Hellspawn (Book 6): Retribution Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgement

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  AUTHOR BIO

  Hellspawn Retribution

  by Ricky Fleet

  © 2019 Ricky Fleet

  Published by Optimus Maximus Publishing, LLC in association with Dark Fleet Productions

  Edited by Christina Hargis Smith

  Cover art by Jeffrey Kosh Graphics

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Electronic edition, License notes: This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-944732-42-4

  ISBN 10: 1-944732-42-X

  Acknowledgement

  To all my readers, friends, family, thank you for your support. To the best beta reader team ever, thank you for helping me put out the best books possible.

  Chapter 1

  “How’s she been, Doc?”

  Dr Feeley scowled at the filthy bruiser. “She’s been fine, but with all that mess on you I’d suggest you go and take a shower before seeing her.”

  “Are you saying I stink?” Hombre glowered. His intention was to go and wash straight away, but the lure of the psychotic beauty was impossible to resist.

  “Yes, I can smell you from over here. You risk introducing infections and all manner of nastiness if you insist on seeing her like that.”

  “Careful, Doc.”

  “No, you be careful!” Dr Feeley fired back. “You want me to keep her alive, and that’s what I’m doing. You’d be the one putting her at risk!”

  “Ok!” Hombre yelled and the doctor shrunk away. “I’ll take a shower.”

  “Thank you,” he replied with evident relief.

  “I’ll be back in an hour. Get her warmed up for me, I’m going to give her unconscious body a go.”

  “What? You can’t. That’s monstrous.”

  “I’m joking, Doc. Jesus Christ, take one of your pills before you have a heart attack.”

  “Not funny!” shouted the doctor as Hombre left the medical wing.

  “Not funny, my arse. That was a good one,” he grumbled.

  Reaching the central admin block, he figured it was best to go and tell Craig the good news. And also keep a certain double murder quiet. It wasn’t as if they were going to do anything about it now that they were dead. Well, one dead and one kind of dead. Fucking Gypsies! He had nothing but respect for their code, just not the people. Con artists and rogues, one and all. When they weren’t fighting, they were up to no good in some form or other.

  “Hypocrite,” he said, chuckling quietly. It was a perfect description of his own life up to this point.

  “You ok, boss?” asked the door guard whose name Hombre had never bothered to learn.

  “Yeah, is he in?”

  “He’s in,” replied the nameless man, turning slightly and knocking on the door. “It’s Hombre.”

  “Let him in!” shouted Craig.

  Pushing the door open, the guard nodded in respect and let him through, before gently closing it.

  “You aren’t dead then?” beamed Craig.

  “Not yet.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “It was no bother. I knocked down half the town with a crane and crashed a bus, but that’s about it.”

  “A nice leisurely day out then.”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “I’ll get a crew to bring the generator in later. When do you think you’ll be ready for a run out to grab the tanker?”

  “As soon as you need me to, boss.”

  “Good. I’d like it all up and running by the weekend. Rechtman is nearly done with his calculations on the sections we can supply without overloading it.”

  “Any word from the scouts?”

  “Yeah, they’ve found two. One was in the middle of filling up a forecourt in Felpham, the other’s a bit more tricky. It’s stuck in a jam on the main road into Flansham. It’ll take some effort to move the cars and get it turned around.”

  “Which one’s more important?”

  “The Felpham one. It’s diesel and we need that for the genny. Matt seems to think most of the boats will run on diesel, but some will use petrol.”

  “Ok. I’ll head out soon.”

  “Good man! Oh, and I’ve also heard a rumour that we’ve got venison on the menu?”

  “Found the little beauty on my way through the school fields. Most of the animals out there are doing a damn sight better than we are. It’ll be worth checking with the lags who’re skilled in bush craft. We can start snaring rabbits and stuff.”

  “I’ll get the wing bosses to ask around. It’d beat the meat we’ve been using recently.”

  “I don’t know. I quite like it,” Hombre replied.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me, you nutter?” Craig chuckled. “What’re you doing now? Fancy a drink?”

  “Nah, I’m heading off for a wash. Then I’m going to see the little hellcat.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Craig said, slowly. The threat was clear.

  “She’s fair game as far as I’m concerned,” Hombre replied, stepping forward a pace. He’d never shown disrespect to his friend and leader before, but this was different. This was love. Or some shit. He wasn’t altogether sure yet.

  “Mike won’t like that,” Craig continued, narrowing his eyes.

  “Boss, I couldn’t really give a fuck if he doesn’t like it. He didn’t want her, and I steered well clear to prevent any grief when she came onto me. I knew the game she was playing. I didn’t even kick off when you gave her to that fucking degenerate Wozniak, did I? But now she’s a free agent, I’m claiming her.”

  “Claiming her?” Craig growled through clenched teeth. “She goes on the rape night roster the same as all the cunts.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “And who’s going to stop me? You?”

  “Boss, I love you, but don’t test me. I’ve been through hell for you and never asked for anything. I’m having her.”

  “Get out before I lose my shit!” Craig ord
ered.

  “I’ll see you at dinner,” Hombre replied, nonchalantly walking from the room.

  “Everything ok?” asked the nameless guard, nervously.

  The sounds of furious smashing and cursing came from the office and Hombre shrugged. “I think the governor is in a bad mood,” he replied, smiling while walking away.

  Chapter 2

  Kurt paced anxiously around the room as Christina worked diligently on the bodies. Pausing briefly every minute or so, he looked at her expectantly. A slight shake of the head answered his query and the incessant movement continued.

  “Are you sure you need to be here?” Christina posed, stopping mid cut.

  “I need to know what happened.”

  “I understand that, but you’re quite off-putting. I can bring you the results as soon as I’m finished.”

  “I’d rather stay. I’ll keep out of your way, I’m sorry.”

  “As you wish.”

  Taking a seat in the corner of the frigid room, Kurt watched her perform the autopsies, rubbing his hands together for warmth. The small cell had once housed the prisoners of centuries past, now it was home to the stiff corpses of their fellow survivors. The harsh light of the lanterns illuminated the stark wounds of the slain under her knife. Mashed brains and green blood leaked from damaged skulls, trickling onto the stone floor. Lacking proper medical equipment, she had to use a variety of kitchen implements. It was far from ideal and her growing annoyance cut through the air like a scalpel with tuts and deep sighs. A gentle rap on the door brought another bout of angst. DB peered inside, and the scowl softened into a smile.

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Is the place locked up tight?”

  “As tight as it was half an hour ago. We sealed each wing until we know what we’re up against. The walls will have to watch themselves for now.”

  “I don’t like the idea of leaving them unattended.”

  “Gloria and Jonesy are on lookout from the watchtower. Even if they get inside the grounds they can’t get to us without being seen. With our weakened numbers they could pick us off one at a time if we’d stayed on sentry.”

  “What a fucking mess!” Kurt seethed, rubbing a hand over his face hard enough to sting.

  “Do you both want a brew?”

  “A coffee would be most welcome.” Christina beamed.

  “I could…” Kurt nearly said; ‘murder a cuppa’ and stopped himself. “Yes please, mate.”

  “Be right back.”

  He closed the door and Christina allowed a quiet chuckle. The frame was built in a time when the height of people was many inches smaller than the modern average. DB practically had to kneel to make it beneath the low set lintel. In medieval times he would’ve been a giant on the battlefield, a warrior feared and revered in equal measure.

  “You two really need to hook up.”

  “I think in the current circumstances a romantic affair’s rather pointless. We could both be dead by tomorrow. Hell, we could’ve been dead tonight if you hadn’t put them down so quickly.”

  “All the more reason to throw caution to the wind and say fuck it.”

  Christina rolled her eyes and returned to the task. Heidi, George, and Nathan had been given only a rudimentary inspection. Following the timeline of the event it was clear they weren’t the plague bearer, but victims of the initial outbreak. DB and Denise had carried out a quick check of Jasmine’s body and it only raised more questions.

  “She was suffocated,” declared Christina, finally satisfied with her work.

  Kurt jumped up from his chair and approached. Jasmine’s naked body was ravaged with a large Y incision on the chest, her ribs held apart by a couple of rusty clamps Bob found in the tool shed. Unfazed by the gore, he looked on as she pointed out the exposed arteries to the right of the heart which had been cut through. Supposedly there was evidence in the severed capillaries but Kurt was unable to see it and just nodded dumbly. Words like pericardium and haemorrhagic shock went right over his head.

  Seeing his confusion, she motioned towards the alabaster face instead. What had once been pretty, in a sharp, cold type of way, was now marred by dried blood. The fierce grimace of the recently turned, and the slit from DB’s machete blade in her eye socket, took away the last traces of appeal.

  Pulling back the remaining eyelid, she urged Kurt to look closely through a magnifying glass. “See the burst vessels beneath the cloudy layer which takes over the cornea?”

  “I see them.”

  “It’s called petechial haemorrhaging. They’ve occurred as a result of the starvation of oxygen in the blood. Look in here too,” she said, carefully opening the mouth with a knife.

  “All I see is blood,” Kurt muttered, staring down into the messy maw.

  “See the cuts on the inner lip?”

  Kurt reached out to open the mouth wider to get a better view until Christina slapped his hand away. “The saliva and blood stay infectious for several hours after death.”

  “We’ve been lucky then. It’s hard to avoid it when you’re hacking them to pieces.”

  “Thankfully it seems that simple skin or mucus membrane contact won’t carry the infection. It requires a wound of sufficient depth to carry it into the bloodstream.”

  “Like bites.”

  “Exactly like bites! Scratches too if they’ve got fresh blood on their hands or under their nails.”

  “It looks like I need to dust off some of the suits of armour in here.”

  “They’d certainly help. Anyway, do you see the cuts?”

  Kurt nodded.

  “That’s another sign of suffocation. Whatever was held over her face pressed the skin so hard her teeth created small tears as she tried to breathe.”

  “She was murdered?”

  “Without a doubt. Someone went to great lengths to cover it up though. There are no signs of struggle, no defensive wounds at all.”

  “I hate to ask this, but could it have been… sexual? I know some people go in for that kind of thing. Maybe a sex game got out of hand?”

  “There’re no signs pointing to any kind of sexual activity.”

  “If that’s the case, why not just kill her and let her loose? Why go to all the trouble of killing her in such an elaborate way?”

  “Best guess?”

  “Shoot.”

  “To trigger fear and panic. If I wasn’t able to give you a diagnosis it’d just appear she’d died and risen again. People could wrongly assume it was a new way for the virus to transmit. An airborne pathogen’s far harder to fight.”

  “Or they might assume she just passed away like people sometimes do. Sudden adult death syndrome, or whatever they call it.”

  “I think these days an explanation of natural causes would fall on deaf ears. The group would become more paranoid and divided than ever.”

  “Could you be wrong?”

  “Of course, I’m a pathologist, not a detective. You need to speak to Denise if you want an investigation.”

  “I don’t like where this is leading…”

  “Isn’t murder bad enough?” Christina asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “It is, but it’s the murderer I’m worried about. Everyone here knows you’re a doctor and we can assume they’d know you could find out the cause of death, right?”

  “That’s a safe assumption.”

  “Then it means our killer doesn’t know we have a doctor.”

  “Someone from outside?”

  Kurt shrugged, terrified of the consequences if that was the case. “Our walls are too large to monitor properly. Jasmine and her band of merry fuckwits made it even harder when they swanned off to be away from the main group. The prison has burglars, psychos, just the type of people who could pull this off.”

  “We need to warn everyone.”

  “No. Only our group for now.”

  “Does that include Denise and Patricia?”

  “They fought for us. They’re part of
the group.”

  “As did Louise and most of the others. There is no our group and their group anymore, just the group.”

  “Fucking hell!” Kurt grunted, scowling at the dead woman. He knew it was wrong to think ill of the dead, but oh how he hated that arrogant bitch and the danger she had placed them all in. That she had paid the ultimate price for her folly was irrelevant; the others may well pay the same price because of her selfish attitude.

  “Please don’t punch the corpse,” said Christina, watching him warily.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You looked like you wanted to hit her. Repeatedly.”

  “I did a little.”

  “Are you over it?”

  “I think so. I’ll probably just go and kick the shit out of a bin instead.”

  “Bins are more useful than our departed friend, so I wouldn’t. Perhaps a hug would help?”

  Holding her arms wide, Kurt stepped into the embrace with a weary chuckle. The doctor knew the pressures Kurt was under and how to draw some of the venom from his sting. DB pushed into the room with two steaming mugs and frowned at the contact.

  “Nothing untoward going on, buddy. Our friend was stopping me from assaulting a dead body.”

  “Fuck, man, that’s all we’ve been doing for weeks. Don’t stop now,” he replied with a grin and handed the mugs over. “What’s the news?”

  “We’re fucked.”

  “Tell me something we don’t know.”

  Chapter 3

  “Jasmine was murdered.”

  “That’s a shame. Apart from being a bit of a bitch, she was a stone cold fox,” grumbled Bob.

  “And now she’s just stone cold,” replied Kurt, sternly.

  “Sorry, that was a bit too soon. Apologies, everyone!” said Bob, trying to shrink into, and through, his chair.

  The hall erupted with questions. Out of the close to fifty people present, the only silent ones were the remaining members of her little group of rebels and a regretful maintenance man. Fearfully, they listened at the furious accusations and demands for punishment.

  “Banishment!” cried one.

  “Throw them from the wall!”

  “Lock them up!” cried another.