A House Divided: Book 3 of The Of Sudden Origin Saga Read online

  The three bodies crashed to the floor, Dean able to throw the female Fiend off, her head briefly exposed as she shrieked. The shriek was instantly cut off as Nikki’s club connected with the infected thing’s mouth, snapping its head back at a grotesque and final angle.

  Fierce pounding on the planks that covered the windows on either side of the front door was mixed with tools inserted past the planks, smashing the window glass inward. The screech of nails being pried out of wood was followed by sudden gaps in the barrier as planks were heaved aside.

  One of the fishermen, Hap, ran to the breach, jamming his pike into a body beyond. The howling creature was pushed aside by one of its mates who shoved its head through the disintegrating window without the slightest concern for itself. The big bearded thing grabbed Hap’s pike and yanked, getting a hand on the fisherman’s shirt. Hap screamed for help as he was violently pulled to the hole in the window, his shoulders and arms tearing along jagged glass until more hands yanked him outside. Jubilant Fiends set upon him in a hacking, chopping, biting pack.

  Nikki, now at the window, swung at the next intruder with all her might, smashing over and over while a war cry poured from her mouth. Dean shoved Jon at another window as it came under assault. More boards being ripped off. More glass breaking, Dean ignoring this as he ran back up the stairs.

  At the top, Billy came running out of the room. “Dad! George is bit.”

  Dean looked past his son, stowing the relief that the boy seemed OK, and scanned the windows for more.

  Inside the room, the air was filled with the smell of blood and shit. The shapes of the twins silhouetted against the window was accompanied by the wet sound of flesh being torn, a fist full of something raised in triumph. Hansel and Gretel’s thrill in the kill was being spread around the room and into the minds of the living. Dean had to yell at them in order to bust through the horror of their feasting.

  “Can you go out there and do something? Get into their heads instead of ours?”

  “We can, Stewart Dean,” said Hansel after chomping and swallowing a bloody chunk.

  Dean’s mind was filled with revulsion as he tasted what the pucks were chewing. “Then do it. And stay the hell out of my head!”

  As the twins wiped their bloody chins on the bedsheets and climbed out onto the porch roof, it occurred to Dean that the twins had never feasted on humans before. For that matter, neither had he.

  Eliza was on the bed trying to staunch the blood flow from Sanders’ hand with a torn sheet.

  “How bad?”

  Sanders grimaced. “Always expected to lose a finger or two on the job. But getting one bitten off…”

  Dean thought of massive infection. Not FNDz, Sanders having been inoculated, but old school, the kind that will kill without access to antibiotics. He said to Eliza, “Stay here with George and Billy.”

  Sanders heaved himself off the bed. “No. I’m good.”

  Hansel and Gretel leapt off the roof with ease, their overly large eyes gathering enough light to see exactly what was going on. The infected were assaulting three windows, the boards mostly pried away. The humans on the inside were screaming and swinging, stabbing and kicking to keep them out.

  This is fun.

  So much fun.

  Your face is a mess.

  Your’s too. You have a piece of skin stuck between your teeth.

  I know. I need a toothpick. Ready?

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  They stared at the movement before them, reaching out to everyone — healthy and infected alike — and quickly sorted out the insane.

  In an instant the Fiends outside turned on each other; biting, chopping and stabbing; turning the porch into a slaughterhouse of viscera, until a sole badly wounded male remained standing, panting and bleeding. It held a long gore-coated knife in both its hands. It cocked its head at the twins, as if asking, Really? With both arms bulging with the effort, it drove the blade up under its chin, through the roof of its mouth, and into its brain.

  Eliza cleaned Sanders’ mangled hand by the light of a single oil lamp using a bucket of strained seawater that Dean had carried up from the beach. With little concern that more Fiends lurked nearby, he had gone out over the dunes alone, convinced that if any remained within earshot, they would have come running during the battle.

  Sanders grimaced in mild despair as Eliza scrubbed the nub of the missing digit with a fresh washcloth. He felt no pain; Gretel applied a mental anesthesia, even managing to reduce his heart rate. Eliza stretched the remaining skin and used her best stitching technique to sew it over the nub with a needle and thread from a sewing kit they’d found in the laundry room. None of it would keep Sanders free from a bacterial infection. FNDz or not, a human bite was a massively dangerous thing. On top of everything else, they needed to get their hands on some antibiotics.

  In an attempt to distract Sanders, Jon pulled his hair back from his forehead, revealing the faint scar left by his own encounter with a hungry Fiend. “I know the feeling. Got bit back in the day.” He pointed his thumb at Nikki. “Was her anti-bodies that saved me.”

  Eliza paused in her stitching. “Wait. You’re that couple? The ones who were immune at the end?”

  Nikki was still standing at the sink, still scrubbing blood off her arms. “We were lab rats for a year.”

  “Wow. Well, you’ll be happy to know that your sacrifice paid off. I’m alive in part because of you guys.” Eliza waved to include Dean and Sanders. “We’ve all received a vaccine that was built on the work that started with you. It doesn’t kill the disease, but it sequesters it in the brain in such a way as to make it innocuous. That was another part of our news. We’ve proven that we aren’t capable of infecting others. We are a success story that the president needs to know about.”

  One of the fisherman, Ballentine, stepped on broken glass in the front room while cleaning up the scattered boards. He called down the hall, “Do we bother trying to put this stuff back up?”

  Williams, who was also covered in other men’s blood, nodded at the twins, “Seems these devils can keep them at bay better than any barrier.”

  Eliza said, “Please don’t say that. Do not refer to them that way.”

  “It was fun,” blurted Hansel from one of the front windows where he was keeping watch. Being called a devil seemed to give him no pause.

  Sanders said, “Impressive, that’s for sure. Maybe we head straight for the harbor after all.”

  Eliza kept her protective tone, “We’ve discussed this. We don’t know how many minds they can control at once. We are going with the goat diversion.”

  Nikki said, “I don’t think you give them enough credit. From what I saw out there… What these two can do… We could walk through town like we had a forcefield around us.”

  Gretel observed Nikki with the curiosity of a child who admired a strong or clever adult. She had washed the gore off her face and the wide plates of her sharp cheekbones were still ruddy. When she caught Nikki’s eye, she offered what she hoped was a friendly smile. The mouthful of sharp teeth had Nikki attempting a weak smile of her own.

  Jon said, “I gotta agree with Nik. Sure seems like these young… people, could protect us. I mean, Fiends don’t attack each other, not unless they’re really hungry and Gretel and her brother here had the fuc— Had them hacking each other to bits.”

  Williams, who had been quietly listening while leaning against the kitchen door, fished out a pill bottle from his satchel. He shook out a half dozen pills through a rotating top that kept each type of pill separate. “Poor Hap.” He slapped the pills in his mouth and swallowed them dry. “Terrible way to die.”

  Dean glanced at the ceiling thinking about Gallagher’s body still splayed out on a bed. He’d grown to respect the Shoreman. He felt the loss of the man deeply. Guilt washed over him for agreeing to let him leave the Bahamas with them. The man’s desire to act as an emissary from The Shore would be for naught.


  Dean watched Williams swallowing hard to finish getting the pills down. The others in the room were watching him as well. Dean said, “I assume you and your guys are using older stock on the meds. Meaning that the pills you just swallowed are not from the latest shipments.”

  Williams looked at his bottle before shoving it back into his satchel. “Some folks who’re takin’ new ones seemed fine last I saw.”

  Ballentine stepped into the room keeping his voice low. “Speaking of bad meds, your boys Page and Benson aren’t looking too good.” Nodding behind him, he said, “Sweatin’ it out in the parlor and whispering about keepin’ it a secret. I got Gin keeping an eye on ‘em. Oh, and Benson’s kinda losing it too, on account of not seeing his wife for a few days.”

  Williams said, “I’ll talk to them.”

  Sanders stood rubbing his wounded limb and put himself between Williams and the door. “Hold on a sec, son. We need to be of like minds here. We all know how this can go down.”

  Williams gave Sanders a cold look and said, “Step aside, George. You’ve no right.”

  “On that you’re wrong, lad.”

  Dean moved next to Sanders, adding his own bulk to blocking Williams. He kept his voice low but firm. “If those men are sick — you know the protocol — it’s one you swore to way back when you agreed to exile on this island.”

  Williams’ eyes narrowed. “I haven’t forgotten. Now step aside.”

  Dean and Sanders parted to let Williams head down the hall.

  Billy, who’d been made to sit separately in the mudroom said, “Dad, we should just go. Hansel and Gretel can get us to the Viento. Nikki and Jon here can vouch for us with the Navy. I’m sorry, Mister Ballentine, but you and your men are not going to be able to join us. Nobody can vouch for Halflies. I’m sorry.”

  Ballantine cocked his head at the boy, glanced at the others, but responded to Billy like the kid had authority. “You got an escape plan? We helped defend this place. You are obligated to help us in return.”

  Billy said, “We are obligated to do nothing. We offered you shelter, sir. Of course you helped defend us. You defended yourselves.”

  Ballantine looked hard at the boy, then nodded with an accepting grin. He turned to Dean who was taking in his son’s frankness with barely masked fatherly pride. Ballentine said, “You folks should head out the moment you can see more than twenty yards across the sand.”

  When it was light enough to leave, they did so quickly, not dwelling on the fishermen and their near certain future. Williams didn’t see them off, wouldn’t see them off. His men, Page and Benson were indeed exhibiting all the hallmarks of the raging fever. Williams was also showing signs, but ignoring it, focusing instead on the comfort of his men.

  Ballentine and Gin waved grimly while determinedly clutching their weapons.

  As his party walked away, Dean said, “Somebody’s gotta pay. An island full of good people. People that we proved could’ve been saved. Somebody’s gonna pay.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The 7th Circle

  Jarvis Pettybone led two mongrel dogs down to the barge used to tow lumber and firewood to the island. He marveled for the hundredth time that the North Americans made allowances for dogs and yet no other large animals. You couldn’t buy pork much less beef, because that kind of livestock ate too much precious food to offset their calorie value. You wanted to eat a steak, then you did it in a Virtu-restaurant. But, dogs. Somehow dogs were okay. The family friend was considered a security asset — despite crime having fallen to all time lows. People could commit all the crime they wanted, mostly without consequence in Virtu. Dogs were revered. They had been there for people way back when Omega had happened. The family friend had often been the difference between escape and being ripped limb from limb. As far as most were concerned, dogs had earned their right to remain among men.

  Bill Harvester, the foreman who oversaw the loading of the barge said, “Who you got here, Pettybone? Feeling lonely on your runs?”

  “Exactly right, Bill. Took the words right out of my mouth, you did.”

  Harvester ruffled the fur of the dogs as they twisted about his legs, sniffing his crotch and shoes. “Friendly boys you got here. Been thinking about gettin’ a working dog myself. They sell fishmeal dog food at my market. Supposedly so tasty some of the poor’r folks’r buying it up. Stuff’s cheap and they sell it by the case.”

  Jarvis smiled. He had only just picked up the dogs from a shelter the day before. The animals had been slated to be turned into dog food themselves.

  “What do you call them?” asked Harvester.

  Jarvis hadn’t even considered names. He felt his face flush with the sudden embarrassment of having not thought of such a simple thing. In an effort to delay, while his brain scrambled for an answer, he feigned deafness, “Hmm? What’s that?”

  “Their names. Whatcha call ‘em?”

  “Oh, uh. Salt and Pepper.” Both dogs had wiry white and black terrier hair.

  “That’s clever. I’m guessing this slightly whiter one is Salt?”

  Jarvis offered an indulgent smile and nodded. “Anything I need to know about the load?”

  “Nope. Just the lumber. A pallet of nails on there too. Annual load is all. But you know that.”

  The huge flat barge stacked with raw lumber was docked next to a loading crane. Jarvis led the dogs down past a couple of longshoremen who offered familiar nods, one offering the pooches a pair of pursed lips. The men had a routine that would require mostly hand signals to secure the barge to the tug. In a little over an hour Pettybone was once again on his way to Nantucket. It would be his last trip.

  As Dean led his group back to the rowboat, they scanned the dunes with deep apprehension. It was highly unlikely that any Fiends would be coming up from the barrens, but that didn’t stop each individual from dealing with pitted stomachs and pale faces. After the assault, they were running on adrenalin and little else. They counted on the pucks, and their extraordinary senses, for an added layer of security. Gretel was distracted by Sanders, who but for her mental attentions, would have been walking with disabling pain. It was left to Hansel to be alert.

  Nikki and Jon let themselves fall back a bit from the group. The morning air was too still for them to speak without risk of being heard. It wasn’t really about them needing to talk as much as it was an instinct for them to stay close to each other, watch each other’s back. Jon felt her hand reach out. He let her grasp his in a quick firm grip. They’d been through hell and back; defied incredible odds to survive; and here they were again. A shared look for some reassurance turned into a moment that spoke volumes; apologies; regret; a space that had held strong love, and which even now wasn’t completely empty. Nikki’s face was dirty and her hair a mess. Jon figured he looked twice as bad. Gray had crept into his beard, and he knew the lack of a shave gave him a bit of a vagrant look. He’d run a wet finger across his teeth before they left, but he could still feel the grime that was building up.

  Walking was a chore. The sand was dew damp and collected in clumps on their shoes. A glance at the other travelers revealed that they were all having the same issue — all but the pucks, who walked without shoes on their oddly shaped and sturdy feet. The pucks dealt with the clumpy sand as though it wasn’t an issue at all.

  As they dragged the rowboat into the frigid sea, the sand was quickly forgotten; the frigid water soaking their legs to their thighs.

  The eight people squeezed into the vessel, which was built to only comfortably hold five. Billy and Eliza were small but their size was completely offset by Hansel and Gretel who were over six feet tall, Hansel pushing six-six, the two of them well over four hundred pounds together.

  Having maneuvered the boat past the gentle waves and into deeper water, they carefully lowered themselves in and held their breath as the water-line crept up to the rim. If the surf grew any higher, they would be swamped.

  Sanders had insisted on pulling an oar. “With the lass here making m
y hand numb, I could row all day.” He and Dean each grabbed an oar, and though cramped, they expertly got the boat moving.

  No one spoke after that; their instincts telling them to keep their mouths shut, even on the water. After a little while, with the only sound being oars dipping and waves lapping, Sanders whispered, “Feels bad leaving Gallagher back there. Good fella, Tim. Got used to having him around.”

  “We all did,” said Eliza.

  Nikki whispered with irritation, “Sorry, but can we talk about our plan — assuming we make it to this boat?”

  Eliza gave Nikki an admonishing look.

  Nikki softened her tone. “Forgive me. I’m a practical bitch who’s seen a lot of people die because they were distracted by sentimentality. Survive first, mourn later.”

  Dean said, “Assuming we make it to the Viento, unless some breeze comes up, we won’t be going anywhere. She’s got a diesel, but her tanks are empty, and the island hasn’t had petro-fuel in years.”

  Sanders said, “There’s the whale oil depository. Her engine will burn that. For a while.”

  Hansel held up a hand. “Several infected persons are coming.” He pointed at the shore to their left.

  The rowers lost coordination, as the sound of heavy breathing and feet pounding on sand filled the air. Ten or more mad creatures charged screaming over the dunes. The inland waterway was shallow here. The Fiends barely slowed as they came crashing onward. Dean and Sanders tried angling away, but it wasn’t going to stop the Fiends from getting to them. Dean said, “Um, Hansel? Kid’s? You got this?”

  “Patience, Stewart Dean,” said Hansel, holding up a hand and staring at the mob.

  When all of the infected men and women were in the water, they suddenly came to a resistant stop. They struggled as though caught in some kind of glue. They howled and screamed but were suddenly silenced. Hansel chuckled and gave his sister a gentle shove.