After Callum’s watch was over, he joined the others sleeping by the fire, but sleep alluded him for quite some time. La Roux’s words had bothered him. He had always believed himself to be just and fair, but others clearly saw him as something else. He knew he could do things others would not, he also knew this was because he had something missing in his makeup. Some would call it a heart, but Callum thought calling the ability to feel loss, love, and remorse, nothing more than heart, was too simplistic. What he lacked had nothing to do with the heart, and everything to do with the mind.
In recent years, a new and relatively obscure field of medicine had come to his attention. Psychiatric medicine now dealt with more than just locking away the insane. It not only tried to diagnose different disorders, but it tried to treat them. In his spare time, Callum had read as much as he could on the subject, and as a result of his extensive reading, he had come to the conclusion he suffered from some kind of mind disorder.
How else could he explain his disconnect from those around him. He had once thought his disconnected nature a good thing. If he could no longer feel the pain of loss and love, then it would make it easier for him to do his job. But was he allowing his disconnected emotional state to get the better of him? Was he turning into as much of a monster as the Lingerers?
His mind turned to his family, and especially his father. Jon Wentworth was the finest man Callum had ever known. He knew most sons’ felt that way about their fathers, but in his case, others felt the same as he. Everyone in Hope Cove knew Jon Wentworth to be a good man. Not only that, he was loving and kind to his wife and children, which was something of a rarity in Hope Cove. How would his father view his actions? Would he see them as the acts of a good man? Somehow, Callum doubted it. La Roux was right. He was allowing brutality to become his favorite weapon.
After hours of wakeful contemplation, Callum finally slipped into a deep slumber—and like every other night since the death of his dog, Hector—Callum slept with dreams of death and blood. However, his damaged mind somehow controlled the harrowing effects of the dreams, and simply shutdown his fatigued body so it could rest.
To him, as with food and drink, sleep had become nothing more than an annoying part of life. It brought him neither pleasure nor discomfort. It was just something the body needed to keep it functioning, so he slept when sleep was needed, and ate when food was needed. To him, his body was nothing more than a machine that needed fuel and maintenance.
***
Callum woke to the sound of a pan being placed on the fire. Tilly looked over at him and smiled.
“Would ya like some bacon before you head out?” she asked as she pulled a lump of smoked meat from a sack.
He nodded. “Yes please.” He stood and looked out at the river. “Tilly….” She looked up at him. “…I’m sorry for treating your brother so badly.”
She followed his gaze to the river. “That man stopped being my brother the first time he raped me.”
Callum crouched beside her. “What I did … did it upset you?”
She looked at the pan of sizzling meat. “Well, yes, a little. I’ve seen a lot of awful things over the past few years, but they were always committed by bad people. You ain’t bad, Callum, but what you did was. It frightened me in the same way my Pa frightens me.” She looked at him. “Callum, as one who has suffered, I can see the same suffering in others. I can tell you’ve suffered greatly, maybe more than most, but don’t let the suffering turn you into something ya will later despise. Yer a good man who is starting to stray down the wrong path, but you still have time to turn back. Being a Ranger is honorable; don’t dishonor it by becoming like those you hunt.”
Callum looked away, but her hand found his. She squeezed it, and he nodded. “Thank you, Tilly. Yer a gift when I needed it the most.” He looked back at her. “My sister’s name was Tilly, and I feel like I’m speaking to her when I speak to you.”
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I’m guessing she’s one of the ones you’ve lost. Try to make her proud.”
Then something happened that had not happened in many years, a single tear rolled from his eye. “I’ll try,” he said in a horse whisper.
Callum stood and walked into the river. La Roux, who had been listening to Tilly and Callum’s exchange, stood. He watched on in worried silence as Callum moved deeper into the river. Finally, he stopped and pulled his knife, then he reached below the surface and pulled up the head of the Lingerer he had dragged there the day before. The creature gnashed and tried to bite him, but Callum held it at bay with ease. Then, after a short prayer, Callum drove his knife through the creature’s eye.
Callum dropped the dead thing back into the water and started wading rapidly toward shore. Once ashore, he headed back to Tilly and stood before her, dripping.
“I’m sorry for upsetting ya with the way I treated yer brother. He deserved to die, but he didn’t deserve what I did to him … no one deserves that. I promise ya that I’ll remember to be better than those I pursue, and I will never sink that low again.”
Tilly rose and slowly moved toward him. For several moments, she simply stood there, just staring at him, but then she embraced him.
“Yer sister would be proud,” she whispered as her mouth drew close to his ear.
La Roux moved to Callum’s side, and he slapped him on the back. “Come on,” the Cajun said as a smile lit his face. “We have a long way to go, so we best be getting on the move. Once we’ve eaten, we’re heading out.”
With breakfast finished, and the farewells out of the way, the group broke into two. With Anderson and Tilly heading for relative safety, Callum and La Roux headed in to danger.
* * *
La Roux and Callum walked in silence for close to three hours, but finally La Roux broke the quiet.
“Why do you never talk about your family?”
Callum stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the Cajun. The two had been alone many times, but La Roux had never broached this topic before.
“In all honesty, I only remember small snippets of my life before the Lingering.” Callum knew this was not the entire truth, but it was close. “I remember what my family looked like, and I remember what kind of people they were, but I remember very little of my life with ‘em. I know they were good people, and I know that after the outbreak my father died trying to find my mother and sister. I remember fighting alongside him.” Callum stared at the ground. “I also remember how helpless I felt.” He looked back to La Roux. “I don’t feel helpless anymore.”
La Roux looked at him, then nodded slowly. “We’ve all lost people to the Lingering, and we all react differently to the loss. Eight years ago I lost my wife to ‘em, and that’s why I joined the Rangers.”
Callum felt shocked by La Roux’s admission. In all their missions together, the Cajun had never mentioned being married.
“I’m sorry … how did it happen?”
La Roux sighed and looked up the track on which they now walked. “She simply contracted the disease somewhere. She weren’t bit, and we’d never even seen one of the undead. She used to work at the town store, so I guess someone carrying the disease must’ve given it to her. Anyway, she died and I joined up two days later.”
“How old was she?”
“Let me see,” the Cajun said as he stared at the sky. “She would’ve been thirty-two this year, which means she were twenty-four when she died. She was one of the first to be shipped away, and I still regret letting ‘em take her. I should’ve ended her suffering, but I was too grief stricken to think straight. What I’m trying to say is we are all survivors of loss, but it’s how we deal with that loss that matters. I finally think yer going to handle your loss in the right way.”
The big Cajun headed off and Callum just trailed him with his eyes. Finally, he followed, head bowed in contemplation. This mission was getting harder by the minute, not because of any physical threat, but because it was making him look at himself, and Callum didn’t like what he saw.
By the time Callum and La Roux reached the edge of the Maxwell’s encampment, dusk was falling. They sat on an outcrop of rocks perched high above the ragtag collection of huts and tents. Below them, men milled about, but they could see neither women nor Lingerers.
Callum pointed to the settlement below. “There’s the barn where the women are kept,” he said in a hushed tone.
La Roux looked toward where Callum pointed and nodded. “There’s only two fellas guarding ‘em, which is good for us. I say we wait ‘til the middle of the night and then we head down there and free the women. We’ll need to make sure we leave ‘em somewhere safe before we head back to sort out the rest of ‘em.”
Callum hunkered down behind the rock. “If we free the women, then we tip our hand. They’ll be looking for us.”
“I ain’t hitting that place while the women are still there.”
Callum nodded. “Alright. It shouldn’t be too hard to get the women out. After all, those guards hardly seem like they’re sharp.”
La Roux stifled a laugh. “It’s a full moon for the next few nights, so we should at least have a little light to work with. Of course, it also means we’ll be easier to see, but you can’t have everything.”
Callum pulled on a pair of leather gloves and peered over the rock again. “We could leave ‘em with a little present as we leave.”
“Like what?”
“While you lead the women out of the camp, I’ll let loose some of the undead. It should cause enough confusion to cover our tracks.”
“Sounds good to me.”
* * *
With the moon at the zenith of its arc over the Earth, the two Rangers positioned themselves either side of the barn holding the women. Callum drew his knife and let out a noise resembling an owl. A second later, a hoot from the opposite side of the barn indicated it was time to move. Callum leaped into action. Soundlessly, he darted to the front of the barn. La Roux was already there, and had made short work of his guard. The man assigned to Callum pointed his gun at the big Cajun, but Callum took him before he could fire. With a hand covering the guard’s mouth, Callum slit the man’s throat and lowered him to the dirt. La Roux moved to the barn’s large doors, and found them locked with a piece of wood used as a crossbar. He lifted the wood from its metal restraints and laid it on the ground. As quietly as he could, La Roux pulled open the doors and peered inside.
Fifteen pairs of eyes stared back at him, but not one of the women made a sound. “We’re here to help,” he whispered, “Tilly sent us.”
On hearing the name, ‘Tilly’, the women in the barn began to whisper among themselves.
“Keep the noise down,” La Roux whispered as he peered over his shoulder. “We have to go.”
A woman who looked remarkably like Tilly stepped forward. “She be my sister, Tilly I mean. Is she safe?”
La Roux nodded. “Yes, now come on.”
The woman turned back into the darkened barn and gestured for her fellow prisoners to move. La Roux looked toward Callum and nodded. The young Ranger needed no further instruction. Instead, he simply bolted off toward the closest pen housing the Lingerers.
As Callum drew closer to the Lingerer’s pen, he could hear their groaning. Clearly, the smell of the blood from the two men he and La Roux had just killed excited them. Several started to throw themselves at gates that looked far to flimsy to hold them back. He peered through the slatted walls of the enclosure and saw it contained around thirty undead, all of whom were now getting more and more agitated.
He looked around, but saw no one guarding the pen. If he released the creatures now, they would more than likely head off in search of not only the blood, but the women too. He had to wait a little longer; otherwise, he could end up killing those he was trying to save. He crouched and kept an eye on his surroundings. Several minutes passed, and now the noise from the undead had grown too loud to ignore. It was time to release them.
He got to his feet and headed for the pen’s gate.
“Hey! Who the hell are you!”
Callum turned to see a man nearly as big as La Roux charging straight for him. Callum’s hand went to his tomahawk, but before he could draw it from its holster, the man had already slammed him into the pen’s gate. Callum fought as the giant’s hand wrapped around his throat and his feet left the dirt. He lashed out at the man’s face with his fists, but his blows were ineffectual against the oaf’s thick skull. Callum could now feel hands pawing at him from behind. The undead were trying to grab him through the slats of the gate.
His left hand once more went in search of his tomahawk, and this time he managed to pull it free of its restraint. He raised it high in the air, but the giant’s free hand shot to his wrist. His assailant squeezed, and Callum dropped his tomahawk as he felt his wrist break. The man then slammed Callum’s useless hand against the gate. It hit the wood so hard that it smashed through the timber and into the pen. Instantly, he felt teeth biting into the leather of his gloved hand. He knew he only had a few seconds before the teeth found his flesh, and then the Lingering would enter his blood.
The man grinned and tightened his grip on Callum’s throat. “Seems our friends in there have a taste for ya,” he growled as he drew his face closer to Callum’s. “Once they’ve had your hand, I might just throw you over to ‘em.”
With the oxygen to his brain cut off, Callum could feel himself beginning to pass out. He needed to act, and fast. Callum’s remaining free hand worked its way down the man’s body until it landed on the handle of a knife. The thug could feel what Callum was doing, but with both his hands full, he could do nothing to stop him. As Callum pulled the knife, the teeth of a Lingerer penetrated the leather of his glove, and he felt his flesh begin to tear as the ghoul bit down harder. He only had one option left open to him.
The giant man’s eyes went wide as Callum brought the large knife up in a high, fast-moving arc. The man followed the blade with his eyes as Callum raised it, then slammed it down on his intended target. The man released his grip on Callum, and stumbled back. The look of shock and disbelief on his face was unmistakable.
Callum dropped to the dirt, coughing and cradling his damaged wrist. Blood spurted from the grizzled stump, but Callum worked against the pain of severing his own hand. It had been his only option. He had to cut off his hand before the disease could reach his blood stream; otherwise he would be cursed to become one of the undead. Callum looked up at the monster of a man before him, and focused on what had to be done. The man, in turn, stared at Callum’s handless, blood soaked wrist with a combination of disbelief and shock.
Callum did not wait; instead, he leaped to his feet and attacked. It took him less than a second to dispatch his attacker by using the man’s own knife. As the giant hit the dirt, Callum turned and dashed to his tomahawk, which lay on the ground a few feet away. He holstered it, and then turned his gaze to a fire near one of the tents. A pot hung in its flames and a thick column of steam rose from the pot.
He could hear the camp beginning to stir. Voices were starting to emanate from every direction, and he realized he only had a matter of seconds before his escape would become impossible. But first, he needed to stem his bleeding, so he gritted his teeth and ran for the pot.
Callum took several deep breaths, and pressed his mutilated wrist against the pot’s piping hot metal. His head swam with pain, and once again unconsciousness threatened to take him. However, he knew he could not relent, so he swallowed back a scream and pressed his stump harder against the pot. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils and the stench instantly revived him.
“Over there!” a voice shouted to his right.
Callum looked in the direction of the shouts, and saw two men running in his direction. His good hand went to his six-shooter, but before he could draw it, the gate to the pen holding the Lingerers finally gave way. The undead erupted from the gate like a torrent of rotting flesh. They instantly saw the two men running toward Callum, and made a beeline straight for them. In a heartbeat, the men’s shouts turned to screams. More men began to appear, but the Lingerers made short work of them all. Callum removed his wrist from the pot, and then vomited into the flames at what he saw.
The wound looked like a badly burned piece of steak, but at least the cauterization of his flesh had stopped the bleeding. The flap on the front of the tent closest to him opened, and a man holding a rifle stepped out. His eyes fixed on Callum, but then they turned to the mayhem by the pen. Without thinking, Callum pulled his gun and promptly put a bullet in the man’s head. He then turned and looked toward the Lingerers feeding a few yards away. Several now looked in his direction, and he knew he was next on the menu. He put a round in each head of the Lingerers staring at him, then he bolted off to find La Roux and the women.
With every jarring step he took, bolts of pain roared up his injured arm. The pain was almost unbearable, but thanks to his cold single mindedness he was able to compartmentalize it. Pain was just something to endure, but never something to succumb to. He pounded onwards and drove all discomfort from his mind. After a few minutes of intense running, he stopped to look for signs of La Roux and the women.
His heart was pounding like a sledgehammer in his chest, and his vision kept moving in and out of focus. Suddenly, he heard the sound of pursuers crashing through the trees behind him. With the knowledge that the noise was most likely the result of the undead, he turned to look in the direction of the sound. As he turned, his foot caught on a root hidden beneath the carpet of leaves that covered the ground. He crashed to the dirt, landing heavily on his injured arm. Despite his considerable self-control, he screamed with pain.
At that moment, two Lingerers burst into the tiny clearing where he lay, and they eyed him hungrily. He knew he had to fight, but his body refused all orders his brain sent it. He feebly reached for his gun, but he fainted before his hand got within six inches of it.
The Lingerers moved closer to his unconscious body, and as if to call others to their location, they let out a loud, guttural sound. The creatures peered around for a few moments longer, then they lunged for the fallen Ranger.