Page 14 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

August

If I had to make a list of things I didn’t want to do shortly after coming off my bike and suffering a head injury, taking on a horde of biters would come at the top.

Unfortunately, they had zero interest in how my day was going and were more concerned with making theirs better by finding out how I tasted.

It was an understatement to say our objectives didn’t align.

I saw Keaton take down the first one with a well-aimed shot to the head before our paths diverged to leave us both with two biters in tow. At least he couldn’t claim that I didn’t share. His were both males, mine a male and a female.

I’d faced worse odds. A swing up to a tree branch, my legs locked around it to put me high above the ground, had me in the perfect place to let them catch up with no danger of them getting the upper hand.

“Ladies first,” I said as the female biter reached me. My axe came down in the same breath, splitting her skull with a jolt that shuddered all the way up my arm. She hung for a moment on the blade, the weight threatening the branch, before I shook her free and watched her crumple among the leaves.

The second biter came to a stop a few feet away, enough intelligence remaining behind his dull eyes for him to know if he stepped forward, he’d meet the same fate.

It swayed from side to side in that inhuman way most of the biters did.

“Come on, don’t be shy,” I taunted. “I have an axe desperate to make your acquaintance.”

I had no idea whether they still understood language, or whether when the virus took over their brains, it did away with comprehension along with their ability to speak. Sometimes they seemed to understand. Most of the time, instinct was all that remained. Find. Run. Catch. Eat.

The biter snarled, frustrated. Life sucked when prey refused to volunteer itself. “Don’t be like that,” I told it. “You’re stronger and bitier. I had to level the playing field somehow.”

My arms were tiring. I couldn’t hang there forever, and the tree wasn’t one I could climb to get higher. And even if I did, it would leave me stuck up there. “Fine,” I said. “One on one, it is. Coming ready or not.”

I dropped, and the biter lurched into motion. I was there ready with the axe, my weapon of choice a deliberate one for its lack of weight. What it lacked in heft, it more than made up for in speed.

The biter moved at the last second, the blade sinking into its neck. One clawed hand came up to swipe at me, and I danced backwards out of reach, my axe coming free with the movement. “You’re starting to piss me off now.”

Its snarl said the feeling was mutual. I backed off a few steps to regroup, taking care not to fall prey to any tree roots. It kept coming, blood streaming from its shoulder where my axe had gouged a chunk of flesh out. “You’re never going to get that shirt clean.”

Another swipe. Another hop back.

“You see, the thing is,” I said conversationally, “that I’ve been taking your lot on since I took my first steps. And today is not the day when I’m going to come off worse. I promised someone they’d see me again, and I’m not breaking that promise.”

The biter lunged as I’d known it would, patience being one of the first things to go in their virus-addled brains.

Its eyes were on my right hand, enough self-preservation remaining to know the axe was what it needed to avoid.

I moved it in a slow circle, making the light catch the blade, making it glint, keeping the biter’s eyes focused on it.

Then with my left hand, I brought my dagger up and sank it into its eye. The bellow of outrage, shock, pain—did they feel pain anymore?—came to a premature end as I followed up with the axe, the move a carbon copy of the one I’d used on the female biter.

This time, the axe was embedded too deeply, and I had no option but to let go as he dropped if I didn’t want my arm wrenched out of its socket.

I had to plant a boot on its skull to wrench it free.

My head throbbed as I cleaned the axe on the grass.

Yeah, crashing a motorbike and then killing biters. One star. Not recommended.

The forest was eerily silent as I straightened. “Keaton?” He couldn’t have gone far. The entire altercation with the two biters had taken what? Five minutes? Six at most.

A faint sound came from behind. Sounds of a struggle. I sprinted in that direction. Keaton was on the ground, one dead biter draped across his chest, and another a few scant inches away from sinking its teeth into his throat.

I charged at them, the force of my axe in the back of the biter’s head, pushing it closer to Keaton. It didn’t matter. Not when it was already dead and wouldn’t be biting anyone again. I kicked it off him, losing its weight enabling Keaton to roll out from under the other one.

His breath came in pants, like he couldn’t remember how to get enough oxygen in his lungs. When I held out my hand, he took it, letting me haul him to his feet.

Retrieving both his crossbow and the bolts from the dead biter took Keaton a while. Recognizing it for a tactic to recover his composure, I stayed silent, leaning back against a tree and filling my lungs with the damp and earthy scent of the forest.

Keaton still faced away when he eventually spoke. “All you had to do was hesitate for a few more seconds.”

His words made no sense. “Huh?”

He turned, confusion etched deep. “A few more seconds and I would have had it. At which point, you would have been free of me, and you could have just taken the ring and gone on your merry way. Why didn’t you do that? Why save me?”

Because I’m not a killer. I executed the most casual of casual shrugs. “I hit my head, remember? I’m not thinking clearly.”

Keaton’s gaze burned into me. It went on for long enough that heat crawled beneath my skin, and I jerked my gaze away.

I gestured toward the road. “Come on. There’s only a couple of hours of daylight left.

We need to find shelter. If we’re out after dark, then neither of us is likely to see morning.

” I started walking without looking back to check he was following.

Shelter turned out to be a ramshackle cottage that, by the looks of it, hadn’t been lived in for years.

Not by anything fully human, anyway. Upstairs was out of bounds, courtesy of stairs that had long since rotted to leave them a potential deathtrap.

A tree had forced its way through the kitchen window, its branches growing crooked as it adapted to the confines of the room.

That left the living room as the only viable room for sleeping in. There was no glass in the windows, but someone had boarded them up, the job mostly holding during the years that had followed, except for one loose board at the bottom. We dealt with that by pulling a dusty sofa across to block it.

The room had a fireplace, which was a bonus.

Although the sight of it had me shaking my head—metaphorically, not physically, any sharp movement increasing the dull but persistent throb—at my lack of foresight.

It wasn’t like me; the head injury had a lot to answer for.

“We got water from the river, but we didn’t collect any firewood.

Without firewood, we can’t purify the water.

” It was annoying to have an entire kitchen full of invasive conifer, but to know it was useless without the time to dry it out.

Keaton’s gaze swept the room, presumably searching for items made of wood. Unfortunately, short of pulling the floorboards up, there was none to be had, what furniture was left made of a cheaper material that wouldn’t burn. “I’ll go back out and get some,” I announced.

I made it two steps before a hand planted in the middle of my chest to push me back. “No, you won’t. You’ll sit and rest. I can tell you’re in pain.”

“What happened to not being a baby?”

Keaton’s smile was sheepish. “I was being a dick.”

“No, you weren’t. You needed me to keep going. Sitting at the side of the road and feeling sorry for myself would have achieved nothing.”

“That, as well,” Keaton conceded. “But I’d be lying if I claimed that being a dick wasn’t part and parcel of it.” He jerked his head toward the fireplace full of crap. “You can stay here and clear that out.”

“I thought you wanted me to have a rest. Make up your mind.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s a five-minute job. Then, you can have a rest.”

“Yes, sir.”

Keaton wrestled with a smile, managing to come out the victor and keep it off his face. “Don’t make me tie you up again.”

“You wouldn’t dare. Not now, I have my weapons back.”

In lieu of an answer, he headed for the door.

It was mostly solid with a gap at head height, where a pane of glass had once been.

It had a still working bolt that we’d utilized once we’d checked the cottage was free of biters.

It was rusty enough that it took some wiggling back and forth before Keaton worked it back open.

“Lock it behind me. Don’t let anyone else in. ”

“Really? I was planning on holding a tea party for biters as soon as I had the place to myself. Can’t a boy have any fun without someone spoiling it?”

“I’m trying to help, August.”

His use of my real name sent a strange frisson through me every time he did it.

It had been a mistake to tell him the truth.

My name was too real. Too honest. I flicked a lazy hand at him that said “go,” Keaton giving me one last searching look before setting off toward the forest. “Try not to let any biters get the better of you this time,” I shouted after him.

“I don’t want to be sitting here waiting for wood while you’re rolling around in the dirt having a good time. No more threesomes.”

He didn’t look back, but he did lift a single middle finger, the childish gesture making me smile.

After bolting the door—because I wanted to and it was common sense, not because I’d been instructed to—I went back into the living room. Clearing the fireplace didn’t take five minutes; it took two.

I busied myself with sorting through my pack and picking out useful items. I lit the candle before we were plunged into complete darkness, putting the lighter to one side ready for the fire.

I sorted out food: more dried meat. We needed to hit a community soon and get a decent meal.

The thought brought me up short. I needed to hit a community.

Not we, I. Keaton and I were not a unit. Not even close.

That didn’t stop the list of things that needed doing from getting ever longer.

Stock up on food. Find parts for the motorbike.

Find the motorbike again. Fix the motorbike.

Work out how to break the news to Keaton that there were no suppressants and that this entire trip—the trip where he’d nearly had his throat ripped out—had been a big, fat waste of time.

It was a shame I hadn’t gotten the words out before we’d come off the bike.

Especially when I’d been so damn close to it.

Thirty more seconds and I would have confessed.

How would Keaton have taken the news? How would he?

The longer I led him on a wild goose chase, the more extreme his reaction would probably be.

I’d saved his life though, right? That had to count for something.

A sound broke me from my reverie: the familiar pitter-patter of rain. Rushing to the door, I stuck my hand out of the gap, leaving it there for a few seconds before pulling it back in and examining my hand, my worst fears confirmed.

Red rain. Fuck! And Keaton had gone out in it.