The Dying & The Dead 2 by Jack Jewis Read Free Book Online Page B

Since
glimpsing Kiele, he had looked full of nervous energy. “It’s to scare people
away. Don’t worry; most of the heads are just our people, the ones who died of
natural causes.”
     
    “Most?” said Heather.
     
    Max looked at her gravely. “We aren’t
the only ones who use spies. The Capita have tried to infiltrate us before.”
     
    “What a delightful place,” said Charles.
     
    “It shouldn’t be this quiet around
here,” said Max. “We normally keep a couple of guys on watch.”
     
    When they reached the town gate, Max
climbed down from his horse and took off the saddlebag. Heather walked behind
him, edging away from a stake that was a few feet away. She took a glimpse at
the head that was stuck on it. It was a man with brown hair that curled down to
his neck. His mouth was open wide, and his teeth were shattered from where the
wood had been driven through.
     
    Max walked into a dark archway just in
front of the gate.
     
    “Give me a minute,” he said.
     
    He took a step forward, and then
stopped. He dropped his saddlebag to the ground. Something grabbed hold of him
and jerked him back. A man moved out of the shadows with a knife pressed
against Max’s throat.
     
    “Rushden,” said Max, his words strained.
     
    The man had ginger hair that stuck out
in sharp tufts, the kind of mane that resisted all grooming. He held the knife
so close to Max’s throat that Heather thought he might puncture it. Rushden
looked at Heather and Charles, and he nodded. Heather wondered what he was
nodding at. Then two strong arms gripped her from behind, and a cold blade
pressed into her skin.
     
    Rushden pulled the knife away from Max,
turned it in his hands and then brought it crashing down on his skull. Max fell
to the ground.
     
    “Good to have you back,” said Rushden,
looking at Max on the floor.
     
    Heather’s pulse fired, and she wanted to
break into a run. Before she could make a move, something blunt thumped the
back of her head. The last thing she saw was the ground as it rushed toward
her.

 
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    Eric
     
     
    He kept his head low, only raising it to
check on the guards in the watch towers. He moved by the side of a cabin,
ducking under one of the windows so that the other DCs, if there were any in
there, didn’t see him.
     
    Over the last couple of days in camp he’d
kept looking around, hoping more than anything that he’d see his mum with her
warm smile or Luna who, even though she was his twin, was taller than him. They
had to be here somewhere. Charles Bull had stolen them away, and there weren’t
many places the Capita men took the immune.
     
    In a watchtower to his right, thirty
feet above the fence, a guard rested with his arms across the barrier. He bent
down, grabbed a water bottle and lifted it to his lips. Water , thought
Eric. I never thought I could be so thirsty.
     
    It seemed like the only water they were
ever going to get was what the guards spared them at feeding times. The first
time they were all brought into a large canteen and served a bowl of slop, Eric
had been too nervous to eat. He didn’t even have the stomach for a swig of
water.
     
    “ It’s the de-icing powder ,” a man
leaned across and told him. His sleeves trailed across the gruel in the bowl in
front of him. “ Bet you inhaled some, didn’t you?”
     
    The guard in the tower drank the water.
As he gulped, he turned his head and glanced in Eric’s direction. Eric’s heart
pounded. He slammed back against the cabin wall and stayed low. He barely dared
lift his head to check if the guard had spotted him. All it took was one
glance. A single move seen by the wrong eyes.
     
    It seemed like the guards were
everywhere. You could barely move around camp without glimpsing a man or woman
in a Capita uniform, weapons in their hands just aching to be used. It was as
though they were all clones of each other, because they all wore the same stern
expressions. Eric wondered if any of