The Shadow Aspect: The Harvesting Series Book 3 Read online

  I looked up at Jaime. His eyes were closed. I knew it wasn’t the death of the world that plagued him but the loss of Ian. His brother was gone.

  I leaned against him. After all Ian had done wrong, in the end he had sacrificed himself for me, for Jaime, for all of us. Whatever Rumor and the others had turned Ian into, it was not strong enough to break the bonds of love he had felt.

  My thoughts were broken by a peppering of gunfire. Neither Kira nor Susan woke. A small group of the undead had been meandering on the highway. Chase made short work of them. But it was not, it seemed, the undead that most interested him. Chase was looking intently at the row of cars in the east-bound lane.

  “Slow up,” he called to Cricket.

  “See somethin’?” she called.

  The transport slowed to a stop. The majority of my group looked drowsy eyed, but Buddie and Will perked up. I stood and joined Chase. Cricket put the truck into park and slid through the back window.

  “You suppose…” Chase asked Cricket, his question indicating we’d missed the conversation. They both stared at a large semi-truck parked in the east-bound lane. An image painted on the trailer depicted two crossed swords.

  Cricket frowned, looking annoyed. “Well, I reckon we can look.”

  “What is it?” Buddie asked.

  “We’ll check the cargo in that semi,” Chase answered as he unholstered his handguns.

  Cricket checked her revolver then reached into the cab of the truck to pull out the largest wrench I’d ever seen.

  “We can help,” I told them. I wanted to see what had them so interested.

  Chase and Cricket exchanged a debating glance.

  “All right, but someone who can drive this thing needs to stay back,” Cricket said.

  “I’ll stay,” Jaime said absently. He never looked up.

  With that, Will, Buddie, Cricket, Chase and I jumped out of the truck and crossed the grass toward the semi.

  “Are you expecting to find something in particular?” I asked.

  “Playing a hunch,” Chase replied.

  I looked at Cricket. The girl’s curly strawberry-blonde hair shined in the morning light. Where ever they were staying, they were able to keep themselves clean and they both looked nourished. But, no matter how she looked physically, her expression told me even more about her. She wasn’t into playing hunches.

  As we crossed the grass, two of the undead emerged. Buddie shot an arrow at the one closest to the truck while Will stabbed the other through the eye. Chase and Cricket watched us with curiosity. I got the feeling they were assessing us too. When we got to the truck, Cricket worked on the lock with her wrench.

  “Need help?” I asked.

  “Nah. She’ll come. Rusted out,” she said with a grunt. A moment later, the lock popped. The chain hit the ground, and Cricket unlatched the door, pushing the trailer open. The truck was mostly empty. In the very back, however, there was a small pile of boxes.

  Cricket crawled into the truck. Will and I followed.

  The boxes had no markings. Cricket kneeled to open them.

  “Need a knife?” Will offered, handing Cricket his Swiss army knife.

  She smiled at him, took the knife, and then opened the boxes.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Will looking her over. I could tell he liked what he saw. A moment later, Cricket gasped.

  “Well, I’ll be,” she said under her breath as she pulled out an insulated package that was marked hazardous. From inside, she removed a white box and looked it over. I couldn’t quite see what it was, but it look like vials of medicine.

  “Crick?” Chase called into the trailer.

  “Yep?” Cricket answered, sticking the package into a bag she had strung around her body.

  “Well?

  “It’s here.”

  “Unbelievable,” Chase muttered.

  “You know Vella,” Cricket called.

  “Someone sent you here?” I asked.

  “You could say that,” Cricket replied, a perplexed look on her face, but she didn’t say more, and I didn’t ask.

  Inside the other boxes, we found bandages, splints, and other medical supplies.

  “Give me a hand with these?” Cricket asked Will.

  “Of course,” he replied.

  Will and Cricket grabbed all the boxes and headed out of the trailer. I followed behind. Chase took most of the boxes from Cricket and, chatting in low tones, the two of them headed back toward the transport, Will dragging along behind.

  Buddie waited for me. “What do you think?” he asked as we set off across the grass.

  “They aren’t vampires.”

  He smiled wryly. “They look all right.”

  “Agreed, but something’s up. There were meds in those boxes, and it seems like they knew they were there.”

  “Maybe someone sent them after the truck, knew about it. Meds might be hard to come by where they are. After all, they didn’t have Grandma Petrovich to stockpile for them.”

  I grinned at his joke but still felt uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, we’ll see,” I replied.

  Cricket and Chase quickly loaded the boxes into the cab, and Cricket set off again. We drove a while before Cricket turned the truck off the highway and across a field. The ground was damp; the fresh green grasses and spring flowers filled the air with a tangy, earthy smell. Cricket followed a stream south. After some drive, we came across a small, rural bridge. She pulled the truck across the bridge and followed a back road into the woods. The sunlight shone through the trees as mist rose upward. The rays of sun, scattered in the mist, glimmered gold. Soon, the grade of the road dropped, and we started winding down the side of a mountain. As the road snaked around the hillside, the mists began to clear. We entered a small valley, a large lake at its center. Around us, the trees were loaded with spring buds. I started seeing rooftops and church steeples.

  It was already after midday. Everyone was awake and alert now, watching, waiting. We soon found ourselves driving into a small town much like Hamletville. A road post, really an old granite boulder, had “Welcome to Ulster, Maryland” chiseled on it. Above the wording, a small four-leafed clover had been carved into the rock. How in the hell did we end up in Maryland?

  We drove through the abandoned town. Before everything had died, the town must have been rather quaint. Small boutiques, cafés, pubs, bookstores, bed and breakfasts, and other small shops lined the streets. The sidewalks had been laid with cobblestone, and the streetlights were antique-looking gaslight replicas. A faded and tattered banner advertising an Autumn Leaf Festival was strung over the main thoroughfare. The streets were completely empty. The town looked like it had been cleaned up. Cars had been moved to the side. Business doors were locked with chains and padlocks. Through the windows, you could see that shelves were bare. The place was a ghost town, a shadow of its former self.

  The truck rolled through town. No undead stirred. At the far end of town, Cricket turned onto a side street and drove up a very steep hill. At its top, she made a hard right. Poised above the town, we found ourselves outside the gates of a locked and guarded…castle?

  We all strained to get a better look. On further inspection, I noticed a bronze plaque on the stone gatepost: Claddagh-Basel College.

  “A college?” Tom wondered aloud.

  Chase laughed. “Castle, more like. Brought over brick by brick from Ireland, or so we we’ve been told about a hundred times,” Chase said, shooting Cricket a glance.

  The girl giggled.

  “Hell of a place, though,” Chase continued. “It’s walled all the way around. We’ve got guards on the gate and patrolling the fence. So far, we’ve been able to keep it safe.”

  I looked at the fence. It was made of stone up to about eight feet in height. Above that was another five feet of wrought-iron fence. Fleur-de-lis designs at the top made effective spikes. The building was a massive fortress.

  The two men who had been standing guard unbolted the gate and let us i
n.

  Cricket drove up the driveway and parked the truck in front of the main building at the center of the complex. A stone staircase led toward arched double doors. The keystone above the door bore the Claddagh symbol, a crowned heart held by two hands. Cricket parked the truck behind two other military vehicles.

  “Was the military here?” Jaime asked.

  Chase shook his head. “No, we found the trucks abandoned. Just the trucks, guns, and a whole lot of ramen noodles left behind.”

  “Remember when Kellimore’s skin turned yellow from the dye in the flavor packets? I guess when you eat noodles every day, the food colorin’ catches up with you,” Cricket said with a laugh that Chase joined. “Come on, y’all look like you could use some noodles and a stiff drink. Layla, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Welcome to Claddagh-Basel.”

  Chapter 3: Layla

  Who survives the apocalypse? Would the most dangerous on Darwin’s food chain dominate the rest of us? Would it be the cleverest or the best armed? In Hamletville, we were a family. We protected the fragile. But, outside of Hamletville, what would we find?

  Cricket and Chase led us through a side entrance on the first floor. The place was eerily silent. The walls were bare and painted white, the floor tiles olive-colored. It was dim in the hallway. Cricket pulled out a flashlight and led the way.

  “Boiler rooms, labs, offices. When we got here, we had to help clear out a few zombies. Grizzly mess,” she said then flashed the light on the blood-stained walls.

  “No one stays in this corridor,” Chase added. “At least, not to sleep. Too cold.”

  “Speaking of which,” Cricket said then dug in her bag. She pulled out the package she’d found in the truck and handed it to Chase. “Will you do the honors?”

  Chase grinned. “You sure you don’t want to deliver it?”

  Cricket shook her head. “Let her know I’m takin’ them out to the library?”

  He nodded to Cricket then turned to us. “I’ll see you all later,” he said then headed down a side corridor to one of the labs. I noticed a light shining out from under the door.

  “This way,” Cricket said.

  We made our way to a stairwell. The plaster on the walls was chipping off in large clumps. Dusty statuary of saints and the Virgin Mary were tucked in small alcoves, candles at their feet.

  “You’ll find candles laying around just about everywhere you turn in this place,” Cricket said then. “There is a small chapel in the main building.”

  As we turned the corner at the second floor landing, Cricket nearly collided with a hulking man.

  “Dammit,” he swore, his flashlight hitting the floor with a thud.

  The flashlight rolled to my feet. I picked it up and handed it to the stranger. He was a young man, no older than twenty, with a wicked scar running from his temple to the corner of his mouth.

  “Christ, Cricket, you scared me half to death,” he said then as he sized us up. “Who are they?”

  “Chase and I went out for supplies, came across their group.”

  The young man flashed his light on all of us. I saw Ethel wince when the light shone in her face.

  “Lower your light,” I said then. The edge on my voice was hard. “We’ve got women and children here.”

  Cricket reached out and pushed the light down. “I got this. Go on with whatever you were doing.”

  “I’m just interested in security.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Cricket said then rolled her eyes. “Come on, Layla. This way,” she said, then led us up another two flights of steps to the fourth floor.

  When the young man was out of earshot, Cricket turned to me and said, “That’s Kellimore. Local kid. He was the town football hero, some kind of hotshot before the world went to hell. He can act like a jerk, but, that said, he saved most of the townies here. Doctor Gustav keeps him in line.”

  “Who is Doctor Gustav?” I asked.

  “One of the people in charge here,” Cricket answered.

  We wound up the steps to the fourth floor. Cricket led us down a quiet corridor. The walls, made of thick, polished wood, gave an air of age to the place. Photographs of students in sports jerseys lined the walls, their varied hairstyles—from the ridiculous to what had a year before been considered fashionable—showed the passage of time. The students’ smiling faces brought back a flood of memories of a life now obliterated. Fencing tournaments, diets, workouts at the gym, it all seemed like a joke. Now that every moment, every decision, could be your last, everything that had come before was starting to feel a lot like decadent masturbation.

  As we walked, I heard a flood of footsteps running from a side corridor toward us, a tinkling of small bells echoing the steps. Moments later, a dark-haired woman appeared in the hallway. Her mountain of black hair fell to her waist. She stared at me, at the shashka at my side, then turned and looked at Cricket. They both smiled.

  “All right now, sister,” Cricket said, slapping her a low five as she passed.

  “Welcome,” the woman told us.

  I picked on up her accent at once. Romanian, maybe? Still shell-shocked from the encounter with Rumor’s group, I looked sharply at her. The harshness of my gaze seemed to startle her.

  “Catch you later?” Cricket said to the woman who nodded.

  She stood in the hallway and watched us go.

  “I’ll take you to the library until the doc gets a chance to come by. All the dorms and classrooms are full. Y’all can bunk in there unless she says otherwise.”

  “Doctor? Like a professor?” Will asked.

  Cricket shook her head. “She’s a regular doctor, but she was doing research here,” she replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Will.”

  “Will you come with me after I get your folks settled in to grab some supplies?”

  He smiled. “Sure.”

  Cricket led us to the library. The room was flooded with light. Large floor to ceiling windows looked out and over the campus green and the town below. Kira and Susan ran to the glass and pressed their faces against the window.

  Cricket giggled. “Two more kids downstairs, a boy and a girl,” she told Frenchie. “They’ll be real glad your girls are here. Probably need to get those girls something else to wear. Want me to bring somethin’? Those dresses look thin, and it gets cold in the building at night. Don’t want them gettin’ sick.”

  Frenchie shifted awkwardly. It wasn’t like she had dressed her children like that. She opened and closed her mouth about three times, trying to find the right words, but in the end she just said, “thank you.”

  “Not many folks come around. Should be pretty quiet. Lots of study rooms to bunk in. Just find a spot and get settled in. I’ll be back in a bit. Doc should be by soon. Will?”

  Will shot me a glance before he turned to follow Cricket.

  I nodded in approval. Though my instincts were in doubt, Cricket seemed honest. I hoped I was right. And I did want someone to scout out the scene. Will’s eyes were always sharp.

  The rest of us gathered at a group of couches and sat down. At once, I felt overcome by exhaustion. Jaime sat beside me, but he still wasn’t saying anything. I took his hand. It was ice cold. I realized then that he was probably in shock.

  At first, we were silent. No one knew how to begin. What could we possibly say about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours? How could I explain myself?

  I didn’t know what to say, so I simply spoke the truth. “I’m sorry,” I began. Some looked me in the eye, some didn’t. “We are alive, but we were betrayed. I trusted the wrong person. Someone told me she would help us, that she would get us off that island. We were used. We were used to clear out those…” I paused and looked around me. Christ, even I knew I sounded crazy.

  “Those vampires,” Buddie said quietly.

  “Oh, Jaime. Ian…” Summer said.

  They had all seen what had happened, had seen how we had made it out alive. If not f
or Ian’s sacrifice, we’d likely all be dead.

  Jaime nodded, but sat studying his hands.

  “Layla, how did you find that place? That labyrinth?” Frenchie asked.

  “I was led there by…well…like a kind of Earth spirit.”

  There was silence.

  “Earth spirit?” Kiki finally asked. She raised an eyebrow at me.

  “It wasn’t the first one I’ve seen. There are others in Hamletville who are good.”

  Again, there was silence. Their faces told me they wanted to believe.

  “I’ve seen them too…in Hamletville…the white doe woman,” Buddie said then.

  Surprised, everyone looked at him.

  He shrugged. “We’ve all seen odd things, haven’t we? Weird shadows where there shouldn’t be shadows. Things moving or making noise when they shouldn’t. We’re quick to dismiss those other things because we don’t want to believe. But they are out there. I saw her a few times deep in the woods behind the Petrovich property.”

  “Did she ever speak to you?” I asked Buddie.

  “No, but she smiled at me once,” he said, then grinned abashed.

  “Peryn,” I said. “Her name is Peryn.” And I had seen Peryn in the thin place between the labyrinth and the forest. She tried to warn me, but of what?

  “Why would Earth spirits want to help us? After all, we’ve nearly trashed this planet,” Kiki remarked bitterly.

  She asked a good question. Tom started to comment when the library door opened, cutting him off before he could speak. A middle-aged woman in a white lab coat entered. She was thin, her dark-blonde hair pulled back into a tidy bun. She smiled nicely, but her eyes were hard and gray. Something about the disparity between these two images bothered me.

  “I’m Doctor Gustav,” the blonde woman said then. She looked us over. “Is this all of you?”

  “One of our people went to help Cricket,” I told the woman as I rose. I stood between my group and this newcomer. Never again.

  The doctor did not miss the gesture. She smiled, her lips pulling into thin strings across her face when she did. “I see. You have weapons,” she stated more than asked, looking us over.