Jones and some of his men exchanged looks and laughed.
“Just ‘cause something don’t die first time don’t make it no God, son. These here are the devil’s work.” He kicked a nearby corpse in the head. Ben cringed and turned away. “I don’t know where you get your fancy ideas, but look at it, boy. C’mon, look at it.”
Ben slowly turned back and stared at the corpse.
“This ‘ere critter ain’t no more than a sack o’ meat. I don’t know how you been raised, but where I come from, the only good zombie is a dead zombie.”
“Zombie?” Anna said.
Jones sucked on his cigar. “Ya’ll been livin’ in a fuckin’ cave?”
Ben shook his head. “No, Sanctuary.”
Jones regarded him quizzically.
Anna pulled Ben behind her, shooting him a look. “The Go— zombies, the zombies, what are they?”
“Well these folk carry some sort of virus that brings ‘em back to life. One of ‘em bites yer, yer gonna be just like ‘em. Ain’t nothin’ Godlike about it.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I read about the virus. Hundreds of years ago, an epidemic swept the world. We’ve been fightin’ the bastards ever since.”
Ben still appeared dubious.
A woman jogged across and saluted. “Captain Jones, the area’s secure.”
Jones nodded.
“Thank you again for saving us. If you hadn’t come along…”
“My pleasure.” Jones turned to his troupe. “OK, round ‘em up.” He circled his hand above his head, one finger raised.
A group of men ran forwards and grabbed Anna and her family and started leading them to the trees. Lucy screamed. Jones watched in disinterest, puffing on his cigar.
“What’s going on?” Anna shouted as she struggled.
Zeke wrestled against his captors, but one of the men punched him in the face, splitting Zeke’s lip.
Lucy started crying. Anna noticed people in the tree line, and as she got closer she saw they were all shackled together in a long line. They seemed dejected, beaten, and malnourished. A soldier attached shackles to Anna and her family’s ankles and wrists.
“Why are you doing this? We haven’t done anything. Please, let us go,” Anna said as she fought back tears.
Lucy rattled the shackles on her wrists. “Mum, Mum. What’s going on?”
An old woman manacled in front of Lucy tutted. “Crying won’t do you any good.”
“Who are those people?” Anna asked. “Where are they taking us?”
“They call themselves The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and believe me, you’re better off not knowing where we’re going.”
“I’ll decide what I’m better off not knowing. Now tell me.”
A young man with a bruised face and one eye swollen almost shut, shook his head. “The women they’ll sell as sex slaves. The men… just slaves. And that’s the best option.”
Lucy’s face dropped. “What’s he mean, sex slaves?”
A lump formed in Anna’s throat.
“Mum?”
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to you. We’re going to get out of this. I promise.”
The old woman cackled. “Promises are easy to make, but hard to keep. There’s no escape. Believe me, people have tried.”
“They obviously haven’t tried hard enough.”
The woman shook her head.
A man on horseback turned in his saddle. “Quiet back there”.
“OK,” Jones shouted. “Let’s move out.”
The line of people started shuffling along, the rattle of chains drowning out Lucy’s sobs.
CHAPTER 11
“What’s gone on here?” Roman asked.
One of the brethren made the sign of the cross in the air as he viewed the corpses littering the road. “Why aren’t they moving? They can’t be dead. I thought they didn’t die.”
Roman licked his lips “They were obviously not ordained.”
Isaiah gave Roman a questioning glance and knelt down and examined the corpses. They had all been shot by the looks of it.
“Demons have been here,” one of the scavengers said. “Judging by the prints they’re on horseback.”
“What about my family?” Isaiah asked.
The scavenger crouched down inspecting marks on the ground. “They were here.”
“So where are they now?”
The scavenger stood up and peered down the road. “Looks as though they were taken.”
“Taken? Where? Why?”
“I don’t know. One thing I can tell you, if the Demons have them, they’re as good as dead.”
Isaiah felt as though someone had punched him in the heart. “They can’t be.”
CHAPTER 12
Anna stared at one of the camp fires, the flames from which chased flickering shadows through the trees. She was too far away to feel any warmth from the flames, but she heard the crackle of wood and smelled the smoke that blanketed the floor like low level fog.
A figure sat next to the fire, stirring a large pot suspended above the flames.
She heard footsteps and glanced up to see a man walking towards her. He crouched down, undid the shackles either side of Anna and her family and pulled them to their feet.
“Follow me,” he snapped.
By the light of the fires Anna saw that tears had left streaks down Lucy’s dirty cheeks and her heart sank.
The man led them to where Jones was sitting next to a fire.
“You can’t keep us prisoner like this,” Anna said.
A log rolled out of the fire. Jones used his boot toe to push it back in place. He peered up at Anna and grinned.
“I can do whatever the hell I want. Out here, I’m the law. Now I wanna know where you’ve come from. How many of yer are there?”
“Go to hell.”
Jones laughed. “Haven’t yer realized yet? We’re already in hell.”
“Please. Let us go,” Lucy sobbed.
Jones looked her up and down and reached out and brushed the back of his hand along Lucy’s arm. A sick lump filled Anna’s throat. Lucy shuddered and pulled away, and Anna pulled her daughter to her chest, away from Jones.
“Someone as pretty as ‘er will be worth a lot in trade. But I’m a business man. I’m open to negotiation. What can yer offer me in return?”
Lucy shuddered.
