Page 30 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

August

My grandmother wasn’t napping. She might be on the brink of ninety, something unheard of in this world, but napping had never been a part of her day.

It was, however, her code word for retiring to her room with a romance novel.

That’s where I found her, propped up in bed, reading glasses I’d conned from a priest, propped on the end of her nose.

She glanced up as I slipped inside the room and closed the door behind me.

Placing her book down, she patted the side of the bed.

I sat, having learned the hard way that arguing with her only ever produced one winner.

I might be able to persuade most people to give me the shirt off their back with enough honeyed words, but Caroline Cohen was an entirely different prospect.

It was for that reason that I waited for her to speak first. When she did, as was her habit, she didn’t waste time on small talk. “So… tell me about Keaton?”

“Ex-soldier. Hell bent on avenging his sister’s death. She fell prey to a cult in Dover. He’s infected, but then, who isn’t unless they’re immune like us?”

She held my gaze and nodded. “Now, tell me the rest?”

“The rest?”

I was fooling nobody, and we both knew it. It didn’t stop me from fighting it for a few more seconds before her unblinking gaze made me give in to the inevitable. “He was supposed to be a mark.”

“Supposed to be? What happened?”

A smile slipped onto my face before I could stop it. “I found I’d met my match. And then he saved me when he didn’t have to. Mind, I’d already saved him first.”

Caroline’s eyebrow arched. “Mutual saving. It’s what all love stories are made of.”

“I didn’t say anything about love. We’ve only known each other a week.”

“Yet, you brought him here.” Caroline laced her fingers together over her abdomen, no sign of a tremble in them despite her age. “How many men have you brought here, August?”

“I brought Barclay here.”

“You brought Barclay here because he has some medical skills. Granted, they’re fairly rudimentary. But some skills are better than no skills. And he proved useful when Daisy was sick.”

“Daisy’s a cow.”

“Like I said, his skills are rudimentary. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be grateful for them when we have tea with milk in it.”

We shared a smile. Caroline’s only lasted a couple of seconds. “Anyway, don’t change the subject.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“How many men have you brought here as guests before today?”

“None.”

“None,” she repeated with an air of grandeur. “Zero. Zilch. Nada. Zip.”

“Sometimes I wish you’d gotten dementia,” I muttered.

She leaned forward and poked me in the ribs. “Well, I didn’t.” She left a dramatic pause. “So… the rest?”

“He’s… We’re… Yeah.”

“You like him?”

“We barely know each other.”

“But you like him?”

“I guess I must.”

A slow smile spread across her face. “He’s certainly got some muscles on him.”

I shot her a disgusted look. “Grandma!”

“What? I’m not dead yet, and I have eyes in my head.”

I shook my head, but there was no stopping the twitch of my lips. “You should have more decorum at your age.”

“I gave up any sense of decorum years ago. It’s a waste of energy.” She leaned forward slightly. “And you’re not only not going to talk him out of this plan for vengeance, you’re going with him, aren’t you?”

I grimaced. “I told him I’d help him.”

“You’re not usually so bothered about changing your mind.”

‘Changing your mind’ was a polite way of referring to my habit of lying. Because she knew exactly who I was and what I did, and loved me regardless. “I’ve already lied to him too many times.”

She regarded me without speaking for so long it became uncomfortable. Eventually, she nodded. “I want you to have someone when I’m gone.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m not immortal, and I’ll talk any damn way I please. I hadn’t finished, and I’ll thank you not to interrupt.” I mimed zipping my lips closed. “I want you to have someone who’ll be by your side, no matter what, who’ll put you first, who’ll make you smile, who’ll worship your body.”

I closed my eyes against the wave of embarrassment and prayed she’d finished. She hadn’t. “A good sex life is important. Are you compatible?”

“Yes.” I pushed the word out between gritted teeth, opening my eyes to find her looking satisfied.

She pointed to the other side of the room. “There’s a box at the back of the wardrobe. Be a love and bring it over here, would you?”

I did what she asked, locating the box, which was larger and heavier than I’d expected, behind clothes, and heaving it back across the room.

“On the bed,” Caroline directed.

I put it where I’d previously sat, Caroline wasting no time in peeling the flaps back. “I want you to have these, and I figure I better give them to you now before you do something stupid and get yourself killed.”

“I’m not going to get myself killed.” I didn’t like the uncertainty I heard in my voice.

Caroline pulled a book out of the box and passed it across. Frowning, I opened it to find Caroline Cohen, age 12, written in neat handwriting. “This is your diary?”

She nodded. “You might want to skip the first half of that year. It’s mostly about boys and wanting straight hair, and whether boys prefer curly or straight hair.

Start when it rains red.” She pulled a few more books from the box, lining them up on the bed.

They all had months and years scrolled inside the cover.

“There were periods of time when I didn’t write much, but it’s all in there.

Finding this place, meeting your granddad, your father being born, you being born.

Some you’ll find boring. Some you might find interesting. ”

Caroline smirked as I picked a book at random. “I wouldn’t start with that year if I were you.” I ignored her and started to read.

Peter is a generous and skillful lover. When he does that thing with his tongue, I just melt.

I slammed it closed, Caroline laughing. “I did warn you. That was the year your grandfather and I met. It’s like I said, sexual compatibility is important.”

Despite the embarrassment factor, the gift touched me. “Thank you. This is…”

She held out her arms, and I moved in for the hug. “They’re yours. They were always going to be yours. As is this place. All you have to do is make sure you come home to claim it.”

I got it then. “You wily old woman. You think my curiosity about what’s in these diaries is so strong that it’ll give me an extra kick up the arse to survive whatever Keaton has in store for me?”

She ignored the question. “Speaking of Keaton, hadn’t you better see what he’s up to?” She gathered the books and placed them back in the box. “You can collect these later.”

After a wash and a shave, and a whole new wardrobe that fitted him surprisingly well given the breadth of his shoulders, Keaton looked like a new man. So new I kept having to tear my gaze away from him when my gaze inevitably wandered back his way.

Conversation at dinner started off politely, Laura having done herself proud with the cooking and serving up roasted lamb, potatoes and vegetables.

I had to hide a smirk as Keaton virtually inhaled his and stared longingly at his empty plate.

When Laura gave him seconds of everything without prompting, I thought he might propose to her.

It was certainly a long way from the jerky we’d consumed before Oz’s demise had provided us with more options.

We were on a dessert of apple pie with cream, Keaton’s expression similar to the one I’d seen on his face when he orgasmed, before my grandma got down to business.

“So,” she said, her hands resting on the table with her fingers laced together. “I hear you’re dragging my grandson all the way to Dover.”

Keaton glanced my way as he wiped cream from the corner of his lips.

It made me think of something else I’d much rather see on his lips.

Something that had my cock twitching, and made me glad my crotch was safely hidden beneath the table.

“Not dragging, exactly. August offered. And I’ll obviously get there much faster on the back of his bike than I will walking. ”

“You will if you don’t run out of petrol,” Caroline pointed out.

She turned her attention to me. “You may have covered a lot of miles north, but you’ve never traveled over fifty miles south of here.

You don’t have places lined up. No safe houses.

Nowhere you’re guaranteed to get petrol.

” Her head whipped back around to Keaton.

“Were you aware of that? Did he make that clear to you?”

“He did not,” Keaton admitted.

I sat back in my chair. “It’ll be fine. There’re plenty of places where I’ve played it by ear.” I shared a private look with Keaton. “Like the fire station.”

“Not south,” my grandma provided waspishly. “While we’ve already established I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, you at least need to take the threat seriously. I’ve been there; you haven’t.”

“Seventy-six years ago,” I pointed out, capable of more than a little waspishness myself.

She inclined her head in recognition of my point. Less than a beat passed before she ruined it. “Years going by don’t necessarily make a place safer. It’s just as likely to be more dangerous.”

Keaton shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe you should stay here. I don’t want to—”

“No. I said I’ll help, and I meant it. You wanted me to stop lying. Well, don’t turn that into one.”

My grandma was quick to hide her smile behind the back of her hand, but not quick enough for me not to catch it.

I narrowed my eyes at her. While I knew she had genuine concerns about the area south of here, there was another agenda at play: she was testing the strength of our bond.

“We’re going,” I said. “End of subject.”

Caroline offered me a smile that might have looked innocent if I didn’t know her as well as I did. “Of course, dear. Just don’t go through London. That’s all I ask.”

I let out a frustrated breath. “It’s the quickest route.”

She tapped a finger on the table. “That’s my only stipulation. Don’t make me leave this place to Barclay.”

“To Barclay?” I snorted. “Laura works her fingers to the bone for you. Cooking. Cleaning. Fetching and carrying for you all day long. Yet, you’d leave it to Barclay. Why him?”

Caroline fluttered her eyelashes. “Because it would annoy you more.”

I shook my head, Keaton’s gaze swiveling back and forth between us like it was a game of table tennis. Not that he probably had any idea what that was. “And that’s what you want to do, is it? Annoy me.”

“If it means you coming home in one piece, then yes.” There was no arguing with that, so I didn’t. “Promise me you won’t go through London. I might not have been there for over seventy years, but we’ve both heard the stories.”

“What stories?” Keaton asked, his curiosity piqued. “I was based in Scotland, and they didn’t reach that far.”

“Bad things,” Caroline said. “That the biters basically run amok there, and that any non-biters that survived are basically people you wouldn’t want to meet. Gangs. People who’d stab you in the back rather than look at you. And that’s before you get to the mutated animals.”

Keaton’s eyes went wide. “Mutated? How?”

“Bigger. More savage. Infected. And we’re not just talking dogs and cats. There were animals in London Zoo when it all went down. It’s said the tigers turned in the first rainstorm, that they got out and have been breeding ever since.”

“Do you think a tiger could catch the bike?” I mused.

Caroline’s stare was hard. “I don’t know. Would you be willing to bet against it?”

I’d only ever seen a picture of a tiger, so I had no actual evidence I could use to argue against it being possible.

From what I’d seen in history books, they had some nifty weapons at their disposal in the form of teeth, claws, and powerful limbs, and that was with no mutations.

If it made them as frenzied as some humans I’d encountered, they’d be unstoppable.

“Promise me,” Caroline repeated.

I let out a sigh. “I promise.”

She sat back with a smug smile on her face. After a few seconds, she switched her focus to Keaton. “Would you come sit closer to me, dear? My eyesight and hearing aren’t what they used to be.”

When he looked to me, I nodded, knowing he had nothing to fear apart from questions. Sure enough, once he’d gotten up and moved—the rest of the apple pie going with him, and Caroline scraping the rest of hers into his dish once it was empty—he was subjected to an interrogation.

It began with his place and date of birth, moved through the demise of his parents and the disappearance of his sister, the attack from the biter that had led to his dismissal from the army, and culminated in the present day.

All the while, I struck a nonchalant pose that suggested it was nothing but background noise, though I was very interested indeed.

The worst part was knowing exactly what Caroline’s expression meant once Keaton had regurgitated his history.

It said, he’ll do. I rolled my eyes at her when Keaton wasn’t looking, my grandma mouthing “what?” at me.

“You could stay a bit longer?” she eventually said. “A couple of nights at least.”

“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll discuss it.”

She smiled. “Make sure you do. Communication is just as important as the other stuff.”

Keaton frowned. “What other stuff?”