not wanting it to be them. Wanting it to be anyone but them. But the world was dark and cruel, a brutal mix of happenstance and bad fucking luck.

  “Yeah,” I said, my words thick with hate and fear. “Yeah, I think that’s them.”

  “It has to be, right?” O’Donnell said, sounding unaware of the terror that was currently gripping me.

  “You can’t be sure,” Freddy argued. “They could just be shamblers.”

  “No, they’re too organized. Too orderly to be shamblers. They’re going somewhere. They’re being drawn to something.”

  I’d seen that once before—the dead controlled and led like that—but I couldn’t remember where. The years were long and tiresome, the burden of so many deaths heavy on my shoulders. A hundred faces flashing behind my eyes as I tried to recall the memory that was buried deep.

  “We should follow them,” O’Donnell said. “There’s only a ten percent chance we’ll get caught. Those are good odds!”

  “A ten percent chance that we’ll get caught and cooked!” Freddy said, aghast. “No, Aiken said we had to go back if we saw them. No running off and getting ourselves killed. We go back and tell him.”

  “I agree,” Aimee said. “Let’s follow them.”

  O’Donnell looked happy that Aimee had agreed with her, that she wanted to follow the dead to their insane cannibalistic leaders. She glanced at me, finally noting my expression. My terror.

  “You take Freddy back to NEO, tell Aiken we’ve spotted a lead and we’re following it up. Get the drugs back to camp.” She turned away from me, her gaze fierce and unforgiving as she readied herself to follow the deaders into what could have been a trap.

  “No,” I finally said, the single word hard and cutting, like metal through butter. “We all go back or we all follow them. No one separates from the group. We stay together.”

  “It could be a trap,” Freddy said, his eyes wide and his hand scrubbing over his short red hair.

  “It’s not a trap,” I replied with a shake of my head. “They’re up to something else.”

  We fell back into silence momentarily, all of us wondering the same thing: what were the Savages up to?

  17.

  Mikey

  “I’m not going back without finding out what they’re up to,” Aimee said, her mouth pinched in anger. “I’m going to make them pay for what they’ve done.”

  “And they will pay—just not today. Not like this.” My voice was hard, like I wasn’t completely terrified.

  But I was. Inside, my insides were shaking. And I hated the Savages a little bit more for that. For making me so utterly terrified of them. I wanted the old me back—the one that walked in somewhere, guns blazing and not a care in the world, ready to blow the zombies to pieces. But I wasn’t that man anymore. I couldn’t be after what I’d gone through. After seeing Ricky die. After seeing people beaten to death so brutally. After all the things I knew about the world now and the kind of people mankind had turned into.

  I would never be that man again.

  I was scarred on the outside, but inside I had been rebuilt.

  “He’s right,” O’Donnell finally said, and I could tell that she didn’t want to agree with me—that in fact she didn’t at all, and if I hadn’t have been there she would have gone off and followed them without a second thought.

  When I looked at her, I saw sympathy in her eyes.

  Sympathy for me.

  She saw me as weak, I realized with sudden anger.

  I pulled out the map from my backpack and spread it out on one of the dusty display tables, smoothing out the wrinkles. Everyone crowded around as I plotted where we were and then followed the line of where the zombies were heading.

  “There’s nothing down there,” Freddy said with a shrug. “Just miles of land and—”

  “Mines,” I said, pointing to a small symbol on the map. “There’s mines down there.”

  I looked up, my gaze catching O’Donnell’s, and she nodded in agreement. It was killing her, standing by my side and not going off to do as she pleased, but I also couldn’t understand her desire to ignore the rules Aiken had given us.

  Or maybe I was confused by my desire to follow them.

  I’d never been one to follow orders, yet there I was…following orders. But I’d lost so much—homes, family, friends, loved ones… I couldn’t lose anymore. I only had myself left now, and my sanity was barely holding on as it were.

  “So let’s blow these fuckers up,” Aimee bit out, opening up her own backpack to reveal a stick of dynamite.

  We all stepped back quickly, desperate to put as much distance between us and that thing. “Jesus, Aimee, what the fuck?”

  “It’s stable,” she said, though there was no way she could know that.

  “You leave that thing here or you’re walking back,” O’Donnell snarled. “I can’t believe you brought that and didn’t tell us!”

  “They have to pay!” Aimee suddenly yelled, tears of anger, sadness, and frustration in her eyes. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? To be in his home? To look after his creepy little insects? To see Fluffy sitting at those gates day after day, waiting for him to come back? I caught her trying to dig her way out of NEO last week. She was trying to dig under the fence, and I thought…maybe she knows something we don’t. Maybe she senses that he’s alive out there, somewhere.” She stabbed a finger against the point on the map where the mines were. “Here. Maybe he’s here, alive, waiting for someone to rescue him.”

  O’Donnell looked over at me, silently pleading with me to talk some sense into her, but my mouth was dry, my tongue sticking to the roof of it. I couldn’t speak right away because every time I tried to, I saw Phil hanging upside down and Tim beating him to death with a bat and smiling at me. I saw the blood. I heard the sickening crunch of his bones. I could smell his blood. I could hear his screams. And I tasted him in my mouth…but was it him? I wasn’t sure what were memories and what were nigh
tmares anymore. What was real and what wasn’t was a mass of writhing evil inside of my head now.

  “We need to get back to NEO, tell Aiken what we’ve found, and get these meds to Alfie. People are relying on us and we can’t let them down,” I said, ignoring her, and my own dark memories.

  Aimee glared at me and I glared right back. “You don’t even care, do you? You just left him there to die and saved yourself.”

  Rage consumed me. It had been bubbling and boiling deep within me for months and months. Maybe even longer.

  “What did you just say to me?”

  “Guys, this isn’t helping anyone,” Freddy tried to placate us, putting a hand on my chest, but I grabbed his arm and shoved him backwards roughly.

  “Mikey!” O’Donnell yelled my name, but I couldn’t look away from Aimee’s indignant glare. “Back the fuck down, both of you.”

  My teeth clenched to the point of pain. “I didn’t just leave him there. It wasn’t like that.”

  She shook her head. “Right, because I can trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”

  “Believe what you want, but I know the truth,” I snarled.

  Aimee’s face broke into a bitter grin. “Is that so? You think you know the truth, do you?”

  “Aimee, enough!” O’Donnell cut in, her desperate tone piercing the tension. “Shut the fuck up now!”

  “You don’t know anything, Mikey.” She glanced at O’Donnell and then forcibly turned away from me.

  “Because you know so much more than me?”

  She looked back over her shoulder. “I know Phil wouldn’t have left you there to die. I know that he’s alive out there, somewhere. And I know that he needs me.”

  I reached out and grabbed her, turning her to face me before glaring right into her face. “He’s gone, Aimee! He’s gone and you need to deal with that. I didn’t leave him there, I had no choice about anything that happened there, goddammit!” I yelled in her face.

  I felt Freddy and O’Donnell pulling at me and telling me to let go of her, but I was so stuck in that moment, with her hatred pouring into me and me slowly drowning in it. Because my pool was already overflowing with hatred for myself.

  Everyone was dead, and it was all because of me.

  I let go of her, shoving her backwards. “I’m going back to NEO. You can all do what the fuck you want, but I’m getting these meds back to where they’re needed.”

  I opened the door and looked out onto the street, seeing that it was empty, and then I left the pharmacy and headed back to my truck. I climbed in, more than prepared to set off for NEO and leave everyone behind if need be. I half expected them all to pile into the other truck, not wanting to be in one with me, but they’d all followed, and they got in silently, the seating arrangement as previous. Two per truck.

  O’Donnell didn’t say a word to me, and that was fine by me. I didn’t know if she agreed with what I’d just said to Aimee or not, an right now I didn’t care.

  I turned the truck around and headed back the way we had come. Hating that the Savages were so close. Hating that I was breathing the same air as them. But mostly hating myself for being too damn terrified to go after them.

  *

  The drive back to NEO was a silent one. No one had much to say, and if they did, they kept it to themselves. The mood was palpable as we pulled back up to NEO several hours later, the sun just dipping below the horizon as it set. The air was cooler now as we drove along the dusty overgrown path toward the main gates, the air still and silent.

  A couple of stray deaders were lingering outside, and I could see Moo and someone else killing them. I wanted to go and help, to drive my blade into some skulls before dragging their bodies off to dump in the deader hole, but I knew I was needed inside. Aiken would want the full lowdown on what we had found, and I didn’t trust Aimee to tell the entire truth. If I was being really truthful, I wasn’t sure on O’Donnell either.

  She’d so quickly swayed to the side of Aimee, wanting to go off with a loose plan of following the deaders that the Savages were rounding up, and see where that led her. Likely, Freddy would have gone along too. But my days of wandering off without thinking were over. I’d seen too many people be killed. I’d lived through too many near-death experiences. I’d lost too many people I loved.

  The gates opened with a low groan, and I drove the truck through the gap and pulled to a stop further into base. I hadn’t even switched the engine off when doors were being flung open and Aimee jumped out. I sighed and shook my head, watching in my mirror as Freddy unclipped himself and jumped out too. He gave me an apologetic look before closing his door, and my chest ached with guilt.

  I’d pushed him, and as I watched him now, I saw he was limping.

  Fuck. I’d pushed him and hurt him.

  He was just a kid, and I’d lashed out and now he was hurt because of me. I slammed my hand on the steering wheel and swallowed. Hating the feeling in my gut. Hating the ache in my chest. Hating so much and loving so little.

  “He’ll be okay,” O’Donnell said, and I glanced up, catching her eye in the rearview mirror. I’d forgotten she was still there. “I think his pride was hurt more than anything else.”

  “That’s not the point,” I grumbled.

  I looked away, feeling irrationally angry with her. Like it was all her fault, when in truth, none of it was.

  She leaned forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I know you were trying to do the right thing. I appreciate that,” she said softly, her words an attempt to soothe me. “They’ll come around. They’ll understand.”

  She didn’t get it though.

  She didn’t understand that that wasn’t what this was about. I didn’t care whether they came around or not. I already knew that I’d done the right thing: I’d gotten us all back alive and in one piece. There was a day when that saying hadn’t held so much worth. But after the Savages. After Drag and Ricky and Phil, and all the other madness that had happened… Getting us back in one piece had a whole new meaning and it was the only thing that really mattered.

  “Come on. We need to speak to Aiken—give him the lowdown on what happened out there. Then we can go home, shower, eat, and go to bed.” She said it with a smile, her cheeks turning a soft pink as she talked about going to bed, and I knew what she meant. What she intended. She was checking every box in order to soothe me. To calm my fractured mind and heart.

  And really, what man wouldn’t be calmed by that?

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said, my voice gruff.

  She was hitting all those spots on a man that quieted him and made him feel like he was still in charge.

  “Don’t be long,” she said. She placed a hand on top of my shoulder, leaned in and kissed the side of my cheek.

  And I was letting her.

  I placed my hand atop hers and turned my head to face her before leaning in and kissing her. We kissed long and hard for several minutes, both of us lost in the moment as we let our kisses wash away the sourness of the day. When I pulled out of the kiss O’Donnell was breathless, her cheeks flushed.

  “Really don’t be long,” she said with a small laugh.

  O’Donnell opened her door and jumped out of the truck, slamming the door closed behind her. I watched her walk away, heading toward Aiken’s house where I knew everyone else would be now, all of them waiting for me to arrive. All of them desperate to tell Aiken what we’d seen—what we’d found.

  I, however, was in no hurry.

  I wanted a moment by myself. Away from the burden of responsibility that was always on my shoulders. Away from these people who looked to me for so much. Away from the woman I was supposed to love.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, resting it against the back of the seat while I allowed myself one minute of peace. Just sixty seconds to remember her, and only her. Her memory untarnished and untainted by another woman’s kisses. I was a hypocrite, I knew that, but I also knew that Nina would want me to do this. She’d w
ant me to be happy. To live. To love. To move on from her.

  So that’s what I was trying to do. For her.

  To live, to love, and to move on.

  Trying and failing, for all intents and purposes.

  It didn’t matter that I was still unapologetically, unequivocally, in love with Nina. A dead woman who only lived in the shadows of my mind.

  18.

  Mikey

  “It was them!” Aimee was yelling. For such a soft-spoken woman, she was always shouting these days.

  Of course I’d only really known her for a few days before her world had gotten tipped upside-down and destroyed. Just another layer of guilt to add.

  “They were within arm’s reach,” she continued, “I could have killed them. I could have ended this once and for all.” She was pacing, her fiery expression turning to everyone in the room as she did. “I could have made them pay!”

  Aiken was sitting in his armchair, his toothpick moving from one side of his mouth to the other over and over as he calmly listened to what everyone had to say. He wasn’t making any decisions just yet, but I don’t think he quite realized the escalation of Aimee’s grief. How close she’d come to making a stupid mistake and possibly getting us all killed.

  I decided, rightly or wrongly, that he should know. That it was imperative that he knew how far down the rabbit hole she was prepared to go to get her vengeance for Phil. It was a shitty thing to do, but if it saved someone’s life—maybe even hers—then it was worth it.

  “She had a stick of dynamite with her,” I said—casually, as if it wasn’t such a big deal, but I knew it was. As soon as the words left my mouth, the room fell silent and everyone turned to stare at Aimee in shock. Everyone but Freddy, O’Donnell, and me. “She brought it with her and didn’t tell anyone.”

  Aiken’s features immediately twisted in fury. “Goddammit, Aimee!” he erupted, standing up from his chair quickly and pointing a finger in her face. She took a step backwards, her own anger fading as his grew. “That shit is unstable. I’ve told you over and over again no one touches that stuff, and yet you took it upon yourself to take a stick out with you?”