Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead Read online

  Lost Among The Dead

  By

  Stephen Charlick

  Cover artwork by: www.keyarts.co.uk

  Forest image by: wyldraven.deviantart.com

  © copyright: Stephen Charlick 2016

  www.stephencharlick.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

  Reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

  Electronic or mechanical means, including

  photocopying, recording or by any information and

  retrieval system, without the written permission of

  the publisher and author, except where permitted by law.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names,

  Characters, places and incidents are the product of

  The author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons,

  living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Prologue:

  Emma knew they were below her; they always were this late in the day. She didn’t need to see them to know they ambled amid the shadows beneath her feet; their arms upstretched, forever reaching for the one thing that eluded them. She knew they gnashed their blackened and broken teeth, jaws moving back and forth in desperate anticipation of the sustenance denied them and she knew that despite the pitiful moans that rose up to greet her that they were dead, all of them. There was nothing left of who these people had once been. Nothing remained of the personality once housed within these decaying and tormented shells. No, she knew nothing was left behind; no name, no memory, no feeling and no pain. They were simply the Dead and she envied the joy of their dark oblivion.

  Emma looked out across the canopy of autumn leaves surrounding her, a seasonally chilled breeze suddenly whispering through its cocoon-like branches. Delicately at first, the moving air rippled through the wall of gold and brown as if demanding its brief passing be noted. Then, joining the churning tendrils of wood smoke rising beside her, it rushed upwards and met an ever darkening sky. For a moment she let her gaze follow the tumbling and twisting column of smoke above her, until with a startling ‘pop’ an exploding pocket of sap in the fire brought her attention back to the task at hand.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ she mumbled to herself, using a fork to remove a small, yet still burning, shard of wood from the side of one of the roasting rabbits.

  Almost subconsciously, she glanced to the row of stacked cages set along the tree house balcony and decking, each of which held two or three of their scrawny rabbit herd, and wondered if they knew their fate as they sat idly watching her cook up their brothers and sisters. Truth be told, she was sick of rabbit meat but it would be even less appetizing if it wasn’t cooked properly. So, after quickly removing the offending ember, she used the fork to pierce the animal’s thigh; gently teasing the meagre flesh apart to ensure it was cooked all the way through.

  ‘Done,’ she muttered, wrapping her hand protectively in the thin grubby tea towel tied at her waist before taking the skewered rabbit off the glowing embers.

  Behind, in their tree top home, Emma heard the deep barking laughter of her step-father and instantly she found herself slipping. Forgetting where she was and what she was doing, images dark and bloody suddenly rushed forward to claim her. She saw the look in her step-father’s eyes when almost a year ago their group had first come across the holiday park with its collection of luxury tree houses and cabins. She heard the hushed treacherous conversations and she saw the blood flow as those unfortunate enough to have found this place before them where were set upon, beaten and cast out defenceless among the Dead. But worse than that, she saw her step-father coming to her months later in the darkness of their newly found sanctuary, demanding his own sick payment for her safety. She saw and felt it all again, terrifying, fresh and raw; his hands upon her, his breath hot and rancid. It sickened and enraged her, as it always did. Yet something was different this time, something strange and new was happening within her. For this time she welcomed the rage, allowing it to fill her, allowing it to burn away every repulsive touch in its path; cleansing her until nothing of him remained and in the void left in its passing she saw what she must do.

  Abruptly another wave a nauseating laughter reached her through one of the open windows and with it her mind finally allowed her to register the searing heat of the hot skewer that was slowly blistering her fingers.

  ‘Shit!’ she spat, quickly dropping the skewer down on the large plate alongside three other cooked rabbits.

  ‘Emma?’ her mother suddenly called meekly from the doorway. ‘Your father…’

  ‘Angela! What’s she doing out there?’ she heard her step-father growl, his words causing her mother to jump and falter.

  ‘Erm… yes… yes, Emma, what are you doing?’ she continued. ‘Hurry up, you know your father’s hungry.’

  Emma turned to look at her mother silhouetted against the dim light coming through the open doorway and knew she felt nothing for this weak pathetic woman.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Emma flatly replied, placing the carving knife alongside the cooked rabbit haunches.

  ‘And make sure you cover the embers properly,’ her step-father grumbled from somewhere inside the treetop cabin, ‘we don’t want the whole fucking place burning down….’

  He may have said more but his words were lost to her; somehow unattached and without meaning. Almost automatically she reached over to lower the lid of the barbeque, before turning to retrieve the heaped plate of cooked meat.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she repeated, her own words strangely distant, even to her own ears, as if spoken by someone else.

  And with that she found her feet were moving, taking her across the decking to the open doorway. Pausing briefly on the threshold she glanced down at her feet and the shadowy movement some seven metres below her on the forest floor. She briefly caught a glimpse of the top of something’s head as it passed beneath her and she found herself briefly smiling to herself; the inevitability of it all was just too perfect for words.

  ‘The Dead are back again,’ she said to no one in particular, stepping into the cabin.

  Finding herself in the open-plan living room lit by the small solar panelled garden lights, she saw that despite a few people who were presumably on guard duty, most of their group was already seated about the large dining table. As her gaze moved along the tired and worn faces at the table, one by one she instinctively merited their worth to the group. Nearest to her were Brett and his brother Grant, both were little more than brainless muscle but they were good fighters and had kept the Dead at bay on many an occasion; unlike those next in line, Sid and Norma. They, in contrast, were quite useless in that respect but Emma knew each brought their own type of intellect and skill-set to the group; Norma in particular with her nursing background. Then there was Jimmy and Natalie, the pair were an unfortunate drain in Emma’s eyes, yet each for quite different reasons. With Jimmy his fondness for weed was his downfall while with Natalie it was her very fragility that marked her out. In fact, Emma knew she rarely left the safety of the interconnected cabins unless under escort and then it was only to go to and from the large dome to work in the gardens.

  ‘Aren’t they always,’ said a bulky man sat with his back to her; the slight hiss to his words caused by the front tooth she knew to be missing.

  Hearing the large man speak, Emma glanced at the back of Dennis’ shaven head and knew he was the one; he was the key; it was through him that she would get what she wanted, she was sure of it. She had seen the way he looked at her when he thought no one was looking and the time had come when she would gladly give him what he w
anted; for a price.

  ‘More than usual?’ asked her step-father, causing her to at last acknowledge his presence seated at the head of the table.

  Almost without thought her eyes moved to meet his and instantly she regretted it; for there, sat on his lap, was her younger sister, Wendy. At only eleven years old, Emma prayed her step-father had not yet turned his sick attentions upon her, but even as she forced her feet to continue moving towards him she couldn’t help but watch the way the fingers of his hand idly stroked the back of her neck.

  ‘Well?’ he continued, expecting a prompter reply from his fourteen year old step-daughter.

  ‘What? Erm… No,’ she finally managed to force past her lips, ‘there’s… there’s probably about half a dozen or so at the moment but…’

  ‘Is that all!’ interrupted Brett, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. ‘We can take care of them in the morning, no problem.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll…’ Grant agreed, the specifics of what he was saying seeming to fade as the room and those in it seemed to evaporate from Emma’s conscious thought.

  Words continued to be spoken, opinions offered and jokes shared, yet her mind registered none of this and so it was that while the conversation carried on around her, she found herself slowly lowering the plate of cooked rabbit to the table just to the side of her step-father. Then just as he was taking the first piece of meat from the platter; and somehow, almost as if she was watching herself from some point over her own shoulder, she saw her hand calmly reaching for the handle of the large carving knife. She felt the strangely solid wood in her hand, familiar yet somehow alien in her grasp, and watched as her knuckles slowly turned white with the pressure of her tightening grip. She saw her step-father look up from the plate, confusion in his eyes and then she saw the very moment confusion turned to realisation; a realisation of what was truly happening. But it was an epiphany that had come too late for Harry Doyle. For Emma’s arm was already moving, slashing through the air, the dim candlelight reflecting off the blade as it sped towards him. Harry Doyle had taken from his step-daughter and now there was a price to pay, a price that could only be paid in blood, his blood.

  With a single gasp escaping his lips, the blade pierced the flesh of his neck; slicing easily through the skin and muscle as it went on to rip through the cartilage of his oesophagus. For a moment time stopped, no one breathed, no one moved and no one reacted. Only Harry Doyle truly lived in this moment, impotently opening and closing his mouth, desperate to form the silent words of shock, fear and betrayal that danced in his eyes. Locked in her step-father’s accusatory glare Emma could not look away from him or rather she refused to allow herself this meagre luxury. So as his hand tentatively rose, his shaking fingertips probing as if to confirm the reality of what had happened, she knew the time had come to finally end it; to finally rid herself of her step-father. Harry Doyle opened his mouth as if to say something. Perhaps to beg for forgiveness, perhaps to condemn, perhaps to blame, whichever it was she would never know, for at that precise moment she gave a sharp twist to the knife and roughly yanked it free. A single wet cough suddenly broke past her father’s mute surprise, sending a spray of rich blood down his chest and across the startled face of his youngest daughter still sat on his lap. With the spilling of blood the spell was broken and with it time rushed forward to catch up with itself; bringing with it a cacophony of shouts, screams and startled exclamations. But even as chaos erupted around her she refused to break eye contact with the dying man before her.

  ‘Emma,’ she suddenly heard Dennis calmly ask from the other end of the table, his chair screeching briefly across the floor boards as he stood. ‘Emma, what have you done?’

  Yet she could not answer him, not yet, not while the rage still burned within her and not while the spark of life still existed in this man who had committed the ultimate betrayal.

  ‘Emma?’ he repeated while Harry Doyle spluttered and coughed, trying to gulp down air even as his lungs began to fill with blood.

  But again Emma could not answer, for her world was the blood drenched man sat in front of her; the man who had saved her life, the man now dying by her hand. She watched in cold satisfaction as his shaking hands tried impotently to stem the flow of life from his clearly fatal wound. She watched as his face paled and his eyes searched wildly for help or absolution; and she watched as his struggles to cling to a life already forfeit grew weaker and weaker.

  ‘Almost done,’ she finally whispered to herself, as her step-father at last slumped forward in his chair; the sound of his wet gurgling punctuated only by the rhythmic sound of his blood dripping to the floor.

  ‘Christ, Den, what do we do?’ hissed Brett, unsure how to react to the unexpected and bloody turn of events. ‘Bitch just slit her own dad’s throat, we’ve got to…’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ snapped Dennis, dismissing him while the young woman at the opposite end of the table slowly turned to look at him, a strange unreadable look on her face.

  ‘He… he’s gone,’ she whispered, more to herself rather than to anyone else in the room.

  And with those spoken words she felt the rage change inside her. She could almost feel it twisting and folding in on itself; collapsing and coalescing into something else, something dark, calculating and new. She could feel it hiding itself in the corners of her mind, becoming part of her, forever inseparable from who she was and she knew it would never truly leave her; she would never be alone again.

  ‘Emma?’ said Dennis, watching her as she stepped away from the corpse of her step-father and moved down the table towards him, the bloody knife still in her hand. ‘What’s this all about? Why did you…’

  ‘He was sick,’ Emma interrupted with nothing but a cold nod towards the already dismissed body behind her. ‘He was a poison… I couldn’t let him… not again... not with Wendy.’

  ‘Oh… oh, shit,’ muttered Dennis, rubbing his hand over his mouth, suddenly realizing what this was all about and seeing what she had done in a whole different light.

  ‘So you’re in charge now, Dennis,’ she continued, holding eye contact with the large man as she drew closer. ‘You’re the leader we need,’ she continued, at last stepping alongside him. ‘You’ll do what’s needed to keep us safe, to keep us strong… no matter what.’

  Looking up at the much taller man, Emma knew she had chosen correctly. She could almost see the workings of his mind written on his face. She could see the possibilities slowly dawning on him, one by one adding justification and merit to what she had done.

  ‘Well?’ she finally asked, turning the blood covered knife in her hand so that the handle faced him; waiting for him to take it from her and with it his control of the group.

  ‘Yeah… yeah, I’ll take charge,’ he at last whispered, his hand slowly reaching for the knife.

  ‘No matter what?’ repeated Emma, raising an eyebrow questioningly; the three simple words seaming to hover somewhere between a promise, a threat and a prophecy of dark foreboding.

  Briefly his hand paused, his eyes searching hers, unsure if he should trust the young woman stood before him.

  ‘Clock’s ticking, Dennis,’ prompted Emma, holding his gaze as she sensed his resolve waver.

  Glancing away from her back over to Harry’s slumped body, Dennis stood motionless as if in the eye of some great storm; the churning chaos held in check for only as long as he failed to move. Yet at that moment he became all too aware of Brett and his brother, Grant, standing close behind him, awaiting his reaction; perhaps looking for some weakness in him to justify taking control for themselves. Dennis knew this unexpected window of opportunity was closing fast and if he wanted to stake his claim to lead the group unchallenged, he would need to act forcefully; and act now.

  ‘No matter what,’ he abruptly said with a sharp nod, purposefully taking the knife from her hand before turning to face the others in the room. ‘Anyone got a problem with that?’ he continued, his cold glare and st
ern expression moving from one face to the next, daring them to contradict him.

  For a moment the two brothers exchanged silent glances, until with a shrug of his shoulders Grant reached behind him to pull his chair back into place and sat down.

  ‘Whatever you say, Dennis,’ he muttered, as if bored by the whole turn of events. ‘Harry was an arsehole anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Bret. ‘You want to be the head honcho… it’s all yours, Den… but I doubt Ray and Paul are going to be too chuffed,’ he continued, gesturing to the door and two of the men they knew to be on guard duty somewhere amid their warren of suspended walkways. ‘They had a soft spot for old Harry there, what with knowing him from before.’

  As if mentioning them had magically conjured them up, the doorway was abruptly blocked by the figures of two red faced men gulping down air.

  ‘We heard the shouts, we…’ panted Paul, his words dying on his lips as he stood stunned by the carnage that met them.

  ‘What the Fuck!’ gasped Ray, removing his glasses as if looking through them had somehow created the bloody apparition before him.

  It was only when Ray looked away from the slumped figure of Harry lying face down in a pool of blood expanding across the table and over to Dennis that he noticed the blood covered knife clenched in the man’s hand.

  ‘You bastard! What the fuck have you done!’ growled Ray, his eyes narrowing hatefully as he slipped his glasses inside his jacket pocket.

  ‘Haven’t you heard… we’ve had a change of management,’ mumbled Grant almost to himself, as he reached across the table to take a scoop of now forgotten mashed potato from a large bowl.

  ‘Yeah, Harry here decided to step down,’ chuckled Brett, leaning nonchalantly against the table, his arms folded.

  ‘Brett,’ warned Dennis, his tone causing the smile to fade from the younger man’s lips. ‘Look, Ray…’ he continued, calmly but purposefully resting a hand on the handle of the large machete hanging from his belt as he returned Ray’s furious glare, ‘you’ve got a choice to make here… both of you have and… and I’d think very carefully before making any rash decisions if I were you.’