The Night House Read online

  How many people lurked in the woods around her? And why didn’t he sound happy to find another survivor? She scanned the bank. He said “we,” but no one else appeared to be with him. Figure of speech, then? At least he wasn’t a zombie. She couldn’t deal if this turned out to be an actual zombie apocalypse.

  The man’s gaze flicked to her backpack where it rested against a large rock. His stomach growled loud enough for her to hear more than ten feet away.

  He planned to steal her food.

  He snarled and dove for her pack. Instinct kicked in. She lunged and snatched her stuff from his grasp, and dodged out of his way, but she was too slow. His fist smashed into her face. Pain exploded behind her eyes. She spun with his strike and flung her elbow out. It contacted the back of his skull. The man lurched forward. She completed her turn, grabbed the back of his head, fingers curling around his greasy hair, and slammed his face into her knee. Crack! She shoved him into the water and away from her. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

  The man flailed and staggered to his feet. He pulled a pocket knife from his pants and unfolded the rusty, dirty blade.

  “You don’t have to do this.” She squared off to face him, weaponless. Her head throbbed.

  The man held the knife out to the side. His stance desperate, not trained.

  “There’s a campground two days up the river,” she continued. “Less if you take the road. It’s full of supplies. Food, tents, clothes, backpacks to carry it all. I only took what I could carry and my friends…” She swallowed. “And my friends no longer need it.”

  “Are you going to cry?” He tilted his head and sneered. “Give me your stuff and I won’t hurt you.”

  “Why? There’s a town nearby.”

  “Not anymore.”

  What the hell did he mean by that? Had she travelled all this way for nothing? Dread clawed at her insides. The throbbing behind her eyes eased away and her vision focused. She gnawed on the inside of her cheek. “You can have everything if you keep heading north.”

  “Toward the source of that blue shit? No thank you.” He leaned to the side, coughed and spat bloody mucus into the river. “A pretty thing like you probably lies all the time to get your way.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “I don’t care. Throw the bag over. You can go back to the campsite.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  He’d probably done all sorts of things to survive on the streets and along the river. The detached, hard gaze told her he spoke the truth. He would kill her. He’d shove that old, dirty blade into her for a water bottle and three days’ worth of food.

  “You can try,” she said.

  He growled and sprang forward. He slipped on the smooth river rocks. Water sprayed her shorts and T-shirt. Taya took the opening. She stepped and turned into his body, grabbing the knife arm and elbowing him in the head again. He grunted and buckled forward. She ducked under his arm, stepped back and wrenched his arm behind him.

  Control the weapon, her dad’s instructor voice played in her head.

  She twisted his wrist. His hand opened and the knife clattered against the rocks at their feet. She drove her knee up, and kicked the man and his stench away from her.

  The man stumbled forward, spun and swore.

  “Colourful. But not very original,” she said. “Leave now.”

  The man screamed and dove forward. His body slammed into her midsection and his momentum carried them into the river. Cold water rushed around her. His hands snaked around her neck, thumbs digging in and held her down below the surface.

  He was going to kill her.

  He was going to kill her.

  She thrashed her arms and legs. The ineffective blows glanced off his body. He straddled her and pinned her to the river floor. The sharp edge of a rock dug into the back of her shoulder. She bucked, but he braced his wiry arms against her throat. Her vision narrowed, blackness closed in. She groped the riverbed beside her, gripped a smooth river rock and bashed it against the side of the man’s head. He toppled over. She pushed him off and sat up, gasping for air.

  The man snarled again and surged forward. Sunlight reflected off metal. The knife. He’d found it. He wouldn’t give up until he killed her.

  She blocked his downward stroke with her forearm and drove the rock she still clutched into his face. He cried out and fell back. She scrambled over the slippery rocks, splashing ice cold water and pinned him down. Her lungs screamed.

  He swung his arm toward her, driving the knife at her neck. She leaned back, grabbed his wrist and redirected his aim. The blade pushed into his chest and straight into his heart.

  His eyes bulged. His head lifted out of the water before he fell back limp.

  The river didn’t save him this time. Instead, it carried his blood away as if cleaning up this horrific act of violence. She waited for more adversaries to rush from the forest and attack her. No one came.

  Taya remained sitting, panting for breath and straddling the dead man as he bled out. She let the river cleanse her, too.

  Chapter Three

  The Path Less Travelled…

  Taya didn’t know how long she remained sitting on the dead guy while the world rushed past and her body and mind grew numb. She was raised to fight and trained daily. Competed in tournaments, won championships, and sparred regularly. But she’d never killed before. Only criminals murdered people.

  The man wouldn’t have let her go, and giving away her supplies meant a slow death instead of a fast one. She had no choice. But still…

  Her insides contorted as if trying to ring out the taint of her actions. Her vision swam. When she finally dragged herself from the icy water of the river, shivering and trembling, the sun had slipped over the horizon. No way in hell would she set up camp near the body.

  With numb limbs, she pulled her other set of clothes from her pack, and changed into fresh pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Even after ringing out the water, the river had drenched her shorts and shirt. If only she hadn’t fought—

  No.

  Don’t go there. Not yet. Too soon. Focus on the current problem and make a plan.

  She strapped the wet clothes to the front of her bag so they’d dry without getting the rest of the supplies soaked. The summer heat would take care of the rest.

  She slung the backpack over her shoulders and trudged up the river bank. The last thing she wanted to do was hike through the woods in the dark, but staying with the body wasn’t an option and travelling along the river at night wasn’t ideal, either.

  The body.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Her memory replayed the man’s final moments—the sick sound of the knife stabbing into his flesh, his bulging eyes and the blood.

  She squeezed her eyelids closed and counted down from ten. When that didn’t work, she focused on the sounds and smell of nature around her. This was not the time or place to dwell on what happened in the river. She needed to make a plan. She needed to survive.

  The time had come to cut the umbilical cord. She couldn’t see a blue death wave in the dark anyway. Eventually, she’d have to restock her supplies, find out what the hell was going on, find some form of transportation, and see if anyone else survived. Why not rip off the bandage and do it now?

  Would there even be a town left when she emerged from the woods? The man said there wasn’t, but she needed to see for herself.

  She turned to the forest. She found a meandering path—the same path the man must’ve taken to get to the river. Dread clung to her skin as much as the dirt. What if the other survivors were like the man? Had they destroyed the town? Would she have to kill again?

  Her gut twisted more. She winced. She’d do what she had to do.

  Survive first. Feel later. Her dad’s warm voice coiled around her memories. He’d preached all kinds of things in his self-defence classes, but this one stuck.

  The sun’s light weakened, casting the forest around her in shadows. A
squirrel scrambled up a nearby tree trunk. She left the bright halo of wet river rock and floral wildflowers and delved into a dark scented world of dry bark, decaying leaves and pine. Tree roots crisscrossed a trail scattered with fallen leaves and twigs.

  Prickly blackberry bushes lined the path and snagged on her pant legs. At least she wouldn’t accidentally wander from the path at dark. Like all the other battery-operated devices at the campsite, the flashlights hadn’t worked, so she left them behind. She had a bulk supply of matches instead.

  Yeah, like she’d start brandishing a torch like some tomb-raiding crusader. She’d more likely set her hair on fire. No thank you.

  Leaves rustled from a gentle breeze. Her wet shoes squeaked along the path and the wet clothes slapped against the outside of her backpack, raining droplets of cold water on her pant legs. The warm, late-summer air brushed past her, full of pine and ambivalence. She exited the path to find the road she’d driven on a few days ago—an eternity ago—when her life was filled with friends and laughter, and the exciting uncertainty of a future after graduating university.

  She drew in a deep breath of pine and hemlock and…smoke.

  Down the road, flickering firelight beckoned with a dim, but warm glow. A town. She scanned the buildings, but no streetlights or lighted signs illuminated them. Had the man been right? Was it all gone? Surely there had to be something left in town. Or was the problem more to do with other survivors than supplies?

  A horse whinnied.

  She froze.

  Hoof beats thundered up the road on the other side of the hill.

  Oh, hell no. She was not greeting a herd of mysterious horses alone on a dark road.

  Taya dove back onto the path and jumped into a patch of salal bushes. She scrambled forward and poked her head out to see horses crest the hill and barrel toward the waiting town. Large men rode on their backs, metallic armour flashed in the fading light. Metal clanked and leather creaked as the group roared past.

  Armour?

  Horsemen?

  Was this actually a real-life apocalypse, just not some biblical or zombie one? Fuck. She’d been joking before. The situation unfolding before her eyes looked more like one of those re-enactment scenes from the documentaries on the Middle Ages she watched in high school. What the hell was going on? Was this a foreign invasion or weapons testing gone wrong?

  Part of her screamed to run back to the river. The other part knew moving right now wasn’t an option—even if she could will her frozen limbs to move, she might alert the group to her presence. She had to stay where her arms and legs grew roots into the soft soil, and gather as much information as possible. Ignorance wasn’t bliss.

  Something crawled along her skin. She stiffened. With one little hairy leg at a time, a large spider crept across her cheek, prickling her skin. Her nose twitched.

  Don’t scream. Don’t sneeze. Don’t move.

  She didn’t dare make a sound as the wolf spider’s fuzzy body blocked the view of her right eye.

  She squeezed her eyelids shut. Her heart hammered like a piston in one of those steam engine trains. Her brother had once woken up to find one of these hairy beasts on his face. He’d been eight and since that day refused to sleep unless they kept a light on. He had a dedicated bedside lamp and called it his “anti-spider” device.

  Her lungs constricted. Tommy. Would she see him again? Or would she find more piles of ash when she made it home?

  A sob threatened to escape her throat.

  No.

  She swallowed the cry down.

  The spider moved on. An involuntary shudder wracked her body.

  Screams from the town erupted. Some men yelled, but without binoculars or adequate light, she had no way of knowing who hurt who. She could take down an untrained river rat. Ten likely trained and powerful men on horseback in full armour? Her prospects for success were non-existent. Running into battle to help the unknown people accomplished nothing but adding her life to the death toll.

  She pulled her head into the bushes and settled into the dirt. She couldn’t risk running from her hiding spot now. She’d give herself away. The best plan involved staying still and waiting, painfully, for daylight.

  Her limbs weighed down as if tied to cinder blocks. Her eyelids drooped. With an unknown band of medieval warriors terrorizing the survivors in a nearby town and an unaccounted for wolf spider the size of her eyeball, sleep should’ve alluded her. Hell, the adrenaline-laced blood pumping spastically through her veins should’ve been enough to keep her awake. Except it wasn’t. Nothing was. The screams dwindled and the pleas of victims faded into silence. Exhaustion plowed through her body like a steamroller and turned off the lights.

  Chapter Four

  A History Lesson

  Heavy hoof beats jerked Taya awake from her exhaustion-induced coma. She froze. Her stiff muscles screamed in complaint and dirt coated her tongue. Morning dew clung to the leaves and left the soil and her clothing damp. She peered through the small break in the waxy salal leaves. Luckily, the thick bush covered her well. She used to hide in similar places when she played hide and seek with her brother. She may have gotten dirty, but she usually won.

  Sorrow pulled her farther into the dirt. Her brother.

  A procession of armoured horses ambled up the road toward her. Metal clanked. Smoke rose in the distance from the town. Among the clip clop of horseshoes on pavement came the hushed whimpering of men and women.

  The leader pulled his horse to the side of the exposed road, right in front of where Taya hid and turned to watch the group. Or maybe he wished to view his destruction of a town with pride. Sunlight reflected off the warrior and horse’s armour with a blinding effect, and the animal kicked up dirt and dry grass.

  The procession continued. Weary men and women with tear-streaked, dirt-caked skin, shuffled behind two horsemen. Shackled to a common chain, their cuts, bruises and swollen faces spoke of a lost battle. The scene looked like something from a history book.

  Taya shuddered. The leaves rustled. Oh no. Please don’t look over here.

  The leader looked over his shoulder. His ice blue eyes scanned the forest. He didn’t look down at the foliage. Platinum-blonde hair, similar in colour to her own, poked out from under his helmet. His smooth white skin resembled a handsome ivory statue and remained unflushed under thick armour and the morning sunlight. He bore no signs of the struggle from last night. He didn’t look tired. He looked bored.

  Bastard.

  Ruining lives should take a toll and come at a cost.

  Another horseman drew up to the leader. “Why are we taking so many?” he growled. He spoke English with a clipped accent. Similar to her Norwegian friend, yet different somehow.

  The leader turned and looked down his straight aquiline nose at the other man. “Are you questioning me?”

  Red flushed the other man’s cheeks. “No, sir. You put me in charge of supplies. We don’t have enough to support this many for the trip home. Some will die.”

  The leader snorted. “I’m counting on it.”

  The man’s heartless words ran over Taya’s skin like cold hands.

  “They are cattle,” the man continued. “We want the best stock. The House of Jericho placed me in charge of this collection run, not you.”

  The second horseman nodded, but turned pale.

  “You’re too young to remember the early days of the last reaping. As with that other godforsaken hole we invaded, we will replenish our working class with these earthen scum and fill our houses with this planet’s resources.”

  Taya stiffened. Reaping? Earthen? This planet? Fear squeezed her spine and locked her in place.

  All this time, fear mongers warned of possible attacks from outer space. Apparently, they were attacked, but not by slimy green aliens with oversized eyes in flying saucers.

  A woman in the retinue turned to glare at the soldiers. She’d heard them, too. Young and pretty with long dark hair and a curvy figure, her expression he
ld defiance. The men ignored her. She dropped her gaze. And spotted Taya.

  Crap. Taya’s whole body tightened as if all her muscles seized in dread of discovery.

  The woman’s mouth twitched with a brief sad smile before she turned away and continued her march to an unknown fate.

  Taya relaxed a little. If only she could help the woman. But what could she do? Create a diversion and release all the prisoners from their chains? She’d need lightning speed and reflexes for that. As she was now, utterly normal and bereft of any magical superpowers, she wouldn’t make it five steps from the bushes.

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” the soldier said to the leader.

  “I’m not.”

  Well, okay, then. No love lost there, apparently. With the pleasantries over, they turned their horses to follow the procession.

  Taya remained lying in the dirt while her brain scrambled. How did these strange men speak the same language, especially if they were from a different planet? A different planet. Her brain waves shorted out.

  They didn’t look like aliens and not only did she understand their words, she grasped their intent. She really wished she didn’t.

  Taya remained prone in her salal bush hiding place for hours after the last horse and slave disappeared over the hilltop.

  They didn’t appear to have any plans of returning and no trailing scouts followed after them. She couldn’t stay here forever with her face pressed against damp soil and spiders roaming over her body. Taya needed food, shelter, transportation and a plan. She also needed to find out how far the death wave travelled. She needed to get home.

  Her parents and brother lived on another island on the other side of a small mountain range. She needed a boat, too. Geez. Her list was getting long.