Last Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 3)

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘You’d better get ready then,’ Patrick said with a nod, ‘and for God’s sake, be careful, the three of you.’

  Ten minutes later and Penny was double checking the last of Samson’s tack. Pulling at the various leather straps to make sure they were all securely buckled, she listened, while in the cart behind, Phil went noisily through the arsenal they would be taking with them.

  ‘Right, you’re good to go,’ she said, gently patting the large stallion’s neck.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ asked Steve, resting his elbows on the base of the hatch opening, as he leaned in to talk to Phil.

  ‘Honestly, we’re fine, but thanks,’ Phil replied, nudging Steve out of his way so he could push his large frame through the side hatch. ‘Truth be told, I’d be happier knowing you were here, anyway. If trouble does turns up while we’re gone, you’re by far the best shooter we have, so it would be a waste taking you with us. The guns are just far too noisy to use out there, they’d only attract more of the Dead.’

  ‘Just feel a bit like a third wheel around here sometimes,’ said Steve. ‘I understand the logic behind it, but it makes me feel a bit of a moocher, not pulling my weight by going on trips outside the wall, you know?’

  ‘Hey, you work in the fields, you do watch duty and you help Bryon in the poly-tunnel. You’re hardly a moocher. Just because your weapons training makes you our ace in the hole, and we thankfully haven’t had to use you yet, doesn’t mean you’re not doing your bit, okay?’ Phil replied, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  Private Steven Blackmore had been one of the conscripted soldiers who had been forced to work alongside Avery on the island base. Like all the soldiers, Steve had lived each day in fear, scared that someone would eventually come for him in the night, and he would never be heard of again. It had happened more times than he cared to think about. Those who disobeyed or showed any signs of causing dissent would suddenly disappear. Rumours, whispered in dark corners, suspected that Dr Farrell, the man in charge of finding a cure for the Death-walker plague, used these men and woman as test subjects for his research. Rumours that Avery shamefully confirmed, once he too had decided enough was enough. When Steve had left the island with the rest of his squadron to collect civilians from the mainland, under the guise of rescuing them from a life among the Dead, he had been astounded to find, hidden away in a convent in the Cornish countryside, two unexpected faces from his past. Lars Sorenson, his geography teacher, and Penny, his first unrequited love, had miraculously arrived back in his life, quite out of the blue. They reminded him of a life he thought long gone and had ultimately spurred him into action and revolt.

  ‘And you’ve got the key to the gun cupboard on you?’ asked Phil, knowing he could trust the young man but needing to double check, just in case.

  Steve pulled aside his collar to loop his finger around the chain that had once held his dog tags.

  ‘I always have it with me,’ he said, pulling the chain out to show the small key, ‘and Patrick has the other copy.’

  ‘Good,’ Phil said, smiling with a nod.

  Penny made one last check of Samson. Running her hand along the length of his legs to feel for anything untoward, and then lifting his hooves one by one, to double check for stones. When she was at last satisfied he would safely be able to take the three passengers to the village, and more importantly, get them back again, she went to stand beside Steve, where she casually slipped her arm around his waist. Even after all this time, Steve still couldn’t help but feel a warm fluttering in his chest whenever Penny touched him. His unrequited love was unrequited no more, and he was simply over the moon about it.

  ‘We ready?’ Imran asked, walking up to the cart with Liz.

  Behind them, Patrick and Avery followed, with Alice pushing a battered looking double buggy holding Charlie and Saleana coming up the rear.

  ‘Yep,’ said Phil, ‘all aboard.’

  As always, Imran carried his bow and an extra quiver of arrows, as well as the full quiver already on his back. While Liz walking beside him, had her sheathed sword strapped firmly in place over her shoulder blades, and was just doing up the last of the buckles on her throat protector. Looking like a high collar that came from the shoulders and reaching up to the jaw line, the buckled protector prevented the Dead from snapping at any of the tender neck flesh that could normally be exposed. As uncomfortable as it was, they would all wear one whenever they went among the Dead. It was better to be uncomfortable for a little while, than dead for a long time.

  ‘If you see anything you can’t deal with, just come back,’ said Patrick, slightly worried that three of his best fighters were all leaving at the same time. ‘Don’t take any chances.’

  ‘Right,’ said Imran, kneeling down to the buggy to give his daughter a kiss.

  Alice stepped forward and pulled Phil into a fierce hug.

  ‘Try not to do anything stupid,’ she said, stepping back as she released him. ‘Charlie needs his Uncle Phil, okay?’

  ‘Oh, your mummy’s a worry-wort, Charlie-boy,’ said Phil ignoring her plea, to stoop down to tickle Charlie under the chin. ‘She’ll get worry lines and then how will she get herself a man, eh?’

  ‘You seemed to manage,’ she replied, crossing her arms, ‘so there’s hope for us all.’

  Phil looked back up at the woman he had grown to love as a sister, and gave her a friendly wink.

  ‘I got lucky,’ he said, smiling as he glanced over at Avery.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m with her,’ Avery said, pulling Phil up to embrace him, ‘don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘And put your gloves on,’ he continued, giving Phil a quick peck on the lips.

  ‘They’re too small,’ Phil moaned, pulling the pair of gloves from his jacket pocket.

  ‘Doctor’s orders,’ said Alice, ‘gloves!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Phil continued, as he forcibly stuffed his large hands into the canvas gardening gloves, ‘it’s not fair you two ganging up on me.’

  ‘You might as well give up now,’ Liz added, pulling on her gloves ‘They’ve got you beat.’

  ‘Humph,’ Phil grumbled, making a show of holding up his hands, the seams straining to stay together.

  ‘Love you, you torturer,’ he continued, turning to give Avery one last kiss before clambering up into the cart.

  ‘Love you, too,’ Avery replied, with a smile.

  Liz knelt down in front of the buggy and cupped her daughter’s small face in the palm of her hand.

  ‘Mummy loves you,’ she whispered, ‘and mummy’s coming back.’

  Leaning forward, Liz’s lips gently brushed the top of Saleana’s head.

  ‘I’ll take good care of her, don’t worry,’ Alice said, placing a hand on Liz’s shoulder. ‘Just come back safely.’

  Liz stood and pulled Alice to her, kissing her cheek.

  ‘We won’t be long,’ she said, looking down at her daughter again and then back up at Alice. ‘She’ll probably sleep all the time we’re away, anyway.’

  ‘Famous last words to the babysitter, they are,’ Patrick chuckled, ‘that’s when the kid usually screams its head off the entire night.’

  ‘Come on, Liz,’ Imran butted in, softly pulling her over to the cart, ‘we’d better be going.’

  Liz was just about to step into the cart, when Anne came running out of the convent to skid to a halt next to her.

  ‘Thought you were going to go without saying goodbye?’ Anne panted, as she threw her arms around her sister’s waist.

  ‘Love you,’ Liz said, kissing the top of Anne’s curly blonde hair. ‘Do what Alice tells you, and behave.’

  Anne pushed her face away from Liz and looked up at her, her eyes rolling in exasperation.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, a little unconvincingly.

  Now that all the goodbyes were finally done, Liz joined Imran and Phil in the cart and waited for William to wind the hand crank that would open the Convent
’s inner gate.

  With the creaking of hinges, the wide doors slowly opened and after the lightest flick of the reins from Phil, Samson plodded through into the holding area. Once the inner doors had closed behind them, it only took a few minutes for William to crank open the outer gates and they were on their way.

  It had been a while since Liz had been out in one of the boxed carts, and the familiar sense of claustrophobia and its gentle rocking motion was bringing back a flood of memories, not all of them good. But she tried not to focus on those painful scenes that threatened to play across her mind, instead, grabbing hold of the fleeting good times. Holding them tight, she wrapped them about her, allowing herself to drift along with them. It had been the simple times that she had spent with Charlie on their trips that pleased her the most now. It was the small, every day acts of love she had felt from the man that had become a replacement father for first her and her sister, and then in turn, Imran and his brother, those were the memories she welcomed now. The morsels of knowledge he had fed her over the years that at the time, had seemed small and insignificant once put together, had given her the tools to protect herself and those she loved, from not only the Dead, but the living as well. Bit by bit, Charlie had made both her and Imran into the people they were today. The woman she had become, was a sole product of one man’s love for a frightened ten-year-old girl holding her infant sister in her arms that he had, quite by chance, stumbled upon as the world had fallen into ruin.

  ‘You okay?’ Imran asked, placing his hand over hers.

  ‘What,’ she asked, allowing the memories to fade like smoke on the wind, ‘sorry, yes, I’m fine. I was just thinking about Charlie, that’s all.’

  Imran didn’t need to ask whether she meant Charlie the soldier and father, or Charlie the child he had given Alice. He could tell from the barely hidden pain behind her eyes that it was their surrogate father she was thinking about.

  ‘I know,’ said Imran, squeezing her hand, ‘I miss him too.’

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, with a sad smile as she visibly shook the ghosts of her past from her, ‘let’s let some air in here.’

  Using one of the sidewalls to brace herself, Liz reached up to flip open the hatch in the roof. Immediately, the spring morning sunshine broke through the gloom of the shadowy interior, dispelling the last fragments of her mournful memories to the back of her mind. With a sudden jolt, the cart lurched to one side, causing Liz to stumble.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Phil, glancing back at her, ‘there seems to be more pot holes than road left these days. I think we’re going to have to go on the hunt for some sort of gravel at some point. We need to try to fill the worst of them in, at least as far as the gate anyway.’

  ‘Or source some sort of alternative to wooden cart wheels,’ Liz added, easing herself down onto one of the side benches. ‘Something with a bit of bounce would certainly take the edge off them.’

  ‘Would we be able to use tractor tyres,’ asked Imran. ‘There are so many farms round here, there’s bound to be a tractor or two in a barn somewhere.’

  ‘I think they might be too deep,’ Phil mused, scratching his beard with the back of his hand. ‘Then there’s the problem of getting air into them. I’ll ask Duncan about it when we get back, he likes a challenge.’

  For the next ten minutes, the three companions travelled in silence, each trying to come up with ways they could improve either the road surface or the cart. As she mulled various ideas over in her head, Liz looked up through the roof hatch to watch the overhanging branches of the trees slowly swaying in the soft breeze. The branches that only a few weeks before, had been nothing but twisted bare wood had now broken out in a riot of small green leaves that danced merrily back and forth. Spring was at last with them and by some miracle; the survivors of Lanherne had made it through another cold winter.

  As Samson pulled the cart up to the wide gate that stood at the bottom of the tree-lined lane, he automatically came to a stop. For a long time, a large fallen tree had blocked the direct route to the village, but after many trips out with axes and saws, it had finally been cleared, giving them a good supply of firewood in the process. So here, Samson patiently stood, idly swishing his tail as he waited for instruction from Phil. With a slight pull on the reins and a click of his tongue, Phil urged Samson to turn right.

  Liz pushed aside one of the many spy hole covers that dotted the walls, so she could watch the world go by. The cart had barely made the full turn from the lane and onto the road, when Phil pulled Samson to an abrupt stop.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Phil, leaning forwards to look at the road ahead through his front viewing slit, ‘already?’

  ‘What?’ asked Liz, already guessing what she would see as she repositioned herself so she could look over Phil’s shoulder.

  Sure enough, Liz could see the sad group of shambling corpses that, in one form or another, were making their way along the road towards them. If they remained silent, the Dead would eventually shuffle right past them, unaware that only a few centimetres of wood separated them from the living flesh they craved. But it was an unspoken law of Lanherne, you never let the Dead pass, and you always ended their existence if you could. It wasn’t a case of simply giving the walking corpses the death they rightly deserved, but also with the Dead out numbering the living so vastly, you never let an opportunity pass to even up the odds a little. One less walking cadaver was one less walking cadaver someone would have to fear being bitten by.

  There were six creatures of various sizes and states of decay dotted in the road ahead of them. The closest had once been a teenage girl, her once trendy clothes and up to the minute trainers, were now nothing but tattered filthy rags encrusted with dried gore. Liz watched the wretched creature stumble slightly when her clearly broken leg that had a blackened shard of bone protruding through the mouldy skin, suddenly bent at an odd angle mid step. How this girl had died, Liz had no idea. Perhaps she had fallen and lain helpless as she died from the infected wound. She would never know, but today this young girl would finally meet her maker.

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Imran softly, about to push himself through the roof hatch and rain his arrows down on the approaching Dead.

  ‘No, I deal with these,’ Liz interrupted, already opening the side hatch next to her. ‘I need the warm up.’

  ‘Liz!’ Imran snapped, reaching a fraction of a second too late to stop her.

  The moment her boots crunched down onto the cracked tarmac, six sets of Dead eyes locked onto her with nothing but a desperate hunger burning in their gaze. Reaching up behind her, Liz’s fingers wrapped securely around the handle of her sword, and with the softest of ‘clicks’, the blade unlatched, allowing it to slip free of its sheath. With smooth, precise movements, Liz swept the blade in front of her, instantly feeling comfortable with the reassuring weight in her hand. With the barest of whispers, the blade sliced through the air as she flicked her wrist left and right, becoming nothing but a deadly extension of her arm, and once she was ready, Liz stepped purposefully forward to meet the girl.

  With a groan, the girl took another stumbling step forward, reaching a cracked and dirty hand imploringly toward Liz as she did so. Liz paused to watch the Dead girl for a second. It was if the girl’s corpse almost shook with excitement to be suddenly so near one of the living, but as her mouth began to snap open and closed in anticipation of ripping into Liz’s flesh, Liz knew the time to watch was over. With a twitch of her wrist, the blade arched through the air, removing one of the girl’s extended hands with a brittle snap. Before the removed appendage had hit the concrete, Liz was using the power of the swing to follow through. A split second later when the hand came to a rocking standstill on the road, the girl’s head tumbled to the ground to join it, closely followed by her now lifeless body. Stepping over the body, Liz switched the position of the blade in her hand and with a grunt, stabbed down its tip into the still moving face of the Dead girl. As her blade tore through the decaying flesh of th
e Dead girl’s face to pierce the barely covered bones of her skull, the creature was finally put to rest.

  Without a second thought for the girl, Liz then moved onto the next walking corpse. This time it was a short man dressed in filthy mechanic’s overalls. Most of the skin and much of the flesh had been ripped from his face at some point. What was left, had taken on a sickly shade of green and was threaded through by a spider web of dark veins. At the edges of the torn flesh, hanging limply from his pitted skull, Liz casually noticed that the larvae of some unknown insect was happily living their lives burrowing and feasting on the man. Again, the excitement on the cadaver’s features was palpable, as a dark coloured drool dripped from his ravaged lips. Taking a few steps towards him with her blade held high behind her, Liz waited for just the right moment to strike, and as the Dead man opened his mouth to let forth his pitiful moan, Liz saw her opportunity and lunged. With lightning speed, her blade fell, slicing cleanly through what little flesh and tendons were left on the man’s jaw, and following through to his vertebrae and spinal cord. With a sound almost like a cough, the Dead man stopped in his tracks. Then, slowly at first, and faster as its momentum increased, the top half of the man’s face slid from position, to fall with a splat on the road. In the seconds before the body fell, its twitching slug like tongue tried to probe the roof of a mouth that was no longer there, and subconsciously, Liz’s own tongue in her mouth mirrored the sickening movements. Glancing down at the top half of the Dead man’s face, Liz noticed his milky eyes still followed her every movement.

  ‘Nighty night,’ she said, stamping down hard on the Dead man’s skull and sending a spray of decaying brain matter across the road as his skull shattered.

  A few steps behind the now permanently lifeless body were two more Dead men, eagerly shuffling their way towards her. As if in practiced unison, they lunged for her as one. The taller of the pair even managed to brush his Dead fingers along Liz’s shoulder, but her reflexes were too quick for him, and with a powerful flick of her wrist, she severed his arm at the elbow, while kicking out hard at his smaller companion. This gave her just the room she needed to quickly alter the position of the blade in her hand and thrust it upwards under his chin. With a ‘crack’, the tip of her sword slid through the Dead man’s decaying jaw and into the base of his skull. It only took a second for the tall Dead man’s remaining arm to fall uselessly to his side, and in that moment, Liz tugged free her sword from his jaw, allowing him to crumple to the road. Turning to now deal with the smaller Dead man, Liz noticed Imran had already taken care of him. There, protruding from a ruined eye socket was one of Imran’s arrows. Liz glanced back to the cart and sure enough, Imran was already letting a second arrow fly from his bow. Her eyes flicked back to the two remaining walking corpses in the road, and watched as almost instantly the head of a Dead woman dressed in nothing but rotting underwear, snapped violently backwards. As always, Imran’s aim was perfect and the arrow had landed deeply lodged in the Dead woman’s forehead.