Lanherne Chronicles (Book 2): Five More Days With The Dead Page 5

  ‘Yah!’ Gabe yelled, turning Shadow a fraction to the left so the man was directly in her thunderous path.

  The Dead man paid no heed to the sounds behind him. The living flesh was almost in his grasp enrapturing him totally. So as Shadow’s hooves rained down upon him, breaking bone and tearing flesh in her wake, his decaying mind could not comprehend why he had been robbed of his bloody prize. Even now, with his body trampled into the earth, he tried to reach with shattered limbs for the warm bodies that demanded his sole attention.

  ‘Get up!’ Gabe shouted, reaching his arm out to the petrified woman, called Chloe.

  ‘Chloe!’ he shouted, breaking through her hysteria, ‘Hurry!’

  Seeing more of the Dead focusing their bloody attention on them, Chloe reached up to take his arm. Straining what muscles he had, Gabe managed to pull her up onto Shadow’s back.

  ‘Now what?’ She cried, wrapping her arms tightly around Gabe’s waist, as she looked at the approaching Dead.

  Scanning the scene before them, Gabe knew their options were limited. With the main gate still locked, there was to be no easy escape from the Dead for them but they could definitely wait them out until they slowed down a bit, this he knew for sure. With a kick of his heels, he urged Shadow into a gallop to the perimeter fence. As he suspected, the Dead followed, desperate to taste their flesh, but they had no chance in keeping up with Shadow’s pace. Within thirty seconds, Shadow had followed the fence round to the section closest to the stable. Breaking off, Gabe steered Shadow towards the single story, flat roofed, concrete building.

  ‘Get ready!’ He shouted over his shoulder to Chloe.

  Pulling Shadow to an abrupt halt next to the wall, he turned to help Chloe stand. Gripping tightly to the lip of the roof, she frantically pulled herself up.

  ‘Hurry!’ She screamed, glancing at the fast approaching Dead.

  With a brief look over his shoulder, Gabe threw his arms up to reach for Chloe’s hands reaching down for him. Screaming with effort, Chloe pulled Gabe high enough so he could grasp the edge of the roof himself. Even now, the Dead were reaching around Shadow, their arms aloft, desperate to get hold of the flesh being denied them.

  ‘Gabe!’ Chloe screamed, as one of the Dead grabbed his ankle.

  Kicking his legs wildly, Gabe managed to shake off the Dead man’s unholy grasp and with an effort born of terror, pulled himself up onto the roof to collapse, panting, in Chloe’s arms.

  ‘That was… close,’ he managed to say between gulping breaths.

  Bursting into tears, Chloe pulled him close to her, only able to say two words over and over between her sobbing.

  ‘Thank you…’

  ***

  ‘We haven’t forgotten anything, have we?’ asked Duncan, checking the supplies they brought with them for what seemed like the tenth time.

  ‘Hey, we got all we need,’ Phil said looking over at the anxious man. ‘Just calm down. There’ll be plenty of time to freak out later when we get there, okay?’

  Unlike Imran and Phil, Duncan didn’t go on foraging trips into the world beyond the safety of convent’s walls. He spent most of his time contributing by making gadgets and gizmos that would make their lives easier within them, so to be out among the Dead again was making him a bit nervous. Despite knowing they were perfectly safe inside the box-covered cart, hidden away from the Dead roaming the countryside, he couldn’t help himself. Although he could of course defend himself should the need arise, he would’ve been dead a long time ago if he couldn’t. He just didn’t have a hope of matching Imran for skill or Phil for pure brute strength.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, nervously sitting back down.

  For a moment, he didn’t know what to do with his twitching hands. Therefore, after trying to rest them in various positions, he gave up and just sat on them to keep them still. Giving Phil a weak smile when he noticed the big man watching him, he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Devil makes light work for idle hands.’

  ‘If you say so, Duncan,’ replied Phil, smiling as he made a show of sitting on his own hands.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Laugh at the jittery fool,’ Duncan said, laughing.

  ‘Hey, jittery is fine by me. At least, it means you know what’s possible out here,’ Phil continued, leaning forward to give Duncan’s leg a friendly tap. ‘It’s the cocky ones that think they know it all. They’re the ones that end up getting someone killed. I’ve seen it too many times before, believe me.’

  For a moment, Phil was transported to other communities he had stayed with. To other trips like this one, where some alpha-male who took one risk too many, just to prove some point about being a real man, only to end up one of the Dead himself. Phil knew hungry teeth that appearing without warning, didn’t care who you chose to sleep with. Then there were the kids, too young and too stupid to realise the Dead didn’t give a shit that their lives had barely started. He had seen it countless times. They thought they knew it all. They thought they had the Dead licked. What did they need to be cautious for? The Dead were slow, the Dead were stupid. What they always forgot, and what always got them killed, was the Dead had them impossibly outnumbered and more importantly, the Dead could wait forever.

  ‘Hope for the best but plan for the worst?’ Duncan said, understanding what Phil was saying.

  ‘Exactly,’ Phil replied, giving Duncan a sad smile, the long forgotten faces of so many wasted lives fighting for his attention.

  For a while, the three travelled in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. They had barely reached the end of the tree-lined lane leading away from the convent and already Imran was missing the feel of Liz in his arms. He tried to concentrate on steering Delilah through the maze of cracks and potholes that had made the lane a minefield of late. It had been bad enough in the summer but the constant frost and thaw of the winter was making it a lot worse. In years to come, the roads might become nothing more than obscured lines criss-crossing the countryside greenery; their presence only made known by the shards of cracked and broken asphalt hidden deep among the foliage. Despite this concentration, his input wasn’t really needed yet. Delilah travelled this lane countless times and she knew automatically when to veer to the left or right to avoid the worst of the potholes. It wouldn’t be until they reached the end of the lane and passed through the battered open wooden gate, that Imran would really be needed at all.

  Sure enough, when they arrived at gate, drooping on its long rusted hinges, Delilah came to a stop. It used to be that she would always be told to go left but since the group had cleared the large fallen tree blocking the direct route to the village, she now had a choice of going right too. With a click of his tongue and a slight pull on the reins, Imran urged her to go right.

  ‘Liz asked us to just check in on Jackson before we start out for the Penhaligan’s,’ Imran called to Duncan and Phil over his shoulder. ‘Just to make sure he’s okay. If his lights came on too, it might have shaken him a bit.’

  Phil made grumbling noises behind him but didn’t say anything. Jackson had been a bone of contention for quite a few people when it was discovered what he had locked in one of the store cupboards of the small school he had made his home. Like many, he had been unable to come to terms with the loss of his wife to the Dead and adamant that no one would take from him what little of her he had left. He had effectively kept her living corpse trapped with him in the school for the last seven years. After many hours of arguing and promises from Jackson, he had given Charlie the only key to the door of her prison, ensuring that the Dead woman would never be able to escape the cupboard that was to be her tomb forever. Each day, Jackson would sit next to the door and chat to his Dead wife’s decaying corpse. Sometimes he would even look through the tiny re-enforced glass panel but more often than not, just to know she was close to him was enough to help through another day of loneliness. Those at Lanherne had offered him safety behind their walls on more than one occasion but there would be a price to pay. He would have to lea
ve his wife behind and that was a price he simply couldn’t comprehend paying, so he stayed.

  It didn’t take long before they began passing the first few dilapidated cottages of St Mawgan village; their ruined shells collapsing in on themselves and overgrown, as nature reclaimed what was hers.

  ‘It’s lucky that whoever decided to try to turn on the electricity did so during the winter,’ mused Duncan, peering through one of spy holes at the passing wreckage of an old world.

  ‘Why?’ asked Phil, subconsciously stroking his beard, while he kept watch through a hole on the opposite side.

  ‘Well, think about it. A sudden surge causing sparks from every fused or exposed electrical point. If it had happened during the hot summer, where everything was tinder dry already, we could be looking at a firestorm right now. It would soon spread from house to house and round here, the foliage is so dense there would be no stopping it. We would’ve lost the crops, everything,’ Duncan replied, turning away from the spy hole to look at Phil.

  ‘Well, I guess we’re just lucky then,’ said Phil, smiling as he gave him a sarcastic ‘thumbs up’.

  ‘Don’t be a smart arse…’ Duncan began to say.

  ‘Uh-oh?’ Imran’s voice came from the front of the cart. ‘Looks like we’ve got a problem here.’

  ‘What?’ Duncan and Phil asked in unison, as they moved forward to look over Imran’s shoulders.

  To someone who didn’t know better, the scene before them looked much like the rest of the forsaken village. However, as the cart drew along the lane, cracked and spotted with large tufts of overgrown weeds, those in the cart knew something was terribly wrong. The school that Jackson had made his home stood before them at the next crossroads. As usual, the weather worn doors that had been taken from every home in the village, still stood bolted to the iron railings but the gate was open, creaking slightly in the winter breeze. The large heavy bucket, usually filled with brightly coloured plastic balls, no longer sitting sentry by the gate, awaiting visitors to announce their presence, but had been kicked over spilling its contents over the ground.

  ‘Well, this doesn’t look good,’ said Phil.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ added Imran, as he assessed the possibilities of what could have happened. ‘Duncan, swap places with me and take Delilah over to the gate, will you? Phil, pass me my bow.’

  Within a few minutes, Delilah had pulled the cart level with the open gate and with the top hatch now open, Imran could look into the dug up school playground. Instantly, he could hear the frantic barking of the puppy Jackson had found in the woods six months ago, coming from somewhere inside the school. Whatever was going on inside, the poor mutt wasn’t happy about it. Then as if to confirm the worst, a creature so decayed it was impossible to determine what sex it had once been, shuffled into view.

  ‘We’ve got Dead inside,’ Imran called down to his companions below. ‘At least one so far.’

  At the sound of his voice, the Dead thing turned its putrid face in his direction. Its skin, mouldy and maggot ridden, hung so heavy on its skull that it pulled its lower eyelids down to expose the grey Dead flesh of its cheeks. Even from his position, Imran could see the maggots writhing under the loose skin on its neck, taking sustenance from their rotting host. Imran had seen enough and drawing his arrow back, he took the creature in his sights. With the slightest intake of breath, Imran steadied himself and then exhaled slowly as he let the bowstring slip from his fingers. As always, his arrow flew with precision, burying deeply in the creatures forehead. With the softest of sighs, one last fetid breath escaped its torn lips before the creature fell to floor.

  ‘I can’t see any more of the Dead from here,’ Imran said, climbing back into the cart.

  ‘Right, we’ll have to go in. Duncan, you stay in the cart and keep watch. Imran, I’ll be on point. Your bow’s not too hot in tight corridors, so we’ll rely on this,’ Phil said, lifting a length of metal tubing with long twisted nails hammered through one end,

  ‘And this,’ he continued, strapping an object onto his wrist that looked like a glove with two long metal spikes bolted to a plate covering the back of the hand.

  He had got the idea from Charlie. Charlie had lost a hand during one of the desert wars long before the Dead came and realising he would need as much weaponry as he could carry, he had modified his artificial limb to hold a large hunting knife.

  ‘One of yours?’ Imran said to Duncan, nodding at the spiked glove.

  ‘I aim to please,’ Duncan said, bobbing his head.

  ‘Right, come on, ladies. Let’s get to business,’ said Phil, kicking open the side hatch.

  By the time Imran had followed him out of the cart, Phil had already taken position by the gate. With his bow in his hand and a full quiver of arrows on his back, Imran gave Phil the nod and they began walking into the playground slowly. Phil glanced briefly down at the Dead thing Imran had dispatched. Even now, the maggots carried on their harvest of the Dead flesh, their lives oblivious to the change in state of their host. Putting his booted foot on the creature’s head, Phil yanked Imran’s arrow free and silently passed it back to him. Walking down the small path Jackson had made between the rows of vegetable beds towards to school entrance, they could still hear Toby’s frantic barking coming from within the building. When he first took over the school, Jackson had sensibly boarded up the lower two thirds of the large classroom windows, just in case the Dead should ever breach his perimeter. What had been a positive for Jackson was now a hindrance for Phil and Imran because they had no idea what they could be walking into. What they could see through the top third of the glass didn’t bode well though. A multitude of well-fed flies made tapping noises as they continually ricocheted off the smeared glass. In Phil’s experience where you found flies this fat, you could bet your arse there were rotting corpses too. Pausing as they got to the door, Phil motioned to Imran he would open it on the count of three. Counting down on his fingers, one by one, Phil took a breath and slowly pushed the door inward with his foot. Instantly, the smell hit them. This was not the dry almost sickly sweet smell of old death but the rotting stench of death in its first bouts of decay. Phil hacked phlegm into his mouth and spat, desperate to clear his mouth. Even after just a few breaths, the foul odour almost felt like a coating on his tongue, because it was so strong.

  Walking down the dimly lit corridor, which would have once teamed with the carefree jostling and laughter of young children, they knew they would only find death and the Dead awaiting them here. Checking each small classroom as they passed it, the detritus of Jackson’s life littered every available space, Phil and Imran could see Jackson had lived a life of lonely sad regret. Whether a regret that his wife had died or that he had survived, they could only guess, but the words scribbled over walls and blackboards showed Jackson’s unstable mind could not forgive himself for this imagined slight. The words ‘sorry’ and ‘forgive me’ were scrawled in shaky handwriting over many of the available surfaces, which clearly showed a man who had tortured his own soul beyond reason. With one last classroom to check, they knew they had reached their goal. Coming from the room was the sound of the tell-tale moaning of one the Dead and Toby’s anxious barking.

  ‘Ready?’ Phil whispered.

  With the smallest of nods from Imran, Phil pushed open the last classroom door, readying himself for whatever may be inside.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ Phil said, lowering his weapon.

  There, with his arms outstretched desperately reaching for a frightened Toby and his legs kicking back and forth trying to gain purchase was Jackson. He had tied a rope to one of the thick heating pipes that ran along the top of the wall, and by climbing up on a chair for some height, had hung himself. He must have done it almost a week ago, judging from the rancid smell coming from his corpse.

  ‘Here, Toby, come on, boy,’ Imran called to the distressed dog.

  With one last worried look at its master, Toby reluctantly walked over to Imran to lie down at his feet.
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br />   ‘Well, at least he tied the knot right, so it broke his neck instantly rather than strangling him,’ mumbled Phil, stepping close to look at the kicking Dead man.

  ‘Not much consolation,’ Imran said quietly, reaching down to pat Toby’s head. ‘Does he have any bite marks?’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll check,’ replied Phil, swinging his pipe in an arc so the tip connected with the top of Jackson’s head.

  With a wet cracking sound, Jackson’s body suddenly went limp.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t check while he was moving.’

  After Phil had cut down Jackson’s body and checked for any obvious bites, he looked up at Imran.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘Must’ve topped himself.’

  ‘Shit!’ Imran replied. ‘We should have kept a closer eye on him, the poor bastard.’

  ‘But why now?’ asked Phil, looking down at the Jackson’s still form. ‘It’s not as if his wife died recently. He’s lived with her decaying corpse for almost eight years… I wonder what tipped him over the edge?’

  ‘I think I know,’ said Imran, gesturing to the pair of dead feet sticking out from behind an over turned table.

  The body of Jackson’s long dead wife had been propped up against the opposite wall. It would have been the last thing the poor man saw as he left this world. Phil walked over to the body and crouching down, examined the still corpse.

  ‘Well, no prize for what sent him over the edge,’ Phil said, yanking a wickedly sharp serrated knife from her skull.

  The woman’s skull had been shattered with such force that even part of the blade guard had punctured through into her cranial cavity.

  ‘The question is who finished off the old lady? Certainly wasn’t Jackson, here.’

  ‘No,’ Imran agreed, his brow creasing with concern, ‘Not only did he simply not have the strength to inflict a blow like that, I doubt he could’ve brought himself to do it even if she’d been attacking him.’

  ‘And this is new, barely been used,’ said Phil, holding up the knife covered in thick dark blood. ‘Whoever left this behind was either stupid or had enough to spare.’