DEAD: Blood & Betrayal: Book 11 of the DEAD Series (2 page)

Chaaya began to explain. As she did, Vix found herself slowly shifting from annoyance, to disbelief…to all-out anger. The story she was hearing was madness; that is why she believed every word of it.

“And you say these people are over towards the area of High Halstow?” Vix finally asked when the tale was told.

“That is where I spotted their man. I followed him just north of there to a keep they built up in the woods of the old reserve,” Marjorie said in uncharacteristic nervousness.

“So why did you keep this to yourself until now?” Vix asked.

“I actually had forgotten about it until something from a few days earlier when I was out on that run popped into my head.”

Vix felt another chill course through her as Marjorie filled in that final detail. Without further argument, she followed the threesome through the door, making sure to give the iron-bound oak door a good tug to ensure that it was locked…just in case.

***

The trap door opened and there was a second of near silence before the rope came to its abrupt halt. The body at the end jerked a few times and was eventually still. There was another moment of silence, and then a few spontaneous cheers erupted from the gathered crowd.

Chad shuddered and turned to the man beside him. “You guys sure don’t waste any time.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Butch chuckled as he reached out to shake Chad’s hand. “Way I see it, the courts had it all screwed up back in the old days.”

Chad kept his mouth shut. He was not a gambling man, but if he were, he would be willing to bet he’d probably had more exposure to that system than this gentleman. Instead, he shook the man’s hand.

“I guess me and the ladies will be heading on our way.”

“You sure?” Butch asked, hitching his pants and turning his head to spit; a gesture that never ceased to repulse Chad.

“We haven’t had the best of luck with groups,” Chad replied with a shake of his head.

“Well, just remember, if you do well this season, you can always bring down any meat or hides and trade here. We like staying friendly with those of you that choose to rough it. Now, if’n you’ll excuse me, the corpse should start kicking pretty soon. We always like to take the heads prior to that unpleasantness.”

Chad gave a nod. He watched the man join a handful of others. Sure enough, they brought the body to the ground and severed the head. He imagined that it would be adorning that twisted version of an “unloving” totem pole that stood in the center of this small fortified town. Butch explained that it was a sort of deterrent to crime.

Chad shook his head and strolled up the narrow street to the inn where Caroline and Ronni would be waiting. He had actually been surprised when Ronni had declined to witness the hanging considering how vehement she had been in regards to this young woman and her so-called attempt on his life.

“Ready to go?” he asked, coming up behind the two women who were both flipping through a stack of various bolts of sturdy looking cloth.

“Like, an hour ago,” Ronni groaned. Caroline only nodded and gave the store one more appraising look before following the father and daughter out the door.

By the time the sun set, they were almost home. None of them cherished the idea of being out overnight as clouds had begun to roll in and threaten rain. The first rain drops began a short time after it was fully dark and made the ground all that much more treacherous.

Since Caroline was walking in the middle, she was the one carrying the lantern. It allowed everybody to see well enough to try and avoid twisting an ankle on an exposed root or large rock.

Each of them let out an audible sigh of relief when the cabin finally came into view. Chad set to getting a good fire going so that everybody could get warm and dry while Ronni and Caroline changed clothes and then put out a dinner of dried meat and oat bread.

With the fire blazing, Chad joined the other two at the table once he’d changed clothes. A jar sat in the middle of the table, a thin wrapping of cloth around it preventing him from seeing the contents. Both women looked like they would burst at the seams if he didn’t hurry up and make mention of the jar; that is why he picked up a piece of meat and tore free a chunk of the bread.

“Oh, my God!” Ronni exclaimed, snatching the jar and untying the string that held the cloth in place.

“Problems?” Chad said around a mouthful of meat and bread.

“You are gonna regret taking that first bite,” Caroline said with a mysterious smirk.

“Honey!” Ronni exclaimed, holding up the jar so that the amber contents could catch the light of the fire and take on a yellow-orange glow. “We traded for it back while you were out watching that hanging.”

Chad almost wanted to spit out the mouthful of food that he was chewing so that he could spread a dollop of the sweet nectar on it. He refrained and was content to smear some on the rest of his chunk of bread. The remainder of the evening meal was a chorus of “mmms” and “yums” from each of them.

At last, Ronni said goodnight and gave her dad a hug before climbing up to the loft. Caroline and Chad sat in silence for a while before Caroline finally broke it.

“So why exactly did they hang the girl first?”

“According to Butch, they do it more as a way for people to really witness the punishment. Also, it is more of that deterrent system they seem so fond of using. Folks know that they will be executed in this way and then there is the whole creepy totem pole thing,” Chad explained.

“And they’ve been doing this for how many years but people apparently still commit crimes under the death penalty umbrella?” Caroline quipped.

“I didn’t want to point out the obvious,” Chad said with a shrug.

They were quiet again for a few minutes. This time, it was Chad who broke the peace.

“We need to move.”

“But we just got settled,” Caroline protested.

“Yep. And it sucks, but I don’t want to be anyplace near that settlement. I’m not suggesting that they would do anything, but here are the facts. We killed some of their people.”

Caroline glanced up to the loft where Ronni was supposedly sleeping. “And what about her? You think that she will be happy with this idea?”

“I’d rather her be a little unhappy than a lot dead.”

“You really think that it will come to that?”

“You are asking me to make that call based on a small outpost that has an undead totem pole in the town square where they mount the heads of all the people that they execute.”

Caroline sat there for a few minutes, sipping on some lavender tea sweetened with just a hint of the honey that they had been so excited to find. Chad stared at the fire and let her come to her own conclusions despite having made his already.

“Crap,” Caroline hissed.

Chad nodded. “You see?”

“They made it a point to say that they had the heads of every single person that they have executed on that totem, didn’t they?”

“A number of times.”

“I guess we start packing.”

***

“They took Alana!” Selina wailed.

Jody ran out the back door to where Selina stood on the porch, one hand outstretched and pointing to the empty swing. He eased past the woman who was nearing hysterics as she began to call their daughter’s name over and over in between ragged sobs.

Walking across the yard, he kept his eyes on the ground. It was still early in the morning and there was a hint of dew on the grass. He had no trouble following his daughter’s footsteps as she hurried out to her swing like she did almost every morning. He had joked that she would be out on her swing in the pouring rain.

At least it was a joke until the morning he went outside to find her doing exactly that as thunder boomed and the sky dropped buckets of water in sheets that were almost too difficult to see clearly. When asked why she had done such a thing, Alana looked at her mother and father like they were crazy.

“It’s warm outside. You say we should save water and so I was swinging while I took my shower,” Alana had explained as if that might be the most normal thing in the world.

As he neared the swing set, he felt his heart leap to his throat. The back gate had been opened. However, it was the second realization that chilled him to the core. Alana had walked right over to whoever this mystery person was and left willingly.

“She knew you,” Jody whispered.

Unfortunately, that did not honestly eliminate that many people. The community was still small. However, Jody had a hunch that Alana knew this person very well. She would not walk away willingly with just anybody. That shortened the list considerably. It also gave rise to a very frightening question.

How far out of touch had he become with the people?

Spinning on his heel, he walked back to Selina and put his hands on her shoulders. “I want you to go inside and stay here. She might have run off after a…” His voice faded as the lie turned to ash in his mouth. He knew damn well that was not the case, and so did Selina.

“This is because of that trial, isn’t it?” she sniffed.

“We can’t be sure—” he started, but she cut him off.

“Don’t try to lie to me, Jody. It is all anybody talked about for months. And then to have the verdict come down to you making the final vote? It was almost like the jury set you up to be the fall guy.”

“Those men did something horrible. I could not simply buy into the ‘our-word-against-theirs’ argument. I saw with my own eyes what had been done to that one young lady, Angel. Jan was within her rights to demand that she and her people be compensated for what we did.” Jody felt all of the turmoil resurface.

It had been several months since the trial had concluded. Yes, it was true that Danny had been mutilated. Hell, it was unlikely that he would ever walk without the use of at least a cane. Still, his people had stormed in and not only killed several individuals, but then there had been the animalistic beating of the woman by Margarita. Later, it was additional testimony by Bill Pitts stating that George Rosamilia had joined on the beating in addition to cheering and inviting others to “get their licks in before somebody like Rafe shows up and spoils the party.”

It had been for that reason alone that Jody had cast the deciding vote to exile the pair. In truth, he had believed it long overdue. But that was another thing that he was struggling with at the moment. He had been feeling for some time that George had replaced him in Danny’s life as a friend. Could it really be something as simple as his petty jealousy that had caused him to cast that deciding vote that sent the polarizing couple outside of the walls?

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Jody gave Selina a squeeze and then went to answer it after telling her to stay put. He opened the door and was momentarily puzzled when he did not see anybody. Then he spied it. On the bannister of his porch was a small box with a red bow.

He stepped over to it with caution and found that he could scarcely breathe for fear of what he would find if he opened that box.

Holding it in his hands for several seconds, he finally gave in and peeled back the wrapping paper. He could hear Selina’s sobs from where she remained on the back porch. Looking up and down the street, he noticed that it was strangely quiet and devoid of any activity. For a sunny morning like this, that was more than a little peculiar.

Holding his breath, Jody opened the lid of the box. He was slammed with a simultaneous rush of relief as well as the crush of dread. He’d expected something horrific inside that box; something that would likely send him plunging into stupidity and despair in equal measures. He could be honest with himself and admit that he had figured to discover a finger or something of that nature.

What he found sent a message equally clear, but without him having to consider the possibility of the pain and torment that his child might be experiencing. Jody plucked the lock of hair from the box and tucked it into his breast pocket.

Then, without a word to Selina, Jody walked upstairs and began putting on his gear.

***

The following is an excerpt of a diary found in a small trading outpost just south of Old Seattle.

Entry One—

My name is Adam, and I hunt the living. I am an avenger of those who fall prey to the dregs of humanity. In a world stripped of almost all law and order, the pecking order is often established painfully and with no regard for those who are not deemed strong enough to fend for themselves.

In the Old World, women fought for decades to reach some semblance of equality. The zombie apocalypse erased all of that in a very short time. It is like the implosion of a building. A few charges in the right spots can erase any memory of the past in the blink of an eye.

I don’t imagine that I will ever be recognized for what I do. Honestly, I don’t care. If I am even more honest, I will guess that there are those who think I am as much of a monster as some of those I hunt. After all, I debase and commit acts that most would call torture.

I know that this man that I have hanging upside down from an old pine tree would think that. He is bleeding out slowly. About an hour ago, he begged for me to just kill him. I wonder if he heard those same words from his victims. I wonder if he cared as little as I do right this moment.