Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (31 page)

Whether Emma’s final statement was meant as a subtle threat or a warning, Fran couldn’t tell for sure but as the smile slowly fell from the young woman’s lips a darkness seemed to settle within the depths of Emma’s eyes; a darkness brought forth as if she had suddenly become lost to some distant and terrible memory.

‘Come on… we’d better be going,’ Emma suddenly mumbled, turning away from them both; her thoughts still clearly distracted, ‘the others… they’re probably already waiting for us.’

‘
Waiting for you
,’ silently added Fran as she once again took Kai’s hand in hers and followed the younger woman across the decking of the tree house and onto the final suspended walkway that would take them on to the Hub.

‘Emma, do… do you know if the others are back yet?’ asked Fran, her words breaking into the rhythmic creaking of the boards beneath their feet as they moved. ‘Did they come back okay?’ she went on to say, desperate to know that Tom had returned to them yet fearful of the answer she may be given.

‘Brett got a nasty wound to his arm. Norma had to give him some stitches,’ she replied, her fingers skimming delicately along the guide rope as she walked, ‘I wouldn’t bother asking her to mend any of your clothes if I were you… not if the state of Brett’s arm is anything to go by… but then I doubt you meant that… did you?’ she continued, glancing back at Fran.

‘Is Tom okay or not?’ asked Fran, trying to keep the irritation from her voice.

‘He’s fine…’ Emma eventually replied, stepping briskly off the walkway and over to the door to the Hub tree house; her hand already hovering over the handle as she spoke. ‘Well, physically at least,’ she at last finished, the smirk on her lips barely held in check as she glanced back over her shoulder at Fran before pushing open the door.

‘Come on, Wendy… we had fun last night, didn’t we?’ they heard Jimmy coo as they stepped into the room; his hand brushing gently against the teenager’s cheek. ‘I know I certainly did.’

‘Jimmy, it was …’ Wendy started to reply, a gentle smile on her lips as she tilted her cheek into the young man’s caress; clearly enjoying his touch right up until the one moment she became aware of someone standing in the open doorway behind her.

Slowly, Wendy began to turn her head. Yet even as she did she saw Jimmy’s gaze flick past her shoulder; the look on his face telling her all she needed to know.

‘Look, Emma, don’t get…’ she started to say with an exasperated sigh, turning to meet the anger head on that she already knew awaited her.

‘Go home,’ Emma almost growled though her gritted teeth, cutting off whatever Wendy was about to say as she held in place a visibly paling Jimmy simply with the power of her enraged glare.

‘Emma…’ Wendy started to protest, looking briefly to Jimmy; hopeful he would take a stand for her; perhaps even declare the love he had so far only whispered of amid their passionate and secret embraces.

‘Home!’ Emma snapped, finally releasing Jimmy from the scrutiny of her furious stare to shoot a warning glance at her younger sister.

‘But... but I wanted to see Poppy,’ whined Wendy, only just holding short of stamping her foot like a petulant child denied a toy. ‘She’s been with Sam all day… it’s my turn… I wanted to…’

‘Now!’ barked Emma, charging forward to angrily grab her sister by the arm and shove her towards the open doorway where Kai and Fran still stood in awkward uncomfortable silence. ‘And you!’ she spat, jabbing an accusatory finger in Jimmy’s direction as Wendy stormed past Fran and Kai, pushing them out of her way. ‘You’d better stay the fuck out of my way for a while, Jimmy Watts!’

‘Emma, please, I...’ he tried to say, his fear making him look suddenly a lot younger than his amassed twenty two years.

‘How much did Mike weave today?’ Emma abruptly asked, ignoring his plea with a seemingly random change of topic. ‘Come on, how many screens?’

‘What... I… erm…’ Jimmy tried to answer, suddenly flustered by Emma’s new line of questioning. ‘He… he made three big panels, each about two metres by three.’

‘And have you cleared the reed beds from round the lake?’ she snapped back even before the young man had finished speaking.

‘No… no, Emma. Not yet,’ Jimmy replied, nervously shaking his head, ‘I’ve only done part of the south end of the lake… the ones closest to the shore.’

‘Well you’re doing the north side tomorrow,’ she snarled in reply, forcefully stabbing Jimmy in the chest with a finger, ‘and I want you in that fucking water until it’s clear. I don’t care how sodding cold it is in there, you stay there until it’s done… until Mike has all that he needs… Perhaps that’ll cool you off a bit… you understand me, Romeo?’ she finally growled, jabbing him once more with enough force to push him back against the side of the table.

‘Yes, Emma,’ he simply nodded as he tried impotently to back away from her. ‘I… I understand… I will… I…’

‘Just get out of my sight, Jimmy,’ she finally sneered, dismissing the young man a good four years older than herself with a wave of her hand; at last releasing him from the focus of her withering rage.

Not needing to be told twice, Jimmy darted for the door; making sure to give Emma a wide birth as he crossed the room. He was just squeezing past Fran, throwing a mumbled apology in her direction, when their eyes briefly met and in that split second Fran saw the true and real fear that haunted the young man’s eyes.

‘
I think you and me need a chat,
’ she thought silently to herself, watching through the open doorway as Jimmy frantically sped across the outside decking and onto one of the suspended walkways; the urgency of his movements causing the bridge to bounce and rock wildly.

‘Sorry about that,’ muttered Emma once Jimmy had left; her still simmering anger only barely kept in check.

‘
Too late, Emma… we’ve glimpsed behind that mask,
’ thought Fran, shrugging her shoulders as if she already dismissed what they had witnessed. ‘No problem…’ she managed to say before pulling one of the chairs out from under the long table to sit down. ‘Oh, by the way, is there some sort of rota for who cooks?’ she went on to ask, as Kai sat down next to her. ‘I mean, because if there is…’

‘You m…may want to m…make other arrangements,’ chuckled Kai, hoping his joke would lighten the dark mood that still seemed to radiate from Emma in waves.

‘No… no, Norma, Natalie and Angela… my mother, they…’ Emma vacantly replied, still lost to her own thoughts as she continued to glare at the space Jimmy had only moments ago occupied, ‘They… they normally sort it out between themselves,’ she finally continued with a dismissive wave of her hand, as if already brushing away the question from her thoughts.

‘Oh… right, okay,’ said Fran, ‘because what I was going to say is that I don’t mind helping out... but if you’ve already got your system…’

‘What the fuck’s up with Jimmy?’ interrupted Dennis as he suddenly strode into the Hub, closely followed by Tom and both of the Nash brothers. ‘Boy looks like he just found out his weed patch’s about to be raided by the Drug squad?’

‘Liberties…’ Emma coldly replied, at last seeming to tear herself from the maelstrom of her own thoughts to focus on the large man approaching her. ‘The little shit’s been taking liberties.’

‘What sort of fucking liberties?’ growled Dennis, his eyes instantly narrowing as he angrily crossed his thickly muscles arms; the menace of his stance and words diminished somewhat by the whistling of air through the gap left by his missing teeth.

‘Wendy,’ Emma flatly replied, after holding the larger man’s gaze for a few seconds.

‘Oh… I thought you meant with you,’ said Dennis, his posture and demeanour suddenly relaxing as he pulled out the chair at the head of the table, just as Natalie and Angela Doyle entered the room carrying jugs of water, trays of plates and a handful of mixed cutlery. ‘I know the girl’s only fourteen, Emma…’ he continued, idly adjusting the position of the plate as it was placed in front of him, ‘but it’s not like it was before and fuck, it’s not like she’s got much to choose from.’

In some part of Emma’s mind she knew what Dennis was saying was true; the world had indeed changed. Old social norms, protocols of how they once lived, these where now obsolete, outdated and pointless to the way of life the Dead had forced upon them. Yet despite this, Emma still silently raged against the images her imagination forced across the canvas of her mind’s eye. She seethed at the thought of Jimmy laying his hands upon her sister, touching Wendy, caressing her and ultimately taking her to his bed; and it meant nothing to her that Wendy had probably gone willing into his arms. For within each scenario it was not the image of Wendy her mind conjured up, wrapped in the arms of a man only seven years older than her but herself, trapped and struggling against a prison of flesh clamped tight about her; a prison of much older flesh, flesh formed in the shape of her deceased step-father, Harry Doyle.

‘Emma… Emma!’ She suddenly became aware that Dennis was still talking to her. ‘I said, so what do you want me to do about it?’

‘You?’ she replied, as if mildly confused by his question. ‘Nothing, nothing at all... it’s… it’s been dealt with,’ she finished, gently running her fingers along his arm as if in thanks, before turning and silently leaving the room; a series of wary exchanged glances left in her wake.

‘Fuck! I thought she would’ve gone ballistic…’ Fran heard Brett say before she tuned out his conversation and moved along the table to where Tom had taken a seat.

‘I’m glad to see you got back okay,’ she began, offering Tom a brittle smile as she sat down.

‘We only went across the river, Fran,’ he replied, giving Natalie a nod of thanks as she placed a large bowl of steaming vegetables on the table, ‘just to Trelissick House and back.’

‘It wasn’t the distance I was worried about,’ she continued, pleased that Tom was at least talking to her with some rationality.

‘I can handle myself… you know that,’ he added with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders as he began to spoon a mound of cabbage onto his plate.

‘Yeah, I know you can… but when was the last time the Dead fought back,’ she sadly pointed out, ‘or bled,’ she continued, her words almost dropping to a whisper as she reached over to touch his sleeve; her fingers coming away covered in a sheen of fresh blood. ‘Oh… Tom…’ she sighed, wiping her bloody fingers against the side of her leg; unable to meet Tom’s eyes, fearful the man she once knew was no longer there. ‘Why? There’s so few of us left… why, Tom?’

‘He was dangerous, Fran…a loose cannon. He had to be dealt with,’ he replied, quite matter-of-factly; his tone belying the madness of his words. ‘He was a danger to everyone here, to my girls… I… we couldn’t just sit by and let him endanger us… we needed to end it.’

‘We?’ said Fran, at last looking up into Tom’s face. ‘Up until yesterday it was us that was we. You, me and Kai… and now you’ve done this simply on the word of a group of people that we’ve only just met… that we hardly even know.’

‘I thought you were going to give this place a chance,’ he replied, shaking his head disappointedly. ‘The glass doesn’t always have to be half empty you know, Fran. Can’t you just try to…’

‘Do you still hear them?’ she suddenly interrupted, knowing no matter what she now said, what fear or warnings she spoke of, Tom had already made up his fractured mind about White Oak Park. ‘Do they still talk to you, the ghosts of your wife and children?’

She wasn’t quite sure what she expected him to say or how he would react but as Tom looked at her, the scent of freshly spilled blood still on his clothes, the last thing she expected from him was a smile.

‘No,’ he simply replied, ‘why would they… I’ve found my girls again.’

And with that Fran knew they had truly lost him.

***

Chapter 6:

‘What do you mean they’ve gone?’ asked Fran the next morning, glancing back incredulously at Kai to make sure she had heard Brett correctly. ‘Gone where?’

‘Just gone,’ Brett repeated with a shrug of his shoulders, taking a bite out of his breakfast of warm potato cakes flavoured with onions, ‘that’s what Emma told me. The pair of them snuck out at first light, took their kid with them and scarpered.’

‘Sorry, but you’re saying Sam and Mike took Poppy and just left…’ said Fran, lowering herself down into a chair as she tried to accept what the young man stuffing his face was telling them, ‘Just like that… no goodbyes, no preparation, they just left?’

‘Emma said they took one of the screens that Mike had made yesterday with them,’ Brett mumbled round a mouthful of partly chewed food. ‘Fuck knows what for…guess he must’ve had some use for it though.’

‘But… but it doesn’t make any sense,’ said Fran, almost more to herself than anyone else in the Hub. ‘They seemed fine last night. They didn’t say anything was wrong. In fact they were happy, happy they’d finally found somewhere safe… somewhere safe for Poppy… why on earth would they leave?’

No sooner had she said the words than she found herself discretely looking over to Sid, silently sitting further down the table next to Natalie and wondered if Mike and Sam had also been recipients of a discrete yet desperate warning from the older man.

‘Who knows,’ said Brett, using his little finger to pick at something stuck between two of his back teeth, ‘but they did…. they took a screen and left… end of story,’ he finished, already dismissing the young family from his thoughts as he grabbed another potato cake from the plate and pushed himself up from the table.

‘That’s not all they took,’ came a deep voice suddenly from the doorway behind them, ‘that old two man row boat on the bank down by the crossing… it’s gone.’

‘The Titanic 2,’ muttered Fran, remembering the small boat pulled up onto the muddy shore of the river as she turned to look back at Dennis.

‘Yeah… that’s the one,’ said Dennis, clearly surprised she had noticed the boat at all let alone taken note of its name, ‘and that’s not all the bastards helped themselves to,’ he continued, pulling the door closed behind him just as a brisk wind fought its way into the room; swirling a cluster of dried leaves before it, much to Bob’s excitement, ‘a couple of the rabbit hutches are missing too… probably at least four or five rabbits gone, I’d have to check with Jimmy to be sure though,’ he went on to say, side-stepping around Bob as he walked over to the table to take one of the potato cakes for himself. ‘So it looks like those Fuckers decided they’d steal the food from our mouths before pissing over our offer to let them stay... nice… fucking nice indeed!’

‘And… and what do you plan to do about it, Dennis?’ asked Fran, wary of the man’s reaction in light of how he dealt with those that betrayed him.

‘Look, if they’d taken our horse,’ Dennis began to reply, making the point to insinuate that Star was now the general property of White Oak Park rather than belonging to only Tom, Fran and Kai, ‘well, then we’d be after them like as shot… teach them a lesson they wouldn’t fucking forget... but let’s face it,’ he continued, with a vaguely disinterested shrug as he looked down at Bob eagerly sniffing at his boots, ‘Titanic 2 probably lived up to its name… and all three of them are likely bobbing along face down in the water as dead as the rest of those corpses out there … and it sodding serves them right if you ask me.’

‘And what about the child, Dennis?’ said Sid, quite unexpectedly from the other end of the table; clearly surprising Natalie that he had dared voice an opinion at all. ‘She was an innocent, Dennis… Did she deserve to die too?’

‘I don’t know if you’ve been paying much attention recently,’ growled Dennis in reply, patently angry that the older man had spoken, ‘but the whole fucking world’s full of innocent corpses right now… and if you ask me, if those two idiots put their fucking baby in danger and that little girl’s dead… well, then fuck them both, they deserve everything they get.’

‘
But they wouldn’t have… not unless there was any other way,
’ Fran thought to herself as Dennis continued to rain curses down upon Mike and Sam; in fact he was so damning of the young couple that Fran began to suspect that the overbearing alpha-male may have indeed lost children to the Dead himself.

‘Bob, here,’ she whispered, as the diatribe continued; absently clicking her fingers to get Bob away from Dennis. ‘No.’

‘Anyway,’ Dennis finally barked, at last drawing a line under the topic of the departed couple, ‘there’s still work to do here, so get your arse in gear and get to it. Fran, you’re on clean-up with Brett and Kai this morning and then when you’re done I’m sure Sid can find you both something to do in the Dome… or you can ask Jimmy if he needs a hand mucking out the rabbits… whatever… you sort it out between yourselves… Oh and Brett,’ he continued, making sure the young man was actually paying attention to what he said, ‘I want you and that dick-head brother of yours patrolling the woods along the north side after clean-up. We’ve been having far too many of the Dead coming this way lately… might as well cut them off there before they get too deep into the park.’

‘Got it,’ nodded Brett, reaching for the last potato cake as he left the table; a brisk jerk of his head indicating that Fran and Kai were to follow regardless if they were ready or not.

‘Bob, come,’ said Fran, slapping her hand against her thigh so that the dog would know to follow her out as he stood to leave. ‘Oh, Dennis, have you seen Tom this morning?’ she thought to ask just as he was ushering Natalie and Sid through the door for their usual chaperoned trip to the Dome.

‘He’s gone to feed and water the horse,’ Dennis replied, with a wave of his hand before turning to follow his charges.

‘Star,’ Fran called after him, ‘her name is Star.’

Stopping, Dennis turned to look at her; a strange expression on his face as if he was somehow amused by what she had said.

‘Star?’ he repeated, with a derisive snort; already turning away from her dismissively. ‘You’re not at the pony club now, Princess,’ he called back over his shoulder as he started to walk away. ‘Everyone’s got a job to do, that beast included… you’d better get used to it.’

And with that, before she could even reply, he strode off across the decking after Sid and Natalie and onto the first walkway; leaving Fran impotently seething with rage behind him.

‘Wanker!’ mumbled Fran under her breath, watching as the large man led his two charges across the gently swaying bridge. ‘Is he always such a charmer?’ she asked turning to Brett who was reaching for the length of pipe he had left resting outside by the door.

‘Yeah, pretty much,’ he replied, only half listening as he briefly tested the reassuring weight of the pipe in his hand. ‘Come on,’ he continued, once he was satisfied with his weapon, ‘we’d better get going… and hey, I’ll even give you a ten point lead as it’s your first day.’

‘Ten point lead?’ asked Fran, looking at Kai for conformation, while Brett started across the walkway that Dennis and the others had taken. ‘What’s he talking about? What points?’

‘It’s… it’s just a g…game,’ said Kai, shaking his head as if he didn’t really want to discuss it, that was until a questioning look from Fran urged him to continue. ‘Okay, so they have this p…point system… different types of the Dead are w…worth different amounts of p…points,’ he went on to say, starting along the bridge after Brett, ‘and the w…winner between them is the one with the m…most p…points at the end of the day.’

‘Oh, I see,’ commented Fran, glancing back to make sure Bob was following them, ‘and do I want to know what the winner gets?’

‘Erm…’ started Kai, the look on his face already telling Fran whatever it was, it was far from anything tasteful. ‘They… they g…get first go at N…Norma that night.’

‘Yep,’ said Fran, pulling a comically disapproving face to match Kai’s, ‘I did not want to know that… I don’t think I’ll be playing if it’s alright with you.’

‘No, me n…neither,’ smiled Kai, slipping his hand over Fran’s shoulder as Bob darted between their legs and ran ahead of them. ‘I d…don’t b…believe him by the w…way,’ Kai mumbled out of the blue, his voice low and suddenly full of seriousness despite the strained smile still covering his face. ‘Ab…about Sam and Mike, I mean.’

‘No,’ said Fran, glancing briefly at the man she loved walking beside her, trying to keep her own face neutral. ‘neither do I… even if Sid or one of the others had managed to warn them, they just wouldn’t leave… would they? Not just like that… not without saying something to us first. Something’s not right here,’ she continued after a pause, watching Bob happily run ahead of them as she spoke, ‘I don’t know what but I’ve got an idea who I can ask.’

‘Sid?’ suggested Kai.

‘Yeah we need to talk but no, it’s Jimmy I want a word with,’ replied Fran, lowering her voice even more so that as she spoke her words came out in barely a whisper. ‘I saw the look in his eyes last night when Emma found out about him and Wendy... he was… scared… like, really scared,’ she went on to say, shooting Kai a quick glance. ‘You know what, I think I’ll go find him later, help with the rabbits… see if I can wheedle some answers out of him.’

‘Okay,’ mumbled Kai, ‘b…but no m…matter what, I think we should start m…making our own p…plans to leave.’

‘Agreed… and we’re taking Star with us,’ said Fran, quite matter-of-factly; suddenly forcing a smile across her lips when she noticed Brett waiting impatiently for them at the end of the walkway.

‘We’re going to have to leave the mutt here,’ Brett called, nudging Bob away from sniffing at his crotch. ‘Tie him up somewhere or something,’ he continued, giving Bob an annoyed look again. ‘Anyway… come on,’ he went on to say, ‘let’s get to it, the Dead won’t smash their own brains in.’

‘If only they would,’ smiled Fran, trying to appear jovial as they finally stepped off the walkway. ‘So, come on then,’ she continued, making a show of swinging her crowbar as if she was striking a ball, ‘explain this point system to me… and more importantly, what do I get when I win.’

‘Well…’ Brett began, a look of genuine yet somehow tainted excitement suddenly making his eyes sparkle.

***

‘Yeah, I’ve got a length for you, Darling,’ snarled Brett, violently stabbing the already gore splattered pipe down into the mouth of the Dead woman lying in the tall grass at his feet. ‘Taking it like a pro, Sweetheart,’ he chuckled, ignoring the sickening sound of teeth shattering and flesh tearing.

Yet even as he twisted the pipe, ripping the corpse’s lower jaw free, its claw like hands continued to paw desperately at his trouser legs, determined to get to the living flesh within.

‘It’s been a blast, Hot-stuff,’ Brett finally panted, placing his boot against the Dead woman’s sunken chest for leverage. ‘But got to go… no hard feelings,’ he went on the mutter, yanking free the length of pipe only to immediately smash it back down through the cadaver’s forehead.

With the slightest of spasms jolting through the Dead woman’s limbs, Brett’s strike finally granted the corpse a true death and as its blackened fingers fell away from his legs, once more as lifeless as nature intended, he pulled the pipe back out from the cadaver’s ruined skull.

‘Another ten points for me!’ he called, flicking rotting brain matter from the end of this pipe as he looked over his shoulder at Kai.

Ignoring Brett’s update on his tally, Kai slashed out at the corpse of a teenage boy whose face was a tattered mess of old bite marks and torn withered flesh; while beside him, Fran, with her usual finesse, was deftly taking down the body of a Dead man dressed in nothing but a sagging and mouldy jumper.

‘He’s a real charmer,’ Fran mumbled, stepping away from the now motionless corpse of the Dead man; his skull a caved-in jumble of pulpy flesh and broken bone.

‘I w…warned you,’ Kai grunted in reply, just as the Dead teenager toppled to the ground; both its legs below the knee suddenly no longer present.

‘Mine!’ Brett suddenly laughed, sprinting past them both towards another of the Dead that he had seen stumbling between two trees; the faint ringing of bells sounding through the forest telling them all that this was hardly the last corpse they would encounter this morning.

Just then Kai let his machete fall and with a flick of his wrist he finally removed the Dead boy’s head from its shoulders.

‘I’ll get that,’ Fran said to Kai, as the head bounced away from the cold flesh that had been its body and came to rest somewhere amid a patch of brambles. ‘Just keep an eye out.’

Using her crowbar to push aside the collected dried leaves and thorny brambles, Fran quickly found the newly severed head, its eyes still moving hungrily, and after silently wishing it a peaceful journey onto whatever was to follow, she jammed the end of her weapon sharply through one of its sunken eye sockets; rupturing the milky orb with a soft wet pop.

‘Where’s Brett?’ she finally asked, turning back to Kai now that the teenager’s head was once again nothing more than a piece of lifeless flesh.

‘Er… there… oh!’ said Kai, using his blood covered machete to point in the direction he had seen the young man run moments before, only to then realise he was suddenly nowhere in sight. ‘I’m s…sure he w…went that w…way.’

‘Oh, great,’ sighed Fran, hoping they weren’t about to have a fast moving and freshly animated corpse to deal with. ‘Brett!’ she reluctantly called out, her call startling a very vocal and disapproving mob of crows into flight from the trees around them. ‘Brett, where are you?’