Thicker than Blood Read online

  by

  Madeline Sheehan

  and

  Claire C. Riley

  Thicker Than Blood

  Copyright © 2015

  by Madeline Sheehan and Claire C. Riley

  Smashwords Version

  ISBN #9781311704160

  Edited by Pam Berehulke

  Cover by Okay Creations

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek: Beneath Blood and Bone

  About the Authors

  Excerpt: The Beautiful Dead by Daryl Banner

  About the Book

  Leisel and Evelyn lost everything. Husbands. Families. Friends. Lives that made sense. All they had left was each other, and a friendship that could withstand anything…

  Even an apocalypse.

  Until one fateful night, the marginal safety they’d come to rely on comes to a vicious and brutal end. With the help of Alex and Jami, both unlikely allies, Leisel and Evelyn are able to escape their shattered sanctuary only to find themselves face-to-face with a much altered, much crueler life where they have to find the way—and the will—to stay alive in a world they no longer recognize.

  Traveling across a broken and infection-ridden country, the road-weary group is pitted against endless violence, improbable circumstances, and the ultimate loss.

  Everything comes at a price, especially safety, the cost of which could very well strip them of the one thing they’ve tried so hard to cling to—their humanity.

  Yet along with all the trials they’re forced to endure, there’s also hope in the form of love. Having loved Leisel from afar, Alex attempts to put the pieces of her fractured heart back together.

  But in such a savage world, is there room for love?

  In a place of nightmares-made-reality, where the living should be feared far more than the dead, an unbreakable friendship and a love against all odds can mean the difference between life and death.

  There are friends…

  and then there are Leisel and Evelyn.

  Dedication

  To always having someone to rely on, a person in your corner to fight for you no matter the reason, no matter the cost.

  To having more than a friend, more than a sister, but a soul mate.

  To the hope they give us, the strength they provide us, and the unconditional love they empower us with.

  To best friends.

  Prologue

  The zombie apocalypse didn’t happen like it does in the movies.

  Disaster didn’t strike when we weren’t looking. No, we were all looking. We were all waiting. It was a slow trickle that began with a nightly news broadcast. Yet another disease, another epidemic, was sweeping through the third world with crippling effects, decimating entire villages within mere days. The Vaal Fever they’d called it, and it took no mercy on its victims. Men, women, and children alike were ravaged by the disease, and most perished as a result.

  Only, they didn’t stay dead.

  They awoke and attacked the survivors, spreading the virus through both their saliva and blood. And what could we do? Like all the other pandemics we’d lived through, we could do nothing but hope that the Centers for Disease Control could put a stop to it, or that the armed forces would protect us and ensure it wouldn’t spread. So we hoped and we waited, trying not to worry.

  We went about our daily lives. Like usual, we woke up every morning, we went to work and to school, we continued talking, laughing, living. But in the back of our minds, we were waiting. Seven billion people were all waiting.

  That slow trickle grew, becoming a flood as more reports streamed in from all over the world. As a nation, we stayed glued to our radios, to our televisions, to the Internet, watching helplessly as the pandemic continued to spread. After that, governments worldwide took aggressive action to stop the disease from entering their countries. Airports shut down, shipping companies refused to sail, importing and exporting were no more.

  Then the floodgates broke, and we learned the truth.

  There was no treatment. There was no cure.

  Africa was the first to succumb, then China, and Russia quickly followed. Suddenly our usually busy, bustling lives came to a standstill. Supermarkets and drug stores began limiting bulk purchases, generators were suddenly in great demand, and people had begun wearing face masks. Others stopped going to work altogether, refusing to leave their homes in order to avoid any sort of contact with other people.

  When we got word that the disease had found its way to Europe and South America, panic—birthed from fear and helplessness—turned to violence. The American army wasn’t big enough, wasn’t quick enough, wasn’t prepared enough for the sheer magnitude of the public outcry. Because of their lack of planning, a civil war broke out between the army and the citizens they were meant to protect.

  As a result, entire cities went down in flames before the disease had even reached American soil. But when it did, when the first American fell to his knees, the government was ill prepared for the fallout and the sickness spread like wildfire. Indiscriminate, it took the weak, the strong, the young, and the old.

  Before long, news reports and radio broadcasts were no more. The airwaves were filled with nothing but static. Our neighborhoods, our cities and states, the entire country, the whole world—all went silent.

  When the world awoke again, it awoke with a rattling groan that promised only misery and loss.

  And eventually death.

  Chapter One

  Leisel

  There was blood everywhere—on the bed, on the walls, on the floor. Some had eve
n managed to find its way to the ceiling.

  I looked down at my red-stained hands, at my naked body. It was all over me, coating the pale freckled skin on my arms, torso, legs, and feet. It was everywhere.

  I hadn’t seen so much blood in one place in…well, not in the past four years since I’d been living in this sanctuary from the outside world.

  A small, manic laugh escaped my dry and scratchy throat, bubbling past my lips. A sanctuary? Well, it might be for most, but that wasn’t the case for everyone, and least of all for me.

  This place, Fredericksville, a once small and quiet town, and my current home, was one of the last known functioning towns left in the country. And for all intents and purposes, it was a safe place to live. Families survived within, protected by fortified walls and guarded by armed men who kept us safe from the numerous threats from outside. We had a leader, one man, and a council of sorts composed of a small group of men who created our laws. Together they devised a system of checks and balances to keep the peace.

  Everyone had a job to do, determined by whatever skills one possessed in the old world. Women who could sew were still sewing, and teachers like myself were still teaching. Men who could build were still building, chefs were still cooking, farmers were still farming, police were still policing, soldiers were still fighting, officials were still officiating.

  And our leader…

  I looked up, away from my bloodied skin and across the dimly lit room to where an equally naked and bloodied body lay still on the bed. My husband, Lawrence Whitney, the leader of our community…was now dead and no longer leading.

  Another laugh bubbled up and my eyes began to water. I’d killed my husband, a man who wasn’t just a man but was the man in charge, the most powerful man in my world. And no matter how broken this world might be, murder was still a crime, at least behind these walls, and subsequently punishable by death.

  There would be no trial, no defense attorney to help me present my tale of woe to a jury of my peers, to showcase the bruises, new and old, that covered my body. No one would help me explain the real reason why my visits to the infirmary were more frequent than most, why I often had one arm in a sling, why sunglasses always hid my eyes, and why I could occasionally be seen hobbling on a pair of crutches.

  When it came to committing murder in this new world, the only thing one had to look forward to was death. Without the resources or space to house a long-term prison, the people of Fredericksville had little choice but to quickly and efficiently end the lives of their violent offenders.

  I’d known this, and still I’d allowed my emotions to get the better of me. Allowed my pain to cloud my judgment. Allowed my fear to take control, to rear its ugly head and end the source of my misery, my prison, once and for all.

  Oh God, why? Why had I done this, and here in our home of all places? There was no escape, no running and hiding from this mess I’d made. Not within the confines of a walled town, surrounded by armed men. The very same men who would be at our door at the first sign of morning light, ready to escort my husband on his daily duties, only to find him brutally murdered. And me, the bloodstained and obvious culprit.

  If they didn’t kill me outright, I would be taken into custody immediately, not allowed to see or speak to anyone. Within an hour of my apprehension, my crime would be known to all. Word traveled fast in such a small community, especially one with little in the way of modern entertainment. There was no television to be watched, no cell phones to keep us busy, and what little electricity that was harnessed from the nearby river was used solely for communication purposes within Fredericksville, lighting the community buildings, and providing a small amount of refrigeration in the cookhouse. Face-to-face gossip was our only source of entertainment, because it was all we had left.

  I had a day left, maybe two, until everyone would be gathered on the main drag, where justice would be swiftly meted out. A public execution, a single bullet to my head, would provide a warning to all who might at some point be inclined to take the law into their own hands as I had so stupidly done.

  The infection had efficiently ended society as we’d known it. In the midst of the destruction, a new world had arisen with a survival-of-the-fittest, better-him-than-me philosophy, the sort of archaic thinking that asserted that men and women were not equals. As for justice, it too was a thing of the past. We simply survived.

  I sank to the cold tile floor, dropping to my knees with my arms outstretched in supplication. But who my pleading was for, I didn’t know. Did we fall to our knees when we knew we had nothing left, nowhere else to go but down? Was I subconsciously asking God for mercy, for forgiveness, or for a savior?

  My thoughts were scrambled, the fear at the forefront of my mind muddling everything else.

  “Why?” I whispered to the floor. “Why…”

  Confused, I was unable to finish my question, not knowing what my question was. Or maybe I did know, maybe I knew exactly what my question was. Maybe I wasn’t asking why this particular and most recent tragedy had happened, but why it had all happened.

  All of it. Why any of this had happened.

  But there were no answers to be found. There never were.

  Only emptiness. And consequences.

  I wished with all my heart that I could have been stronger. Able to endure this new world, this new reality, with equanimity and grace.

  As I stared off into nothing, I thought of Evelyn, my beautiful and courageous friend. Evelyn had endured as much as I had, been forced from her quiet, happy life as I had, had also lost the man she loved, and alongside me had been thrust into this cruel and cold world. Like me, she had been forced to marry a man she hadn’t loved, forced to live a life she hadn’t wanted. She had been forced to become a woman she wasn’t. Had never known how to be.

  But unlike me, she hadn’t crumpled. She’d become an even stronger version of herself. Evelyn was capable of taking on whatever misery life decided to throw her way, embracing it even, utilizing it, molding it to her liking, and forever persevering.

  I had done the opposite. Grief had consumed me, caused me to turn in on myself instead of facing my demons head-on. They’d piled up inside and eaten away at me, rendered me useless, unable to function properly, and created a whole new set of hardships.

  My demons were always growing, welling up within me, until they were too many—too many to name or count, let alone deal with.

  And so I’d snapped, unable to take another second of it. Of this life. Of his fist colliding with my face, of his body crudely taking what I wasn’t offering, of his harsh words often followed by laughter and scorn. I’d snapped.

  And there my consequences lay. Bloody. Mangled. Dead on our marriage bed. But even dead and finally silent, I could still hear his laughter. It echoed loudly throughout this old building, bouncing off the walls, coming at me from every direction.

  You’re worthless, Leisel. You’re nothing. No one. Do you hear me? You’re nothing, Leisel, nothing! You’re a hole to fuck, a pretty face and an empty head. A stupid, good-for-nothing…

  And his hand would crack across my face, causing me to stumble, to cry out in pain and fall at his feet. He would laugh again and again. Call me more names. Blame me for my inability to produce a child. And then more tears would fall.

  From those tears of pain and humiliation came the worst consequence of all. My pain, my anguish, and my agony made him feel his most powerful, victorious, and like all men who succumbed to bloodlust, I was his prize to be taken.

  Only tonight, there had been too many tears. Too much pain. And while he’d continued to ravage me, hurting me, suddenly I’d gone numb to it all. Numb and then…angry.

  And as he slept, I’d paced. I’d mumbled, crying, cradling the sore places on my body. I’d paced until the anger had taken over, too many thoughts inside of me, too many voices shouting at me, too much pain radiating from my skin and from my broken heart, too many unanswered questions spiraling around and around, and then all of a s
udden I could no longer bear it, bear another second of hearing him snore so peacefully, without a care in the world, after my world had been destroyed and he’d forced me into his world, his world of misery, of my misery, and suddenly the knife he kept in his boot was glaring at me from across the room, a shiny beacon in the fog that I’d become, and the beacon was beckoning me, screaming at me until it was all I could hear, all I could see, and so I took that knife from its sheath and I held it above my husband’s body and as tears poured down my face, angry and full of determination, regardless of the consequences, I brought that knife down and drove it into his heart.

  Again. And again. And again.

  As I continued recalling the events that had concluded mere moments ago, a strange sort of calm began to spread across my goose-pebbled skin, soothing the burning nausea and relieving the crippling fear that held me hostage.

  With a silent breath, I stood up and again surveyed the scene of my crime. Only this time, I wasn’t looking at my consequence. Instead I was seeing something altogether different, something utterly surprising.

  Surprising because…after all, I’d wanted out of this world, hadn’t I?

  I’d wanted to be free from this fear, from the pain, not just from that of my husband but from the world we now lived in. I wasn’t built for it, wasn’t built to survive in times of strife.

  I was weak; I always had been. Only because of Evelyn had I made it this far. Only because of her had I not ended myself long ago.

  And now I was free. I was finally blessedly free of this man.

  “You were a terrible man,” I whispered fiercely. “Not a man at all.”

  I’d known a good man, a true man. I’d loved him with all of me, and in return he’d loved me with all of him. Ours had been a partnership, a friendship, and a love affair all rolled into one. What I had lacked, he’d had in spades, and what he’d lacked, I’d made it my mission to make up for. And never once had he touched me out of anger or perversion.