Last Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 3)

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ Grimes began, trying hard to keep his nerves out of his report, ‘we’re completely surrounded now. The noise from the gunfire has attracted a substantial group of Death-walkers from the adjacent fields, as well as a number from ahead of the Jackal itself.’

  ‘Anything we can’t handle?’ Ridge said, his hand subconsciously reaching for his side arm.

  ‘No, Sir,’ replied Private Grimes, ‘we’ve the weight to crush any in our path, and our sides are too high for any of them to scale.’

  Private Samuel Grimes tried his best to force a confidence he wasn’t feeling into his words, but the sight of the decayed woman’s corpse as she threw herself violently at the cab door, her dead hands slapping pointlessly along the bottom of the grilled covered window, did little to add conviction to his tone.

  Sam had only been halfway through the second term at university when the Death-Walker virus had first let its presence be known. In a matter of days, his life had been stolen away from him and his childhood dreams of becoming a journalist dashed. If it hadn’t been for his father being one of the top researchers in the field of applied genetics, he knew he too would be among the horde of ravenous cadavers that ceaselessly stalked the living. But his father’s skill at manipulating the smallest building blocks of life had saved him from such a fate.

  Sam could still remember the day the soldiers had come for him at university. In their army uniforms, the emotionless soldiers had made no pretence of hiding their assault rifles as they strode into the lecture hall, ignoring the protests of the staff and students alike. At first, he had thought it was some sort of elaborate practical joke when they had called out his name and ordered him to go with them, but then his mobile phone had rung. Hearing his father beg him to go with the soldiers before it was too late, and saying that he’d explain later, Sam knew something terrible was about to happen and he had been right. And so within hours, he had found himself aboard a chartered aircraft by his father’s side, surrounded by other eminent scientists and their families, heading toward an island military base that officially had never been built.

  Sam was suddenly snapped from his memories by the sound of a hand from an exceptionally tall dead man banging loudly against the grill on his window, making him jump.

  ‘Jesus!’ he whispered under his breath, pushing his glasses back into place.

  Not for the first time, Sam cursed his bad eyesight. Not of course that it was so bad that he couldn’t function, but even with his glasses on, it was just off enough to rule him out of a sniper role, which explained why he was stuck in the Carriers cab with Sinclair, driving the real soldiers instead of being one.

  ‘Whoa! Did you see that bitch!’ said Private Chris Sinclair, excitedly slapping his fist on the cabin roof as he watched the slaughter of those who had fallen victim to the Death-walker plague. ‘That bitch must’ve been knocked back six metres, I bet that was one of Pelling’s shots, he’s one bad fucker!’

  Sam gave Sinclair his best fake smile. With his nerves on edge, Sam hoped the nineteen-year-old giant next to him would soon get bored with the show and give him some peace. Like Sam, Chris Sinclair was only alive today down to the fact that one or more of his parents was a genius in some specific biological field that would bring humanity back from the brink, but that was definitely where the similarities ended. At six-two and built like a pro-rugby player, Sinclair was a little on the slow side, and because of it, Sam assumed, a slight embarrassment to his eminent parents. They say an apple doesn’t fall far from its tree, unfortunately for Chris Sinclair’s parents, their apple seemed to have landed in another orchard altogether.

  ‘The bullet comes out at the same force, no matter who fires it,’ Sam mumbled, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Kiss my arse,’ Sinclair replied, giving Sam a friendly but powerful punch on the arm, ‘and anyway, you’ve got to hit them just in the right spot to blow these dead bastards off their feet like that, that’s what I…’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Sam, holding up his hand to silence Sinclair as he received a message from the three soldiers in the Jackal. ‘Roger. I’ll inform Sergeant Ridge.’

  Sinclair, frozen mid word, looked at Sam. With his hands already poised over the steering wheel, a look of serious determination was suddenly replacing the adolescent excitement from his face. Private Chris Sinclair may have been a bit low in IQ, but he certainly knew not to mess about when lives were on the line and out here, away from the island, that seemed to be a constant state.

  ‘Sir, Jackal says they are good to go,’ relayed Sam to Sergeant Ridge, pausing slightly as he waited for his reply. ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘It’s crushing time,’ said Chris, a grin spreading over his face, while he glanced at a small monitor set into the control panel in front of him that showed the three sharp shooters climbing back inside.

  Once he had heard the dull thud of the hatchway closing, Sam gave Chris the okay to put the carrier into gear and the machine began its slow advance.

  Sam couldn’t help but look down in horror at the twisted decaying faces of those who had fallen victim to the Death-walker plague. Who these corpses had once been, mothers, fathers, children, all that was gone, only to be replaced with a desperate pure hunger Sam saw looking back at him. Even though their attempts were plainly futile, something within the rotting corpses demanded they continue to try to reach for the living flesh they needed. Sam watched them beat their hands against the side of the carrier below his door, their skin sloughing from flesh and their flesh tearing from bone. Their compulsion to attack was relentless, and Sam knew nothing would stop them. Even as they were pulled beneath the large wheels of the carrier, they continued to stretch out their ruined hands beseechingly, completely oblivious to the destruction of their bodies beneath them.

  They had cleared the initial crush of corpses against the front of the carrier, and thanks to their three snipers and those in the Jackal pushing their way through the animated corpses ahead of them, Sam could see the road ahead was now awash with dark spilt blood and unidentifiable bits of flesh.

  ‘Try to close the gap between us and the Jackal,’ Sam said, wanting to keep their unhindered going as long as possible. ‘We’ll make better time if they can’t block us in again.’

  ‘Jesus!’ shouted Chris, slamming on the brakes, as the figure of a thin young girl darted out of an adjacent field, clambered over the bloody remains of the corpses crushed by the Jackal and skidded to a halt amid a slurry of torn offal and shattered bone to look at them.

  ‘She’s alive!’ shouted Chris, his hand almost on the handle of his door.

  ‘No!’ cried Sam, grabbing the arm of the young man about to be torn to pieces. ‘She’s already dead, Chris. Look at her. She’s already one of the Death-walkers!’

  ‘What, but…’ said Chris running his hand through his short red hair, confused by Sam’s statement.

  ‘She’s dead, Chris,’ Sam continued, seeing the man’s gaze flick from the dead girl’s face and back to his own, ‘look at her eyes.’

  ‘But she ran so fast to get to us, like she needed help, I just thought…’ said Chris, his words trailing away as he watched the young girl violently throw herself at the front of the carrier.

  ‘From the way she’s still moving, she must have only died very recently,’ Sam replied, looking down to see the young girl’s animated corpse thumping her small fists against the blood splattered metal, ‘like in the last two or three hours and there’s a small chunk missing from her arm, she was bitten.’

  ‘What the fuck’s going on up there,’ came Sergeant Ridge’s stern voice through their earpieces.

  ‘Thought we had a live civilian in need of assistance, Sir,’ replied Sam, looking across at Chris. ‘We, we were mistaken, it was just a fresh one, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck, if you see the Pope out there trying to wave us down, this is not a civilian rescue mission, you understand me, Privates.’ snapped Sergeant R
idge.

  ‘Sir,’ the two men replied automatically.

  Looking away briefly, Chris moved the carrier forward again, trying his best to blot out the pounding of the girl’s fists that continued even as she was pulled under their wheels.

  ‘Two or three hours,’ Chris mumbled to himself, ‘just two or three fucking hours ago and the poor bitch was alive. Christ!’

  ***

  ‘How is she?’ asked Leon, as Liz stepped off the last rung of ladder up onto the walkway.

  ‘Well, she’s awake and alive,’ she began, crossing her arms, ‘it wasn’t pretty when I had to break the news about Charlie though, Avery had to sedate her again.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Leon replied, shaking his head.

  ‘It was all we could do to stop her getting off the bed and going after the Donaldson’s herself,’ Liz continued, picking idly at a patch of lichen on the stonewall. ‘You should have seen her, it took two of us to hold her down while Avery gave her the shot.’

  Liz turned away from the wall and gripped tightly the scaffolding pole that acted as a handrail along the walkway.

  ‘My, God, it’s all such a fucking mess,’ she sighed, looking down at the courtyard still littered with burnt debris. ‘Every time we open the gates, there seems to be a crazy bastard on the other side just waiting to screw with our lives.’

  ‘Hey, they weren’t all crazy bastards,’ smiled Leon, nudging her elbow, referring to himself and those that had come from the ruined Substation.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Liz, returning his smile with a sideways look, ‘the jury is still out on you lot, so don’t get too comfy, anyway, how’s the Dead count been so far this morning?’

  ‘Well, blowing the side gate of its hinges, didn’t help,’ Leon replied, his fingers inadvertently fiddling with the hilt of one of his knives, ‘and numbers were up anyway, so at a guess, I’d say we’ve had a couple of dozen at least.’

  ‘As many as that, Christ, and it’s barely nine o’clock,’ said Liz, turning to rest her hip against the handrail.

  ‘And there’ll be more before the morning’s over,’ Leon continued, finally pulling the knife free of the sewn channel in his jacket, ‘there’s more stumbling onto the lane all the time, J-man and I will deal with them when they finally drag their sorry arses closer to the wall.’

  ‘You’re one to talk about sorry arses,’ she said, slapping his butt as she pushed herself away from the rail, ‘don’t know what Jen sees in you.’

  ‘Charm…’ Leon began, his words were suddenly interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

  ‘What the fuck!’ said Liz, darting to look out over the Convent wall.

  Behind her, she heard Leon yelling at those in the courtyard to get inside and for someone to find Rich and his key to the gun store. Liz couldn’t really believe what she was seeing, either the woman was mad, or just plain stupid.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Leon returning to stand next to her, ‘looks like something you would do.’

  Racing along the long tree lined lane on a mountain bike, her legs frantically pumping on its pedals, was a young woman dressed in army fatigues. Even as Liz watched, one of the many Dead shambling along the lane lunged for her as she approached him, but whoever this woman was, she was determined not to be stopped. With a smooth motion, she swerved slightly to one side, sending a spray of chipped concrete into the air, raised her arm, and fired her handgun directly into the face of the decaying creature. Without pausing to see whether she had permanently sent the Dead man to his long overdue grave or not, the woman sped on and continued to weave in and out of the Dead. By now, all of the other Dead in the lane ahead of her had turned to greet her. Most of them were spaced far enough apart that the woman could easily whizz by them, but unknown to the woman, trouble was just a few corpses ahead.

  ‘There’s four of them moving almost shoulder to shoulder,’ Liz said under her breath, holding her hand up to her eyes to shield them from the morning sun. ‘She’s not going to be able to pass them.’

  But even as the words left her mouth, Liz saw the woman shift her centre of gravity to lean back slightly on the bicycle seat, reach behind with her empty hand, and pull a second gun from the back of her waistband. Now cycling hands-free and with a gun clasped in each fist, she began to fire at the group blocking her path. On the bumpy surface, many of the first few shots went wild, but as the woman kept on pulling the triggers, first one, and then another walking corpse finally met their maker. She was almost upon them now and with two of the Dead still upright and reaching for her, and another two lying motionless on the road amid clumps of sprouting grasses, any room to manoeuvre was going to be tight. With barely seconds to spare, the woman threw the guns, presumably now empty of bullets, aside and lent forward to grab the mountain bike’s handlebar with both hands. With a yell of rage that even Liz could hear on the walkway, the woman barrelled into the bodies in her way. Even as the first tyre bumped over the brittle legs of one of the fallen corpse, Liz saw the woman kick out hard at a Dead woman on her right that was reaching for her, sending her sprawling over the body of her already fallen brethren.

  But that was where the woman’s luck suddenly ran out, for she had barely placed her boot back on the pedal when the remaining walking cadaver that had blocked her path, stepped directly in front of her. With no time to kick him out of the way, the woman tried to swerve around him, but she was just too slow and his arm clipped the mountain bike’s handlebars, causing her suddenly to lose control. All happening in the smallest fraction of a second, one minute she was trying to regain control of the wobbling front wheel and the next she was tipping over the handlebars as the front wheel plunged into a rough pothole.

  Liz watched the woman crash to ground, still some forty metres down the lane away from them.

  ‘Shit!’ said Leon, noticing Rich had suddenly joined them, out of breath, but holding three of their precious guns.

  For what seemed like forever, the woman lay unmoving on the ground, while behind and ahead of her, the Dead drew closer. Finally, she pushed herself up, her hand going up to her head. Liz could tell the woman was a bit dazed; she needed to pull herself together, or all her peddling would have been for nothing.

  ‘Should we help her?’ asked Leon, leaning forward anxiously.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Liz, unable to tear her eyes away from the woman, ‘she’s obviously part of Cardin’s lot, but…’

  ‘Liz?’ asked Rich, offering her one of the handguns.

  ‘Fuck! I must be an idiot!’ Liz said, her decision suddenly made as she grabbed hold of one of the rope ladders and threw it over the wall.

  ‘Liz!’ Rich called after her, as she clambered over the wall and began to climb down the ladder.

  ‘Only fire if you have to,’ she called up to him, jumping from the ladder when she was still four rungs from the bottom.

  Pausing at the bottom on the ladder only long enough to reach behind her and click free her long blade from the tube like sheath she wore on her back, Liz darted forward to help the unknown woman. As much as she hated to admit it, Liz suddenly felt somehow complete again. To be running into danger with her sword once again in her hand, just felt right to her. She may love her daughter and Imran with all her heart, but Liz knew at her very core, she was a warrior and a safe life hidden behind the convent walls was not meant for her.

  ‘Get off me,’ screamed the woman, kicking wildly at the head of the moaning Dead man trying to pull himself up her legs.

  With each kick, skin tore from the Dead man’s face and flesh was pulped, but the woman could only hope to keep him at bay, she simply didn’t have the strength to inflict upon him anything close to a fatal blow.

  ‘Jesus, no,’ she said, fighting to control her panic, as over the Dead man’s shoulder she saw the woman she had kicked to the ground, slowly begin to rise.

  ‘Grab his hands and try to get your boot under his chin!’ shouted Liz, still too far away to be of any help.

  ‘Urr
ghh!’ the woman screamed, smashing her boot into the Dead man’s face again with as much force as she could muster.

  With a sickening popping sound, the man’s head was violently snapped to one side, while what was left of his nose became nothing but a dark bloody smear across his decaying pulpy face. Seeing her opportunity, the woman made a swift grab for the cracked and blackened hands still pawing at her. Even through her terror, she was able to notice the broken watch hanging loosely on his left wrist and the missing index and little fingers of his right hand. In one smooth movement, the woman pulled her knee up to her chest and lent forward to grip the Dead man by his wrists. The moment she knew she had a secure grip on him, she kicked out again with her drawn back leg, this time aiming for under his chin as her approaching saviour had suggested. With the sharp crunch of putrid cartilage under her boot, she knew she was momentarily safe.

  ‘Hold him,’ shouted Liz, as she darted past the woman on the ground, finally holding the snapping jaws of the Dead man at bay and moved to tackle the animated corpse of the Dead woman.

  Using the speed she had built up, Liz leapt into the air. With the blade of her sword held high behind her, she let it fall in a deadly powerful arc as she descended. One minute the Dead woman was staring at Liz with a wild hunger burning in her film covered eyes, and the next Liz’s blade was tearing through the grey tinged leathery skin of her neck. Liz did not need to see the damage the swipe of her blade had wreaked upon the Dead woman’s body, so spinning on the spot; she flipped the position of her sword in her hand and stabbed down hard at the back of the snapping Dead man’s head.

  ‘Jesus,’ cried the woman on the floor, seeing the tip of Liz’s blade erupt through the Dead man’s forehead.

  ‘Come on,’ called Liz, taking in the positions of the rest of the Dead on the lane, while she grabbed at the woman’s jacket to pull her up. ‘Get to the wall; we’ll deal with them from there!’

  Not needing to be told twice, the woman pushed the now motionless corpse from across her legs and jumped to her feet.