The Dust: Book Three - Sanctum (26 page)

Jake inspected a little closer. There was no hole. The blood was flowing from a deep scratch.

He ran over to the old water butt that was leant up against the garage guttering.

He ladled out a rusty tin of rain water.

Angel was stroking the face of Lou Pepper when Jake ran back over.

What happened next she could hardly believe.

Jake threw the tin of water over Lou Pepper’s face.

Angel‘s mouth dropped open. She didn’t know whether to punch him or shield her girl from another attack.

She was just about to scream at Jake when Lou’s eyes opened.

Angel held her tight. ‘I’m here honey, I’m here.’

Lou shifted in her arms; she was groggy, but she was alive.

‘It was me.’ Jake’s voice cracked. ‘I shot her.’

Angel was confused.
What the hell was he on about?

‘The loud blast, it came from Lou’s gun.’ Jake pointed to the discarded weapon on the floor, not far from where Lou fell. ‘She killed Leila K. She saved us from the ambush.’

Angel’s eyes welled with tears and they fell upon Lou’s face. Her heart swelled with joy.

Her little Honey had saved their lives.

***

Jake and Angel stood at the three wooden crosses. They held hands.

Lou, with a bandage over her face, smiled at Amber who was hugging Oskar.

Roger and Jeremiah had bought their boys home.

It had been two long weeks since the great battle at Haytor.

Harry James and Yanto had been buried next to Klaudia, in a makeshift cemetery in a field across the river Lemon.

Oskar had been such a brave a little boy. The innocence of childhood had shielded him from the worst of it, but he still missed his Grandmother.

Angel and Jake gazed at Yanto’s cross; they held hands. The three had been brothers in arms. He was a true giant, even at the very end he rose to the top. He was a true hero.

Jake kissed his girlfriend on the cheek. Their love knew no boundaries. With their two little girls, and now Oskar, they had a future to fight for, Roger’s wounds had been tended to; he was in a bit of pain, but he would live. He was chomping at the bit to get tending to the land. For him, he had to carry on. The memories of his wife and two daughters were not to be wasted. Working in the open air, feeling the sun and even the rain, that’s when he felt closest to them.

Naomi knew the key to it all. She had mentioned it the night before the burial of their three comrades.

Jeremiah, and men like him, were the answer to everyone’s survival. They were the future of this broken country. Men who know how to tend to the land. Men who can feed a nation.

It was going be hard.

The Purebloods had disbanded.

Since the death of the Doyen the already fractured group had broken up.

A lot of the Infected had succumbed to the Norovirus, which had naturally evolved from the Cotswolds.

Nobody was naive enough to believe further right wing groups wouldn’t spring up. That was something that would be crossed when needed.

As for the Infected?

Who could tell?

Many countries across the world had suffered from ‘The Dust.’

Those countries that had escaped had closed their borders and shut up shop. There was no way they would let one drop of infected blood enter their homeland.

The numbers of the Infected had diminished. Those rogue survivors that still roamed the land would soon die out.

Old Mill was a fortress. Our eight friends would make it their home.

For any new survivors, who would stumble upon it or be found, It would be their home too.

For now, the madness had seemed to pass.