Lanherne Chronicles (Book 2): Five More Days With The Dead Read online

  FIVE MORE DAYS WITH THE DEAD

  Stephen Charlick

  Cover artwork by: [email protected]

  © Copyright: Stephen Charlick 2012

  DAY 1

  Patrick grunted with effort, as the iron bar that moments ago had ended the unnatural existence of the Dead woman before him, pulled free of her now shattered skull, bringing with it more of her ruined brain.

  ‘Is that all of them?’ He asked, his breath heavy from the sudden exertion. ‘Is everyone okay?’

  Using the back of his sleeve to wipe the dark stinking blood that had sprayed over his face with each swing of his weapon, Patrick looked around at his fellow travelling companions. To his left, Ryan was clubbing the last spark of life from the Dead child on the ground. His powerful blows were quickly rendering the child’s small head to a pulpy mush, as skin, shattered bone and decaying brain matter became further pounded into the wet mud. With a forceful kick, Ryan began the stamp down again and again on the now headless corpse’s back. Even from where Patrick stood, he could hear the brittle snap of child sized bones.

  ‘Ryan,’ Patrick said, trying to catch his old friend’s attention.

  Ignoring Patrick’s voice or simply unable to register it, Ryan continued his relentless pointless attack. With each stamp and kick, he fed the compulsion to obliterate this obscenity from the world completely. In that instant, all he could see as his foot rose and fell were the friends and those he had loved that had been taken by the rotting corpses, by these abominations that he had been forced to confront since the beginning of this living nightmare.

  ‘Ryan!’ Patrick now shouted, trying to break through his friend’s mania.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ came an irritated voice over Patrick’s right shoulder.

  Glancing to his right, Patrick jerked his head sideways just in time, as the dripping clump of wet mud flew through the air towards him. Following the thrown clod of earth with his eyes, Patrick knew where it would finally hit home and sure enough, Leon’s aim was spot on, as usual. It was just the right thing to snap Ryan from his episode and as the wet mud struck him hard in the face, Ryan snapped back to the here and now.

  ‘What the fuck?’ said Ryan, halting his foot mid stamp and blinking away the muddy water from his eyes.

  ‘It’s down, okay,’ said Leon, wiping his mudding hands on his trousers. ‘I want to get home… so stop pissing around and let’s get going.’

  With a brief flick of his eyes, Ryan took in the pulped, bloody carnage now spread at his feet. Realising he had drifted somewhere dark during the attack, Ryan stomped past Patrick, avoiding his gaze and pulled open the cart side hatch.

  ‘Ryan?’ Patrick asked, reaching for his friend as he hurried past him.

  ‘I’m fine,’ was all Ryan could say as he clambered into the cart.

  On more than one occasion recently, they had been forced to have this conversation. Over the last three months, Ryan had developed the habit of losing himself at dangerous times. More importantly, during an episode, he would be totally unaware of what was happening around him. Deep down, Patrick knew it was only a matter of time before the day came when Ryan would be unable to find his way back from the nightmares he held within him and he would ultimately end up as one of the Dead because of them. Grumblings of concern had already reached his ears from some of the other members of the community. They now looked with sideways glances at a man who had lived productively among many of them for years. Patrick had seen the growing wariness in their eyes whenever Ryan was around. They now could only see the man who had fought hard and often risked his own life to ensure the safety of theirs, as an out of control liability. Patrick had argued frequently on Ryan’s behalf against those who cast doubt on his sanity. After many promises to keep a watchful eye on Ryan personally, much of the grumbling had finally turned into an underlying simmer of unease.

  On a rational level, Patrick knew the community had some grounds for concern. When all their lives could be put at risk by a lapse in concentration of just one of their number, it was understandable they came to him, their leader, with demands for something to be done. Patrick knew that if he had to tell Ryan he could no longer be trusted to keep the community safe, it would crush the man and might ultimately be the thing to shatter Ryan’s slipping grasp on his sanity. Each time Ryan was consumed by the darkness inside his mind, Patrick could not help but feel guilty. Even though he had done nothing directly to cause these episodes, Patrick believed the birth of his own daughter, Jasmine, three months ago to be the catalyst that sparked the resurface of Ryan’s horrors.

  When he and Ryan had first met four years ago, Ryan had told him of how he had spent those first few days when the Dead came. Ryan had been a loving father to his daughter, Jenny and an attentive husband to his heavily pregnant wife, who at the time was carrying their second child, a boy. When his wife had begun to bleed late one night, he knew he had to get her to the hospital right away if the baby wasn’t to suffocate. Desperate to save his unborn son, Ryan chose to ignore the radio reports about strange riots that had broken out in the town centre and after waking a neighbour to look after Jenny, he had rushed his wife to the hospital through scenes he never thought to see in his home town. Carnage was everywhere he looked. Alarms blared and cars burned unchecked in the streets where they had collided with each other. At one point he had seen blood covered looters smash their way through the front windows of a late night café to attack the cowering people inside. He did not know what madness had taken over these people but he knew he had to keep on driving or fall victim to their rampage himself.

  When he reached the alarmingly busy hospital, he finally managed to corner a frazzled and blood splattered doctor to look at his wife. No sooner had the weary man begun the examination than the screaming started. As if from nowhere a wave of panic-stricken people began running down the corridor, trampling over each other in their need to escape whatever was behind them. Suddenly, the wave of terrified people hit them and they were engulfed in the sea of bodies. Ryan fought to stay with his wife, but he was pushed along in their wake and as the bed his wife sat on was over turned, the last vision of his wife was of her clutching her belly with one hand while desperately reaching out to him with the other. Then as a blood covered orderly fell on her, she was lost from sight. When he was finally pushed though the hospital doors, he emerged to a world changed forever. Everywhere he looked, bloody and mutilated people were bringing down and ripping into those who had tried to flee. He battled to re-enter the hospital and finally managed to force open the door to a small office. If he could just wait a few minutes until the stampede thinned, he would be able to rescue his wife and baby. He had tried to convinced himself of that. However, as the minutes turned to hours and the screaming continued, Ryan knew his wife and son were lost to him. By the time the screaming and sounds of carnage had finally stopped, something in Ryan had broken. Over the next few days and weeks, he somehow managed to survive, his mind shutting out the horrors he was forced to witness. Occasionally, he would still wake in the night with snapshots of terrible images dancing at the corners of his memory, just out of reach. Not knowing if what came to him had been his imagination or real, he grasped at those brief images his mind allowed him to see, no matter how horrific they were. Blood covered hospital cots with infant’s limbs torn and discarded, his home burning as he wept, engulfed in his loss and the constant running through darkened streets hiding from the Dead, all the stuff of nightmares or the merely shadows of his past, he did not know. He could remember every day of the last four years since he met Patrick and most o
f the three years that preceded that but he knew he would never truly be able to fill the gap in his memory of those first few months. So when Helen became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Patrick knew it must have affected Ryan on a deeply psychological level. His mind only now allowed the past traumas to surface, albeit briefly.

  ‘Come on, let’s just get going,’ said Leon, eyeing Ryan’s hunched over figure, as he pulled himself up into the box covered cart. ‘We’ll be back at the Substation in half an hour and I’m hungry.’

  ‘You’re always hungry,’ Patrick replied, trying to lighten the mood in the cart.

  With a flick of the reins, Patrick urged their dark mare, Shadow, forward along the narrow snow dusted lane, leaving the three permanently dead corpses behind them.

  The Substation that they had made their home a little over three years ago had proven to be a sustainable and more importantly, a safe home, for the group of twenty survivors. With the high protective fencing that enclosed a large living area now turned over for vegetable growing, the three small breezeblock buildings converted to stables and storerooms and the now useless electric pylon itself, their elevated haven, they had made themselves a home. The Substation had certainly been a lucky find and when they had been joined by Duncan, an engineer, they had improved their find ten-fold. He had helped them make a drawbridge style ramp that allowed them to sleep in safety on the pylon platforms, secure enough that if the Dead somehow managed to breach the fence they would not simply be able to wander up to get at them. He had even developed an escape route for them, should the worst ever happen. Using the thick wires that led from their pylon home to the next pylon, Duncan had suspended small wooden boats they could winch across to safety by hand. He had since moved onto another community though, doing what he could he make lives easier wherever he went. For the last year and a half, Duncan had lived with those at the Lanherne Convent, a mixed group of survivors and a few of the original Carmelite sisters. Like the Substation group, those at Lanherne Convent were doing what they could to make a life in this strange new world. Patrick classed the Lanherne group as trusted friends and they often traded food, information and livestock with them. Six months ago, the Lanherne group had lost their leader, Charlie, when a crazy religious zealot, new to the area, had decided to forcibly take young children and babies from any outposts they came across in an attempt to build their own God fearing utopia. Even though Patrick worried about his friends, he knew Charlie had left behind a legacy of well-trained and more than capable fighters to protect the weaker members living at Lanherne.

  ‘Are all the spy holes closed?’ Patrick asked, glancing over his shoulder, as a shiver trickled down his back, ‘There’s a terrible draft in here.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Leon said, sliding back the cover over one of the many holes they used to watch the world go by as they travelled.

  Not that it would make much difference to the temperature inside the cart, anyway. At the moment they were travelling into the wind and every so often a gust of wind would hit the cart at just the right angle to dust Patrick through the front viewing slit with a flurry of damp snowflakes.

  ‘I wish it would just snow and be done with it,’ Leon continued, hitting his damp gloves against the side of the cart, ‘This slush is just a pain in the arse. At least if it snowed proper, we’d stay home instead of getting our damp arses chewed off.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to think about moving everyone off the pylon and into the stable if it does.’ Patrick replied, ‘Not everyone is as badass as you, Leon. Some of them need solid warm walls around them and as great as the pylon is, the shacks we have up there aren’t that great for keeping out the cold when it gets like this.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m badass alright…’ Leon mumbled under his breath, lost in his memories as he picked at a loose thread on one of his gloves.

  Leon and his crew had been top dogs of the estate. Older people would cross the road to get out of their way, looking at them with fear in their eyes and that’s just how Leon and his mates liked it. As a young mixed race teenager growing up with his mum on the rough council estate, Leon knew his teachers had already written him off to a life of gang violence, drugs and ultimately prison. However, he didn’t give a fuck what they thought and what did they know about his life anyway. Looking back on it all now, Leon was ashamed of the little shit he’d been. His mother certainly hadn’t deserved the way he treated her. The visits from the police, the disappearing for days on end, the stealing and the dope, she had deserved better from her only son. At the time, he hadn’t cared though. This was his life and she was just another ‘old’ getting in his way of living it. Therefore, when word was out of some sort of riot happening on the other side of town, Leon joined his crew with scarves pulled up over their faces for a bit of good old fashioned ‘shopping’. The scenes of bloody mayhem that met them soon put thoughts of a free plasma TV out of their minds. This was clearly no ordinary riot. All the ‘badass’ attitude in the world wasn’t going to save them from the horrors happening around them and one by one, his crew fell, pulled down and torn open by blood soaked maniacs. Sooner than he thought possible, their number was reduced to just himself and his lifelong friend, Joshua, the J-man as they called him. As they ran, with the screams of their dying friends haunting each step, he had but one thought, Mum! However, this time Leon’s mother wasn’t there to make things alright. This time he would have to deal with things on his own.

  When he and J-Man finally reached home, he found his mother on all fours, feasting on the dripping innards of a neighbour. Stopping mid-chew to look up at him, he saw only hunger in those film covered eyes and he knew his mother was gone. Before she could reach him, Leon slammed the door to his mum’s flat closed for the last time. Knowing there was nothing left for him there anymore, and with the sound of the thing that had been his mother banging on the door, Leon and J-Man crept into the night to seek refuge from the hungry Dead. Luckily, for the pair they were picked up a few weeks later, hungry and humbled, by one of the bedraggled army convoys. Collecting the few civilians left alive as they travelled, the army gave them a modicum of safety for a while, but they soon learnt there was no real protection from the Dead. Their number was just simply too vast. Sure enough, when they were finally overrun by the Dead, Leon and J-Man had barely escaped with their lives or sanity intact. Forced to move from place to place, the two friends tried to find their place among the other survivors. They were soon forced to put behind them their pointless posturing and childish attitudes. This was a world where Leon and Joshua needed these people more than they were needed themselves. So, as the old world ended their new lives began. Leon soon discovered he had a talent for throwing things at the Dead with some accuracy. What began with fist-sized rocks cracking Dead skulls from metres away, soon ended with an array of knives that wedged into slots up and down the chest of his modified jacket. In total, he now carried sixteen throwing knives and used his skill to clear the bulk of the Dead before others could leave the safety of the cart.

  ‘Earth to Leon,’ Patrick said, breaking Leon from his memories.

  ‘What? Oh, sorry, Man, I was miles away. What did you say?’ Leon replied, pushing his damp gloves into his pockets.

  ‘I said we’re almost there and from the looks of it, we’re going to need your knives,’ said Patrick, nodding to six Dead people lumbering on the lane leading to the gate in the Substation fence.

  Moving so he could look through the view slit over Patrick’s shoulder, Leon could see the six animated corpses, each more disgusting and pathetic than the last.

  ‘Okay, get a bit closer and I’ll do what I can to even up the odds,’ Leon said, pulling two sharp knives from his vest; flipping one of them over in his hand to reassure himself of its weight and balance.

  ‘You alright to do this, big man?’ Leon continued, nudging Ryan’s leg with his boot.

  ‘Just get on with it, hot shot. I thought you wanted to get home,’ Ryan replied, barely giving Leon a gl
ance.

  Patrick pulled the mare to a stop and turned to look at the two men behind him. Glancing from one to the other, he tried to gauge if the antagonism that had risen between them was going to be a problem. With lives on the line, he had to know his small team would work together effectively. Out here, you needed a friendly pair of eyes watching your back at all times. With one hand already on the bolt of the top hatch, Leon flicked his eyes to Ryan and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Ready?’ Patrick finally said, reaching for his heavy club, still unable to tell what was going on in Ryan’s head.

  ‘Yep,’ Leon said, and taking a quick deep breath, he threw the top hatch open.

  At the sound of the hatch hitting the roof of the cart, one of the Dead slowly turned in their direction. The thing that had once been a woman in her mid-forties had certainly seen better days. What was left of her hair was matted with filth and plastered to the side of her grey tinged skull. Missing most of the flesh from one of her arms and with a large gaping wound in the side of her mottled face, she turned her hungry gaze upon the figure of Leon now in view. Raising her only working arm in desperate recognition of the living flesh now before her, the Dead woman let forth her low moan through broken and blackened teeth. Her call, filled with so much pitiful need, was cut short as one of Leon’s knives flew fast and true. Hitting his chosen target, Leon’s knife lodged deeply into her forehead. For an instant, she stood frozen in place and then as her brain finally gave in to the nature of a true death, she collapsed to the floor. However, her call to arms had not gone unheeded. One by one, the five remaining Dead turned to face Leon and the cart. The next to fall had once been a teenage boy. With much of the skin stripped from his neck and the lower part of his face, his blackened tongue moved sickeningly behind his torn and ruined mouth. Raising cracked and broken hands beseechingly towards Leon, he took a slow shaky step in his direction. Leon drew back his arm to take aim and once the boy was in his sights, the knife flew soundlessly from his grasp. With a dull ‘thud’, the boy stopped, never reaching the living flesh he so compulsively wanted. As before, Leon’s knife found purchase, lodged deep in the skull just above the boy’s film covered left eye. As a trickle of dark, long dead blood ran from the hilt of the knife, the boy fell to the side, forever still. Two of his Dead companions, unable to recognise the obstacle now lying in their path, stumbled over the body of the boy, falling comically to the road surface. With their withered arms, they struggled to right themselves, never taking their eyes from the sight of Leon.