Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (45 page)

‘But… but how do I know you?’ Fran repeated.

‘Oh, sorry, I… I should have said,’ said Jack, stepping forward, his hand outstretched for her to shake. ‘I’m Jack, Jack Bradbury.’

‘Jack Bradbury, Jack Bradbury…’ Fran parroted, rolling the name across her mind searching for its rightful home. ‘Oh!’ she suddenly said, at last pinning his name and face to a place, her own brittle smile somehow mirroring his. ‘Well bad news, Jack, I’ve got nothing left to trade…’

***

Epilogue:

Four months later:

Fran’s eyes fluttered open and slowly focused on the small ticking clock; its hands glowing softly in the dim light of the room.

‘
Cold,
’ she thought to herself, pulling the thick blankets tighter up under her chin as she followed the second hand tick-ticking its way rhythmically round the dial; revelling in the warmth of her bed for as long as she could.

She had dreamed of Kai again last; his smile, his dark eyes, his touch and of course as always there was also the blood. It had all been so real to her, so tangible, that as usual she had woken to find her cheeks wet from crying and an ache in her chest that she knew would never fully leave her.

‘I miss you…’ she whispered, her hand moving lovingly back and forth along the cold empty space in the bed next to her, a space that would always be Kai’s. ‘So much.’

With a sigh Fran rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling.

‘That mould patch is getting bigger,’ she said after a few minutes of drifting thought, gesturing to the dark bloom in the far corner of the room; her one-sided conversation making the silence of the room all the more evident. ‘I’ll see if Adam can do something about it, perhaps…’

She was about to say more when a soft rapping at the door halted her words.

‘Hello… wakey-wakey-rise-and-shine,’ came a woman’s voice from the other side of the door; her cheerfulness instantly grating on Fran’s nerves. ‘Fran… Fran, dear, are you awake?’ the woman continued, tapping the door twice more for good measure. ‘Come on sleepy head… time to get up.’

‘I’m up, I’m up, I’m up,’ Fran called back, with an annoyed huff. ‘God! Heaven forbid anyone get to sleep past eight-thirty,’ she went on to mutter under her breath, reluctantly shimmying herself up the bed into a sitting position; the chill of the room against her shoulders causing her to instantly regret it.

‘What was that?’ the woman asked, sure she had Fran heard something. ‘Can I come in, dear?’

‘Yes,’ said Fran with a sigh, preparing herself to be browbeaten with sunshine and smiles, ‘yes you can come in, Marybeth.’

Almost instantly the door opened and a young woman in her early thirties popped her head through, her short dirty blond hair seemingly trying its hardest to point off in every direction at once.

‘Morning,’ sang Marybeth, her blue eyes sparkling, her smile wide to the point of cheerful insanity.

‘Haven’t I suffered enough,’ groaned Fran, as Marybeth, stepped into the room, ignoring her words as if she hadn’t spoken to slip past the bed and pull open the curtains. ‘An apocalypse and now you… someone up there has it in for me.’

‘Oh, hush up,’ Marybeth replied, needlessly fiddling with the curtains to make sure they hung straight, ‘you know I’m lovely and don’t you deny it,’ she continued, turning to look at Fran, a mischievous twinkle in her eye almost daring her to contradict her. ‘And anyway, who else would put up with that sour-puss face of yours?’

‘Charming,’ said Fran, crossing her arms, glaring at the young woman currently pulling some thick knitwear from one of the drawers, ‘such a pleasant bedside manner… no wonder everyone round here stays fit and healthy.’

‘Here, Misery… put this on,’ Marybeth smiled, ignoring her comment to toss Fran a thick brown jumper. ‘Looks like there’s been a bit of snowfall last night,’ she continued, moving round to sit on the corner of the bed while Fran pulled the knitwear over her head.

‘Thanks,’ said Fran, tugging the long sleeves of the large jumper down over her cold fingers. ‘Deep?’ she went on to ask, nodding to the small window, a swirl of frost clouding the glass.

‘No, it’s just a dusting,’ she replied, with a shake of her head, ‘but it’ll still be cold out there,’ she continued, idly tucking an errant piece of blanket firmly back under the mattress. ‘Anyone would think you knew it was coming and planned to have a night in here in the warm.’

‘Warm?’ snorted Fran, making a show of pulling the jumper tighter about her, despite knowing those camped outside in the graveyard’s converted mausoleums probably had suffered a much colder night’s sleep than her.

When Mrs Bradbury’s small clan-like family had brought her back to the village of Milestone she had assumed they would be staying in the church-cum-trading post with its perimeter of Dead on guard duty but as Mrs Bradbury had pointed out, ‘who wants to live over the shop? You’d be forever working.’. So it was with a sense of awe, her jaw literally dropping in wonder, when she was taken to the old sprawling Victorian cemetery of Milestone. Set just beyond the village with sturdy four metre high walls on three sides and thick boarded over iron railings along the front, it made a perfect compound for the Bradbury family and those lucky few that had been allowed to join them. The cemetery enclosed an area of almost seven acres, a large portion of which was already given over to growing vegetables, and as well as a five bedroom building once used by the groundskeeper and his family, now taken over by Mrs Bradbury and hers, there were also countless mini mausoleums among the thousands of ancient graves that, once cleared of their skeletal inhabitants, acted as perfect, if a little chilly at times, homes for new arrivals.

‘Who’s looking after Poppy?’ asked Fran, watching as Marybeth picked at an invisibly small piece of alien fluff from the top blanket; pinching it between her fingertips before discarding it over the side of the bed.

‘Erm… Natalie,’ she eventually replied, her eyes flicking up to meet Fran’s conscious of the flash of anger that awaited her. ‘Now, come on… she’s trying to make amends… they both are,’ she continued, her words rushing on before Fran could voice her protest.

‘I don’t care,’ growled Fran, dark and bloody images from her dream bubbling at the back of her mind, demanding they be remembered.

‘Fran,’ sighed Marybeth, her sunny disposition slipping slightly, ‘we had to bring them too… Jack and the others, they couldn’t have left them…. they’d have never survived out there, not those two.’

‘
They weren’t meant to,
’ thought Fran, glaring at the woman sat at the end of the bed; angry even after all these months that her plan to revenge Kai’s murder had been scuppered by the very act of kindness that had saved Poppy and herself. ‘It shouldn’t have been their choice to make,’ she grumbled.

‘Now, come on, Fran… let’s not have that argument again,’ sighed Marybeth, standing; instantly turning to smooth out the dip in the blankets she had made. ‘Anyway,’ she went on to say, making it clear that the subject of Natalie and Sid’s absorption into the Milestone community was no longer up for discussion, ‘how’s your ankle this morning? Still sore?’

‘Hmmm… a bit,’ replied Fran, looking over to the window; concentrating on the dull ache radiating from her twisted ankle as she moved her foot back and forth under the blankets.

‘Well, I’d better take a look at it … come on, chop chop…’ said Marybeth, smiling once more as she merrily clicked her fingers at Fran, encouraging her to toss back the blankets and expose her leg. ‘The sooner I take a peek the sooner you can get dressed and make your way downstairs for something warm to eat,’ she continued, noticing the reluctance on Fran’s face to subject her bare legs to the chill of the cold morning air.

‘You’re a tyrant, Marybeth,’ grumbled Fran, finally tossing the warm blankets to one side to reveal her right leg; the deep purple bruise creeping up her leg making her injury look a lot worse than it actually was.

‘I know…’ mumbled Marybeth in reply, bending over, her fingers gentle probing Fran’s ankle, ‘I’m a monster… does that hurt?’ she continued, looking up at Fran as she slowly moved her foot, rotating it slowly to one side.

‘No, that’s… ouch!’ she suddenly gasped, only just restraining the urge to snatch her leg from the young woman’s hands. ‘Yep… that hurt… a bit.’

‘Hmm,’ mused Marybeth, her fingers feeling their way up along the bruised tendons. ‘Well, nothing’s broken… it’ll probably be fine in a day or so.’

‘You mean like I said yesterday?’ said Fran, giving Marybeth a look that screamed ‘I told you so’.

‘Well, better safe than sorry…’ Marybeth simply replied, clearly ignoring Fran’s comment. ‘Perhaps you’ll think twice about traipsing about those silly catacombs next time. Jack told you the grill was secure… there was no way anyone living or dead was going to find a way in through there…’

‘Better safe than sorry,’ said Fran, a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth as she parroted back Marybeth’s justification for confining her to bed rest.

‘Very funny,’ smiled Marybeth, giving Fran a mock disapproving sideways glance as she compulsively began to re-tuck the blankets under the mattress.

‘Marybeth, I’m not an invalid,’ smiled Fran, watching as the young woman folded the blankets back into a perfect ‘hospital corner’, only stepping back from the bed once she was completely satisfied with the regimented crispness of the folds.

‘No, you’re not, Fran… I know that,’ Marybeth began, reaching down to tug at one of the folds one final time, ‘but it’s going to be hard enough as it is. We’re doing this on a wing and a prayer, I don’t want any added unnecessary complications…’

‘You don’t want any complications?’ chuckled Fran, interrupting her, her hand instinctively moving down to caress her stomach; the bump that rose up to meet her small for a woman a little over four months pregnant. ‘I am literally crapping myself thinking about bringing this one into the world in a few months’ time without even a hint of anaesthetic, you think…’

But whatever she was about to say was suddenly interrupted by a young boy charging into the bedroom, the door slamming violently against the wall as he barrelled through; his face flush from running.

‘They’re… back,’ he panted, gulping down air while behind him Bob suddenly appeared in the open doorway, his tail wagging frantically as if chasing after the young boy had been some sort of game.

‘What it is? Who… Who’s back, Kory?’ both Fran and Marybeth asked at the same time, their words tumbling over each other, desperate for the boy to speak.

‘The… men… the men from the island,’ he blurted, darting forward; his small hands already reaching for Fran to help her out of the bed. ‘The ones that are looking for you…’

‘Kory… Kory… calm down,’ said Fran, taking his cold hand in hers, ‘it’s okay… they’ve been here before, it’s okay…. it’s okay…’

‘No,’ he interrupted, his wide dark eyes so full of worry for the young woman that over the last four months he had come think of and love as a cool older sister, ‘you don’t understand, Fran,’ he went on to say, shaking his head, looking back and forth between Fran and Marybeth, ‘they… they said they know you’re here… they know, Fran… they know!’

Tearing her eyes from the young boy Fran looked over at Marybeth, all joy and smiles suddenly gone from the woman’s delicate features, and as she held her hand against her stomach and the tiny spark of life ignited by the man she loved, Fran said the only thing that came into her mind.

‘Oh, shit!’

***

If you enjoyed ‘Death among the Dead’: Book 1 and ‘Lost among the Dead’: Book 2 of the ‘Star Drawn Saga’ you may like to follow these and many other characters through their battle to survive in the sister series published by Severed Press:

‘The Lanherne Chronicles’

Book 1: Six days with the Dead

Book 2: Five more days with the Dead

Book 3: Last days with the Dead

And the prequel to both ‘The Star Drawn Saga’ & ‘The Lanherne Chronicles’

To Escape the Dead