Flesh 01 (19 page)

Finn turned, glanced back at them as the sound of a motorbike drew closer and closer. Checking they were still with him. Dan gave him a nod.

A big shiny Harley idled along, slowly moving up the block toward them. The bastard rode one-handed, fussing with something, not watching where he was going.

The kid was about to signal when glass shattered down the street. There was the “whoosh” of a Molotov being thrown, the crackle and pop of the fire gaining momentum. Next came the scent of petrol and the sight of smoke bil owing into the air. Damn but the smell had reached them fast. It made Dan’s stomach lurch. Things were moving in their direction.

Finn motioned them forward while he himself moved back, blending into the shadows of the garage, out of sight.

It flowed fast then.

His girl took three fast steps forward, planting herself out in plain sight. The biker was so surprised to spot his quarry standing out on the front lawn, he came close to stacking his big ride.

Daniel grabbed Ali from behind, lugged her back into the gap between the buildings. The chopper lurched up onto the grass to follow. Had the dickhead gone for less chrome he might have succeeded but, having chosen to be a showy fuck, there would be no joy.

He couldn’t follow them on those wheels into the tight space.

Finn slunk out of the shadows with a knife in hand.

The motorbike stal ed, and the dickhead yelled something nasty. Dan hustled his girl down the corridor, getting her away from the action.

The dickhead’s greetings died as Finn pounced. That should have been the end of the story.

“Come on.” He grabbed Ali, tried to move her along as per the plan. They were meant to get behind the house and keep their heads down. Meant to keep out of the way. But no, she pulled at his grip and dug her heels into the stony ground, sunk her fingers into his arm. “You don’t need to see this, babe.”

“Wait. We’re not leaving him on his own.”

“Babe. Don’t.” There was a grunt and a groan and some blood-curdling gurgling going on behind them. Her breath caught, and her body jerked against him. He held her tight, swearing all the while. “Finn can look after himself. Will you not watch, please?”

“Dan …” She shook her head and actually fought his hold when he tried to walk her back. Which hurt. He kept his arms around her waist as the whole grisly scene played out on the front lawn.

It was probably swift. The kid was good at what he did. Still, it seemed to take forever.

Eventually her nails released him. “It’s done. He’s finished.”

The gravel lining the walkway crunched as Finn came their way. Dan didn’t bother to turn. He had seen enough blood splatter, and Ali was doing enough watching for the two of them.

“What are you doing here?” Finn asked, as well he might.

Ali tensed, pressed herself into Daniel as if she needed shelter. Who knew what looks were being passed behind his back. Doubtless, not good.

“Waiting for you,” she said.

“We had a plan,” the kid said.

His girl said nothing.

“Is there a problem, Al?” the kid asked in a quiet voice.

There was a definite delay to her answer. “No.”

A low moaning started up nearby, the kind of noise only an infected made. She pul ed back and Dan let her go.

And no, Finn was not happy, features so strained his jaw looked disjointed. His girl’s expression was of a similar ilk but her eyes were two times wider. Spooked. Big time.

Across the street a zombie crawled out from beneath a parked car, one leg mangled. Its fingers were no better than bloody stumps. It began to make its way across the street toward the fresh kil .

Unlike his girl, he didn’t mean to see the dickhead’s remains.

His throat gone, the surrounding grass glossy with blood. The kid was lethal. And there wasn’t a drop of gore on the blonde-haired bastard outside of his hands, but they dripped with it.

Ali took a step back from both Finn and the zombie. It was a move hard to miss.

“We better go,” she said.

***

His girl turned her head toward him, eyes somber in the darkness. Which worked. It was a somber kind of night.

They had hidden in a house. Finn, crouched in the front room, kept watch through the remains of a front door. Someone had decided to rip the door off its hinges, and the gaping hole could be seen from the street. No one would settle down for the night in a place with no door. In turn, no foe, infected or otherwise, would come close without them knowing.

Another canny idea from the kid.

The second feature of the night’s shelter was the body decomposing in the tub. Not infected, the kid had reported. The person had chosen to slit their wrists and bleed out. Morbid, but Daniel could almost understand. The place reeked of death. Infected wouldn ’t to be able to easily detect their live, uninfected flesh.

There’d be no bedding down for good times tonight. The dickheads were well and truly stirred up. Gunshots regularly scattered the quiet as they revved their big bikes up and down the streets. Finn had only managed to dispatch one of the gang, but it was sufficient to get their attention. Nearby, fires raged, fil ing the air with smoke. The idiots might yet end up toasting themselves along with their quarry.

Outside, the wind was blowing like crazy and there was an electric buzz in the air. Hopefully the storm would hit soon and douse the flames. God, Daniel hoped it would. Something had to go their way, for once.

“I love you like the moon loves the stars,” he said.

She cuddled in closer.

“I love you like the fishes love the sea,” he said.

“Hmm.” His girl gave a tired little smile, leant her head on his shoulder. “Do the fishes love the sea?”

“They would be screwed if they didn’t, my love.”

She sighed. “True. Where are you going with this, Daniel?”

He smooched the top of her head, rubbed his cheek against it. The softest silk had nothing on his girl. “Well, because I have this great love for you, I feel compelled to confide in you when you are behaving like an ass.”

Her head fell back, and a hurt look flashed, then faded. If anything, she looked a little defeated. Lovely lips turned down at the corners and sadness filled her eyes. “You mean Finn.” She didn’t move away and didn’t proceed to rip him a new one. It told Daniel much. “Yes, Finn. You’re not being fair, baby.”

“I know.” Ali huddled against him. “The way he just … I mean … He didn’t even blink. Just kil ed that guy.”

And as much as he would have wished to protect her from al sorts of stuff, protecting her from this would not be to her benefit. Not in the least. The brave new world required skills just like the kid’s. His girl needed Finn more than she needed her pride or her delicate sensibilities. Jealousy niggled at Daniel but he pushed it aside.

“Shit, Daniel,” she said.

“So, you’re worried someone you know and possibly have feelings for could kill like that?” he offered, finishing the sentence.

“I guess. I don’t know. Shit. Shit. Shit.” There followed further heartfelt sighs. And he couldn’t have fixed this one for her even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t.

“You should never have started up about the three of us,” she grumbled. “I am not equipped to handle this crap.”

“I disagree.”

Her dark eyes honed in on him. “Why are you pushing for this? Real y?”

“I want you to be happy. Also, I want you to be safe.”

“You want him to protect me. That’s using him, Daniel.”

He made a noise of disapproval despite her being spot the fuck on. Sometimes survival came first. Actual y, always survival came first. “He’s already protecting you. He chose to protect you.”

“Be honest.”

“Babe, I’m open to the idea of sharing you. Okay? And the fact is, there’s something between you and Finn. Now there’s a damn good chance the three of us are going to be sticking together for the long haul, so ignoring it is plain dumb. This is my reasoning.” He patted her on the head and gave her a smile, one that he hoped conveyed more love than sales tactics. “But yes, his ability to protect you has been noted. With the world the way it is these days, how could it not be?”

Al’s mouth widened in a pained expression, her lips thinning. “I get why you might think this is a good idea, Dan. I do. Did it ever occur to you that pushing me in this direction might screw things up spectacularly between all of us?”

Yes, it had occurred to him, and fuck he hoped not. Sincerely to the bottom of his soul.

Dan set his chin on her crown, caught one of the hands fiddling with the seam of her jeans and held on tight. “Okay. Let’s focus here.

Finn acted today to protect you. He risked his life and what he did was for you. He does not deserve to reap your shit for his efforts, babe. No matter where you are on the you and him getting together front, okay?”

She said nothing.

“Leave it for now. Why don’t you sleep on it?”

She snorted. “Right. Sleep.” There followed a long pause. He could almost hear the cogs turning in her overactive mind. “I know he killed for me, and I know I’m not being fair. I just … I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Feel this way … Twisted. Confused.”

He deposited another kiss on the crown of her head. “Let it go for now. Give yourself a chance to get your head around it. You know, I have every faith in your good judgment.”

“Right,” his girl murmured. “You think fishes love the sea.”

Thus began one of the longest nights of his life.

The fires crept closer until a reluctant drizzle arrived. The air fil ed with smoke and steam and the scent of damp ashes. The rain made listening to the night much harder.

No one slept.

Dawn was a curiously quiet thing. No birds. No bike engines. Nothing. After al the chaos and commotion of the last few days, it was downright creepy.

Finn wandered over and hunched down in front of them, staring straight at his girl, who was studying the doorway over the kid’s right shoulder.

“We should move,” Ali murmured. The shadows beneath her eyes were as bad as the bruise on her face. They were al wel on their way toward wretched. “Maybe they passed out.”

“Maybe. Or it could be a trap,” Finn said. “We need to be careful.”

“Everything could be a trap,” Dan said. That they might not survive the next fuck up was best left unsaid. “Yesterday’s plan is still on.”

The kid continued to watch his girl with a steady gaze. “Alright, the vote is in. Let’s find another place to stage it.”

Progress was slow. Daniel had a bad feeling the end was approaching, for better or for worse. More skulking between flat, squat, square brick housing, doing their best to avoid high fences and dead ends as Finn turned down site after site to set the trap.

Delaying.

Who could blame him? Who knew how his girl would react the next time Finn had to kill?

The sudden wailing cut the air. It came from close by. They all dropped low, grasping their guns. They heard another long, pain-fil ed howl. It sounded solely of loss and anger. There had been a lot of it in the weeks after the sickness first hit, when people were dropping like stones.

He locked his hand around his girl’s wrist. Finn led them forward, over a buckled wire fence and into another overgrown backyard.

“Wait here,” the kid ordered.

Ali’s chin jumped up, and she shook her head. “No. We stay together.”

Finn took a step toward her.

“We stay together,” his girl reiterated.

The kid turned to him for backup. He just shook his head, wondering what came next.

The sound, shit, it had rattled him. Had rattled al of them, but Finn was still waiting. Problem was, he understood. He couldn’t let either of them out of sight. Fuck knew what would happen next. “What she said.”

Finn bared his teeth but they went forward.

A lone man was crouched over a massacre. Or the remains of one.

Trickles of blood stained brown ran across the twin lines of concrete leading out to the road, and it was black where it had soaked into the earth. Shreds of bloody clothing lay scattered here and there. People had been torn apart every which way. There was the odd shard of white bone sticking out of drying chunks of flesh. Half a rib cage lay tossed aside. God knew how many people had been butchered. Breakfast tossed about in his belly, wanting out, but his throat had shut up shop. He could barely fucking breathe. A lot of blood and unidentifiable chunks of who knew what? There was a sick fascination to it. Even Finn seemed stunned, hovering on the edges. One of the dickheads was making the racket, identifiable by the leather biker vest he sported. A couple of choppers lay tipped over nearby, chrome shining bright in the morning sun.

The man cried so loud he hadn’t heard them coming, didn’t notice them there. Yet.

Too late, Daniel tried to grab her, hold her back. Her mouth opened. “Oh … God.”

The biker raised his head, face red from all the caterwauling. “Dead. They’re all …” With a rumble of a noise he raised the gun and pointed it at Ali. “You did this.”

Finn’s bullets hit him at the same time as Daniel’s. They minced the man’s chest, leather and blood and meat. The bastard toppled backward, his bullets flying wild over their heads. Daniel felt one trim his hair. He hadn’t even thought to duck. He had, however, made his girl do so by pushing her down.

Ali knelt on the grass beside him. His hand had wrapped around the back of her neck, her skin bleached next to where his fingers gripped. She had nearly been killed. His pulse pounded through his ears. Nothing seemed real.

“Dan.” Finn stepped closer, face calm. “Let her go. It’s okay. He’s dead.”

Daniel blinked at the kid, waited for the words to hit him from a long way away. His hand remained wrapped around her neck, fingers set. He had given her more bruises. Shit.

Dan looked up and the kid nodded.

Slowly, he pried his fingers loose. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” His girl put a hand to her neck, rubbing tentatively. The kid pulled her to her feet, dusted her off. “It’s fine. Really. That was close.” Her gaze found the dead body, the man’s chest laid open.