by Luke Duffy
THE DEAD WALK THE EARTH
PART II
Luke Duffy
http://www.lukeduffybooks.com/
Copyright©2014 Luke Duffy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or copied
without the permission
of the registered Author and Owner.
1
“Run, Chris,” she urged, her voice laden with fear. “You need to run.”
Behind her, she could hear the panic filled gasps of her brother. He whimpered and snorted as he ran. Tears streamed down his face and mixed with the thick strands of mucus that endlessly flowed from his nose, as he stumbled and cried his way along the dusty track behind her. They had been running for what seemed an eternity, but in reality, it had only been a few minutes and his large body was struggling to maintain the pace. His ribcage felt as if it was being slowly crushed, and no matter how hard he sucked in the air, he could barely breathe. The pain in his chest was almost too much to endure. His straining heart threatened to explode from the stress of having to pump so much oxygenated blood around such a large and unhealthy circulatory system through clogged arteries.
“I can’t,” he wailed pathetically, “I’m too fat.”
She was well aware of that fact, and her brother’s inability to look after himself had been the subject of great annoyance to her for many years. Now, with their lives depending on their capability of being able to move at rapid speeds when necessary, his lifetime of self-abuse and over indulgence was proving to be a threat to their continued survival.
Behind them, the noise of their pursuers was growing. There must have been hundreds of them by now, as their moans and cries of excitement attracted more from the surrounding area. She needed to find somewhere for them to hide, but they were miles from anywhere. The only building that they had seen in the region was an old country pub and that is where they had run into trouble.
Christopher’s incessant need for food had led him to stumble clumsily into the tavern before his sister had been given the chance to have a look around. From the outside, the place had looked empty and quiet, and nothing stirred in the tranquil woods and lanes that surrounded the building. With the twitters of the birds in the trees and the lazy buzzing of the insects in the air, the immediate vicinity had seemed peaceful and he had been lulled into a false sense of security, as his insatiable appetite drove him to act prematurely.
Without waiting for Tina to come up from the riverbank after securing their boat, he charged on in through the door in the hope of finding an abundance of bar snacks. Instead, he was greeted with a wall of mottled flesh and lifeless eyes. They saw him instantly, as he stood framed in the doorway and bathed in sunlight. His plump quivering body and fear filled whimpers as he realised his mistake, were enough to work the horde into a frenzy as they came charging towards him and spilling out from the building.
Within seconds, their retreat towards the boat had been cut off and Tina was left with no choice but to drag her terrified brother along the path that led them into the woods. She had no idea where they were going, but they needed to keep moving. The dead were close on their heels, and from what she could tell, they were slowly gaining ground.
“Just keep going,” she growled at him.
She stole a glance over her shoulder and saw the pain contorted face of her brother. His skin was crimson and his clothing was soaked with sweat. It was a hot day and already he was drenched with perspiration. He was clearly struggling to keep his bloated legs moving and the wretched noises coming from him were beginning to infuriate her. She paused, just long enough to allow him to stumble blindly by her. If she could not drag him, then she would try pushing him.
Hurriedly, she tucked her heavy iron crowbar into her belt. With both her hands planted between his sweaty shoulder blades, she forced him forward. His endless self-pitying sobs seemed to increase in volume and tempo as her powerful thighs drove them along the track. She was throwing everything she had into him, but he was doing very little to help himself and was even pushing back against her hands.
Tina was no stranger to testing her limits. As a Physical Training Instructor in the British Army, she could outpace and out-lift most people that she met. She loved to challenge her body and push herself beyond the threshold of normal endurance, but with death on their heels and her brother unwilling to aid her, she knew that her stamina would not hold out. On her own, she could easily outpace the lumbering corpses that were chasing them, but that would mean abandoning Christopher and at that moment, she was unwilling to do that.
“For fuck sake, Chris, you need to help me. They’re getting closer.”
“I can’t,” he wailed in a high-pitched voice. “I can’t do it.”
She began to hit him. At first, they were light encouraging smacks against the sodden material of his t-shirt, but as the grunts and snorts behind them grew, her gentle slaps soon turned into an assault. As she continued to push him along with the muscles in her thighs burning from the lactic acid build-up, she pounded at the heavy rolls of fat that covered the bones of his shoulders.
“You fucking can do it because if you don’t, I’ll leave you here, Chris,” she snarled at him as she gasped for air. “Is that what you want? You know what they’ll do to you. You’ve seen it happen. Do you want to die like that?”
He was crying uncontrollably but her words seemed to have had an effect upon him. With images racing through his mind of him being ditched by his sister and eaten alive by a pack of monsters, he found the energy to keep going. The tears continued to stream down his glowing plump cheeks and the snorts and gasps made him sound as though he was on the verge of death, but somehow, he managed to quicken his pace.
“That’s it, Chris,” she spurred from behind him as she felt his weight shift and the strain ease from her legs. “Keep going. You can do it. Just keep your legs moving and we’ll be okay, Chris.”
The woods all around them echoed with the moans and wails of the infected. They seemed to be converging on them from all angles, and the realisation that they may be surrounded caused a surge of panic to ripple through Tina’s body. If any of them appeared on the track ahead of them, she could do nothing. There was nowhere to turn and they would be trapped. Her mind began to race. She had no idea of where they were or where they were going. All she knew was that they could not stop.
One-hundred metres further on, Christopher was back to the point of resisting her efforts to keep him moving forward. His energy was spent and it was entirely up to Tina now to keep his legs from grinding to a complete halt. His head lolled and bounced from side to side and his feet barely lifted from the ground. No matter how hard she beat at his shoulders or threatened him, he was incapable of moving under his own steam. Her brother had become an immense semi-mobile mass that needed to be pushed and shoved in order to prevent him from coming to a total standstill.
Then she saw it. Up ahead of them and through the trees, she spied a structure of some sort. It was big and dark but clearly manmade and solid. She looked back over her shoulder and saw that the infected were just thirty metres behind her.
The savagery in their movements and the noises they made while their pale lifeless eyes remained fixed upon Tina and her brother, made her blood feel like liquid nitrogen in her veins. They were not slowing and if anything, they were closing the gap. Christopher on the other hand, was losing speed by the second and it would not be long before the gnashing jaws of their pursuers caught up with them.
“Jesus, Chris,” she cried out in a mixture of terror and frustration, “you need to help me. They’re right behind us.”
Her brother was still incapable of complying with her demands. It was
all up to her now to save them both. With her lungs burning and her mind racing, she began to look for a way through the tangles of branches and roots towards the building.
“To the left. Head to the left,” she ordered, but he did not change his course.
By placing extra pressure against her brother’s right shoulder, she was able to steer him and change his direction slightly. She drove him towards the structure that she could see through the clumps of trees on their left. Christopher’s feet left the track and began to scrape through the underbrush of the forest floor, tripping over branches and scattering the dead leaves as he trundled on. He continued to whimper and sputter pitiably and remained incapable of helping himself or his sister, but Tina refused to give up. There was a glimmer of hope now and it was enough for her to hang onto.
They began to duck and weave their way through the foliage. The thorns and thin branches lashed at their exposed flesh and whipped at their faces, but they were oblivious to the stinging pain. The grey wall of the building was soon just a few metres away, but Tina quickly realised that it was set in an area of low ground and they would have to descend an embankment and negotiate a perimeter fence before they could find a way inside. Without slowing for thought, she shoved her brother down the steep slope.
The weight of his body increased his momentum, and within a few short steps he was racing down the small hill towards the mesh fence surrounding the building. Shrieking with panic and flailing his arms as his legs ran away with him, he smashed into the corroded steel netting with a resounding clang and bounced back through the air. The fence rattled against the heavy impact, which sent vibrations running along the length of it, while Christopher was flung backwards and into the dirt. He landed in a heap, squealing loudly and sending up a small cloud of red dust into the air around him as his large body impacted with the ground.
Tina almost collided with her brother but managed to vault over him as he crashed at her feet in a saturated bundle of perspiration and urine. He lay there for a moment, crying for his mother and curling himself into a ball as his bodily functions failed him.
She reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt. He was impossible to move and at best, she could only manage to cause his shoulders to roll with each heave, while the remainder of his enormous body stayed firmly planted in the earth.
To the left of the area where Christopher had hit, Tina saw that the fence post had buckled and the mesh had become separated from its brackets. Seeing a flicker of hope, she turned and began to kick at the quivering organic mound at her feet.
“Up. Get up,” she grunted with each strike.
Her kicks were becoming more forceful and she could feel the soft tissue of her brother’s ample waistline as it recoiled and rebounded with each blow.
“Get up, you fat cunt,” she hollered in frustration.
Christopher cried out as his sister continued her assault. Her kicks hurt but her words and tone of voice were excruciatingly painful to him. He had never heard her speak in that way, especially towards him. She had always been caring, understanding, and protective over her brother, but now she seemed to hold nothing but hatred towards him.
“Get up, you useless bastard. They’re coming and I’ll leave you here for them,” she growled into his face with venom-filled spittle spraying over his features. “Do you hear me? I’ll fucking leave you here.”
At the top of the embankment, the first of the infected appeared. Its skeletal face and bony shoulders came into view as it searched for the living. Its opaque eyes scanned its surroundings, as it stood grunting and snorting. Then it saw them. With a loud groan, it hurled itself down the hill towards them with its rake like hands reaching out before it. Its mouth gaped wide and its blackened tongue flopped from between its teeth as it let out a quivering moan of expectant lust.
There was no time left. They were cornered and Tina knew that they were about to die. Her brother was crying loudly as his self-pity and fear grew and mixed with the ear-splitting screeches of the dead who were almost upon them, as they crashed through the trees at the top of the slope.
Seeing no other alternative, Tina prepared herself to fight. Standing her ground, she pulled the crowbar from her belt and adjusted her grip on its shaft. Her heart pounded in her ears and her body began to surge with the last of her energy reserves, as floods of adrenaline poured into her bloodstream.
The first of the infected charged towards her, but just like Christopher, it was unable to slow its rapid descent. Realising that gravity was aiding her, Tina stepped to the side as the decomposing body hurtled passed and crashed into the fence. It hit the same spot where her brother had just moments before, but this time the impact was too much for the corroded metal pillars to withstand. Already weakened by Christopher’s collision, the fence bowed beneath the overwhelming pressure. A loud twang rang out and the post fell with a heavy clatter, dragging a large portion of the rusted trellis with it. Brackets groaned and coils of wire thrummed as they snapped back from the tension they had been under.
The heavily decomposed body continued forward and into the space between the wall of the building and the perimeter fence. Its face hit the concrete pathway running around the structure and grinded along the hard surface, as layer after layer of putrid flesh was scraped away until the crunch of bone could clearly be heard.
Tina suddenly felt herself being tugged backwards and instinctively spun around and raised her weapon, ready to defend herself. It was her brother. For a fleeting moment, she stared back at him in shock. Somehow, he had found the energy and strength to gain his feet and take his life into his own hands.
“Come on, Tina,” he was yelling as he guided her through the gap in the fence and towards a fire door set into the wall of the building.
They vaulted over the corpse that was struggling to regain its feet. It writhed on the concrete walkway and clawed at the air around it. It lifted its head and revealed the extent of the damage inflicted on its features. The face had become nothing more than a bloodied, pulped skull with strings of ground muscle and sinew hanging precariously to the smashed and pulverised bone. Its eyes were gone along with most of its teeth, but still it tried to reach after Tina and Christopher when it sensed them close by.
Christopher threw all of his weight against the door but it was locked tight. The thick steel barely acknowledged his efforts as his rounded shoulder slammed against it. Again and again, he threw his body into the impenetrable barrier, but to no avail.
“It’s no use,” he whined between assaults. “It won’t budge.”
A crowd of withered bodies and grotesque faces had appeared above them at the top of the slope. They instantly caught sight of the two people battering their bodies at the fire exit and raced down the hill towards them. Luckily, they did not have the intelligence to look for the gap that had allowed Christopher and Tina to pass through the perimeter, and instead, they launched themselves at the parts of the fence that was still very much intact. They screamed and gnashed their teeth as they gripped onto the wire netting with their bony fingers. They shook and tugged at the barrier in frustration as it kept them at bay and allowed Tina the time to decide on a new course of action.
The door was not going to open, but in a moment of clarity, her panic seemed to lift and clear her thoughts. If the door were strong enough to withstand their efforts, then maybe it would mean that the building would be secure enough for them to use as a hiding place.
“It’s no use, Chris. It’s not going to give,” she said as she grabbed him by the arm and turned to run. “Come on, this way.”
She began to follow the pathway to the right along the side of the building. The infected on the other side of the fence followed and matched their course, all the time pounding at the trellis of wire that separated them from their meal. There were more of them arriving from the surrounding land and hurling themselves down the hill to join in on the hunt. The noise coming from them was deafening and haunting, and their foul stin
k filled the air all around them. The reek of decaying bodies was so powerful within the narrow gap around the perimeter that Tina began to gag as she ran.
At the far end of the pathway, she turned the corner and continued to drag her brother behind her. Now that the pressure had eased slightly, he was back to being non-responsive and having to be hauled along.
Tina paused at the end of the wall and watched the area in front of the building for a moment. She could see a wide open space with a number of parked cars scattered here and there, and looking up to her left along the front of the structure, it became apparent that they had stumbled into some kind of industrial complex. On the far side of the parking area, she could see more buildings identical to the one they hid beside and on the nearest of them she could read the logos emblazoned across their fronts.
One was a household appliance warehouse and another was a stationary supply headquarters. There were others too, but she was not there to shop and paid them no further attention. They needed to find somewhere to hide and the main thing that she noticed was that there was no trace of the infected. The area was deserted.
“This way,” she hissed and began to inch her way out into the open.
“I need to rest, Tina. I can’t breathe.”
“We’ll rest when we…”
A loud crunching noise accompanied by the sound of groaning metal beyond the corner where they had just come from, indicated that the fence had collapsed. The sounds of feet trampling over the broken rails and pounding along the concrete confirmed to her that the infected were back in pursuit.
“Run, Chris, they’re coming,” she exclaimed and began to sprint along the front of the grey building towards what she presumed was the main entrance.
Christopher staggered along and managed to keep pace with her. Thirty metres further on, she dragged him into a doorway that led into a spacious reception area. As he fell inside and crashed against the heavy desk sitting in the centre of the room, Tina slammed the door shut and slid a number of bolts into place to secure it. She stepped back and crouched in the shadows beside the entrance, and signalled to her brother to do the same and remain out of sight.
