Page 32 of Sinful Bargain

“Oh...”

“We all have jobs, and right now, I’m on pest control.”

“Pest control?”

“My goal is to put down one hundred dead a day, though sometimes I kill many more.”

Her face grows worried. “That sounds dangerous.”

“The black gear I wear protects against bites, for the most part. It’s not impenetrable, but it buys me a lot of time to slice and dice.”

“Do you know why this happened? What made the dead suddenly rise?”

“No, but I am beginning to think that my employer had something to do with it. I was recruited, told not to ask questions, told something big was about to go down. I didn’t have a choice. It was join the CP or rot in a prison.”

“Did they ask you to do bad things?”

I chuckle. “Yeah.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah.”

“I feel like nothing you say makes sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me, either. When I was first recruited, it was to a southern location, with its own Keep. A setup much like the one up here. When whispers began to circulate, I applied to move so I could find you.”

“Whispers?”

“No one knew what was happening. Crazy reports would come in, and they’d tell us to ignore them. Well, the whispers grew too loud to ignore. We didn’t think our employer had anything to do with the dead rising, just that they were trying to take advantage of a crisis. Now…fuck, I don’t know.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“When we took over the Keep, we put down a lot of people. Even some fellow CPs. We kept some engineers and scientists around to help keep the place running. We also have a group that burns the corpses called Vultures, but they aren’t allowed at the Keep.”

“Why?”

“We don’t really know them. Most we met on pest control missions, and recruited them by giving them supplies, promising that one day we might take them in.”

“Will you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me more about your employer. Why’d you have to kill them?”

“They were killing scientists. Men we needed. Then we found out they were planning to loose the dead on the city while they hid away in the Keep. It was something me and many of the men couldn’t abide. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop that.”

“I can’t imagine being so heartless.”

“Good. I don’t want you to understand evil.”

Brooke smiles, her pretty lips looking enticing as ever. I have to shift my gaze so I can concentrate.

“Anyway, there was a scientist we let live. We didn’t think too much of him, as he was quiet and didn’t seem to pose a threat. He worked in a lab, but upon inspection, it wasn’t concerning. Just boring shit.” I let loose a dry chuckle. “Well, we recently found out it wasn’t so boring after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s possible that he’s the one that started the apocalypse.”

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