Last Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 3)

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘No!’ screamed Steve, trying to close the distance between himself, and Karen fighting for her life with the mould covered corpse

  But even as his footfalls thundered towards Karen, he saw the Dead woman on Karen’s back, pull back with something red and bloody in her mouth. With a feeling like someone had just punched him in the chest, he realised what he was seeing. The Tropical biome had turned out to be nothing but a tainted Paradise, hiding the Dead and the death they brought deep in its shadowy heart.

  With a scream born of pure rage, Karen suddenly flipped the Dead woman off of her back and onto the ground in front of her. Leaping over the snapping jaws, Karen then sat on the corpse’s chest, straddling her with her legs.

  ‘You fucking bitch!’ she screamed, taking the Dead woman’s head in her hands, as her own blood poured from the torn flesh of her left ear.

  ‘You! Fucking! Bitch! You! Fucking! Bitch!’ she continued screaming, slamming the cadaver’s head down onto the cobbles again and again, painfully punctuating each word.

  ‘Karen!’ Steve cried, pulling her off of the pulverised woman’s corpse.

  With images of every nightmarish cadaver she had seen since escaping the base suddenly coming back to haunt her, Karen knew she could not allow herself to be degraded in such a manner, not even in death.

  ‘Kill me!’ she said, saying it almost as a demand rather than a request.

  ‘Karen,’ he replied, his eyes flicking up to meet Patrick’s gaze filled with regretful urgency, ‘Karen, get up, fucking get up!’

  ‘Just kill me, please, just kill me!’ she cried hysterically, grabbing Steve’s legs.

  Steve looked back over his shoulder at the Dead already starting to come round the corner, his mind frantically trying to work out what was best.

  ‘Karen, we’ve got to go, come on!’ he yelled, pulling the woman to her feet.

  ‘I’m not coming back as one of the things!’ She continued to shout between sobs. ‘You heard what Grimes said, they saw that girl who’d been bitten, she’d turned, we may be able to die but we can still turn.’

  ‘We don’t know that!’ he tried to shout over her.

  ‘Don’t let that happen, Steve, kill me… please, kill me. Just shoot me… fucking shoot me!’ she screamed.

  Unable to do what Karen wanted, Steve suddenly struck out at her with his clenched fist, knocking her unconscious. Then darting forward, he caught her prone body before she hit the ground, and with a grunt, lifted her onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

  ‘Don’t,’ he snapped at Patrick, as he jogged past him with Karen on his shoulder, ‘just don’t, okay. I’ll do it myself if she turns, but we haven’t a fucking clue what’s going to happen, well, do we?’

  Patrick said nothing, but jogged alongside him thinking Steve had either just saved Karen from a pointless suicide, or, he had condemned her to a terrible fate. As they joined the others at the next junction, all eyes automatically went to Karen and her blood-splattered shoulder.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Imran, already knowing what Steve was about to say.

  ‘Steve’s going to deal with it,’ was all Patrick said before turning to Liz, the topic of Karen dismissed, ‘Liz, which way now?’

  ‘Err… down here and then to the right,’ she said, unable to take her eyes from the woman that although she had barely known for a couple of days, she considered a friend, ‘the fire exit should be there.’

  ‘Well, come on then,’ Patrick said, urging the others to move.

  ‘If you get tired…’ Andrews said jogging beside Steve, offering to take the burden of Karen even though it meant slowing himself down.

  ‘No, it’s alright, I’ve got her,’ he replied, knowing that he personally owed a great debt to Karen’s brother, Matt, who had helped him escape the tyranny of his father’s platoon. So this was but a small price to pay. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  Andrews simply nodded his understanding and as he slowed his pace to match Steve’s, tried not to look at the raw bloody wound where Karen’s ear had previously been.

  Running over a moss covered bridge, its planks warped and peeling, Liz looked up at the waterfall that fed the eleven-metre wide pool, over which, the bridge stretched. Feeding the pool, a torrent of water crashed down from a riot of ferns some fifteen metres up the algae slicked cliff, and as the water ricocheted from one boulder and to the next, it filled the air over the bridge with a refreshing cool spray. Ushering Phil, Patrick, and Imran onward, Liz paused for Andrews and Steve, who was still carrying Karen, to catch up with them. Seeing the two men appearing along the path leading to the bridge, Liz nervously sliced her blade through the air, flicking droplets of dark Dead blood into the frothing pool below. Steve had just reached the bridge when Liz caught movement in the greenery on the other side of the pool. Peering into the mottled shadows, she could just about make out the outline of a man staring back at her. The bloom of green mould that was seemingly claiming what was left of his body piece by piece, told her this man was one of the Dead. Staring intently at the Dead man, while Steve and Andrews jogged past her, she noticed that his thin withered lips seemed to be moving, almost as if he was trying to say something. Then, like a strange Charismatic whipping themselves up into a religious euphoria, the Dead man’s gaunt head began to twitch and shake upon his shoulders. Whatever Liz was seeing, she didn’t like it. So when the hungry Dead began to appear along the path, she gratefully turned to leave this strange Dead man behind her, but as she stepped off the bridge, she couldn’t help but glance back one last time. Expecting to find his film covered eyes still following her, she was surprised to find the bushes opposite her, now empty of anyone, alive or Dead. It was only when she caught the slightest movement below her in the pool that her eyes flicked to where the corpse now floated face down and motionless in the churning water. Whatever had happened to the Dead man, it seemed to be over, but Liz was not to be given the luxury of time to process what she was seeing, for already, the horde had reached the other side of the bridge.

  Sprinting through an emerald tunnel of giant fan palms, Liz soon caught up with the others standing at the base of some wide debris littered Perspex steps, which disappeared into the foliage above them.

  ‘I’m almost out of ammo,’ Steve was saying, slightly repositioning Karen’s unconscious corpse on his shoulder.

  ‘Me too,’ added Andrews, nervously checking the almost empty magazine before clicking it back into place.

  ‘Well, I’ve got this,’ Phil said, resting his club against his leg to pull the handgun from the back of his trouser waistband, while struggling to hold a fidgety Charlie with one arm. ‘Only holds six bullets, but it’s better than nothing.’

  ‘Looks like it’s going to get hand to hand sooner than we hoped,’ said Patrick, noticing Imran’s quiver was almost empty too.

  ‘They’re right behind me, we’ve got to…’ panted Liz, skidding to a halt, ‘fuck! No…’ she suddenly gasped, shaking her head in disbelief.

  The single word Liz had whispered had been filled with such overwhelming despair that the others couldn’t help but turn.

  ‘Oh, Fuck!’ gasped Phil, subconsciously pulling Charlie closer to his chest, as the first of a second mob of the hungry Dead began dragging their decaying bodies from around the next turn in the path. ‘They must’ve got in front of us somehow.’

  ‘Shit! What are we going to do?’ asked Andrews, his head darting from the new crowd back to the Dead throng behind them, which would be on them any second.

  ‘How many still behind us, Liz? Any chance we can double back?’ asked Patrick, desperate to find a way past the Dead.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she replied, turning to keep an eye on the path behind her. The moaning of the Dead telling her at any second, the cadavers would turn the corner. ‘There must be fifty or sixty of those bastards coming up behind us.’

  ‘Right, looks like we’re going up then,’ said Patrick, looking dubiously at the staircase, ‘any ideas where it lea
ds?’

  Liz glanced over her shoulder at Patrick, a blank look on her face as she desperately tried to picture the map she had seen.

  ‘Erm… Shit!’ she replied, knocking her fist against her temple as if to jog free the image. ‘No, sorry, it’s gone, I don’t remember.’

  In her head, she could clearly see the fire exit she had pinpointed on the map and the route they needed to take to reach it, but apart from that, everything else was a blur of picnic spots, help points, and indefinable attractions. If only she had had more time to absorb the details, she may have been able to tell them just where the steps led. As it was, they could only hope for the best and pray it led to another part of the dome less populated by the Dead.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look as though we have many options,’ said Phil, slowly backing up onto the first of the steps, while keeping a watchful eye on the Dead as they shambled ever closer. ‘Come on, I think the decision had been made for us.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Imran, pulling one of the few remaining arrows from his quiver.

  Lodging the arrow in his bow, Imran pulled back the string. He could barely hear the comforting creak of the bow over the oppressive moaning of the Dead around them, and as he took aim on the stumbling figure of a Dead man at the front man of the crowd, he suddenly realised it was pointless. The few arrows he had left in his quiver would make no difference at all against this approaching horde, their number was simply too great. He knew he needed to save what precious resources he had left, who knew what the rest of the dome held in store for them.

  Then, the first of the Dead coming from across the bridge began to push their way through the palms, their almost excited moaning telling the group they had not gone unseen. With the Dead now dangerously close on both sides, Patrick knew it was now or never. They had to leave.

  ‘Time to get the fuck out of here! Come on, go! Go!’ he shouted, ushering the others up the wide staircase after Phil.

  ‘At least it should slow them down a bit,’ Andrews added hopefully, as the group pushed aside the top of the fan palms while they began to ascend the stairs. ‘Surely we can climb easier than they can?’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ huffed Steve, the burden of Karen’s weight suddenly making itself apparent, now that he was trying to keep up with the others.

  ‘Let me take her,’ offered Patrick, stopping Steve when they reached a wide shadowy platform where the stairs turned right, some eight metres above the ground, ‘just for a while, and anyway, you need to be able to watch our backs.’

  Steve looked at Patrick over the top of Karen’s backside, and although he wanted to be responsible for Karen and what may happen to her, he knew Patrick was right. If the Dead did catch up with them, he needed to be able to make what little ammo he had left count, and he couldn’t do that carrying Karen’s dead weight.

  ‘Okay,’ he finally shouted over the almost deafening moaning of the Dead below them, as he eased Karen into Patrick’s arms.

  Patrick was about to lift Karen’s prone body up onto his shoulder when her eyes flickered open. Looking up at him, her eyes were filled with a mix of overwhelming despair and disappointment.

  ‘No…’ she said, the word catching in her throat.

  ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for this now, Karen.’ Patrick sternly interrupted, lowering her feet to the ground. ‘I need you to pull yourself together, the Dead are just behind us and if you’re okay to walk, I need you to move, Now!’

  ‘What’s the point?’ she mumbled, resting her weight on the handrail after swaying slightly, ‘I’m as good as dead already.’

  With a ‘crack’, Patrick’s hand snapped forward and slapped Karen across the face.

  ‘I said we don’t have time for this shit!’ he growled, the faces of those who had fought with their last breath to beat the Dead suddenly coming to him. ‘You don’t fucking give up! Okay! You never fucking give up!’

  ‘But…’ Karen began, her hand held against her stinging cheek.

  ‘We have no fucking idea what’s going to happen,’ Patrick continued, quickly glancing over Steve’s shoulder at the staircase behind them. ‘It’s not like before, we don’t know if you’re going to change or not, but even if you are, you make your last moments count for something. You go down fighting, even if it’s just to help the rest of us. Just like any of us would do for you!’

  Karen looked up into Patrick’s face and knew instantly he was not being cruel or saying this just for the sake of it, he meant it, he would use his last moments on earth protecting those that he loved, no matter what followed for himself. Slowly, Karen began to nod. She would do as he asked, she would fight to save them and deal with her own fate, whatever that was, when the time came.

  ‘Move!’ shouted Steve, abruptly pulling Karen away from the handrail. ‘They’re coming!’

  Karen glanced past Steve and what she saw sent a chill to her very soul, making her almost wish she had never regained consciousness at all. For, pushing aside the foliage, the Dead revealed themselves in all their horror to the living that was trying so desperately to flee.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Karen, unable to tear her eyes away from the approaching wave of death, as Steve pulled her across the small landing to where the stairs continued to rise.

  With the living now so tantalisingly close, the Dead seemed to somehow dig deep and draw upon the energy unnaturally held within their rotting flesh, dragging their bodies forward with a renewed and desperate vigour. So frenzied and compulsive was their desire that they clawed and pulled at their Dead brethren on either side of them in an attempt to reach the flesh first. Many were knocked to the ground to be trampled underfoot, while others disappeared from sight entirely in a flurry of tattered rags and withered bones, as they plummeted over the staircase handrail. Just when she could stand the sight no longer, and was wilfully forcing her eyes from the horrific scene, Karen picked out the ruined corpse of a young child among the approaching horde. At some point, the unfortunate creature had lost everything from of its small body below its ribcage, leaving only blackened strips of leathery flesh and barely attached vertebrae, to trail behind the gaping maw of its hollowed out chest cavity. Sadly, not even this degradation could deter it from trying to claim its share of bloody flesh to feast upon, and even as she turned away, she saw it frantically clawing its way up the staircase towards them. Pulling itself fist over fist, the Dead child dragged itself over those who had already been trampled before it, to weave in and out of the hungry Dead standing above. Suddenly, a Dead fist, perhaps jealous of the child’s progress, gripped the ragged trailing remains of its flesh, and lifting it, threw the small ruined body over the handrail. When the chance to feed presented itself, there could be no mercy from this Dead horde, not even for the most pitiful of their number.

  At the edge of the ascending stairs, Liz and Imran nervously waited for Patrick and the others to catch up.

  ‘Move it!’ Liz screamed, seeing the Dead throng crashing toward them like a swarming mass of death.

  With barely seconds to spare, Patrick, Karen, and Steve, charged past Liz just as the Dead spilled out onto the landing. Knowing it was pointless to engage the Dead when they were so vastly out-numbered; Liz and Imran swiftly followed the others, running up the staircase just a few paces behind. The thundering of their fleeing footsteps could barely be registered above the Dead’s deafening moaning, and as the stairway continued to rise, Liz and the others were forced to swiftly push aside more and more of wide leafed foliage, so they could pass. Suddenly, the map she had seen earlier flashed into her mind, distinct and complete in every detail.

  ‘No!’ she gasped, her steps almost faltering as she made a grab for Imran’s arm.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, seeing the panic in her eyes.

  ‘We’re trapped!’ she whispered, looking back at the encroaching Dead so close behind them, ‘Imran, we’re trapped!’

  Frantically, his eyes searched her face, unable to understand what she meant,
then as the staircase abruptly broke free of the tree canopy, it became all too apparent. The stairs, that had once offered them a sliver of hope, led to nowhere but a tourist lookout point, an observation platform at the top of the dome some fifty metres above the ground.

  ‘Trapped…’ Liz whispered again, the fear twisting like a knife in her heart as she saw the others already desperately searching over the handrail for any way down.

  ‘Fuck! What do we do?’ Cried Andrews, darting wildly from one side of the ten-metre wide platform to the other, his panic causing his words to crack. ‘What the fuck do we do now!’

  ‘We fight!’ replied Phil, looking sternly from one face to the next. ‘We fight our way back down past the bastards, it’s the only way.’

  ‘What,’ said Andrews, backing as far away from the stairs as he could, ‘are you fucking mad! We’ll be torn to pieces before we even get back to the landing! Fuck, we’re screwed, we’re so fucking screwed!’

  ‘We don’t have much choice,’ interrupted Patrick, ‘the branches this high up are too thin to take any of our weight, and unless you fancy a quick drop over the edge, it’s the only option we have.’

  ‘Right, we stay tight and we stay close,’ Phil began, ‘we just need to keep them at bay, nothing else.’

  Imran had subconsciously reached out and taken Liz’s hand tightly in his own. Just like the rest of the group, they knew the likelihood of them surviving what was to come was slim. The only consolation the pair could take was that their daughter, Saleana, would be loved and well cared for back at Lanherne. Liz knew that Alice, without a doubt, would love Saleana as her own, but to think she would never see her own daughter again tore at Liz, ripping a hole of pain right down to the depths of her soul.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ Imran whispered, squeezing her hand as the group began to gather in a tight circle, ‘I’ll never let you go.’