The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III Read online

  I gasped as it fought to free its arms from the tight blankets wrapped around it. Deacon stuck one of his dirty knuckles in its mouth, and it began to gnaw away at it with its rotting gums, much like a baby would do to a pacifier.

  The messed-up thing was, Deacon was pacifying it, even though we both knew that the baby was actually trying to eat him. It was only for its lack of teeth that he was safe.

  I shuddered, but forced myself to calm. “Are you hungry?” I asked quietly.

  Deacon shook his head no, though I knew he must be hungry by now. “I’ll get in the back,” he mumbled again.

  “Okay,” I replied tersely. I looked away. “You know this is wrong, right?” I looked back up and gestured toward the baby.

  Deacon looked right back at me, his eyes full of fire. “This is my baby. The last part of my wife. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he growled.

  “Deacon, that baby is—”

  “Mine!” he cut me off. “This baby is mine. It didn’t want to be this, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, but it is what it is, and I love it just the same.”

  We stared at one another for a moment—me feeling confused by my total understanding of his emotions, but not wanting to accept it, either, and him hating me for making him question his own sanity. Because that’s what it came down to: he had lost his damn mind, and the fact that I understood and sympathized with a murderer and someone that was carrying around a zombie baby was freaking me out.

  “Stay away from my baby!” he yelled loudly, his voice gravelly with emotion, and I flinched from the force of his words.

  Deacon opened his door, climbed out, and moved around the side of the truck to get in the back. It didn’t go unnoticed that he left the door open to air it out. I turned around and saw Nova marching over toward us, her gun in her hand, her expression one of pure hatred.

  “Nova, no!” I yelled at her.

  But she didn’t listen. Nova barged past me, though there was plenty of room for her to pass without nearly knocking me over.

  “You’re an asshole!” I yelled and ran after her. I grabbed her before she made it around the back of the truck. “Stop.”

  She shrugged out of my grip, but I grabbed her with my other hand and yanked her backwards, and she spun to meet me.

  “What? He could have hurt you.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” I pleaded.

  “We have to end this now, Nina,” she yelled furiously back. “I won’t let him hurt you or anyone else.”

  “Don’t use me as the bait. Don’t fucking do that.”

  “I’m not,” she said with no conviction.

  “Yes you are. It’s not up to you to decide if he dies,” I pleaded.

  Nova pushed me and I stumbled backwards.

  “And it’s not up to you if he lives!”

  We stared at each other, both of us panting in anger. We had come to a stalemate, because she was right, but so was I. It wasn’t up to either of us to decide this.

  “So then why don’t we let him go?” I said cautiously, the thought still forming. “He’s got his vengeance, and he has his punishment.”

  Her mouth twitched as if to say something, but she didn’t speak. She put her gun in her waistband after flicking the safety back on. “What punishment? We can’t just let him go—not after what he did, Nina.”

  Her words were raw and throaty while she spoke, and I knew she was right again, but then what? What was the point in dragging him across the state back to our base only for him to be killed there? I thought of the look in his eyes as he’d stared down at his little bundle of deathly joy. The smells and the sounds it emitted, the horror that he had to continually look upon. And for how long would he be able to do it? To keep it with him? To let it live this horrendous life?

  “I think he’s paying for what he did. He’s been paying all along.” I pleaded with her to understand my meaning, and I wondered whether I was being even crueler by suggesting we let him go.

  Nova looked at me and swallowed so loudly I could hear it. “Fine. Let him go. See if I care. He doesn’t get to take any of our gear, though. You send him on his way with the clothes on his back and that’s it.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “We should at least give him a meal.”

  “You’re pushing your luck,” she retorted, to which I rolled my eyes. “Fine. One meal and then you get him out of my sight. One meal. After that he better be long gone before I change my mind and blow his brains out—his and that disgusting thing!” she huffed and stormed back over to finish breakfast, leaving me with the happy news of telling Deacon that he was free to go.

  The thing was, I wasn’t sure if he would want to leave. Sure, he was worried about what Nova would do, but let’s be honest: we had barely trained a gun on him since setting the compound on fire. He could realistically have left whenever he wanted to. Yet he had stayed.

  “Shit,” I mumbled as I made my way to the back of the truck.

  SEVENTEEN.

  Deacon was making himself and the dead baby more comfortable in the back when I looked in. His eyes immediately sought out mine, his hands instantly curling into fists as he pulled the baby closer to his chest.

  “What?” he barked out.

  I shifted from foot to foot, feeling massively uncomfortable and wishing that I would have kept my mouth shut.

  I cleared my throat before I spoke. “You can go,” I stated. This should have been good news to both him and us, yet I felt awful, and his glare did nothing to ease my guilt.

  “Go?” he asked, sounding confused.

  “Yes. I spoke to Nova and we agreed to let you go.” I stepped back to allow him some room to exit the truck. “You can have some breakfast before you go. We have meat, sort of. Nova caught a snake and something fuzzy.” I rambled on nervously, my words tumbling out faster and faster as I watched the confusion and hurt cross his face. “I thought it was a rabbit, but when I think about it, I actually think it might be squirrel. Who the hell knows? In fact, it’s probably best not to think about it and just eat it—”

  “Where will we go?” he asked, cutting into my long ambling speech.

  I stopped talking and took a deep breath. “I don’t know, but you can’t come back with us.”

  “Why?” he asked softly, his words almost a plea to me.

  I looked away, feeling guilty and angry all at the same time. “Because they’ll kill you and…and the baby if you come back with us.” I looked back up to him.

  His eyes were still pinned on me, and I watched as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “

  You have to pay for killing all those people, Deacon. But this is your one chance. While I don’t agree in any way with what you did, I can understand the place you must have gotten to, to see that as your only option. I get it, but I can’t condone it, and neither will anyone else.”

  A single tear dripped from the corner of his eye and he made no move to brush it away. “But look what they did to my family.” His large chest heaved, each breath painful to him as he looked down at the baby in his arms and then held it out for me to see. I couldn’t stop the painful pang in my chest as I looked at the dead baby’s sallow face.

  I agreed with him in some respect: they did need to pay. At least, the ones who did this needed to pay. But Deacon had made everyone pay—innocent people—and for that there could be no mercy. However, I wasn’t going to be the one to dish out the punishment to this man, and I wasn’t sure I could be around anyone who did. He had been through so much already…God, my head was so messed up with indecision. I hated it. I was used to making a decision and sticking to it, knowing my mind and not having anyone sway me from it. But recently, I didn’t feel like myself. I felt…changed.

  “Look, I’m just the messenger here. I’m just telling you how it is. If you come back with us, they will kill you. Of that I have no doubt. And after they kill you, they’ll kill your baby. I’m trying to help you here.”

  He stared at
me accusingly, as if he knew that only part of what I was saying was true. As if he knew that the other part of me wanted him and that thing far away from our truck, and my conscience. He would pay for his crime—by having to live. And I wouldn’t have to watch the consequences unfold. Yeah, I was a coward. I wasn’t ever going to deny that.

  “And what if I won’t leave?” he rumbled out.

  I raised an eyebrow—mainly because I was surprised by how much he clearly didn’t want to leave, but also because I hadn’t counted on him just refusing to leave.

  “Well, you have to,” I snapped.

  “But what if I won’t?”

  I huffed out a heavy breath and glared at him. I was doing everything I could to not lose my temper—counting backwards from ten, taking steadying breaths, putting myself in his shoes—but his shoes sucked and my sinuses were stuffy so it hurt to take a deep breath.

  “You don’t have a choice, Deacon. Nova will kill you and the baby if you don’t go. Now come eat, and then we’re leaving. Without you,” I snapped before turning away from him and heading back for some breakfast.

  I needed more medicine and something to eat. And coffee. And cupcakes. And possibly a weekend spa break with a sexy male masseuse. But since I wasn’t likely to get any of those things in this lifetime, I guess I’d stick to snake meat and whatever the fuzzy thing was.

  I stomped back over to the small fire, where Nova had speared the meat and was turning it above the flames. She glanced over at me questioningly.

  “He doesn’t want to leave,” I stated. “He’s not going to go without a fight, I’m almost sure of it.” I rubbed a hand down my face.

  Nova chuckled darkly. “You did good.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “I did?”

  I couldn’t quite figure out what she meant. Why had I done good? I’d just told her that Deacon had refused to leave and we were going to have to force him to. I couldn’t see the good in any of that. In fact, it felt like things were about to go to hell again, and truthfully, I was sick of hell. Sick of the fighting and clawing for existence. I just wanted to eat breakfast and have a cup of coffee.

  “You did.” She grinned. “Did you tell him to come to breakfast?”

  “Yeah.” I frowned, not liking the tone of her voice. My heart raced, telling me that something wasn’t quite right with her. “Nova?” I started to talk, but Deacon made his way over to the fire at that moment, closely followed by Joan, so I shut my trap and hoped for the best. Which really wasn’t saying very much, since my best had always been to just not die. But whatever.

  We ate in silence, only the sound of our chewing to keep us company. The rain had stopped, but every once in a while a freezing cold fat raindrop would drip down from the leaves and they always seemed to get me. I grumbled as another one hit the back of my neck and trailed slowly down my spine.

  I looked up, seeing Deacon taking small bites of his food. He looked deep in thought, and that couldn’t be a good thing. I looked across at Nova, seeing her eating a chunk of snake while she stared intently at Deacon. That also couldn’t be a good thing. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that things were about to get seriously messed up between these two.

  The sound of moaning had me jumping to my feet, my hands instantly dropping the small bone I was holding and reaching for my katana. Movement off in the trees to the right had me on full alert, yet Nova barely glanced up from her snake.

  “Dude, deaders,” I said in annoyance.

  She gave a little shrug. “So go kill it.”

  I looked away from the movement in the trees to scowl at Nova. “That’s your reply? Really?”

  I wasn’t too bothered about going off and killing deaders on my own; that wasn’t really the point of my argument. I was more shocked by her lack of concern for them than anything else. For all she knew there was a horde.

  Nova stopped snacking on the snake and looked up at me with a condescending grin. “Nina, do you want me to come kill the big bad scary zombie with you?” She punctuated each word and made me feel stupid. “I can hold your hand if it gets too dark. We could spoon tonight if you want.”

  I stared at her silently, feeling my cheeks flame with both anger and embarrassment. All the while she stared right back with an overly large grin on her face.

  “No, that’s not what I was saying. I meant maybe we could pack up before they reach us,” I snapped. The noises were getting closer and unnerving me, and this was getting me nowhere. But she was right: it sounded like there was only one—two at the most—and the trees were so tightly packed together that a herd would have no chance of moving as a collective—not without making one hell of a noise.

  “They need killing,” Nova replied, sounding bored as she continued to eat. “I killed some this morning, these ones are yours. I’m not leaving until I’ve finished eating. Besides, it only sounds like one.”

  “Fine, I’ll go kill it myself then, but if I get eaten, I’m blaming you.” I began marching away.

  “Nina?” Nova called after me.

  “What?” I replied without turning around.

  “What about the spooning? Can we still spoon?” I heard Nova laugh wickedly as I stormed away.

  The trees were thick and overgrown, and branches stuck out at odd angles and scratched at my skin. I could see movement up ahead and I tried to be quiet, but it was damn near impossible given my surroundings. I glanced back once, unable to see even the smoke from the fire, and wondered whether this was actually pointless. Would the deaders even be able to hear us? They certainly couldn’t have seen us, and I’m almost certain that the freaky zombie baby was masking our smell.

  It was too late to back out now, though, as they had most certainly heard me.

  I grumbled, taking note of my surroundings and realizing that there wasn’t an awful lot of space to swing a big-assed katana around.

  “Crap,” I cursed under my breath.

  I spied a deader heading my way and tried to focus on a way to kill it quickly, instead of focusing on what state of decomposition it was in. I kept on moving forward, hoping to find a small space to allow me some more room, and was greeted with a small opening in the thick of trees. There was a fresh deader kill already there, which must be the one Nova had said she had killed this morning. I was also surprised that I had actually doubted Nova’s honesty when it came to it, but decided to assess my newfound trust issues with her later, when I wasn’t about to kill a zombie.

  A deader stepped into the clearing opposite me, its eyes wide and staring hungrily at me. I swallowed and tried to stem my fear as I always did. Because you never really stop fearing them. You would think that you would become immune to it after a while, that you would give up on the fear and just face the problem head-on with a stomach full of iron determination. And perhaps some people did. I certainly didn’t, though. I still got goose bumps at the sound of their growling—which didn’t say much when I still got scared of spiders, but whatever.

  I stepped out from around the tree, careful about where I stood as I slashed out with my katana in the hopes of getting lucky. It didn’t happen, and I blindly swung three times before stepping further into the clearing so I could get a better swing. I knew my stance was sloppy, my grip tight—too tight—and Mikey would be having a fit if he saw how careless I was being, but I couldn’t seem to get it right as I stumbled around on the uneven ground, stepped over the dead zombie, and almost tripped. The deader was a gangly thing, with overly long arms and gnawed-down fingers, and its hair was styled into what was probably once an impressive fifties-style quaff. However, now it hung limply down the center of its forehead. Thankfully it didn’t smell anymore, but its papery-thin skin sounded painful as it rubbed against the rough fabric of its once pristine suit. We moved in a tight circle, it constantly lunging for me and me constantly moving out of its way. I needed a clean shot, but couldn’t quite get the arm reach. A quick jab to the stomach would send a normal man to his knees, but this wasn’t a normal man,
and it would only make things more difficult.

  A growl from behind had my gut clenching as I realized my mistake too late: I had come full circle as me and the deader had continued to reach for each other. I hadn’t bothered to check for more deaders after seeing the first one, and now, as I took a quick glance behind me, I saw at least two more coming up to take a bite.

  EIGHTEEN.

  “Oh shit!” I squealed—yes, squealed. Don’t judge me.

  A deader stumbled out of the clearing, its hands clasping hold of me as it brought its mouth down on my shoulder and I felt the first bite tear through my clothing. I flailed wildly while simultaneously being pulled backwards, and I fought to stay on my feet. If I went down, I was a goner—of that I was certain. All sense of reasoning and skill went out the window as panic overtook me and I fought to stay alive.

  The first deader had gotten close enough in front of me to easily grab me, so I lifted my leg and kicked out as hard as I could. My boot slammed into its stomach, but instead of sending it flying backwards, my booted foot impaled the center of the deader’s stomach cavity with a sickening crunch. It continued to reach for me, even while I stood on one leg like a flamingo, my other boot firmly implanted in its gut. The deader behind me was gnawing on my shoulder, its teeth finally breaking through the material of my clothing and I cried out in pure, painful panic as I felt the first scrape of its teeth against my flesh.

  Another deader had moved around to my right side now, and it was almost too much to take in. My mind wasn’t being able to fully wrap itself around what was happening, and was ready to close down.

  This was it.

  I was going to die.

  I screamed loudly, which in hindsight was probably the stupidest thing I could have done, since it would alert any other deaders to my location. But I couldn’t help it, and so hindsight could kiss my skinny ass. Teeth sunk into my skin, and when I felt a warm rush of blood spurt free from my shoulder, I panicked. I flailed, I kicked, I pulled, and I screamed some more, not wanting to die like this—alone in the woods, never being able to apologize for being a terrible human being to the people I cared about.