‘Oh, okay,’ Barbara called after Karen with a wave, a little disappointed the young woman hadn’t stopped to chat.
As the door closed behind her and she began to walk along the steel lined corridor, Karen kept her face neutral and her pace measured. Inside her, she was fighting with the urge to run and only just winning. Keeping her eyes straight, she forced herself not to glance up at the cameras that relayed activity from every corridor and public room back to the security room, and made sure she gave each person she passed the appropriate nod, salute, or greeting. Everything they had planned for, which if she was honest with herself, had seemed like a distant dream, was about to be put into practice. Above her, some of the florescent tubes pinged as they flicked off and on, throwing the corridor in sputtering shadows. There had been a time when such things would never have been acceptable, but now, with their stores running low, they didn’t have much choice. It was just one more reason their plan had to succeed. In far too many ways, this place was dying, and whether those in charge could not see it, or simply did not care, it was time to go.
Finally, after what seemed like an age, Karen reached the small room she called home and stepped inside quickly. Slamming the door behind her, she looked at the man sitting on the bunk doing up his boot laces.
‘We’ve got to go tonight,’ Karen said flatly, ‘they’re at the Convent right now, if you want to save Steve and the others, it’s got to be tonight.’
‘Shit!’ said Matt, his hands frozen in action as he looked up at his sister.
***
Lissa looked down at her watch, its cracked dial reflecting the light from the single candle that burned in the small room.
‘Eleven forty-five,’ she mumbled, looking over to her daughter, ‘right, I’ll go to the Doctor for the baby, do you know what you have to do?’
‘Yes,’ replied Lucy, looking down at the heavy object in her hand.
Slipping off her shoes, Lissa’s passing barely made a sound as she walked along the dark hallway. With the moonlight coming through the small window at the end of the hall to guide her, Lissa soon came to the top of the winding stone staircase that would take her down to the ground floor. Placing a foot on the first step, she paused to glance back. In the shadowy gloom of the corridor, she could just about make out the form of Lucy creeping in the opposite direction. Lissa knew her daughter would do what needed to be done, she always had, and with a satisfied nod to herself, she began to descend the stairs.
Standing just outside the infirmary, Lissa silently slipped her shoes back on and watched the light coming from under the door break with a shadow. Someone was moving around inside, but it didn’t matter, she had expected as much. Feeling the reassuring weight in her hand, Lissa pushed open the door and walked in.
‘Oh, hi, Lissa,’ whispered Avery, turning towards her while he wrung most of the water out of a wet facecloth over a bowl, ‘couldn’t sleep?’
Lissa stepped further into the room and stood behind Avery, watching him bathe the forehead of the sick child sleeping fitfully on the bed next to him.
‘Will the boy live?’ Lissa asked.
‘Well,’ Avery began, turning to look back at her.
With his gasp of surprise cut short, Avery had barely registered the arm flying toward him, before Lissa brought the heavy metal cloche crashing down on the side of his head. Avery brought his hand up to the side of his head, and despite the tingling sensation numbing his fingers; he knew instinctively that blood was already flowing freely from the wound. Lissa stepped back and watched blankly as Avery tried to push himself to his feet. She could see from the way his eyes swam in and out of focus that he was fighting the blackness that would pull him down into unconsciousness, and she was determined one way or another, it was a battle he would lose. Avery meekly reached out his free hand to steady himself on the small table beside him. But as his hand brushed the corner of the table, a wave of blackness swept over him, sending him plunging forwards. With a crash, Avery fell into the small table, sending the bowl of water crashing to the floor. Then with Lissa’s face swimming in and out of focus, the blackness finally claimed him, and he slid from the table to crumple on the floor at her feet.
‘Time to go, little one,’ Lissa whispered, quickly bundling up the small infant in a blanket.
Above her, Lucy stood motionless, her hand poised to knock on the wooden door. She looked back down the dark corridor the way her mother had gone, and knew she was alone. This was her part of the plan, this would make things right. With a sharp intake of breath to steady her nerves, Lucy gently knocked on the door and waited. When nothing happened, she knocked again. This time she heard creaking movement from within the room.
‘Hello’ came the woman’s croaky voice from inside, obviously, Lucy had woken her, ‘who is it?’
‘It’s Lucy, Miss,’ Lucy answered, her voice barely above a whisper.
‘Lucy?’ the woman repeated.
Lucy could hear the woman getting off the bed and moving to the door.
‘Doctor Avery asked if you had something he could use for a nappy for the baby,’ Lucy continued, glancing along the corridor to make sure no other doors were opening.
‘Oh, a nappy,’ said the woman, stifling a yawn. ‘Sure, hang on.’
With the sound of the bolt being drawn across, Lucy knew her time had come. Slowly, the door swung open.
‘Here you go,’ said Alice, holding out a folded piece of towelling.
‘I’m sorry,’ was all Lucy could say as she raised her hand up level with Alice’s chest.
‘No,’ Alice whispered, her eyes widening in shock as she recognised the shape of a gun with a silencer in the girl’s hand.
Without a further word, Lucy pulled the trigger, sending Alice staggering backwards. For a second, their eyes locked, one pair showing nothing but pure determination, the other disbelief and despair. Then with strangled gasp, Alice collapsed to the floor. Lucy looked down at Alice’s still body on the floor, the pool of blood slowly spreading out from under her. She had done it, she had played her part, but there was still more to do. Stepping gingerly around Alice’s body, Lucy went to the cot and collected the baby up in her arms. This is what they had really come for, this child would make things right. This child would bring her family back to her.
***
Sister Rebecca knelt before the chapel’s large stone alter looking up at the ornately carved depiction of Mary holding the infant Christ, and lost herself to the rhythm of her benediction. Next to her, Sister Claire was also praying, the soft murmur of her prayers competing with the gentle clicking of the Rosary beads wound about her fingers. At one time, there had been over twenty Sisters at Lanherne who had answered God’s call, and dedicated their lives to prayer and service. Of them, only Sister Rebecca and Sister Claire now remained. The others had been taken from them in various ways. Dead hands and teeth had ripped many apart in those first few terrifying weeks when the world had changed into some nightmarish hell. For some, the horrors that now stalked the earth had tested their faith beyond its limits, and had simply slipped away during the night, never to be heard of again, and later, a few of the younger novices had even been stolen away by the very men they had mistakenly offered sanctuary. Only their Mother Superior, Sister Josephine, had been able to leave them peacefully in her sleep. She had been the first in eight years not to come back, and her death had heralded a new hope for humanity. She had passed over, leaving her body a simple shell at peace with the natural order of things. Thanks to the smallest of God’s miracles, the virus within baby Charlie, had mutated and become airborne, infecting them all with the promise of a final death, and with that true death, they knew life finally had a chance.
The stubby, smoky, candle she had placed on the altar had done little to push back the cold darkness of the chapel, and as the flame sputtered on some unknown impurities on the wax, Sister Rebecca’s eyes momentarily dropped from the face of the Holy mother.
‘Holy Mary, mother of G
od, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.’ She softly prayed, her eyes drifting back up to the carved features as she passed another Rosary bead through her fingers.
‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst wom…’ suddenly the word froze on Sister Rebecca’s lips, as another woman’s name suddenly came to her.
‘No…’ she managed to say, the string of Rosary beads slipping from her grasp to fall to the cold stone floor.
‘What is it Rebecca?’ asked Sister Claire, worry and concern etched on her wrinkled features.
‘I know who she is,’ Sister Rebecca replied, turning to look at the worried woman next to her, ‘Holy Mother protect us, I know who she is.’
With that, Sister Rebecca pushed herself up from her knees and gathering up the fabric of her habit, turned and ran down the aisle.
‘You know who ‘who’ is?’ Sister Claire called after her, as Sister Rebecca reached the large carved wooden doors of the Chapel.
‘Hide in the storage room, Claire,’ Sister Rebecca answered, ‘I’ve got to warn them.’
And with that, Sister Rebecca had pulled open the heavy door and disappeared into the darkness.
She knew she had to get to Patrick or Phil as soon as possible and tell them just who Lissa really was, but as she turned a corner, she suddenly caught sight of movement in the dark shadows further along the hall and froze. Pressing herself tight against the wall, Sister Rebecca threw a prayer to the Saints that the darkness would hide her presence, and as she held her breath, she watched the dark form slowly move down the corridor and disappear round the corner. With her heart thumping in her chest, she forced herself to wait, hoping to put some distance between whoever the shadowy form had been and her. When she thought she had waited long enough, Sister Rebecca edged her way slowly along the wall to the end of the hallway. After a nervous glance in the direction that the shadow had gone, she threw herself away from the wall and ran to the small stone staircase that led up to the sleeping cells.
When she reached the top, she paused briefly by the window, listening for any more movement in the dark. With no sounds but the heavy thumping of her own heart coming to her, Sister Rebecca bolted to the room she knew Patrick shared with Helen and their baby.
‘Patrick,’ she cried, banging franticly on the door, ‘Patrick, open the door!’
Almost instantly, she heard movement from within the room and as the sound of a crying baby began, Patrick threw open the door, a length of metal pipe already in his hand.
‘What is it, Sister?’ he asked, panting as the surge of adrenalin from being woken by her cries pumped through his body.
‘We’re in danger, Patrick. She’s been lying to us,’ Sister Rebecca said, the relief bringing tears to her eyes.
‘Who,’ asked Helen, standing in the shadows behind Patrick with Jasmine in her arms? ‘Who’s been lying to us?’
‘Lissa,’ Sister Rebecca replied, straining to see the faces of the two people in the dark room, ‘that’s not her real name, I’ve remembered who she is.’
Patrick reached forward to calm the obviously distressed nun.
‘Who is she, Sister?’ he asked.
‘Mary Donaldson,’ Sister Rebecca managed to say in a whisper, ‘she’s Mary Donaldson.’
‘You’re sure?’ Helen asked. ‘It was a long time ago…’
‘Yes,’ the Sister replied, ‘I remember her from when she worked in the village Tesco, it’s her alright.’
Patrick knew of the strange incestuous Donaldson family that had made their home an island on a lake surrounded by dense woodland. At best, they were unfriendly to strangers, at worst they were violent animals. Last year, one of the men of the family had been killed as he tried to rape Liz, and it looked like now they had decided to use the guise of a sick baby to get payback.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Phil, scratching his stubble as he opened his own door further down the hall, wearing only his underpants.
‘Wake everyone up,’ Patrick called back, ‘it’s Lissa. She’s one of the Donaldson’s.’
‘Shit!’ replied Phil, now fully awake.
Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light came through the window at the end of the hall, lighting up the entire hallway for a fraction of a second, only to be followed by the loud boom of an explosion outside.
***
A few minutes earlier, Lucy had hurried down the dark corridors with the sleeping Charlie held tightly in her arms. In her haste, she had not seen the figure of the Sister Rebecca pressed deep into the shadows, but as she made her way along the ground floor to the main door, she could not help but notice the approaching flickering light up ahead. Panicking and not knowing another way out of the Convent, Lucy froze. Unaware that those at the Convent had been infected with a new virus that stopped them from reanimating after death, she assumed Alice would be coming back as one of the Dead any second. She simply didn’t have the time to turn and find an alternative way out, she would have to deal with whomever was approaching her, and quickly.
‘Hello?’ said Nadine, shifting her book under her arm and holding up her small candle, so she could see who was standing ahead of her in the shadows. ‘Oh, Lucy, is everything alright? Do you want me to show you the way back to your room or to your brother?’
Taking a step closer, the small pool of light from the candle fell over the baby in Lucy’s arms.
‘What’s going on, Lucy?’ she said, recognising Charlie. ‘What have you done to Alice?’
But Lucy looked back at her blankly and said nothing. Slowly, the young girl pulled her hand from beneath Charlie’s blanket to reveal the handgun she held. For a second, Nadine watched the candle light reflecting off the barrel of the silencer. She knew if Lucy decided to pull the trigger, no one would hear the shot, and she would likely be dead by the time anyone discovered her injured body.
‘Please don’t…’ Nadine asked, instantly knowing her life now rested in the hands of this twelve-year-old girl.
Looking up into Lucy’s eyes, she saw no compassion or warmth there, only determination and the cold reflected light of the candle. This girl had already chosen her fate.
‘You’re going to kill me aren’t you?’ Nadine whispered, her words full of remorse.
‘Yes,’ Lucy said, levelling the gun to Nadine’s chest and pulling the trigger.
Nadine’s brain registered the fact she had been shot in a somewhat detached manner. She had heard the muffled pop of the gun firing, and then after a pain that felt like a sharp punch to her chest, her whole world seem to be solely comprised of the sound of her own erratic panting, and a high pitched whistling in her ears. As she instinctively reached out her blood-covered hand to the wall for support, the book she had been carrying dropped to the floor with a thud. But her arms, suddenly weak and drained of strength, could not support her weight and slowly, with a soft cry, Nadine slid down the wall. Unable to move from where shehad fallen, Nadine’s eyes followed Lucy, watching as the girl stepped around her legs and disappeared into the shadows. Almost by compulsion, Nadine reached painfully for the book that had fallen just beyond her grasp, her movement sending a spasm of pain through her.
‘No…’ she breathlessly murmured, knowing she would never feel the comforting weight of a book in her hands again.
These things that had given her stability and the tools to survive in this world of the Dead, had always been more than mere paper covered in printing ink to her, they had been instruments of wonder. Through them, knowledge had opened up untold worlds to her, and she had revelled in every minute fact and detail they offered her, storing them away in the recesses of her mind for her to savour and enjoy forever. And that was one of the things that upset her the most, this information that she so treasured, would fade away as her life faded away. Even now, she could almost feel the details evaporating from her mind as synapses blinked out of existence one by one.
‘The city of Austin, Texas was originally called Water
loo,’ she panted, her hand tightly gripping the small candle that was miraculously still alight. ‘F…fish can taste with their fins as well as their mouths… the capital of New Zealand is… is Wellington… the length of the Amazon r…river is… is sixty… sixty-four hundred kilometres long… the sm… the sm... the smallest… the smallest… the…’
But Nadine’s body could no longer keep her torn heart beating, and as the pool of her blood began to spread out from beneath her, Nadine’s organs began to slowly shut down. Words, meanings, names, places, all began to blur in her mind, and as Nadine’s eyes drifted one last time to the small candle she had in her hand, she managed to generate one last coherent thought.
‘At least I won’t die in the dark.’
Then she was gone.
Silently, as the tension slowly left her muscles and her fingers began to relax, the candle slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor, rolling away from her body. For the briefest of moments, the candle rocked back and forth, its flame flickering slightly in a breeze and then, like Nadine, it too was extinguished.
Lucy gently opened the large wooden door just wide enough to make sure she would be unseen. Looking up at the walkway, she could see two figures silhouetted against the night sky. They were walking slowly along one side of the convent’s high wall towards a corner.
‘Come on,’ she mumbled to her herself, waiting for the two figures to disappear from view.
She watched as one of the two on watch, paused to look down at something on the other side of the wall. Suddenly, there was a flash of reflected moonlight as the figure pulled out some sort of blade, took aim, and threw it at an unknown target. Glancing back into the Convent, Lucy knew her time was running. Surely, the woman she had just killed, if she had not already done so, would be reanimating any second. The last thing she needed was a wild hungry corpse running down the corridor towards her. She knew she might just have to take a risk and make a run for it. Using a just few more of the seconds she could ill afford to waste, she anxiously waited for the figures to continue on their circuit of the wall. With a silent sigh of relief, the two figures began to move again. Her chance had come. Slipping through the door, Lucy darted across the small courtyard, past a chicken coop and a stable, and into the shadow of the wall.
Last Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 3) Page 7
