Hamsikker 3 (22 page)

“You’re a new man, Hamsikker. You’ve shown you can fight; you’ve proven yourself. You can stop now. Janey let her kids down, but you don’t have to go the same way. There’s nothing you could do for them or for any of your friends. They made their own choices. I can help you. I can give you a choice. You can join me. I came here looking for help. My brother is out there somewhere, and I needed someone who knew the area. I needed Janey just like you. She’s left us both on our own. You’re my brother now, Hamsikker. You can help me. You can help me find Diego. You’ve got no ties anymore; nothing holding you back. I saw how they dragged you down. The others you travelled with, Erik, Quinn, Dakota – they stopped you from being the man you could be.
Now
is the time to do something useful, something really meaningful. I need a second pair of eyes out there. Join me.”

Join Javier? Jonas stared at the grave, one hand planted firmly on the sodden ground, one still clutching the teddy. He put it carefully back on the grave, but held onto the stake. It was no more than a foot in length, but it was sharp. Water ran down his back and inside his collar, but it was no more than a minor irritant. He wanted no part of this anymore. Faced with so much death, how could he contemplate going on? How could Javier still expect him to think rationally after this, to still want to go on? “No. Leave me alone.”

“You can’t stay here grieving for the rest of your life. Those three kids are gone. I’m sorry, truly. But you have to decide now, Hamsikker. What do you want to do?”

“What are you talking about? I don’t have to make a choice. Everyone’s dead. My family are dead.” Jonas stood up to face Javier.

Javier was still holding the gun, but he held something else, too; something in his other hand that dangled and shimmered in the faint light. It was a key chain. Jonas looked closer and saw the familiar metallic square, the picture of the building in green, set inside a golden yellow circle. Jonas recognized it as Fort William, and he knew what it meant.

“Everyone?” Javier looked at the van, and smiled. “You sure about that, Hamsikker?”

Jonas followed Javier’s eyes and saw what he meant. There in the van, with her cherub-like face peering through a window, was Freya. She was still alive!

“Now,” said Javier, “you really
do
have a choice. You can join me.” Javier looked at the three graves as he walked up to Jonas, so they were only inches apart. He jabbed the gun into Jonas’s chest.

“Or you can join your family.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jonas had clean forgotten about Freya. What the hell was Javier doing with her? Jonas ignored the gun pointed at him and stared at the van. Freya was waving at him, her face barely visible behind the steamy window. She looked pleased to see him, but she wasn’t smiling. She was pointing at the back of the van as if trying to show him something. Jonas looked and saw the approaching dead coming from the park. There weren’t just two of them anymore. Around a dozen or so trudged across the wet ground, and more were following from the shelter of the trees. Had the horde found them? Had Lukas’s death brought them down the hill? Was it the truck crash, the gunshots when Javier had killed Dakota, or the shouting when they had fought? It didn’t matter what the cause was. The barbwire would only hold so many back. He couldn’t just leave Freya like that. He owed Erik that much.

“You know what separates us from the monkeys?” asked Jonas, turning back to Javier.

“Say what?” Javier was expecting Hamsikker to give in, to accept he had no choice but to help him. He thought he had finally won. “That’s hardly—”

“I said, do you know what separates us from the monkeys?” asked Jonas calmly. “You know? Like, chimpanzees and apes?”

Javier rolled his eyes in his head and sighed. “Like I give a shit. I don’t know. Opposable thumbs?”

Jonas tapped the side of his head with his index finger. “Cognitive reasoning. We learn from our mistakes. We can do it in a nano-second; realize the implications of what we’re doing before we’ve done it.” Jonas remembered a conversation he’d had with Dakota when she had asked him to renege on his promise to her. What were her words? “I want you to kill that bastard.”

Javier smirked, confident now that Hamsikker had lost it. “So?”

“So, Javier, you seem to have skipped that part. You still think you can do whatever you like and get away with it.”

Jonas raised the stake in his hand and raked it across Javier’s face. Instantly Javier put his hands up in defense. Jonas took his opportunity, stamped on Javier’s wounded foot, and then grabbed him. Both men slipped over on the wet grass, and Javier’s gun skidded away to rest beside the three graves. The men began to fight, Jonas pounding Javier relentlessly. He screwed up his hands into fists and hit Javier with everything he had. Using both left and right hands, he straddled him, smacking him in the face over and over.

Javier tried to stop him, but it was like fighting an animal. There was a deep cut running from his chin up to his right eyebrow where the garden stake had torn open his skin, and he was lucky not to have lost an eye. Jonas had gained the upper hand, but Javier had no intention of letting this pathetic man beat him to death. Bringing up a knee, Javier caught Jonas in the gut, and it threw Jonas off balance. All Javier needed was a second’s respite from the attack, and he ducked his head to one side, letting Jonas punch the ground. Javier reared up and head-butted Jonas square on.

Jonas saw stars and suddenly found himself falling back as Javier crawled out from under him. Through the blood falling down his forehead, Jonas saw the gun at the same time as Javier. Both men tried to reach it, but it was just out of their reach. Jonas pulled Javier back, and punched him on the back of the head.

Javier whipped around, and kicked Jonas in the face, desperate to shrug him off. There was to be no redemption for Hamsikker. He couldn’t see the bigger picture. Javier thought he might be able to convince him that there could still be a future, that together they could find Diego, but it was obvious Hamsikker couldn’t see past his own blinkered grief. So be it.

Hamsikker had to die.

Javier twisted over and wrapped his legs around Jonas, but the man fought back, punching Javier in the thigh and groin.

“Fuck you, Hamsikker.” Javier crawled out of Hamsikker’s reach and sprung up. Like a lioness attacking a springbok, Javier jumped on Jonas and forced him down to the ground. Hamsikker was tiring already. So much for Hamsikker trying to protect Freya. So much for revenge. Javier had the strength and the inner-belief to see it through. He doubted that Hamsikker had anything left, and as he held him down, he could see the strength disappearing from Hamsikker’s eyes.

“Seems you didn’t listen to your own advice, Hamsikker,” said Javier as he moved his hands up to Jonas’s face. “You’re supposed to learn from your own mistakes, right?”

Javier put his hands on Jonas’s head, and dug his thumbs into Jonas’s eyes. He could feel the warm soft eyeballs give way as he dug in deeper. He was going to enjoy killing Hamsikker.

Jonas cried out in anguish, and he put his hands on Javier’s wrists, trying to stop him, but Javier was putting all his weight behind his attempt to blind him. He wanted to crush Jonas, to force him into the ground where he would die. Javier wanted to push his hands right through Jonas’s face into his brain, and watch the life drain out of him.

Jonas opened his mouth to scream, to plead for mercy, but no sound came out. He was blind, and he could sense Javier laughing, knowing he was about to win. Death was everywhere, and now it had come for Jonas. That was what it was about now. It wasn’t about survival or mercy, it was about death. It was about killing.

“I want you to kill that bastard.”

Jonas felt his left eye pop, and Javier’s thick thumb continued to gouge out his eye. The man wasn’t going to stop until one of them was dead. Jonas saw Dakota’s dead face looking at him. He remembered Erik with his throat slit and the eaten corpse of Quinn in the courier van. He remembered Peter’s lifeless corpse attacking him, and he remembered Julie being torn apart while he watched. He remembered Freya’s scared face in the van, no more than twenty feet away, and he knew he couldn’t give in. Javier was the devil, determined to destroy everything and everyone. He wouldn’t stop until the world was dead and gone. Killing was the only way left. Hamsikker had one last promise to keep to his wife, and he only needed one good eye to ensure he kept it.

Overcome with rage and desire, suddenly Jonas shoved his head up and bit down on Javier’s ear. Javier released his blood covered hands from around Jonas’s head, and grabbed the side of his face.

“What the fu…?”

Jonas pulled back, ripping off Javier’s ear in the process. He spat it out, and punched Javier on the side of the head where there was now a bloody hole instead of an ear.

Javier screamed and jumped up clutching his torn face. Blood spewed between his splayed fingers, and he stumbled back in shock.

Jonas stamped on the decapitated ear, grinding it into the ground. He spat Javier’s warm blood out as he spoke. “I made a promise to my wife, Javier. I’m going to kill you,” Jonas grunted. The effort to speak made him feel woozy, but he found a surge of energy just when he didn’t think he had any left. His right eye was a searing white-hot ball of pain, and his left eye was useless. He knew he would never regain sight in it, but through the blood that dripped over his one good eye he could see Javier. Jonas advanced upon him with his hands balled into hard fists.

Javier whirled around looking for the gun he had lost. It was only a few feet away, still lying beside the graves, and he ran for it. Better to shoot now than get into another pointless fight. Jonas had maimed him for life, and he was going to pay. Javier would shoot Jonas in the gut and let him bleed to death. He intended to make Jonas watch as he throttled the life out of Freya. Now that everyone else was gone and Hamsikker had shown he would rather die than join Javier, Freya had no use. She was his last bargaining chip, and Jonas had refused it, ensuring they would both die.

As Javier bent down and picked up the gun he felt a sharp jolt in his back between his shoulder blades. The pain was brief but all too real, and he cried out. It shot through him twice, and he spun around to see Jonas towering over him with the garden stake.

Jonas aimed for Javier’s heart as he rammed the stake into his chest, but the metal stake hit a rib. It sliced through Javier’s flesh and ended up piercing a lung. Javier’s eyes grew wide, and he frowned in confusion as the cold metal punctured his lung, and he began to gasp for air.

“Hamsikker, stop this, we can…”

Jonas shoved the garden stake in as far as he could so there was nothing but the tip of it sticking out. He watched with pleasure as Javier tried to prise the stake free, but there was little to get hold of, and his hands were slippery with blood. As Jonas bent down and scooped up the gun, he saw the zombies approaching. Janey’s house was safe no more, and Jonas saw lots of dead bodies wandering from the tree line. He wanted to run, but his business wasn’t done yet. Staggering toward the combi van, Jonas aimed the gun at Javier who was trying to go the other way. With one eye dead, his vision was poor, and Jonas fired wildly, just hoping he would hit Javier.

He missed, and the bullet spat up wet dirt at Javier’s feet. Jonas didn’t know how many rounds he had left, and with the approaching zombies, he couldn’t afford to waste a single one. He marched over to Javier who was struggling for breath and punched him in the jaw, sending Javier to his knees. Jonas kicked him in the chest, and Javier was sent onto his back, clutching at thin air as he tried to stop Jonas.

It was all he could do to stop himself from putting a bullet in Javier’s head, but the man didn’t deserve to have it ended that quickly. Jonas was disgusted as he looked at Javier on the ground. He was no man. He was barely even human. He was pathetic.

“Please,” said Javier, coughing up blood. “Hamsikker?”

Jonas nodded, and then retrieved the spade with which Janey had dug the graves for her three children. He marched over to the nearest section of fencing to him, quickly digging out a shallow fence post. He hacked at a piece of barbwire, and it rapidly came free. Jonas dropped the spade to carry it back with him to Javier. The house was almost surrounded now by the dead, but he wasn’t finished with him just yet.

When Jonas reached Javier’s body, he shoved him up into a sitting position, and drew his arms behind his back. Jonas began to wrap the barbwire tightly around Javier’s arms. It gouged into his skin, tearing open his flesh, but Jonas didn’t care. He wanted to make sure Javier didn’t find some way out, some escape from this place that was saturated in death.

“Stop.” Javier’s breath was ragged and short. “Stop, Hamsikker, think about this. Please, you’re not supposed to—”

“I’m not
supposed
to do what?” Jonas finished wrapping the wire around Javier and looked proudly at his work. Javier looked as if he was on the verge of tears. Jonas had surpassed anger and was now completely in control. “Well? You want me to take the moral high ground? Show mercy? Let you go? Join you?” Jonas raised the gun and pointed it at Javier’s head.

Javier began to plead for his life. “God, Hamsikker, don’t…”

“Don’t what? You expect me to show you some leniency? Like you did when you took my wife away from me? Fuck that. Fuck God. And
fuck you
.”

Jonas pulled the trigger, and Javier’s neck erupted in a shower of bright red blood that spurted from his exposed artery. A single stream of blood flew in an arc over the garden as the bullet passed through Javier’s neck just above the shoulder.

“See? I can show mercy. I’m not going to kill you,” said Jonas as he spat on Javier’s writhing body. “I’m going to let
them
do that.”

Jonas picked something up from the ground by Javier’s feet and then walked away. Leaving Javier with his hands tied, unable to stem the flow of blood from his neck, Jonas went to the combi van and threw back the door. Freya was sat in a forward seat, her knees up to her chin, and her pale arms wrapped around them. Jonas leant into the van, but Freya backed away. She looked scared, and Jonas guessed his appearance wasn’t helping. He must look like one of the dead. Could Freya even recognize him?

“Take my hand, Freya. It’s me, it’s Jonas.” He leant his hand in and tried to take hers, but she backed away, her demeanor that of a cornered mouse left with nowhere to run. She reminded him of Pippa, but Jonas could see Erik in those blue eyes of hers. There was a defiance that suggested no matter how afraid she was, she wasn’t going to meekly surrender. He brought out the item he had picked up from the garden and held it out to her.

“It’s me, Uncle Jonas. I found your key chain. Remember? The bad man has gone now. He won’t bother you anymore. I’ll look after you, okay, honey?”

Freya tentatively reached out for the key chain in Jonas’s hand. She took it and looked at it. Her eyes went from it to him, and then back again, confusion spreading to amazement, and then finally acceptance. She smiled when she looked at the sparkling key chain, and then she shoved it into a pocket. She took Jonas’s hand, and he scooped her up into his arms.

“It’s okay, Freya, it’s okay.” Jonas took her out of the van, and looked around. The zombies were everywhere. Some were in the house now, some in the garden, and more approaching the van. How was he supposed to stop this? How was he supposed to keep on fighting, to find a way of surviving with a nine-year-old girl with him?

“Thank you,” said Freya quietly.

Those two words made Jonas realize how much he still had left in him. His body ached with a fierceness he didn’t know was possible, yet hearing Freya speak for the first time in months gave him a belief he hadn’t felt for a long time. He gently lowered her to the ground and passed her the gun.