The Dying & The Dead 2 Read Online Free Page B

others swinging
pickaxes at the ground. They stared rigidly in front of them, avoiding the
gazes of guards who waited on the sidelines. Clouds seemed to group overhead,
fat and grey as if it was their job to cast a shadow over the camp.
     
    Someone yelled to the right of Eric. A
boy struggled under the grasp of a burly guard. He wriggled as if he was having
a fit, and eventually his movements were enough to free him from the man’s
hands. The boy took off in a run, sprinting away from the train and away from
the Camp in front of him, going any direction but Dam Marsh.
     
    Eric saw movement in a tower on the
corner of the yard. A guard propped up a rifle on a metal railing and squinted
down the sights. The boy ran away with pattering feet, his arms stretched in
front of him as if he was reaching for something.
     
    A crack cut through the air. Everyone
was silent. Even the idling engine of the train seemed to calm into submission.
The boy slumped face first into the floor and smashed his head against the
stone. He squirmed on the ground as blood seeped from a hole in his back.
     
    Another shot was fired, and another hole
appeared in the body. As the immune men, women and children watched, the boy became
still and his blood spread in a pool around him.

 
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Ed
     
     
    The sea opened its watery mouth and
started to swallow the ship. Ed watched it from the shore, shivering so much
that he thought he would never get warm again. Warnings of hypothermia and
pneumonia flashed in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t think of himself yet.
     
    The bow was submerged, and the rest of
the ship would soon follow. His body was soaked and his lungs ached from the
effort of swimming away from the ship and against the tide. With the adrenaline
wearing off, a shudder ran through him and made him wish for electric heaters and
warm hearths. 
     
    The Savage lay next to him on his back
on the sand. He had his hands over his face, and he panted as he caught his
breath. Ed looked around him. They were on a beach. The sand was damp and brown,
and behind them was a hill with a path winding up through it. There was a metal
sign fifty metres to their right warning them of a high tide. Thanks for the
heads up, thought Ed.
     
    “Where’s Bethelyn?” he said, the words
straining between gulps of air.
     
    The Savage sat up. His trousers were
covered in wet sand, and grains of it were matted in his hair. He looked out to
the sea where black waves swept up and down, splashing foam everywhere as they
crashed.
     
    The storm had hit them full on, and
rather than sailing through it, the ship had submitted. The waves had punctured
the hull and water poured in below deck. The vessel soon started to sink, and
the three of them hadn’t had time to grab anything before jumping overboard.
Plunging into the sea in the middle of the night wasn’t ideal, but it was
either that or take a trip to the bottom of the ocean.
     
    “I can’t see her,” said Ed “Where the
hell is she?”
     
     He got to his feet. Despite being
drenched with freezing water, a nervous energy filled him and anxiety wrung his
stomach. He gazed across the beach but couldn’t see Bethelyn.
     
    “Wasn’t she with you?” said The Savage.
     
    “I was holding her hand, but a wave took
her.”
     
    “Ah. Give her a minute or two. She’s a
grown woman.”
     
    “And we just jumped ship in the middle
of a storm. Where is she?”
     
    The Savage patted his leg and scraped
the sand off his clothes.
     
    “Just leave her,” he said.
     
    Ed couldn’t believe that even The Savage
would say something like that. Fury started to boil in him, but now wasn’t the
time to deal with it. His breaths came shallow and fast. As he scanned the sea
in front of them and tried to pick out Bethelyn among the waves, he noticed
that he was wringing his fingers. Come on, he thought. Where are you?
     
    The Savage put his hand to his forehead.
He stared at the sea