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

  ‘Where are they, Wendy?’ said Fran, ignoring the teenager’s comment. ‘Where are Sam and Mike? What have you done with them?’

  ‘Tom’s not going to be very happy with you…’ sneered Wendy, shaking her head as she rubbed her face. ‘Oh… sorry…’ she continued, her sneer transforming into something more knowing and cruel. ‘Of course, I don’t mean Tom… I mean Daddy.’

  ‘I said, where are Sam and Mike?’ Fran repeated, almost growling as she took a step forward.

  ‘They don’t normally stay, you know, people that come here…’ Wendy went on to say, looking down at Poppy and smiling as if Fran hadn’t even spoken. ‘Most of the time they’re too much trouble… but… but Tom… well, now he’s just too good to let slip through our fingers,’ she continued, looking back up at Fran. ‘Tom’s a keeper for sure.’

  ‘I won’t ask you again, Wendy,’ snarled Fran, ‘where are…’

  ‘Oh, those two,’ interrupted Wendy, with an irritated wave of her free hand, ‘they’re around… somewhere… you’ll see them soon enough I’m sure,’ she added, her smile growing disturbingly wider.

  And then suddenly with a flash of light and an explosion of pain, something hit the back of Fran’s head; hard.

  ‘Arrrgghh!’ cried Fran, falling to her knees; her machete slipping from her grasp as stars suddenly clouded her vison. ‘What the…’

  ‘See…’ said Wendy, sauntering slowly over to where Fran fought against the dizziness already threatening to overwhelm her. ‘I told you… you’d regret it,’ she continued, punctuating her last words with a sharp kick to Fran’s ribs.

  Struggling for breath and with waves of darkness dragging her under, Fran collapsed to floor cradling her side, and as she did so she saw a shadowy figure step round her; a figure that held a length of pipe in its shaking hands, a figure that as it stepped out from the shadows and into the moonlight she recognised, a figure that was Angela Doyle.

  And then the blackness claimed her.

  ***

  ‘Come on, come on,’ worried Kai, his eyes locked on the door ahead of him while he sat on the small sofa running his fingers nervously though Bob’s fur. ‘Where are you, Fran?’

  It had been over forty-five minutes since she had left the tree house cabin to prepare Star and the cart for their departure and despite knowing that if anyone could handle themselves out there, it was Fran, the worry that he may never see her again twisted and gnawed at his insides like some wild animal.

  ‘She knows w…what she’s doing, B…Bob,’ he stammered, his whispered words only partly directed at the dog whose chin rested sleepily on his leg. ‘She’ll be okay…. she’ll be fine… you’ll see.’

  Yet with each tinkle of a triggered alarm bell drifting up from the forest floor beneath him, Kai’s confidence wavered just that bit more. For with the hungry Dead a constant presence in their lives, Kai knew that nothing was certain; no outcome assured or safe passage guaranteed. Even the most skilled of fighters, armed to the teeth with the choicest of weaponry, had fallen to the Dead; their ever increasing number, their persistence and their unfaltering determination, no matter what injuries they suffered, making them the most dangerous of foes. So it was not surprising that Kai felt an overwhelming sense of relief crash over him when Bob suddenly lifted his head from his leg; his ears pricking up, alerted by the sound of someone’s approaching footsteps.

  ‘See…’ smiled Kai, playfully ruffling the short fur on the top of the dog’s head as he gently pushed him aside to stand. ‘T…told you there was nothing to w…worry about.’

  Jumping down off the sofa, Bob somewhat cautiously followed Kai across the room to the door. his claws slowly click-clacking against the varnished floorboards as he went.

  ‘My g…girl can handle…’ Kai started to say, his hand already reaching for the latch on the door, ‘Anything,’ he finally completed in an uncertain and wary whisper; his relief suddenly evaporating with the sound of a determined and urgent knock at the door.

  ‘Shit!’ he thought, glancing down at Bob. ‘That’s not Fran.’

  ‘Hello?’ came a woman’s voice from the other side of the door. ‘Hello, are you there? I know you’re there, Kai… open the door, Kai. Open the door… it’s Emma…. It’s about Fran… I need to…’

  No sooner had she mentioned Fran’s name than Kai flung the door open; his heart racing as he instantly feared the worst.

  ‘W…what is it?’ he asked, stepping forward to grab Emma fiercely by the arms; shaking her as if he could simply dislodge the answers from her. ‘W…what’s happened? Is she….’

  ‘Kai…. Kai, let go,’ Emma simply replied, her tone full of cold warning as she looked down at his hands pinching her upper arms to her sides.

  ‘Sorry, I…’ he started to say, realising what he was doing. ‘I didn’t mean to… p…please w…what’s happened to Fran?’

  ‘You need to come with me,’ said Emma, taking a step away from him; glancing back over her shoulder as if afraid she was being watched. ‘It’s Wendy, she’s… she’s done something quite…. Foolish,’ she completed after searching for the right word.

  ‘But Fran… she’s okay… she not dead?’ said Kai, only wanting to hear this one piece of information from Emma’s lips.

  ‘Yes, yes she’s alive... but we need to go…’ Emma replied, stepping aside so Kai could pass her; her anxious face suddenly full of urgency as she looked over her shoulder again. ‘We need to go now.’

  ‘She’d g…gone to check on Star,’ said Kai, quickly offering up the half-truth explanation as he made a grab for the crow bar resting by the door and stepped out onto the decking.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Emma, glancing down at Bob still sat in the open doorway as the young man hurried passed her towards the suspended walkway. ‘That’s just where Wendy found her… at the Dome,’ she completed, using her foot to shove the dog back into the room so she could close the door on it before turning to follow Kai; the worried look on her face suddenly changing into something else; something new.

  But blinded by his own worry, Kai saw none of this. He did not see the smile that itched at the corners of her mouth, he did not notice the way she watched his movements as she followed him across the bridge, careful to always stay one step behind him and he was unaware how often her hand slipped into her jacket pocket to feel the reassuring weight of the blade she had hidden there.

  ***

  With the sharp acrid smell of smoke burning the back of her throat and the feeling of cold hard concrete against her cheek, Fran slowly drifted back to consciousness. Like incoming waves on a beach, she felt the darkness being pushed back; relinquishing its smothering oblivion on her, piece by piece.

  ‘But…but what if she wakes up?’ she heard the worried voice of a woman enquire from somewhere behind her.

  ‘That voice… that’s… that’s…’ thought Fran, lying motionless as her foggy brain fought to retrieve a name and face from the buzz clouding her mind. ‘Angela!’ she silently exclaimed as an image of the woman suddenly conjured itself up out of nowhere; at last shaking the remaining darkness from her thoughts. ‘Angela-Fucking-Doyle… the bitch clocked me one!’

  ‘No, this cow needs to be taught a lesson first,’ came a second female voice, a voice dripping in spite and so recognisable that Fran had no doubt it was Wendy. ‘We’ll deal with her later...’

  ‘But Wendy, dear, I really think we…’ started Angela again, the accompanying sound of two sets of receding footsteps telling Fran the pair were indeed leaving her.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Mum!’ snapped Wendy, cutting off her mother’s concerns. ‘I said we’ll deal with her later. Just leave it, okay… and anyway,’ she continued, the sound of a door opening just audible as she spoke, ‘we wouldn’t want her to miss out on a little catch up with her friends, now would we.’

  And then with the slam of a door closing and the scrape of a bolt sliding into place, Fran was alone.

  Opening her eyes, Fran was met
with nothing but darkness.

  ‘Great,’ she thought, slowly pushing herself up from the cold floor; the shower of stars across her vision a sign her body wasn’t ready to move just yet. ‘Ouch… Jesus!’ she gasped, clutching her forehead as if she could calm her pounding head simply by holding it steady in one place.

  With the hammering inside her skull slowly fading, Fran carefully manoeuvred herself into a sitting position and then took stock of her situation.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered, patting her calf to find her hunting knife missing. ‘Okay,’ she continued, realising escape was going to be harder than she’d hoped, ‘so a way out… there has to be a way out.’

  ‘Windows,’ she thought to herself, noticing that although it was almost pitch black in the room there was in fact the dimmest glow of moonlight filtering through a set of soot covered horizontal windows set high on the wall to her right. ‘Too small to get through…’ she noted, gingerly shifting position so that she was now resting on her knees. ‘But I can at least get some more light in here… see what I’m dealing with,’ she continued, slowly waving her hands in front of her; searching the darkness.

  ‘Ah!’ she whispered, her right hand suddenly connecting with something solid next to her.

  With her fingers running briefly across the surface, Fran guessed she had found some sort of sideboard or table resting against the wall and after giving it a tentative shove, she could tell it was sturdy enough to hold her weight.

  ‘And now… comes the hard part,’ she muttered, bracing herself for movement as she slowly turned her body to one side. ‘Right… one… two…’ she continued, using the piece of furniture to cautiously pull herself to her feet, fearful of the stars already pricking at the corners of her vision. ‘Three,’ she finally grunted, steadying herself with both hands on the table top as she finally pulled herself upright.

  Breathing deeply, Fran willed away the pain shooting through her head and once it had subsided to a manageable but still agonizing throb, she turned and carefully slipped her hips and then her bottom up onto the table top. Then, with her head only adding a minor tidal wave of throbbing in protest to the movement, Fran slowly lifted first one leg and then the other up onto the table until she was once again sat in a sitting position.

  ‘Okay,’ she mumbled, her hand tentatively reaching out for the wall beside her; a small sigh of relief escaping her lips as she found a stack of shelves creeping up the wall, ‘now I just have to do it all again.’

  After giving the first shelf a bit of a jiggle to test its stability, she disappointingly realised it was just a loose board on some brackets. So, with only her fingertips resting against it merely to help with her wavering balance, she repeated the process to get herself back to her feet; one slow and cautious step at a time.

  ‘Right,’ she whispered to herself, finally reaching up to wipe the grime from the pane of glass with the cuff of her sleeve, ‘let’s see what we’ve got here.’

  Moving her hand from one side to the other, the soot thick and greasy beneath her touch, Fran began to clear part of the window as best she could; grateful for any light she could shed on her surroundings.

  ‘Well, that explains the smell,’ she thought, looking round, just about make out the warren of high shelves within the shadowy room, each piled with an array of plucked or skinned animal carcasses. ‘They’ve dumped me in the smokehouse,’ she muttered aloud, turning back to clear a bit more of the sooty glass.

  She was just reaching for the window again when she stopped, sure that she had heard something; some soft sound or movement coming from somewhere deep in the dark room. Tilting her head to one side, straining her ears, she scanned the deep shadows for any movement.

  ‘Perhaps it was a mouse or something?’ she started to think, just as she heard it again; only this time it was louder and more defined. ‘No… no, not a mouse,’ she thought changing her mind as she slowly bobbed down into a crouch, ‘that was more like the scrape of someone’s boot against concrete.’

  Despite her throbbing head, Fran knew whatever was in the dark room with her she needed to find a weapon of some sort to defend herself. So with still only a minimal amount of moonlight spilling through the narrow window above her to illuminate her way, she silently lowered herself off the table and back down onto the floor. For a moment she paused, listening for the sound again but this time only her breathing and the thumping of her heart seemed to dare to break the bleak silence of the dark smokehouse.

  ‘One of those could be handy,’ she thought to herself, glancing up at the suspended body of a skinned deer hanging deep in the shadows; a sharp butcher’s hook through its neck a definite possibility. ‘Doubt I could get the thing down without making any noise though.’

  Dismissing the hook for the moment, Fran edged her way round two blackened shopping trolleys, each laden with partly charred wood and slowly felt her way past a shelf of plucked birds that had been skewered in rows on sharpened thin metal rods.

  ‘Hmm… perhaps?’ she thought, contemplating the slender spikes before noticing the blocky shape of a waist height trolley on wheels a few steps away; the bar on its side with the four ‘s’ shaped butcher’s hooks hanging from it offering up a much better option. ‘Yes!’ she muttered, reaching for them one by one.

  She was just hooking two of them through the belt loops on the back of her trousers when the scraping noise reached her again; this time accompanied by a muffled grunt.

  ‘Right,’ she thought, feeling more confident now that she had something to defend herself with, ‘let’s see just what that is… and then find a way out of here.’

  Slowly Fran edged her way past one shelving unit after another, each of them stacked with bird and rabbit corpses laid out in neat little rows. With her limited light source fading behind her with each step, she hoped she wouldn’t need to venture too much further into the long dark room before encountering whatever had made the noise and then as she paused at the end of a row of shelves, tentatively peering into the shadows beyond it, she was given just what she’d wished for.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped, immediately remembering Wendy’s comment about a reunion with friends as she saw the two slumped figures, blindfolded and tied back to back, sat on the floor in front of her. ‘Sam… Mike!’ she called, immediately rushing forward.

  Yet even as she fell to her knees, her hand reaching out to the young woman, Fran somehow knew something was wrong. The way Sam slowly raised her head up from her chest, tilting it back and forth as if trying to locate the source of her voice, the way her fingers clawed desperately at the concrete by her side, straining to be free of the bonds tying her to her husband and then of course there was the dark stain down her front; a stain so deep and ominous that it could have only been blood. For Sam and Mike were no more. With the slash of a blade and the flow of hot blood their lives had been cruelly taken, transforming them into the Dead; rotting shells empty and devoid of true life.

  ‘Oh, no… Sam,’ Fran whispered forlornly, drawing back her outstretched hand, her eyes locked on the deep ragged wound across the young woman’s neck; watching it gape with each movement of the unfortunate corpse’s head and jaw. ‘That fucking bitch!’ Fran continued, shaking her head as her fingers rubbed angrily against the cool metal of the ‘s’ shaped hook in her hand. ‘That fucking, evil bitch…’

  It was the total pointlessness of the young couple’s death that hit Fran the hardest. In a world where the odds were already so far stacked against the living; to meet such a needless death at the hands of a spoilt child was beyond acceptance.

  ‘They don’t normally stay,’ Wendy’s words from earlier in the Dome suddenly drifted back to her, bringing with them new and terrifying questions.

  ‘Jesus… how many more has she killed?’ Fran muttered aloud, the very sound of her voice agitating the two corpses in front of her. ‘She’s insane, she’s out of her mind… she must be… someone’s got stand up to her, got to stop her… she needs to be stopped.�
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  But even as she said the words, Fran knew any action had come far too late for Sam and Mike. They had crossed the teenager and fallen fowl of her sick mind. They had had something she wanted and to Wendy that simply made them an inconvenience, a problem to be dealt with however she chose. The young couple, guilty of nothing but the crime of merely existing, had become an obstacle standing in the way between Wendy and what she wanted; and clearly that thing she wanted had been Poppy.

  Grateful that the blindfold at least spared her the sight of the young woman’s eyes, eyes that she knew death had transformed into terrible orbs burning with an unquenchable huger; Fran slowly pushed herself to her feet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, wiping away an angry tear with the back of hand; the two cadavers continuing to strain against their bonds as she spoke, ‘I’m so sorry… you… you didn’t deserve this, either of you… But I’ll make her pay, I’ll make it right, I promise… and don’t worry, I’ll get Poppy back,’ she added, stepping closer to the writhing cadavers, ‘get her away from that psycho bitch… and I’ll look after her, find her somewhere safe, somewhere away from this madness… no matter what it takes… I promise, I’ll get her back and I’ll keep her safe.’

  With that, Fran stepped round the two corpses to stand alongside them. Then, with her hand shaking slightly, she reached out to the thing that had once been Mike and took the top of its head firmly in her grasp. After a deep breath to steady herself, Fran then sharply pushed the head forward; forcing the chin down onto its blood-caked chest but more importantly at the same time exposing the relatively thin section of the skull at the top of the neck.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, just as she struck down with the butcher’s hook, lodging it deep in the back of the Dead man’s skull with a sickening ‘crack’.

  With little more than a brief spasm shooting though the cadaver as the spike ripped through the delicate brain tissue, Mike’s body was finally laid to rest. Then, despite knowing that what had made Mike, his personality, hopes and dreams, had fled with his last heartbeat, Fran withdrew the hook with as much care as she could; doing her best to ignore the wet sucking sound as she did so.