Last Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 3)

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘Probably for the breeding program,’ said Karen, ‘they’ve proven they’re fertile and can carry a child full term. Captain Cardin will want them back at the base.’

  ‘And whose handy work was this?’ Liz asked, urging Samson away from the school and down a road she knew the cart would be taking.

  ‘Sergeant Eric Ridge, he’s the officer in command of the landing party,’ Karen replied, ‘they must have seriously put up a fight for the woman and her daughter to have pissed him off so much.’

  ‘They were an incestuous, nasty bunch of crazies, but I don’t suppose they really deserved to be strung up for the Dead to feast on like that,’ said Liz. Niggling doubts began to creep into her mind about what they would do when they finally caught up with Mary and her daughter, one of them after all, had murdered Nadine.

  So not to tire him out, Liz let Samson alternate between a walk and a trot, and as he settled in to his rhythm, the two women travelled in silence, uninterrupted by the Dead for the next half an hour.

  The day had developed into a cool spring morning. Devoid of the gloomy cloud cover they had been forced to endure of late, the bright sun rose above them in a clear blue sky. All about them, small lives went about their merry business, while along the roadside, hedgerow’s bloomed with new life, both plant and animal. The air itself was full of life. Iridescent insects, flitting from flower to flower, did their best to avoid the small birds swooping to collect a winged harvest for their own newly hatched young. While the tree canopies and overgrown gardens had become a concert hall of late starters calling for new mates. But all this life around her did little to instil Liz with any great sense of hope. Even if they did catch up with this Sergeant Ridge, how were they expected to attack what was presumably a well-armoured convoy and not only escape with Charlie, but also with all of their lives? And then there was the question of how they were to deal with Mary and her daughter. Was there a chance that they too were victims of Sergeant Ridge, only doing what they were told to keep their loved ones safe?

  ‘Check the map for me, will you,’ Liz said over her shoulder, putting aside the moral dilemmas concerning Mary and Lucy she knew she would have to face at some point, ‘I think it’s this turning up ahead.’

  Reaching into the small drawstring pouch Liz had on her back; Karen pulled out the small A to Z and opened it at the pages that already had their top corners turned down.

  ‘So we’re here,’ she said, reaching her arms further around so Liz could see the map, ‘and you say we need to get them before they get to this general area?’

  ‘Yes,’ Liz replied, taking the small book from Karen for a closer look, ‘and if we don’t find them by then, we’re in big trouble ourselves.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Karen, looking over Liz’s shoulder at the small map in her hands.

  ‘Because we’ll be there,’ Liz replied, pointing her finger to a certain point on the map.

  ‘Oh, Shit!’ was all Karen could say as she read the word ‘Hospital’ by Liz’s finger.

  ***

  ‘So we’re here,’ said Imran, pointing to the large map he had now folded so it just showed the area they were in, ‘on the outskirts of Bodmin town, but what do you think this area is?’

  Moving the map in Imran’s hand so a disk of light from one of the spy holes fell directly on the section he had asked about, Phil leant over to look at the grey shaded shape.

  ‘Looks like it may be some sort of out of town shopping complex or warehouses, I’m not sure,’ he finally said, ‘either way, this close to town, you can bet there’ll be a lot of the Dead still hanging about, and it’s just down the next turning.’

  ‘Great,’ mumbled Steve.

  ‘Right, now that we’re moving onto the larger roads, we’re more likely to come across old gridlocked traffic,’ said Patrick looking over his shoulder. ‘I don’t want us blindly going forwards to end up surrounded by the Dead and unable to turn round, that’s just suicide.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s about time we gave Duncan’s basket a try,’ said Phil reaching for the battered oval shaped wicker laundry basket.

  Only recently, Duncan had been hit with the flash of inspiration to use a basket on the roof of the cart to hide someone from the hungry eyes of the Dead. As they only reacted if they heard or saw signs of the living, it seemed ideal that whenever someone opened the hatch in the cart’s roof, they could hide their head and shoulders from sight under the loosely woven wicker basket, the extra height enabling them to see further ahead of the cart undetected.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Imran, taking the basket from Phil’s hands, ‘no offense, but we’ll need a bigger basket for you.’

  ‘Did he just call me fat?’ asked Phil looking at Steve.

  ‘Phil, the muscles on your arms are almost as big as my thighs,’ Steve replied chuckling softly, ‘I don’t think anyone could call you fat.’

  ‘Ssshhh...’ Imran whispered, standing up with a foot on each of the benches that ran either side of the cart so he could open the hatch in the roof.

  Instantly, silence blanketed the inside of the cart, as with a soft click, Imran pushed the hatch over to rest on the outside of the cart’s roof. Taking the wicker basket in both hands, he then pushed it up lengthways through the opening and then tipped it so it rested bottom up over the hatchway.

  ‘Here goes,’ he whispered, standing to his full height after he had secured the handles of the basket to some rings on the roof.

  With his head and shoulders now standing proud out of the hatchway, he should have been plainly visible to the Dead that he knew milled about further down the road, but thanks to Duncan’s idea, he was hidden from sight. They had already cut away some of the wicker in places, creating small holes through which Imran could now view the area around them undetected.

  ‘Hey, it seems to be working,’ Imran whispered down to the other men, while he watched a Dead woman slowly pulling her withered carcass past Delilah and the cart, completely oblivious to Imran’s presence

  ‘Okay, there’s plenty of room for us on this road for about fifty meters, but then there’s three wrecked cars and a van blocking the road,’ Imran whispered, ducking back down again. ‘There’s room for us to manoeuvre around it if we go onto the path for a bit, and then re-join the road another thirty metres or so further on, which should take us near the back of those warehouses or whatever they are.’

  Patrick gave Imran a ‘thumbs up’ and with a flick of Delilah’s reins, they were soon moving again, and it wasn’t long before they all felt the bump of the cart wheels as they rose up the curb and onto the path.

  Looking through one of the spy holes as they made their way past the mangled pieces of metal, Steve noticed that a chain link fence running parallel with the road was blocking off an area that may have once have been a car park. Whatever it had previously been, it backed onto a large industrial looking complex of warehouses. But it was what filled the car park that made Steve gasp. At some point early on when the Dead first replaced Man at the top of the food chain, the area must have been used as some sort of rescue point for the residents of Bodmin. It had failed horribly. There amid the abandoned rusting shells of family cars, vans, and small local buses, were the motionless figures of over four hundred of the Dead. Worst of all, were the corpses still locked within their cars, for theirs must have been a terrifying and tortured death. With the car park instantly becoming an unorganised mess of torn metal and collided vehicles when the terrified people had tried to flee, the very thing they had hoped would save them, had trapped many. Locked behind their doors, they must have slowly starved to death, while all about them, the hungry Dead fought to get to their flesh.

  Tapping Phil on the shoulder, Steve indicated at the horrors that lingered merely a few metres away.

  ‘Christ!’ Phil whispered, looking back at Steve.

  Returning to watch the horde of the Dead as they passed, Phil and Steve became aware that a wave of movement was unexpectedly rippling through the de
caying crowd. The Dead, altered by the presence of something alive, had suddenly roused themselves from their stupor. Starting in a far off corner of the car park, they quickly began their pitiful moaning. As each one of the Dead let forth its hungry call, it whipped its neighbour up into a similarly desperate frenzy. Steve could already see some of them reaching with their painfully slow movements for whatever had caught their attention, but, whatever it was, it was darting through them with some speed. Steve looked at Phil, an anxious look on his face. If the Dead surged in their direction, the chain link fence would stand little chance of holding back such a number of agitated hungry cadavers. Then as the ripple moved over to the corner furthest away from the cart, Steve saw a mangy looking tabby cat leap for the top of the fence. Willing the poor creature to make it over, Steve watched as the cat franticly kicked its back legs, desperate to find leverage on the chain link fence. But unfortunately, all of its effort was to be for nothing, as no sooner had it began its panic driven escape, than Dead hands had latched onto its small body. With an ear piercing howl, the cat tried to drop from the fence, hoping a different avenue of escape would prove more fruitful, but it was too late for the tabby, the Dead would never relinquish their prize. The unfortunate animal screeched one final time before the Dead began their brief but bloody feeding frenzy, and within seconds, it had been torn to pieces, its tasty morsels disappearing amid the crowd of decaying humanity.

  Phil and Steve both pulled away from the spy holes and silently moved the covering disks back into place. They had seen enough, and as they looked over at each other, they both knew it wouldn’t take much for them both to share the bloody fate of the poor moggy.

  With a bump, the cart went back down the curb and re-joined the road on the other side of the wreckage. It was then that they heard the scream, followed by two gunshots.

  ‘Uh oh!’ whispered Steve, while just beyond the safety of the cart, four hundred heads suddenly snapped to the right.

  ***

  ‘There they are!’ said Liz, seeing the back of the Lanherne cart disappear round a corner some hundred metres ahead of them.

  She pulled Samson to a brief stop, allowing him to catch his breath properly before the burst of speed she knew they would need if they were to survive the next ten minutes. Ahead of her, the road was dotted with thirty to forty of the Dead, in various shapes, sizes, and states of decay. Even as she spoke, film covered eyes that burned with a ceaseless hunger, locked onto her, Karen and Liz instantly becoming the only thing that mattered in their Dead world. What began with one of the Dead taking a single shaky step towards them, its arms outstretched beseeching them for the flesh it craved, was immediately taken up by another and then another, until a slow swarm of decaying corpses were shambling towards them.

  ‘They’re coming from behind too,’ Karen said nervously, turning to look behind her.

  A small Dead child, its body nothing but a patchwork of bites and grey mould, had stepped out from behind a wrecked car next to Samson, and was pawing pathetically at Liz’s foot. The child had been young when it had died, and even when it reached up on what was left of its blackened toes, its fingers barely brushed against the heel of her boot. Without even thinking, Liz flipped the blade in her hand and with a sharp stabbing motion, punctured the top of the child’s skull.

  ‘Are you ready?’ she asked Karen, trying to sound brave even though to her, it seemed her heart was hammering loudly in her chest. ‘Just try to batter any away with the pipe if they get too close, and only use the gun if you really have to, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Karen replied in a trembling whisper, looking down at the small mass of now motionless decayed flesh.

  ‘YAH!’ cried Liz, giving Samson a kick with her heels.

  Instantly, the beast knew what was expected of him and burst forward. Swerving in and out of the Dead ahead of them, Liz did her best to avoid the many Dead hands that grabbed for them as they sped past, but it soon became apparent their luck was quickly going to run out. The Dead were just too close together on the road for them to be totally avoided for long, and as Samson sped past a Dead woman dressed in the stained and tattered remains of what may have once been a bridesmaid dress, she managed to latch onto Karen’s leg.

  ‘No!’ Karen cried, smashing at the woman’s face with her pipe.

  Oblivious to the damage Karen was wreaking upon her face, the Dead woman continued to claw at Karen, desperate to pull her closer to her snapping jaws. Then, with a well-aimed strike, Karen brought the heavy pipe down hard on the Dead woman’s temple, ripping away greying flesh and cracking her yellowed skull beneath. For a fraction of a second, the woman continued to hold fast, but then as suddenly as she had appeared, she was gone again. No sooner had the woman fallen to the road, than another six appeared to take her place and before she knew it, Liz found they were surrounded on all sides. Only Samson’s speed and pure bulk enabled them to push through and carry on at all. But then, what little luck or blessings the Gods had bestowed upon them, abruptly ran out.

  Kicking out at a Dead man clothed in the torn remains of filthy hospital scrubs, Liz quickly altered Samson’s course to avoid the twisted wreckage of a car lying on its side directly in front of them. With Samson only just brushing past its crumpled bonnet, Liz’s heart sank when she saw the rusting shells of another two-smashed cars and a van now blocking her path.

  ‘Shit!’ she said, pulling Samson to a sudden stop, his hooves sliding briefly on the cracked road surface.

  ‘Liz!’ cried Karen, the word filled with panic as the Dead closed in on them.

  Yanking Samson’s reins, Liz quickly turned the beast around, but as she did so, two of the Dead who had pushed themselves through the wreckage of one of the cars, grabbed hold of Karen. It was pure bad luck, but at the precise moment they pulled on her, Karen had been leaning forward trying to hit at them with her pipe, and their pulling combined with the momentum of her swinging arm, sent Karen toppling from Samson’s back.

  ‘Get up on the van!’ shouted Liz, slashing her blade at one of the Dead, sending a severed arm falling lifelessly to the ground.

  Pushing herself up, Karen ignored the stabbing pain from where she had landed awkwardly on her hip and with a surge of adrenalin pumping through her, pushed past a Dead woman that had appeared in front of her. As Karen clambered over the crumpled wreckage to get to the roof, Liz continued to slash and stab at the Dead that now surrounded her. Decaying limbs and lifeless bodies fell to the road, but Liz knew she could not hold them off for much longer. For each soul she consigned to its rightful oblivion, another three seemed to be taking its place.

  Karen was just pulling herself up onto the roof of the van when a hand darted through one of its broken windows and grabbed hold of her foot. With a tug, the Dead creature pulled hard, drawing her foot and then her calf through the window. With a loud scream, Karen fell backwards, her back banging hard against the van’s crumpled door. With her leg still hooked over the window frame by her knee, and the creature within already clawing at her leg, she knew she was in mortal danger. Straining her stomach muscles, Karen pulled herself up just in time to see the Dead man inside the van, ripping at her combat trousers with his teeth. She knew within seconds they would rip and the corpse would have access to the flesh he craved. Holding onto the lip of the window frame with one hand, she pulled one of her guns from its holster. If this wasn’t a situation that called for the use of the gun, Karen was hard pressed to think of one, so taking care not to shoot herself in the leg, she took aim. The Dead man was pulling so hard to get the tough fabric to rip that Karen’s first shot went wild, lodging itself in the roof just behind his head. Then over the loud moaning of the Dead all about her, the ominous sound of tearing fabric reached her ears. Karen knew it was now or never. With a yell borne of pure panic and desperation, she pulled herself higher and pushed her arm half way through the window. The barrel of the gun was practically resting on the Dead man’s forehead, and as he darted forward, a dark slobber d
ripping from his wide open mouth, she pulled the trigger again.

  With a spray of rotting brain matter splashing across the inside of the van, the tension on Karen’s leg suddenly disappeared, allowing her finally to pull her leg back out through the window. Without thinking, she began to climb the dented and torn metal again and sooner than she thought possible, she found herself kicking her legs as she wriggled herself up onto the rusted roof of the van. At one point, she was sure she felt the clammy touch of Dead fingers on her leg again, but with one last sharp kick, she was on the roof and finally out of reach.

  ‘Liz!’ she cried, looking down on the young woman that battled to keep the Dead at bay around her and Samson.

  ‘Jump!’ Liz called back, her attention on the attacking horde unwavering.

  Karen knew she had to trust Liz if she wanted to have any chance of surviving this, so taking a deep breath to steady herself, she took a small step back and then threw herself toward the space behind Liz on Samson’s back.

  ***

  Outside the cart, the Dead instantly knew something living was nearby and as their wordless call rose in volume, the crowd surged toward the chain link that enclosed them. Those at the back of the crowd were being whipped up by the frenzied calls of the Dead brethren ahead of them, and what had started by one, had fast become a nightmarish stampede of the Dead in the direction from which they had heard the scream.

  ‘I don’t think that fence will hold them for very long,’ whispered Steve, briefly looking away from the spy hole.

  ‘Should we try to help whoever’s out there?’ Imran asked quietly, knowing if they waited too long, whoever had screamed would be beyond help.

  ‘I’m truly sorry for whoever’s out there, but if those Dead bastards get a glimpse of us, there’ll be no stopping them,’ said Patrick, his words spoken so softly they were barely audible above the loud moaning of the Dead, ‘they’ll rip this cart apart.’