Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (42 page)

‘
Oh…
Damn… I had hoped they got away in time… so… so our downfall is a woman scorned,
’ thought Sid, referring to Fran as she shoved Natalie further into the room; blocking the doorway as best he could with his far from bulky frame. ‘We deserve this… all of us,’ he went on to say, talking to himself as he watched the Dead, slow, steady and forever untiring in their pursuit, amble across the bridge. ‘We sacrificed too much to save our own sorry selves… we could have stopped them… we should have at least tried… God… it… it didn’t have to be this way…’

‘Shut the door, shut the door!’ wailed Natalie, frantically pulling on Sid’s arm. ‘Please, Sid, get inside…’

‘It’s no use!’ he replied, angrily tugging his arm free of her fevered grasp. ‘There’s nowhere left to run, Natalie. We’re too high up to jump without breaking something… we’d be trapped in there and they’d get in, Natalie… they always do,’ he continued, his words prophetic in their dark truth. ‘You stay back… find something to arm yourself with… I’ll… I’ll keep them back as best I can and… and we only shut ourselves in as a last resort.’

Even in the short time he had taken to tell Natalie of his pitiful plan, the Dead had made their own progress. Already three of the cadavers, two Dead men and a bedraggled looking corpse of a child in its early teens, had made their way partly across the bridge; while the forth, a Dead woman with a particularly badly savaged leg, lagged further behind, still barely a few metres from the start.

‘Natalie, you’ve got less than twenty seconds to find something,’ said Sid, his eyes darting back to the first Dead man slightly ahead of the pack, ‘a knife… anything… just…’

He was about to say more when another figure appeared in the shadows at the far end of the bridge, its lithe movements and steady gait signally it out as one the living. Pausing briefly, watching the progress of the Dead across the bridge, the figure then stepped up to the two support posts and into a pool of silvery moonlight; it was Fran. For a moment she simply stared at him, her eyes burning with a cold hatred that bathed him in shame and remorse.

‘I’m… I’m sorry, Fran,’ he called out to her, his shaking voice exciting the approaching Dead even further. ‘I… I tried to warn you… I tried to get you to leave.’

‘Not hard enough!’ she shouted back, her words like ice cutting him down through to his soul.

‘Please… Fran, I… I tried…’ he replied wearily, begging for her help; his eyes flitting to the first of the Dead now only a few metres from the edge of his decking. ‘Please…’

Fran silently stared back at him, her eyes moving only once to see Natalie cowering in the open doorway behind him. Then without word or comment, she lifted her arm high behind her, the machete in her hand glinting in the moonlight, and then with a final glance at Sidney, her expression now blank and unreadable, she let her arm fall. With a dull ‘thud’ the blade struck the support post to her left, severing one of the thick guide ropes with one strike and making the bridge tilt suddenly to one side. Almost immediately the Dead woman fell from sight, her damaged body unable to keep balance on the uneven surface; sending her plummeting to the forest floor below. Then, almost without pause, Fran’s machete was flashing through the air once more, this time cutting free the bottom rope. With a ‘twang’ the tension in the support rope was released, forcing the wooden boards to hang limp and unusable for most of the way across; and instantly sending one of the Dead men tumbling away into the darkness. The Dead child, after a brief and awkward stumble, also lost its footing and with gravity talking control of its emaciated limbs, it too slipped from the walkway. Unfortunately and purely by chance, one of its legs got caught amid the now loose hanging ropes, leaving the confused corpse dangling upside down, its arms waving about; its decaying brain unable to comprehend its sudden change in perspective.

‘Sidney!’ Natalie suddenly wailed, snapping his attention back to the last male cadaver that somehow had used the remaining guide rope to drag itself the final step onto the decking.

‘Christ!’ he gasped, nervously stepping forward to meet the corpse head on; the crowbar visibly shaking in his grasp.

With its hungry glare glued to the approaching living flesh, the Dead man briefly lurched to one side before steadying itself on the flat surface of the decking; its blackened hands, minus a few fingers, already reaching out to embrace this glowing beacon of life. Sadly its mind could not fathom the danger that the warm thing in front of it posed. It could not process the actions of this creature, the way it held something long and glinting aloft, the way it momentarily batted away the grasping hands that simply wanted to tear into it and rip free a chunk to feast upon or the way that it swung the object it held, hitting it with as much force as it could muster. For the Dead man could process none of this and as Sidney struck its head again and again with the crowbar, it held no comprehension that its very existence was about to cease.

‘Yaahhh!’ cried Sidney, swinging the crowbar one final time; the muscles in his arms protesting against this sudden and unexpected exercise. ‘Jesus… thank… God!’ he panted, as his shaking hands slipped from the metal bar that had finally smashed its way through the Dead man’s skull, destroying the brain within and sending the corpse dropping lifeless to the deck. ‘I… I thought it was never… going to die,’ he continued, turning as the young woman behind him collapsed to the floor in overwhelming relief, sobbing. ‘It’s okay, Natalie, we’re okay…’ he went on to say, falling to his knees by her side, ‘we’re okay… we can use the ropes to climb over... we’ll find a way to get by… you’re safe, Natalie… we’re safe.’

Though even as he said the words he knew they were far from it and as he wrapped his arms about her, her panic fuelled tears falling uncontrollably, he let his gaze wander back across the destroyed walkway to the other decking.

‘
How long have you given us?
’ he silently thought, watching the young woman disappear into the shadows once more. ‘
A week? A month? More? You’ve left us to chance… but we don’t have one…not really,’
he continued, looking down at the emotionally fragile woman in his arms and knowing the inevitable had only been postponed for a while,
‘but then I guess you knew that … didn’t you…’
he finally added, his eyes flicking back over to the empty decking; wishing with all of his being that things had been different.

***

Fran wasn’t sure just why she had left Natalie’s and Sidney’s punishment to fate but as she had watched the older man plea for mercy, not only for himself but for Natalie too, she found something bubbling up within her; something she knew was now at odds with this new person she had been forced to become. Whatever it was it sought to find a reason to spare these two a death by her hand, it offered excuses and small kernels of understanding and even a hint of leniency but it was only as a voice in the back of her mind asked her what Kai would do if he were here that she realised it was in fact some part of her old self.

‘Kai,’ she found herself whispering, the simple word tearing at her heart as his smiling face flashed across her mind.

And in that instant she knew. She could not condemn this man and woman; she would not be the one whose blade parted their flesh and stole their lives from them and despite her promise to move among the residence of White Oak Park like an angel of death, leaving vengeance and retribution in her wake, she knew that in truth Sidney had indeed tried to warn her. It was this one fact, this one small piece of knowledge that allowed her look past her vow and recognise the truth of the situation before her. Yes, she would not be the immediate cause of their demise but they would still fall nonetheless. For many before them, many better equipped and better skilled to survive, had had their lives cut short, snatched from them by the Dead and so as she turned away, knowing the spirit of her promise to Kai, Sam and Mike was still intact, she pushed that small part of old herself back into the corners of mind; safe in the knowledge it would be there, hidden behind her grief, when she needed it.

***

Angela Doyle looked blankly down at the infant lying next to her on the small sofa, the child’s large innocent eyes staring up at her, pleading with unspoken words while tiny hands reached out demanding attention, demanding contact, and Angela realised she felt nothing.

‘Nothing,’ whispered Angela, somehow scared of her own admission as she absentmindedly began to fiddle with a loose button on her cardigan; trying to remember the last time she truly felt something, felt anything.

‘
I’m… empty,
’ she thought, glancing back at the little girl kicking her legs back and forth, ‘
I’m
totally empty… there’s… there’s nothing… nothing.
’

Angela watched Poppy and tried to remember how it felt all those years ago with her own daughters, when they had been babies.

‘I… I did love them… I… I remember I did…’ she whispered, her hand tentatively reaching out to touch the infant’s stomach. ‘I felt… something then… back then… back before… before…’ she continued, her words becoming clouded in shame. ‘Harry.’

Closing her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear even a baby to witness her humiliation, Angela wished things had been different, wished she had been different. Before the Dead, in another life, she had often heard other mothers talking about the simple normalcy of their lives, of husbands that doted upon their children and of moments of simple pleasure that they spent as a family and all the while she wondered why she had had none of this. Why did these other women deserve their ‘Happy ever after’ while her life was full of shame, deception and soul crippling fear. After her first husband had died she thought perhaps now, perhaps this was her chance to be like all the others and to find a man that would love her and her girls. But life had other plans for her and instead Harry Doyle came into her life. He had been like a shark smelling blood in the water, she could see that now. He had circled her, sensing her weakness, using it against her, waiting for that one moment when he could go in for the kill. And then just like before, she was his, totally, and Angela ceased to be a person again. Of course she had seen the way he looked at Emma, his filthy desires barely held in check; but then the world fell apart and the Dead came to rule their lives and with them the terrible price her daughter paid for Harry’s protection. But even then she couldn’t stop him, she simply didn’t have the fight left in her; for after all those years of being beaten down and broken there was simply nothing left of her but her fear.

‘And now even that’s gone,’ she muttered to the darkness, her hand slipping from the infant as she rose from the sofa and slowly walked to the window.

Standing there, looking out at the moonlit forest, Angela watched as the young woman lowered the ramp and beckoned the Dead to ascend. She watched as she crisscrossed back and forth along the walkways, the Dead following in her wake and she watched as this one woman’s need for revenge tore her world apart bit by bit; and yet still he felt nothing.

Angela didn’t know how long she had stood by the Hub’s living room window, somehow detached from her own life, watching as the Dead breached their meagre defences; the sounds of carnage and terror they inevitably brought with them filling the air.

‘I… I think it’s time,’ she mumbled, at last turning away from the window. ‘You… you might as well come too,’ she went on to say, slowly moving to the sofa to peer down at Poppy. ‘Don’t worry…’ she muttered, bending down to gather the infant in her arms. ‘Mummy’s here.’

And with that Angela walked over to the front door and stepped out into the cold night.

‘Put her down!’ came a woman’s voice almost immediately from behind her; the sharp jabbing in her back telling Angela that Fran thought using some sort of knife as a threat would give her leverage; the idea causing a sad but bitter smile to flit across Angela’s lips. ‘I said put Poppy down,’ Fran repeated, her hatred cold and razor sharp, ‘nice and slow, Mrs Doyle… and then move… over there.’

‘Do you know what it’s like to wake up each and every day and feel nothing… nothing at all,’ said Angela, turning round to look at Fran; shifting Poppy over to one shoulder as she spoke.

‘I said put Poppy down,’ growled Fran though her gritted teeth, ignoring the woman’s bizarre ramblings.

‘To know that you’ve failed those that depended on you most... to know that you’ve failed yourself,’ continued Angela, as if Fran hadn’t even spoken. ‘I…I just can’t do this anymore, Fran,’ she went on to say with a heavy sigh; her tearful gaze wondering down the machete pointed at her, ‘I’m just so tired… tired of feeling nothing... of being nothing.’

And then without warning Angela abruptly stepped forward, pulling Fran into a fierce embrace; impaling herself on the long blade with a cry. For a moment, as Fran struggled to support the older woman’s weight and take hold of Poppy at the same time, Angela turned her head to look at her; her breath coming rapid and shallow, her eyes holding a strange mix of fear and release.

‘It… it’s not their…fault…’ she gasped tearfully, her shaking hands reaching up to take Fran’s shoulders, ‘They… they didn’t… didn’t stand a chance… either of them… aarrgghh!’ she continued, suddenly crying out as she used Fran’s body for leverage to push herself backwards; the bloody blade slipping slowly from her stomach. ‘Please...’ she coughed, blood flecking across her lips and chin. ‘Please… believe me… I... I… ggnnnww!’ Angela grunted, her face contorting in pain as she staggered backwards towards the railing, her bloody hands reaching out to steady herself. ‘It’s my fault…’ she panted, looking back at Fran. ‘All my fault… they… they didn’t stand a chance.’