Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(25)

The man still holding me pushed me forward, shoving me into the foul-smelling darkness. At first, I tried to resist but it was futile, and I was shoved hard onto the cold concrete floor. Quickly, I scanned the room, but saw nothing but the concrete stand and velvet blanket. But as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I found that it wasn’t a blanket at all. It was blood, thick and red, covering the stand.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered, turning back to the men, my eyes wide with horror as my brain struggled to process what was happening.

“It’s not our choice,” the heavyset man replied. “It’s the Lord’s.” And then he gazed up to the ceiling, making the sign of the cross in front of him.

“You’re telling me that the Lord asked you to kidnap three people off the street and kill them? The Lord wants you to murder three innocent people who have done nothing to you?”

“You’re not going to die,” the younger man said.

“I’m not?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“No, silly, you’re going home.” He smiled then, though it wasn’t a friendly smile, leading me to think he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.

“You’re speaking in riddles!” I yelled, fixing them both with as menacing a glare as I could muster, but it was wasted on them as they were both now smiling.

“Where are my friends?” I asked, feeling the slightest bit hopeful, though my voice had cracked on the last syllable. “Have you killed them? Please, just tell me.”

“We’re sending them home too,” the older man replied, his voice distant, his gaze suddenly far away. “They shall protect our flock from the wolves.”

Tears began to build behind my eyes. These people were insane; they were completely f*cking nuts. I had no idea what they had done to Leisel and Alex, no idea what they were going to do to me. My heart began to beat so incredibly fast that it felt as if my chest might explode from all the pressure. But I’d held it together for this long, managing to keep everything always bottled up and buried deep down inside me, that I refused to release it here, especially in front of these lunatics.

And then, just when I’d thought all was lost, a scream, piercing in its intensity and utterly familiar, cut sharply through the otherwise silent hall.

Leisel!

Jumping to my feet, I lunged through the doorway, blindly reaching for either man standing there. Punching, kicking, clawing, biting, I attacked them with everything I had left, drawing my strength from the sound of Leisel’s fear.





Chapter Eleven



Leisel

I couldn’t stop screaming. The smell was foul, vile, enough to make my eyes water and my stomach heave. Only I didn’t have time to lose my stomach contents. Not locked in this tiny room, lit by a lone candle on the floor, chained to a stone altar, my only companion a hungry infected.

I’d never been this close to an infected before, only Thomas and Shawn when they’d been newly turned. Shawn had quickly ended Thomas’s life, and when Shawn had awoken as an infected, it had been Evelyn who’d taken his.

Although I’d seen other infected through the years, it had always been from afar. Even our encounters most recently, I hadn’t been up close and personal with them, not like Evelyn or Alex had. I’d always been shielded by something, by someone.

Not anymore.

My head was still pounding from the blow I’d suffered, and the shackles around my wrists were cutting into my skin, chafing and tearing it. But I continued pulling on them, my adrenaline overshadowing my pain as I ran in circles around this bloodied stone altar. I had only myself to protect me now. No one was coming to save me, and there was no time to break down, to freak out and give up. Not unless I wanted a very painful and awful death.

The infected was desperate to take a chunk out of me. It shambled mindlessly after me, its arms outstretched, its maw strained wide open, exposing rotten, jagged teeth. Even worse, this was not a newly turned. From what I could tell in the flickering shadows, this looked to be a first-or second-wave infected. What had once been skin, smooth and plump and flush with life, was now sunken and shriveled by age and decay, giving the thing an overall brown and leathery appearance. It was utterly hairless, its cloudy eyes were sunken in, and what little muscle mass remained wasn’t enough to shield the infected’s bones from protruding from its skin. Since it was utterly devoid of any body hair, I couldn’t even begin to determine what sex it was.

First-wave infected were rarely seen anymore, most of them having been killed or no longer able to get around as easily as in the early days after years of decomposition had taken its toll on their bodies.

However, this particular one had been well cared for. No exposure to the elements to quicken the decaying process, no human attacks had left it missing limbs or with gaping bullet holes. Sure, it smelled something awful, like meat that had been left in a freezer long after the electricity had gone out, but at the same time it had been routinely cleaned, clothed…and fed.

This infected, as hard to believe as this was for my fear-addled brain, had been loved. Was loved. And I’d been so lovingly given to it for dinner. But I wasn’t going to be an easy meal. Whereas fear might have paralyzed me in the past, in this tiny room it had become my motivation.

With the stone altar the only thing keeping the creature from easily getting to me, I ran left, then right, then left again, or sometimes in a complete circle, as it slowly but surely continued to come at me. It was a tireless creature, uncaring about the energy it expended, whereas I was the opposite. I was cold, exhausted, my body not yet recovered from Lawrence’s final beating. I didn’t have Alex’s physical strength or Evelyn’s seemingly tireless stamina, and although I wasn’t out of shape, I certainly wasn’t in the best condition. Eventually I would tire or make a mistake, and then become fodder for the dead.