dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus Book 3) (17 page)

She heard wheels, she was sure of it. Squeaking and crunching. Her eyes were too heavy, too comfortable. Something was pulling at her arm, not biting, not hurting, just… touching it. Tricia ignored the desire to stay unconscious and willed her eyes to open.

She was back in a seated position, resting once more against the wall. A woman sat in a sports wheelchair, appraising her. She was blonde, very leanly muscled, like an athlete, and had a first aid kit laid out on the pathway. In spite of wearing only a form-fitting vest and sweatpants, she didn’t seem to mind the rain.

“You’re lucky I was home this morning, love,” she said. “You’re also fortunate that that wound isn’t a bite.” The woman glanced at her billy-club.

Tricia looked down at her injured forearm. It had been cleaned and dressed, very neatly, and was no longer bleeding.

“Thank you,” she said, finding her voice still weak from screaming it raw weeks before. When she spoke it felt that something had shifted in her vocal cords, or torn.

The woman gave a little bow of her head.
 
“S’fine. What brings you here, love? The hospital?”

Tricia nodded.

“It’s back down that way,” the lady said, nodding in the direction Tricia had come from. “You walked right past it.” Humour danced in her eyes.

She offered a strong arm to Tricia.

“Let’s get you up and inside. Biters are on the move.”

Hauling Tricia to her feet, the woman steadied her for a moment.

“All right, love?” she asked.

Tricia felt the ground begin to tilt. Holding onto the woman’s arm, she righted herself, blinking hard to focus on something that wasn’t moving. Eventually the world stopped tilting.

“Is that okay?” she asked. “If I come in?”

The woman in the wheelchair laughed. “I think I’ll manage if you turn out to be a nutter, love? C’mon.”

Tricia pushed a hand out. “I’m Tricia Stevenson.”

The woman smiled warmly once again, taking Tricia’s hand in a firm grip.

“Suzanne Dalgliesh.” She jutted her chin at the bungalow. “Come away in, love.”

Ten Years Later

Bracha

Part Two

Chapter 1

“Any change?” I ask.

I know the answer already, but I’ve asked the same question at least once every day for the past ten years and it has become a part of our little routine. James doesn’t bother to look up from his book, but shakes his head.

“Any food?” he asks.

I throw two rabbits onto the table he’s resting his book on, followed by a carrier-bag full of potatoes, onions and wild garlic I scavenged from a nearby farm.

James pokes around in the bag and gives the rabbit carcasses a suspicious sniff.

“These fresh?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. “Killed them a few hours ago but they’ll need cooked straight away. The heat’s a killer out there.”

James folds a page to keep his place, pushes his chair back from the desk and traipses through, food in his arms, to prepare a fire in our cooking area.

I remove a layer of clothes and throw my backpack into the corner after pulling a leather-bound book from it, which I tuck under my arm.

His
door has been opened today, most likely for him to take a run or spar with James. Those are pretty much the only reasons he leaves his room anymore. Aside from hunting The Ringed. The door is closed now. From a lifetime’s habit, I consider knocking, but there’s little point. He won’t reply.

I shove through the door into his room, a former quiet reading area of Morningside Library, where we’ve been living for the past three years. He looks up and offers a gentle nod. This is probably the first time he’s looked at me in around six months, outside of sparring sessions.

 
I lay the book face-up on the table beside his makeshift cot.

“Another Greek mythology volume,” I tell him.

He gives me another fraction of a nod. I resist the urge to thank him for his time and leave, swallowing my anger.

Since leaving Holyrood Palace on Hogmanay, 2015, James and I, with our red-haired charge compliantly following along, have criss-crossed the city, testing perimeter fences and assisting the developing communities where and when we can. The speed at which the city was quarantined and the permanent barriers erected along the path of the former city-bypass was astonishing. By the time Spike had emerged from his catatonic state and we’d left Holyrood, the city was completely sealed and its survivors left to their own devices. Six months: that was all it took to completely isolate a whole city.

Clearly the government had felt that containment was their only recourse and had mobilised an unprecedented number of servicemen and women to build the structure, looping around the entire city. Even in our isolation, tending to an unresponsive Spike, the brutality of this action was a stab to the heart. No rescue was coming. No rescue would ever come.

They key to surviving in those first three years or so – aside from avoiding or dispatching The Ringed, as we now called them – lay in accepting that we were abandoned, that the confines of the massive fences stretching around Scotland’s capital were our entire universe for the foreseeable future. James and I slowly became used to this new life. Spike could be anywhere and it wouldn’t have made a difference to him.

Since dispatching the walking corpse that had formerly been his brother, Spike had fallen into a psychological hole that seemed so deep in his submissive but disengaged state, we held out little hope of ever bringing him back. After six months of silence from him, during which he mechanically ate and occasionally walked around the grounds of Holyrood Palace which James and I had cleared of The Ringed, Spike eventually began to engage with the world around him, but only to a limited, muted degree.

He continued to eat but resumed his lifelong, punishing exercise regime. He ran, performed combat sequence drills, sparred with us, and helped in clearing The Ringed or defending us when we travelled from place to place. He did not speak during these activities. He communicated during combat with our unit’s hand signals, but that was the extent of his direct interaction with us. He hadn’t spoken a single syllable for over ten years.

What he did do, every single day since, was hunt The Ringed. Mercilessly. With needless brutality he hunted the creatures several hours each day. He didn’t seem to care if they were a threat or not, their mere existence was reason enough to engage them in the most vicious manner. On the surface, he seemed determined to punish them. Every one of them, but that simply wasn’t the real motivation for his crusade against them.

He was practicing.

He was killing in so many new ways. With a seemingly never-ending parade of The Ringed at his disposal, Spike had developed increasingly creative methods of dispatching them. More worryingly, he never went for the head shot – the kill shot – straight away, but would stab and strike at nerve clusters, ligaments, tendons, testing their effect on the organism.

James was unconcerned and actually encouraged by Spike’s focus and determination in improving his abilities. To my mind, the shell of the man who had been my best friend for half my life was merely training to hunt humans.

Passing James in the kitchen, I storm through the main door and out into the street. I feel like kicking something but the only thing around, aside from a few Ringed shambling towards me in response to the racket I’ve made, is a red post-box. I cut a look along the street to the group of Ringed who’ve begun to make their way along the street towards me. Three women and a boy, and old from the looks of them. They’re rotted and moving in that disjointed manner those in advanced decomposition stages do. They look to be almost at the point where the rotting seems to slow, even stop. None of the doctors we’ve met these last few years have been able to explain one damn thing of any use about the infection.

I watch the kid as the group scrape their rotted feet along the concrete. He’s probably sixteen or seventeen. Dressed in the rags of a football top and denims, his skin is tattered either from the weather or decay. He’s missing an eye. His remaining one, milky and grey, hangs slightly loose from the rotted socket around it. His jaws are working, his green mouldering teeth already chewing at the air, in anticipation of a meal.

My mind flits back to school and then to basic training. Meeting Harry and James. Training together, fighting, bleeding, crying and struggling to survive. Laughing. We did a lot of laughing. He… Harry… was a daft bugger at times, despite his skills and his deadly mindset. I miss laughing with them. All we do is survive. We have no life anymore, or him. He won’t even answer to his name. It’s becoming more difficult with each passing day to see a single part of my friend in the man’s face anymore. All he does is exercise, read and brutalise these poor creatures.

The kid in the football top is a few paces from me. I don’t want to silence him or his companions, but if I don’t their scraping and moaning will most likely bring more to our door. With no rush of adrenaline, I robotically evade and end each of them before returning indoors.

Chapter 2

James turned his face to the right and accepted the gentle burn of the sunlight against his skin. He’d always enjoyed being invigorated by strong, warm sunshine, and never more so than now when there was so little in their daily lives to bring any joy.

Out of habit he glanced at Cammy, hoping to see the same enjoyment, but his friend’s face was set and grim. Cameron rarely smiled anymore. James didn’t bother checking Harry’s face. It had been a blank slate since Holyrood Palace ten years previously. Harry followed along behind the others, golf club twirling and glinting in the sunlight as he moved. With his red hair grown out and lightened by age and the outdoor life, and a bushy beard covering most of his face, the now very lean Harry was almost unrecognisable in appearance or in personality.

The three men survived and worked together to ensure each other’s safety, but this was the limits, the remnants of their formerly close bond. The absence of the once-ubiquitous banter and levity pained Cameron, and James knew this. Harry seemed unaffected. For now, it was enough for James that he was out in the sunshine with his friends, and relatively safe for the time being. Little pleasures mattered a lot these days.

Headed out to Liberton, they hoped that walking a little further afield from their usual perimeter of a mile or so might bring a few badly needed items their way. Cars were useless now, their fuel long since run dry or their bodywork decayed. They sought weapons, candles, duct tape, cotton balls and Vaseline for burning, soap, toothpaste, perhaps some new boots, and a dozen or so other items that made daily life a little easier.

 
There were plenty of residences nearby and although most would have been ransacked by some of the fenced communities that had begun to establish themselves in the area, experience had taught them that tinned food and fuel had been the most sought-after items in the early years. Now, with all these items spoiled, the hard-wearing, more practical objects left behind were more in demand.

Inwardly, James hoped that the team’s long journey together might assist in healing the rift between them. Harry in particular had closed himself off from his friends for so long, James had forgotten what the man’s voice sounded like or how his face had conveyed anything other than blank disinterest or aggression.

After searching a dozen houses, the team sat amongst the overgrown grass and atop the odd toppled gravestone in Liberton cemetery. Fenced and walled-off around its perimeter, it was a relatively safe location for a short assessment of their haul. Cameron spread a light, plastic tarp out on the ground and the three men began decanting the items each had scavenged onto the clean area.

Knives, a hammer, two screwdrivers, some duct tape, bandages, antiseptic and some bleach were amongst the items they arranged and distributed between their backpacks without speaking. Harry strolled off with his share, without an upwards glance. Resting his back against a black marble stone he looked out into the cemetery, away from his comrades, and tore at some dried meat.

James sighed and gave a covert signal to Cameron.
Go talk to him.
Cameron shook his head and busied himself with sharpening a blade. The deliberate scraping of the blade along the wet-stone did little to ease James’ tension.

A scrape from the gate, the only entrance to the cemetery, brought the three men to their feet and into a formation that gave visibility to each part of the overgrown enclosure. Each of them had at least one weapon in hand and another close on standby by the time they reached full standing position.

James, facing the gates, said quietly, “Nothing yet.”

“Clear,” Cameron said.

Harry nodded once sharply that his section was clear.

A man strolled through the rusted iron gates and took a few steps into the thick, high grass. He was young, perhaps twenty-five years old, and very tall – closer to seven feet than six and dressed entirely in black. His ebony hair was tied in a tight bun atop his head. The young man exuded tightly controlled violence as he moved his lidless eyes over each of them.

James hid the revulsion he felt at the man’s appearance as he scanned his face, taking in the black raven tattoos that covered most of the visible skin and the raw-looking ragged wounds where his upper and lower eyelids had been removed. Tightening his grip on his blade, James repositioned his feet by a minute amount. Sensing the change, Cameron turned to face the young man in black, followed by Harry.

“Christ sake,” Cammy cursed quietly from the corner of his mouth, “another bloody nutter.”

James felt a prickle of foreboding move along his neckline. Cameron stepped forward, pointing with the tip of his blade at the gate behind the man.

“On your way, son,” he shouted across the cemetery.

The man smiled. Not a playful smile but a predatory grin and slipped through the gates, back-stepping so as to keep his eyes fixed on the three friends.

“Arsehole,” Cammy said, shaking his head.

James nudged him with his right elbow, bringing him back to the moment as a group of men and women, also dressed in black – some tattooed, all armed – rushed through the gates and sprinted towards them.

Cameron and James tightened up their formation, expecting to feel Harry push into their back from his position. Instead, their team-mate slipped past them, a slash of metal in each hand flowing towards the group of assailants, mere feet from them now.

A jubilant yell broke from him as he cut a path through the first of the group he reached.

“Wonderful of you to visit,” he whooped and began greeting each of them in turn as he stabbed, slashed and gouged his way through their ranks.

“Good to meet you. Hello, my friend. Love the jacket…”

 
It was the first time Harry had spoken in a decade. Each sentence was punctuated by a wound or a death. The joviality he drivelled as he butchered the ranks of living bodies was simply horrific. His voice was a whisper, only just audible above the slicing of flesh and splashing of arterial blood.

James took the time to share a moment of startled bewilderment with Cameron, before both men joined the now cackling wildman who’d brutally killed ten of their attackers in as many seconds.

Joining the melee, James and Cameron adjusted quickly to fighting as a pair rather than a trio. They didn’t have much choice: Harry was busily taking apart two men in the most macabre fashion. Certainly any sense of duty he felt to cover his friends’ backs was of lesser importance than carving as many pieces from the men he was fighting.

His laughing had become one long screeching cackle that filled the air and chilled James’ bones. Whoever the man fighting beside them was, his brutality and selfishness in battle made him a stranger to his friends.

When it was done and the men and women who had attacked them were dead or had run back through the gates, James felt hot tears burn a streak of salty cleanliness through the grime on his face.

James fell to his knees, oblivious to the puddle of blood in which his knees disappeared, and yelled at the red-haired maniac who was removing the scalp of one of the dead women.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Harry?”

Harry ignored him and finished his surgery, before standing to turn to James. He smiled down at James congenially.

“Why dear boy, I’m simply indulging myself… venting a little, one might say,” he said, casually twirling the scalp and hair on his index finger. “Perfectly healthy outlet,” he grinned.

James vomited into the pool of blood beneath him. It wasn’t the brutality of Harry’s actions that sickened him. Nor did the lack of care the formerly reliable teammate paid to his friends especially bother James. It was that he stood there, red hair matted to his face with blood, hands caked in human gore, so thoroughly exhilarated. So very pleased with himself.

James felt Cameron hook a hand under his armpit and help him to his feet. Both of them glared at Harry venomously. Harry tucked the woman’s scalp into his rucksack and rested his rear on top of a gravestone. Picking at his fingernails with the stiletto blade he said,
“This is the world now, and it’s a damn sight more interesting than the one we’ve waded through all these years,” he said. “I’ve rested long enough.”

James’ spirit sagged, but he could sense Cameron’s anger growing beside him.

Cameron stepped forward a stride. Before either he or James could react, Harry had rushed them. A brutal front kick to James’ chest sent him sprawling backwards. He skidded a full metre into the dry grass. By the time he was back on his feet, James found Harry with his stiletto blade under Cameron’s chin. Cameron stood tall, glaring down his nose at their manic teammate.

“I suggest that you mind your place, Cameron,” he whispered, slowly prodding the tip of his blade into the soft flesh under Cameron’s jaw bone. Harry spared a glance at James. “My goodness, look at the fun we are having already, Jimmy.”

Removing his blade with a flicking cut as it left the skin, Harry’s eyes danced with merriment as he stepped back from Cameron. Tucking his blade away he lifted his eyebrows, in a
your move
gesture.

James placed his hands, palms up, at his waist.

“Harry…”

“No!” the fledgling maniac interrupted. “I told you before… Harry’s gone.” He fought back rising laughter, not wanting to lose himself in the amusement of who he’d been. The ridiculousness of his former life.

 
He performed a grotesquely mocking little bow as though presenting himself.

“You may call me Bracha.”