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

  I heard Nova snicker but that didn’t stop her from singing. In fact, I was almost certain that she got louder.

  “Are you doing that on purpose?” I scowled, opening my eyes back up.

  She grinned at me knowingly, right before her expression darkened and she quit with the show tunes. “Do you really think she could be alive? Hilary?”

  I rolled my eyes, not wanting to answer that question. Did I think she could be alive? No. Did I think that the unborn child growing inside her could be the cure for everything? Hell no. In fact, I’d be surprised if there was anything inside her. Because surely her body would have just rejected the fetus. Fetus? Could it really be called a fetus? Surely “abomination” was more accurate a description.

  “I don’t know, Nova.” I shrugged.

  “None of us do, but what do you think?” she pressed.

  “What do you think?” I retorted, throwing the ball back in her court. I didn’t really want to tell her my dark thoughts. She seemed to need this, need the hope that this woman and child could possibly save the world from extinction. And didn’t we all? But I didn’t believe it.

  “I think so,” she said with a soft smile that made her look younger than she was. “I think the baby is okay, and it could help cure everyone—or at least prevent it from happening to anyone else.”

  Like a child still believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, she was holding onto those hopes and dreams, and for once I didn’t want to be the bitch that ruined it for her—to crush that dream with my own narcissistic yet wholly accurate reality. What would be the point in delivering the painful and brutal blow that I thought the whole trip was pointless?

  Nova stared at me, waiting for my usual nasty snipe or gloating comeback, but I gave her neither. She grinned and then began to laugh, a low chuckle in the back of her throat that got louder and louder until small laughter tears formed in her eyes. I wanted to ask her what was so funny, but truthfully I knew it was because she saw me, she saw my lie in my silence. She shook her head, gave another grin to me and stubbed out her cigarette before standing up with a stretch.

  “I’ll do first watch” was all she said as she backed out of the tent, leaving me staring after her, dumbfounded.

  She had known my thoughts without me even voicing them, and I was left feeling like the asshole once more. I looked over at Crazy Pants, seeing that her lids were half open with her eyes rolled back. Her mouth, however, was wide open with a thin trail of saliva trailing out of the corner of it. She was snoring, a choky, phlegmy sort of snore that made me gag and look away. I closed my eyes and let my head fall backwards as I yawned, but the knowledge that she was sleeping with her eyes partially open and staring right at me was enough to keep me awake.

  I looked back at her, seeing that she hadn’t moved, and once more tried to close my eyes and get some sleep. I was exhausted, my body worn down and aching from the trials of life and my stupid cold, but there was no chance of me sleeping right then. I opened my eyes again with a scowl and saw that Crazy Pants was now sitting up with a huge grin on her face, the dribble still trailing down her chin like a fat slug sliding down some lettuce. I yelped out a surprised scream and she cackled loudly, rocking back on her heels and clapping her hands.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I said loudly, jumping up.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me—nothing a good strong man couldn’t put right,” she whooped gleefully. “Am I right?”

  “A man?” I asked with a confused frown.

  When she licked her lips, a telltale sparkle to her eyes, I grimaced.

  “Oh my God, that’s so gross,” I said, feeling queasy.

  Nova came back into the tent and looked across at me. “What’s gross?”

  I jerked a thumb across to Crazy Pants, and Nova followed my gaze. “Heeeeey, Crazy Pants, you’re awake!” she said joyfully. “You know you have a little dribble.” She pointed to her chin, her smile still in place as if it were perfectly normal to have a dribble trail down your chin. “It’s dead out there, nothing moving,” she said to me.

  Nova sat back down in her chair and poured us all another hot brown drink. I want to say it was coffee, but it was too weak to be coffee, no matter how much Nova tried to convince me that it was, so let’s just stick with “hot brown drink.”

  “So, how are you feeling after some rest? Do you want something to eat?” Nova handed out the drinks, directing her questions to Crazy Pants.

  “I would love something to eat, and my name’s Joan, not Crazy Pants.” She smiled fondly at Nova while I slowly took my seat again. “I was just telling this one,” she said, pointing in my direction, “that there isn’t anything better than a good, strong man to make you feel right as rain, am I right?” She cackled and took a slurp of her hot drink.

  Nova snorted out a laugh. “Firstly, quit with the cackling or me and you cannot be friends anymore. Seriously, that shit is creepy. And secondly, you are completely right on the man front, though it’s hard to find one that isn’t rotting and falling apart these days.” She laughed and slapped her thigh like it was the funniest shit ever, and I rolled my eyes.

  Joan laughed with her, all traces of her cackling days long gone, and even I couldn’t help but grin and shake my head in amusement. What? Laughter was infectious. Nova really did bring the best out in people, and I was glad once again that we decided to do this trip together. I say “trip,” but what I really mean is “suicide mission.”

  “My husband used to be a real man, all brawn and fighting talk. Went down like a real hero too,” Joan said, slurping her drink again.

  I looked away from her, not being able to bear the pained look on her face. I thought of Mikey and wondered, not for the first time, why I hadn’t just told him the truth about Rachael being a nutjob and swear him to secrecy. Was my pride really that important to me? Wasn’t he allowed to be a little distrustful of others and me after everything that had come to this world? I mean, I was one of the most distrustful people still alive, it’s only fair that he would be too. I pinched between my eyes and took a heavy breath, feeling irritated about my decision, but more irritated that I still couldn’t let go of the hurt that he didn’t trust me. I guess my pride really was still important to me. After all, what did we really have left to hold onto in this world if we didn’t have pride?

  “Oh, I can bet he was,” Nova said with another sharp laugh. “Joan, when did you get here? I used to live here a while back, and I don’t remember you.”

  Joan’s smile fell, her face looking haggard and aged again. “I wasn’t here long before the dead got in,” she said softly. “That was a sad day. It made me think back to when it all began, to when the dead first came.”

  My interest was even more piqued at the realization that she couldn’t have been tested on if she’d only just arrived when this place fell to ruins. So she was just totally nuts then. Great.

  “Do you know how they got in, Joan?” I asked carefully, not wanting to startle her with my question and send her back in on herself again.

  Joan’s eyes looked up to meet mine. “The man let them in.”

  My eyes searched out Nova’s, and I was glad to see that her frown matched my own.

  “A man?” I asked carefully, seeing that she was barely clinging onto this moment. Her moments of lucidity seemed to be few and far between, and she was already beginning to slip away.

  “Yes, the angry man.” She looked across at us, and I noticed that her hands were shaking, the hot liquid spilling over the sides of her mug and over her bony fingers. It should have been burning her hand, but she didn’t flinch, the horror of the past too alive in her mind in the moment to register anything. Her eyes were glazed and far away.

  “He came while we were sleeping. It was dark, and people were running around and screaming, begging and pleading.” She finally dropped her cup, the contents spilling out by her feet. “There was so much gunfire, I couldn’t hear myself think.” Her chin trembled as she looked
over at Nova, coming back to the here and now. “He said he was delivering retribution for the sacrifices of the many.”

  I swallowed, my mouth feeling dry—pasty, almost—like I’d swallowed cement. “When was this?” I asked. Though the smoke that had brought us here told me when it was, I still needed to hear it, still needed to know for certain.

  “Yesterday,” she said quietly as she began rocking back and forth again, her eyes falling to the ground. “The angry man came yesterday, but it’s okay, you’ll meet him soon. He said he was coming back to burn this place to the ground.” She blinked rapidly.

  “When did he say he was coming back?” Nova looked across at me, her features hard and dark.

  “Do we have any chocolate? I miss chocolate,” Joan said, a wave of emotion crossing her face as she looked up at us brightly, all traces of her previous doom-and-gloom statement vanishing. “I used to love a hot cocoa right before bed, too.”

  “Joan, I need you to answer me,” Nova said as softly as she could.

  “With marshmallows in it! Cocoa with marshmallows was my favorite!” Her eyes shone, lighting up with excitement. “Oh, perhaps we could toast some marshmallows!” She stood up.

  “Crazy Pants!” I yelled, drawing her attention to me.

  “My name is Joan,” she scowled.

  “When did the angry man say he was coming back?” I snapped, and I could almost feel the glare of annoyance that Nova was giving the side of my face. Well, she could kiss it. There was no time to play the soft card. We’d just have to play good cop, bad cop. Of fucking course I’d be the bad cop. I always was, wasn’t I?

  Joan pouted. “You,” she pointed a bony finger at me, “are a very rude young lady.”

  “Yes, she is,” Nova snapped, “but it is important that you tell us.”

  “He said,” Joan looked away from me with narrowed eyes and directed her answer to Nova, giving her a polite smile like they were the best of friends, “he was coming back today.”

  NINE.

  “Shit!” I yelled, standing up abruptly. “Nova, we need to load the truck and get the hell out of here.”

  She nodded and stood up without question.

  “What? Why?” Joan replied, sounding worried. “I wanted marshmallows!” she wailed.

  I spun to face her. “Because some crazy madman is on his way back here to burn this place to the ground!”

  My breathing was becoming erratic, and I knew I was being bitchy when none of this was her fault. The woman barely understood what day it was. But what worried me—and as I looked across at Nova, I could see the same worry on her face—was what day this had really all happened? Could this man be on his way here now? Or would it be tomorrow? Joan had no concept for days—shit, she had no concept for anything, and she could be imagining the entire thing, but I wasn’t about to take that risk.

  “Nina, one man couldn’t take this place out,” Nova scoffed, though I noticed that she continued packing all of our things. “I mean, this place is huge. Something else must have happened here.”

  I grabbed my damp clothes off the line hanging across the room and shoved them haphazardly into my bag. Sure they were filthy, but they were less threadbare than most of my things, and clothes like that were a huge commodity these days.

  “Really? One person couldn’t do this on their own? Even if they came at night and caught people unguarded? You’re sure about that?” I snapped, feeling frantic.

  How did I get myself into these situations? It was like I had some gravitational pull for bad luck. Joan yelled something about looking for marshmallows and left the tent, but I ignored her and continued to pack.

  “No, they couldn’t. Not unless they knew the run of this place,” Nova said dismissively.

  I glanced across at Nova, nodding ever so slightly as I thought about what she had said. Because in my head she was right, but in my heart I knew she was wrong. Joan had said something about retribution for the sacrifices of the many. That was a bold statement for anyone to say, and it sounded like someone with a grudge. Cogs slipped into place, and as I watched Nova, I saw the same realization cross her features also.

  “It’s someone that used to live here,” she acknowledged softly.

  I nodded. “Yep—someone that was tested on.”

  “Someone that had nothing and no one left to lose,” she replied, her voice filled with dread.

  I stood up, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. “Nova, do you think that we just found Deacon and Hilary?”

  She watched me for several heartbeats, so many emotions crossing her face—guilt, anger, sadness. Because if this was Hilary and Deacon, then the deaths of all the people here now fell on Rachael’s head. On Nova’s head. Most people I couldn’t give a shit about, but there were innocents here also—women, children, women like Joan, who had no one left to protect them and only wanted somewhere safe to stay.

  “Or just Deacon,” she said almost painfully. And she was right: Joan had said an angry man, , not a woman, had come back there. What hope did that hold for Jessica back at the base?

  Nova finally stood up straight, her emotions in check. “Let’s load everything up and take cover. If he’s coming back, then we need to wait for him. We need to know what happened. If Hilary is okay and the baby…” Her words trailed off and she looked away shamefully.

  I bit my lip, wanting to say something nasty about Rachael, wanting to cuss and yell and kick and scream and throw a hissy fit, because this whole shitstorm just got a whole lot shittier. But I didn’t. It wouldn’t help anyone or anything, so I bit my lip, swallowed my tongue, and pulled up my big girl panties.

  “It might not even be them,” I replied instead.

  “Him.” She looked up at me. “It’s him. Grief makes you crazy—crazier than anything else can. This was Deacon’s doing, all right. I remember him as we left, and he was so angry—furious, even. All he cared about was saving her. If she’s dead, then…” She shook her head, not able to finish the sentence.

  “All right.” I said through a tight throat, nodding, the warm air inside the tent suddenly overwhelming. “It all seems too easy though, you know?”

  “Because we’ve actually found what we were looking for? Or should I say who we were looking for?”

  I nod. “Well, yeah. What are the chances of that?”

  “When the world’s population has been struck down to around twenty percent of what it originally was? I would say the chances are pretty fucking high actually.” Nova looks at me like I’m an idiot, but I still have the uneasy feeling in my gut.

  “I couldn’t find any marshmallows,” Joan whined as she came back into the tent looking sullen. “I tried everywhere.” She slumped back down in her seat, her head lolling to one side, and began snoring almost immediately.

  I blinked in surprise. “How the hell does she do that?” I mumbled.

  I heard Nova chuckle. “What’s there left to fear? She’s not even really here half the time, and she has no clue what’s going on.”

  “What do we do with her?” I asked as we made our way to the door.

  Nova glanced back at Joan. Already a thin line of saliva was beginning to trail down her chin again and I looked away, my stomach feeling queasy at the sight.

  “Leave her sleeping. She’ll be more of a problem if she’s awake and in the way.” She shrugged and pushed out of the tent door. “Besides, there’s no way we could keep her quiet.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed.

  We loaded up the truck with as many supplies as we could fit in it—clothes, ammo, food, medicine. It was a haul and a half, and if we made it back to base I knew that Zee and James would be arranging another scavenging mission to recover anything else that was left behind. As I looked around at the rotting, half-eaten bodies, I realized that pretty much everything was left. Everything but life. Guilt like I haven’t felt before embraced me. We’d left the base with good intentions—okay, and a little running away on my part—but with both Nova and I gone,
and Mikey and Michael on a scavenge mission, the place didn’t have nearly enough people to protect it. If anything happened to the people there while we were gone, I would feel that pain for the rest of my life—however short that might be.

  *

  We had been hiding for several hours on the top wall overlooking the gate. Night had quickly fallen, and the rain continued to do so as well. It was cold—colder than cold, actually—and I was beginning to wonder if Crazy Pants hadn’t dreamt up the whole damn thing about an angry man coming back. Or maybe I was just hoping that she’d made it up so I could go get some rest somewhere. My teeth and jaw hurt from chattering so much. I was no superhero, and I really had no place being up there—especially since the noise my teeth were making was enough to wake the dead.

  No, seriously—several deaders had already tried to come into the compound, and Nova was adamant that it was because of all the noise I was making. She hadn’t even trusted me enough to go and kill them, since my hands didn’t want to work properly, the cold having worked into their bones.

  Another tremor of cold raked up and down my back until my body did a full-on convulsion. Nova turned to glare at me once more, but I ignored her stare since my eyelids felt frozen in place. She was like a machine: poised and still, frozen to the spot, her singular goal to stare into the horizon, waiting for whoever the hell it was coming back. Though my gut said Deacon, my heart hoped it wasn’t. Nova didn’t flinch or move when the rain began to come down, gradually growing more intense. She didn’t even shiver as the wind whipped her red hair around her face. She crouched, waiting, persistent, and almost eager for the kill, her eyes narrowed, her hands poised.

  “You can go inside, you know. You’re not really doing any good being here,” she hissed, and turned back to the front.

  “If you’re sticking it out, I’m t-t-totally sticking it out. We’re a team,” I quipped, trying to keep up my team spirit, but inside I died a little more as the wind howled across the back of my neck and I trembled in my boots.