by Neil Davies
#
John was tiring.
At the peak of his fitness, during his time with Special Forces, he could have continued evading those chasing him for several more hours, but he was out of condition and knew he could not last much longer.
At least twice in the last hour he had almost been caught, and only the light of the slow returning day had enabled him to see the danger at the last minute. Now, as he stubbed his toe against a small rock and tumbled to the ground, it was a struggle to push himself back onto his feet. He gasped for air, held a hand to the stitch in his side, while the other still gripped the combat knife.
The low animal growl forewarned him, and he turned just as the creature lunged.
The two of them fell, John's instincts and training rolling him over to get on top and pull the blade of the knife across the other's throat. The skin sliced open, peeling back like rotten fruit, but there was little blood, and John quickly remembered what it was he was fighting.
He turned the knife in his hand and stabbed the blade deep into the creature's brain.
As he staggered, exhausted, to his feet, he heard another growl, and another. Two more were on him, one shuffling forward, the other running. Before he could move, the running one ploughed into him, knocking him off his feet, exploding the air from his lungs with the impact on the ground and sending his knife skittering away across the sandy pathway.
He tried to fight back, but the strength had gone from his arms. He pushed, kicked, punched, but the thing held him down, mouth stretching wide, black saliva dripping onto John's face, falling into his gasping mouth. He spluttered, spat, tasting death and decay. Black and yellow teeth pushed nearer to his throat and he could not prevent it. He had nothing left.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Unlikely Saviour
The creature's head exploded.
Chunks of skull and brain spattered John's face before he could turn aside. Spitting out foul tasting pieces, he gathered what little strength he had left and heaved the body aside.
Standing just a few feet away, the Webley & Scott revolver still in his hand, was a creature John recognised. He was certain it was the same one who had attacked Annie. The same one he had emptied his gun into.
Confused, he watched as the familiar creature walked over to the thing still shuffling, stubbornly, towards him. The gun was raised at point blank range, and a bullet punched through the creature's head.
The one with the gun turned towards a nearby uphill pathway, stopping to look back at John. Not seeing any realistic alternative, John struggled to his feet, grabbed up his knife and followed.
#
Graham's head ached with a confusion of thoughts, memories, impulses, and a slowly returning human intelligence. The gun he had taken from the bloody kitchen weighed heavily in his fist. The naked bone of his index finger tapped nervously against the trigger guard. He felt no guilt at killing his fellow reborn, that was an emotion, along with many others, that was still beyond his comprehension. An awareness he had stepped over some invisible line, some boundary that put him outside of the others, was strong however. He could no longer consider himself a soldier in the army of The Givers Of Life, yet he knew he was not human. Choosing to walk away from one but not accepted by the other, he was stranded, adrift, unwanted by all.
He glanced backwards, checking that the man still followed. The sky grew lighter with each step. They needed to hurry before they were seen.
#
John gripped the combat knife tight, ready to use if the creature turned and attacked. He could not understand what had happened. This thing had saved his life, killing two of its own kind in doing so. Why? A few nights ago it had killed Chris, attacked Annie, yet now it rescued him from certain death. His thoughts of revenge were held at bay by confusion, and the belief that there was more happening here than was at first apparent.
On the hill around them, hidden from view by sparse, blackened trees and the last darkness of the night, he could hear the other creatures moving, moaning. Moaning? No. Calling! Communicating! He had been too busy running to hear the patterns before, but these were not random sounds. The more he listened, the more he was convinced there was some form of message within those apparently animal noises.
As an enemy, it made them all the more dangerous.
#
Graham could hear the others too. It was not a true language in the human sense, but the sounds conveyed meaning that he instinctively understood. They wondered where the human had gone. Some wanted to keep looking, others to move on in search of easier prey. It was not clear which would gain the upper hand, but he knew the group would not split. They were an offshoot of the main army, a raiding party looking for targets, and The Givers Of Life would not allow them to separate further. He could feel the power binding them together, connecting them back to the main force, just one of many such groups scouring Britain for food. Had he carried out his task correctly, he would have been leading these to the houses and the girl even now. But although the near-telepathic control of The Givers Of Life urged him to rejoin, his newly found individuality and splintered memories enabled him to resist. For the girl. Only for the girl.
They reached the sandstone overhang as the sun cleared the horizon, and Graham urged the human into the dark shadowed cleft.
#
John scrambled quickly into the darkness, pressing himself against the rock, hoping the shadows would hide him. The others were approaching. The combined sweat of fear and the confined space dripped from his brow, tasting salty on his lips. He wiped his face and stretched out his hand to see if he could move sideways if necessary.
He almost cried out as his hand touched the cold flesh of the body.
The creature at the opening turned towards him with a single, anxious grunt and even John understood its meaning.
Silence!
He gripped the knife tighter, wondering whether he had just willingly walked into his own chamber of death. Was the fate of whoever lay beside him to be his too? And who was it? Could it be one of his friends?
It took a supreme effort of will not to examine the body further, looking for some clue to its identity. But he knew he could not do so without making some noise, and the shuffling and primitive 'speech' he had heard outside had grown louder, closer.
Shadows appeared in the mouth of the cave, creatures shuffling into view, surrounding the one who stood with his back to him.
John dared not move, even as sweat stung his eyes and tickled his nose. The slightest fidget could be enough to draw the attention of one of these creatures. The thought came to him, unbidden and unwelcome, that he had no idea of the strength of the creatures' sight or hearing. He had felt the strength of their muscles, greater than he would have expected, given their physical appearance. For all he knew, their sight and hearing were similarly enhanced. Could their eyesight penetrate the dark? Did they have their own built-in night vision?
The idea terrified him, but still he could do nothing but wait and not move, not make a sound.
There was surprisingly little 'speech' going on among the group clustered round the cave opening. A lot of staring and shuffling but very few moans or grunts or any sounds at all. Was this some kind of stand-off? Or did they communicate differently when so close to each other, some kind of telepathy?
Just what exactly were the abilities of these creatures? Not knowing was beginning to nag at his mind, his fears.
Without warning, one of the creatures turned and shuffled, with surprising speed, straight towards the shadows where John lay, the knife poised to strike, his eyes wide with the terror of discovery.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alliance
Graham turned, reached, and grabbed the arm of the creature who had separated from the group. For a moment, the two stared at each other, and Graham growled menacingly, the sound rumbling from deep within his scarred, broken chest. His meaning was clear. The food at the back of the cave was his. He had hunted it, killed it, and he
alone would eat it!
The other hesitated before nodding his agreement. This was one of the unwritten laws that, without understanding how, they all understood and were obliged to follow. That these 'laws' were somehow implanted by The Givers Of Life none doubted nor, in most cases, even thought about. The laws were just there. They had no choice but to obey.
Graham released his hold on the other's arm as the creature rejoined the rest. He was relieved. If there had been a challenge, he doubted he could have won it. The silent confrontation of the group with its wayward scout had drained him. The sheer energy, the pressure of all those minds channelling The Givers Of Life, trying to draw him back into the group, had been almost overwhelming. It had taken all the ability The Givers Of Life had implanted in him, and every bit of the human processes that were slowly growing, cell by cell, in his brain, to both resist and, at the same time, hide the evidence of what was happening to him. He could not explain why, but he was certain that if The Givers Of Life knew his past human life was returning to him, however fragmented, they would order the others to terminate his new existence. What was happening to him was a danger, a disease which might spread to others. They would not take that chance.
Gradually, the group moved on, walking, shuffling, crawling away from the cave. The 'kills' at the back of the cave gave him reason to stay. They would understand that he would feed first, and then they expected him to follow.
Graham watched them go. Eventually they would find the houses, the girl, unless she had heeded his warning and left. Their unerring hunting senses would lead them there in time. He needed to get the man hiding in the shadows of the cave to the houses quicker, without running into the army on the way. If the girl and the others had not left, perhaps the man could persuade them to. Or at least the girl. It was important the girl was safe.
He was turning to try and explain all this to the man when he was grabbed from behind, an arm around his neck, and the point of a knife pressed hard against the side of his head.
#
John was unsure exactly what was going on. The dead body in the cave had made him nervous, doubtful of the creature's motives. As soon as the others were out of sight, he decided to move, locking his forearm over the creature's throat and holding the combat knife ready to push deep into its brain.
"I need to know what's going on," he hissed through clenched teeth, keeping his voice low for fear of the others hearing. "Am I just more food to be stored in your larder? Is that why you brought me back here?"
He could feel the creature struggling to shake its head, the movement digging the point of the knife into the skin, dry flakes drifting to the cave floor, almost sparkling in the growing sunlight.
"I need to know who that is back there. Who did you kill?"
Strange rasping, crackling noises were coming from the creature, and an odd wheezing through the hole in its cheek. For one moment, John thought, irrationally, that his arm was choking the creature, but then he realised... It was trying to talk!
#
The struggle was almost beyond him. Graham had not attempted to form actual words since he died. It had seemed natural to grunt, to moan in the simple message-based language of the reborn, but to talk like the living, like he used to, could well be impossible. But he had to try. There would be no other way of explaining what he needed to.
Forming his lips, his tongue, into the required shapes caused skin to split, but the pain was minimal. Any use of his throat was much more painful, the dry rawness of it worse than any sore throat of his slowly returning memory. He could control airflow with careful inhaling and exhaling, even though his collapsed lungs were seriously limited in their capacity, but too much escaped through the hole in his cheek. Only by pressing a bony hand to the hole could he finally force something understandable out in a hoarse, gasping whisper.
"Dead man attacked the girl. I killed him."
John, stunned by both the speech and the words themselves, relaxed his grip, but kept the knife to the creature's head.
"The girl. Do you mean Annie? The same girl you attacked a few nights ago?"
"Annie." Graham repeated the name. In some way it made him even more sad for all he had lost. He could not remember his daughter's name. "Yes, same girl."
John didn't know what to think. Someone else had attacked Annie, and it would seem this creature had saved her, killing the attacker in the process. But why? Not long ago it had tried to do exactly the same thing. Did it save her from one attacker so it could kill her itself? He was almost afraid to ask.
"Is Annie still alive?"
"Girl is fine. I told her to leave."
Graham's speech broke down into wordless gasping momentarily as he struggled to inhale enough air to make more coherent sounds possible.
John relaxed his grip some more, needing to hear the rest of what this creature had to say.
"Things have changed," gasped Graham eventually. "I have changed. My memory is returning. I begin to remember when I was alive!"
Not knowing quite why, John released the creature and sheathed his knife. He did not feel under threat from this thing any more. It could be a mistake, but he was tired and confused and decided it was a risk he had to take.
"I don't understand what's going on," he said. "We'd more or less accepted The Incident, even though we realised we'd probably never know what caused it. But now... zombies? Where the fuck did the zombies come from?"
Zombies? Graham had not thought of himself or the others that way before and the thought brought a strange feeling, a slight giddiness, he took a moment to recognise. Amusement. The thought amused him. It seemed emotions as well as memories were gradually seeping through from his past.
"The Givers Of Life woke us," he said, once more forcing the rasping speech from his throat. "They told us to find the living and kill them."
"The Givers Of Life?" said John. "Who the fuck are they, and what do they have against us?"
"I don't know, but I feel a hatred there for all living things. They will not stop. Eventually they will find your houses. They will kill everyone there."
"You said you told Annie to leave?"
"I don't think she would have listened."
It did not take John long to reach a decision. He could not sit around doing nothing while Annie and the others were in danger.
"Do you know the way from here to the houses?"
Graham nodded.
"Then point me in the right direction and I'll get going."
"I'll come with you," said Graham. "I want to help."
"Why?" John was wary. It was true this creature had saved him from the others and, apparently, had saved Annie too, but its motives were not clear to him. "Why should I trust you?"
"Because I told you, I've changed. I don't know why but I have. I am beginning to remember more of what it was to be alive, and I want to help others hang on to that. None of us chose to be woken."
John did not want to waste time arguing. If this creature was not lying then it could prove useful, not only in getting him towards the houses but in holding off the other creatures if they ran into any. It had already proved its worth in that.
"Alright," said John. "But make no mistake. Attack me or Annie or anything other than another zombie, and I will kill you."
Graham felt pain in his cheeks, heard the splitting of skin and saw more dust sparkle in the sunlight around him. It amused him again to realise what was happening. He was smiling.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Heading Home
The arrival of full daylight eased some of Annie's fears, but did not eradicate them.
Geoff Hobsen was upstairs with the still sleeping Mrs Jenna, giving Annie a chance to walk in the fresh air and try and forget some of what happened last night. But every rustle of wind, every half-caught shadow from the corner of her eye, made her jump, her stomach turn, her heart beat faster. She was still scared.
A shuffling behind her.
She span round, ready to fight or
run, her heart beating so hard it threatened to burst out of her chest.
Geoff held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Sorry, Annie, didn't mean to startle you."
Annie forced a smile, her breathing and heartbeat slowing in unison, calming her.
"Just a bit jumpy," she said.
"Not really surprising," said Geoff, stepping over the twisted fingers of wire fence that plucked at his trouser cuffs. "Given everything you've gone through just lately."
Annie turned to look out over the fields, remembering standing on the bank of the dried-up brook with John. She shivered a little, although it was not cold.
"I'm sure he'll be back soon," said Geoff, stopping alongside her. "John's a survivor."
Annie smiled. "Is it that obvious?"
"What? That you care about him?" He laughed. "I'm old but I'm not stupid. And he cares about you too. I know."
Annie said nothing. With Mr Hobsen confirming what she had hoped, she felt a flutter in her stomach that, for once, was not fear.
"I think we'll all feel better once he gets back," said Geoff. "I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I think over the past year we've all grown to depend on John."
"Like you said, he's a survivor. He can take care of himself. He'll come home soon."
#
"So, the sun doesn't bother you?" It was a question that had been on John's mind since he and his strange companion had started out from the cave that morning.
Graham smiled, a creaking feeling he was growing more fond of each time it occurred, flaking more dead skin from his face. Less pleasant was the pain in his throat, and the faintly sickening vibration through the hand covering the hole in his cheek, when he spoke in his new rasping, guttural voice.
