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

  “Yippee for me,” she replied, sounding thoroughly pissed off about me staying. “It’s not even that cold,” she grumbled under her breath, but I heard her—though how was a mystery.

  And she was right: it wasn’t really that cold. I wasn’t sure exactly what month it was anymore—January? February, perhaps. People stopped trying to work it out accurately a while back—but I knew that the worst of the winter was behind us. However, the damn rain was killing me. It was like pure ice drops pelting against my skin. And worse than that was how the cold that had been coming on had smacked me upside the head to say a big hello.

  The backs of my eyes ached, and a low throb had begun to build in the base of my skull. Germs were what made you sick, but being cold and wet lowered your ability to fight the infection. The rain got into your clothes, soaking you right to the very bone until you slowly froze to death. As if on cue I shuddered again, clenching my jaw closed tight to stop my teeth smashing together. I clenched and unclenched my hands again, gritting my teeth and hoping to God that this asshole would show up soon so we could put him out of his goddamned misery and go inside and warm up by the fire.

  Yes, people, my sympathy for Deacon and Hilary—if it was in fact Deacon and Hilary that had torn this place apart, had gone out of the proverbial fucking window. Screw these people and all their drama. I was freezing my ass off.

  “Please go inside, I’m fuckin’ begging you, Nina,” Nova demanded, her voice laced with irritation. “You’re not helping anyone by staying out here.”

  “F-f-f-uck you,” I stammered back angrily, “I’m trying to be supportive and a g-good friend by staying with you.”

  She turned to roll her eyes at me. “Dude, do I look like I need any help from a chattering wreck like you?”

  I stared across at her, feeling hugely hurt by her callousness, though I could see the immediate regret in her eyes as she’d said it. But it didn’t matter. I felt like death, and now I had a whole bag of hurt to make me feel worse. I was trying to be sincere—trying to be a supportive friend, since that was what we supposedly were—and she’d basically just spat in my face. I blinked, wanting to cry and feeling annoyed with myself instantly that I had let her words hurt me, furious that my emotions were getting the better of me just because I had a freaking cold. Normally my skin was thicker than that, and I let comments roll down my back and into oblivion, but the sting of her words had cut me deep.

  “Fine.” I turned away from her, hoping that the single tear that had slipped out got lost in the rain that was still coming down and lashing my face.

  “Dude, I didn’t mean it like that,” I heard her yell after me, but I continued back down the steps, ignoring her. “Come on, don’t make me feel shitty!”

  I had never felt so useless in all my damn life. I was cold, and feeling crappy and miserable, and the only people I had let get close to me were turning out to be royal assholes. I stomped off the last step, sniveling and barely holding back my self-pitying sobs. I knew I shouldn’t give a shit what she thought of me—hell, what anyone thought of me—and perhaps I wouldn’t under normal circumstances. Perhaps I would have laughed off her comment at any other time, but I was feeling mentally and physically drained. And this cold had just hit me like a ton of bricks. I needed some cold medicine fast, before I turned into a total girl about the situation.

  I stormed through a puddle, biting my lip and refusing to cry as the rain soaked through my boots even more, and muttering to myself. Because really, I should have been glad to go inside, sit by the fire, drink hot non-coffee, and take a fucking nap, instead of crying about how useless Nova had just made me feel.

  “Fuck her,” I mumbled to myself, kicking a muddy puddle angrily and feeling like a spoiled brat. I sniffled miserably and looked up, my face slamming into the hard chest of a man.

  I yelped and flinched backwards, narrowly missing the sharp blade that was directed at my head. Cold or not, I was not dying today, and I gripped the large, meaty arm of whoever was holding the weapon with one hand and slammed my elbow automatically into his ribs. A loud grunt issued forth and I repeated the action again until the blade finally fell free of his hands. I looked up into his face, shrouded in darkness and rain—a face full of anger and pity and grief. A face that crushed my soul and felt like a punch to the gut.

  “You’re not dead?” He spoke, his words gruff and full of red-hot anger.

  “No thanks to you,” I bit out. I held back my shivers of coldness, my body feeling suddenly alive and full of warmth, adrenaline giving me a new lease on life. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing here?” I ranted, holding my katana out in front of me. I didn’t even remember pulling it out, but clearly I had, and I held onto it with vicious courage.

  “The question is,” his voice rumbled through the wind and rain, “who are you?”

  A loud clank echoed around us and the man dropped to his knees before falling face first into the mud. Behind him stood Crazy Pants—sorry, Joan. She held up a chunk of wood and cackled loudly before grabbing hold of the bottom of her skirt and beginning to dance around in circles, doing the can-can in a muddy puddle. I stared transfixed, somewhat in awe and somewhat in…what the hell is wrong with you?

  I looked down, noticing that the man had fallen into a muddy puddle, his face fully submerged, and I quickly bent down and turned him over, watching in fascination as he coughed up mud and water and began to breathe again. Though his eyes remained shut, I still didn’t trust him to be completely knocked out.

  “Joan!” I yelled over to her.

  She stopped dancing and came toward me with a smile as big as the Cheshire cat. “Yes?” Her eyes flitted down to the man in the mud. “Oh my, is he okay? What happened here?”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course she’d forgotten already. “Go get Nova,” I shouted instead of bothering to answer her question.

  “Yes, will do.” She began walking off, before turning back around to look at me. “Who’s Nova?”

  “Gah!” I threw my hands up. “The chick at the top of the wall—go get her.”

  Joan nodded and skipped off into the dark. Yes, skipped! I mused for a moment on whether she would forget where she was going and what she was supposed to do, but realized that I either had to stand guard or kill him, since I couldn’t move this guy on my own. Adrenalin was still hot in my veins, but it was wearing off as fast as it had come, and my teeth began to chatter again only seconds later. Minutes ticked by. I was beginning to believe that Joan had forgotten all about me, and I was deciding on what to do next when I heard the sound of boots splashing behind me.

  I turned around to see Nova jogging toward me. “What happened here?” she said, drawing up beside me. “Did you do this?” she asked in genuine awed surprise.

  I wanted to say yes, to take the small victory for my own. After all, Joan sure as shit wouldn’t remember that she had knocked this guy out cold. However, it was too dishonest, and as much as I felt like I needed and wanted to prove myself to Nova, I couldn’t lie about it. That was always my problem: I spoke the truth, most of the time when it wasn’t really necessary, but there I was. Me and my big truthful mouth.

  “No, this was all Joan. She’s a tough old broad.” I forced a smile. “I disarmed him and then she came up behind and knocked him out.”

  “Let’s get him inside” was her only reply after a courteous nod of her head.

  She grabbed an arm and I grabbed the other, dragging the guy through the mud and back into the tent that we had set up as our base. The warmth enveloped me as soon as we got inside, and I groaned in pleasure from it.

  We pulled the now completely mud-soaked man to the far corner and used some rope to tie his hands behind his back. We then secured him to one of the main poles that were fixed into the ground and stood back, deciding if the ropes were tight enough.

  I sat down heavily opposite him, feeling weary and exhausted. “Now what?” I said.

  Nova sat next
to me. “Now we wait for him to wake up.”

  “Is this him?” I asked.

  Nova nodded. “Yeah, this is Deacon.” Her words were heavy and full of resolve.

  “So where is Hilary?” I asked.

  Nova shook her head, her eyes looking lost for a moment. “He wouldn’t have left her. Not ever, not unless…” Her words trailed off, and her head slumped on her shoulders until she was staring at her rain-soaked boots.

  She didn’t need to speak anymore. I knew what she was implying: he wouldn’t leave her if she were alive—which meant that she was more than likely dead.

  I thought back to the pained look on his face when I had first bumped into him. His face so full of grief, anger radiating from him like flames. Something bad had happened to him and Hilary. My thoughts, however, kept returning to the unborn child she had been carrying inside her. Had that been what had killed her? Or was the baby okay? Surely he wouldn’t have left the baby alone? There were so many questions rolling around in my head, but all we could do was wait for him to wake up and hope that he would answer them. There felt so little hope in this world, yet I didn’t realize until right then how much hope I had held out for this man and woman, how much hope I had put on the unborn child. Without that hope, I felt empty.

  More than empty, I felt barren of anything.

  “Where did Joan go?” I asked ,changing the subject but not taking my eyes off the man.

  His entire face was caked in mud, a thin trail of blood dripping from what must have been a small head wound—but with not enough blood to cause me to panic, in case he died and went psycho zombie on us. The fact that the zombie virus hit you upon death and not fluid transference was both a blessing and a curse. The fact that your loved ones, at the end of their living days, would have to take a blade or bullet to the brain to stop them reanimating was even crueler than having to be the one to watch them turn.

  “She yelled something to me about there being emergency back at the crow’s nest and then ran off dancing,” Nova laughed.

  I wanted to laugh—the image alone was hilarious—but I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t find any humor in the situation. And as I stared upon the muddy face of Deacon, I couldn’t help but think that all of our hopes for the future had just been obliterated completely.

  TEN.

  I woke with a terrified shudder and a loud sneeze. My dreams had been filled with my late husband Ben being torn apart by hundreds of tiny zombie babies with fanged teeth and wings upon their little crooked backs. I gagged at the memory of the dream, my mouth tasting like vinegar and bad applesauce, and I swallowed down the acidic substance that was loose in my throat.

  My cold had worsened through the night, and I groggily looked around, seeing that Nova was still sleeping heavily. Joan had come back at some point during the night and was curled around Nova’s feet like a cat. I looked across at the man—Deacon. He was still tied up, still slumped against the side of the tent, but I could tell he was sleeping now, rather than just knocked out cold.

  I don’t remember at what point I had fallen asleep, but I knew that I had slept for a good chunk of the night without moving, and my neck and back were now paying the price for it. My clothes were still damp and clung to my body like Saran Wrap, and I stood up, feeling my joints crack in retaliation. I stunk, too—not that I could smell too much with my swollen sinuses, but I could smell just enough to know that Nova would be throwing a fit when she woke up.

  I dropped the damp blanket that had been wrapped around me, and was now subsequently soaked, onto my chair and grabbed some wood for the fire. The flames were low, but still giving off a little heat. The fire cracked and hissed as it came back to life, and when I looked around Nova had opened her eyes and was looking at me with a blank expression.

  My throat burned in protest but I managed to clear my throat to speak. “Do we have any of the non-coffee left?” My voice sounded nasally and weird.

  Nova nodded and sat upright, her eyes dropping down to her ankles where Joan was curled up, hugging Nova’s boots like they were a teddy bear.

  “When did that happen?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Nova shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she just kinda slipped in here at some point. I haven’t slept yet—been too busy watching our little guest.”

  “I thought you were sleeping,” I mumbled.

  Nova shook her head. “No. I didn’t want to in case he tried something. I was just resting my eyes, as my mom used to say.”

  I looked back at Deacon with a frown. “What are we going to do about him?”

  Nova didn’t say anything, and I looked back at her to make sure that she had heard me. Clearly she had, going by the dark expression on her face. Instead of answering me, she reached into her pants pockets and pulled out her cigarettes, lighting one up and inhaling deeply. I noticed then that her clothes were completely dry.

  “Are there more dry clothes?” I asked, eager to get out of my wet, stinky ones. Mud had caked around the bottom of the pants and was crumbling away as I walked, but I could feel it inside my boots, thick in my socks and between my toes. It was a horrible feeling, and every time I took a step I would grimace.

  “Maybe in one of the other tents,” Nova said, the butt of the cigarette never leaving her mouth as she reached down and tried to pry Joan away from her. She looked up at me with one eye closed to prevent the smoke getting in her eye. “You smell,” she said without care. “Just so you know.”

  “I know!” I snapped, probably a little too loud, since Deacon then began to stir.

  I turned back around to stare at him, noticing that although Nova had given up on trying to get Joan off of her, she had retrieved her handgun and was aiming it at him.

  His eyes fluttered open and he groaned loudly, his look of pain turning to one of anger as he focused in on us. He was still covered in mud, though a lot of it had started to crumble away when it dried, leaving his face just looking dirty and gray. His dark expression was certainly helping with removing it.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked, keeping his voice low and sounding deadly.

  “You tell us,” I retorted. “You’re Deacon, right?”

  I heard Nova huff next to me, and knew I had just given away our ace card too soon. I was eager, though, and clearly an idiot. His eyes narrowed into angry slits as he focused on me, eyes only once flitting to the gun that Nova held.

  “How do you know me?” he snarled.

  “Really? You don’t remember me?” Nova grumbled from her position next to me.

  She still couldn’t take a step toward him because of Joan at her feet. I watched as Deacon focused in on Nova, several expressions crossing his hardened features until he let out a heavy sigh.

  “You helped Hilary and I escape.” He spoke as if the words pained him, as if he were going back to a time he would rather not think about by admitting that he knew her.

  “I did indeed. And where is she?” Nova said, getting right to the point.

  I watched as Deacon visibly recoiled from the words, from us, shrinking in on himself before speaking. “You have to let me go. I need to get back to them.”

  My head whipped to the right to look at Nova, my eyes going wide at the revelation that she and the baby were alive. Nova looked just as freaked out as me by that point—her mouth hanging open, her cigarette stuck to her lip before she reached up and removed it. She threw it into the fire and looked back at him.

  “Are you saying that Hilary is alive?” She spoke carefully.

  Deacon hesitated briefly before answering. “Yes.”

  “H—o—l—y shit,” I whispered.

  “Will you help me? Please? You helped me before, will you help me again?” he asked, his voice sounding weak and fragile, his words desperate.

  The strong man that had once sat there was now completely gone. I heard Nova swallow, the saliva in her mouth struggling to make its way down her throat as she swallowed again. I knew how she felt; I was having the same probl
em.

  “You killed a lot of people here,” I replied.

  His eyes met mine. “These weren’t people, they were animals. They tortured my poor Hilary. They deserved to die,” he snarled through gritted teeth.

  Nova snapped out of her trance, all care of poor Joan forgotten as she stepped toward Deacon. She got close enough to press the barrel of the gun to his forehead, and she glared down at him, her mouth twisted in disgust.

  He jutted his chin out, his eyes boring into hers. “Go on then,” he coaxed. “Do it!”

  “What gave you the right to choose who lives and who dies?” She spoke almost breathlessly, her words heated and angry. And I couldn’t help but worry she was about to blow his brains out in her next breath.

  “I didn’t choose anything,” he ground out. “I think they should all die.”

  Nova snarled and pressed the gun harder against his skin as her rage matched his. Their eyes were connected, both of them staring venomously at one another. The air stilled around us, and I didn’t dare move for fear of triggering something that I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “There were innocent people here,” she hissed.

  “There are no innocents left in this world,” he spat back.

  Nova’s arm shook with barely controlled rage, and equally Deacon wasn’t backing down. His lips pulled back in an angry snarl and his body quivered with fury. My heart beat an unsteady rhythm in my chest, my headache hitting me full force and making me feel dizzy under the pressure. It was too early for this type of shit—for blood and guts and death. For killing and murder. For vengeance and rights. It would always be too early—or too late—for this type of thing. And perhaps I wasn’t the monster that I had come to believe I was. Because I didn’t want this—this bloodshed, this death—on my conscience.

  “What about your child?” I asked softly in an attempt to reason with him and to talk Nova off the ledge. “Isn’t your child an innocent? Doesn’t that baby deserve better than this? Better than all this death?”

  His eyes disconnected from Nova’s and slowly slid across to look at me, and I noticed how dead they looked. His mouth quirked up in a gruesome smile and then he began to laugh. A loud, deep laugh that didn’t sound like it held any amount of humor in it whatsoever. Joan had woken and sat up and she began to join in with his laughing, standing up to clap and dance in circles as her high-pitched laughter copied his deep, throaty, forced laughter as much as she could. She danced past me, her cold yet soft hands reaching out to clasp my face in her palms, and then releasing me and moving to Nova, who had lowered the gun and was staring at the ground.