Gregg arrived a moment later and the others were coming close behind. I waved the dog away and turned to my friend, Pat's words of warning echoing through my mind. A reminder that I had agreed to at least try to be a better friend to them, which doubtless meant listening to their inane chatter when I really didn’t care.
“You were saying,” I said to him.
“It doesn’t matter mate,” he said with a sideways glance to the other two as they arrived. “Just glad you’re my friend is all.”
“Oh,” I said and turned to Charlie. “Good. Right then, how much farther to the hospital?”
“Those houses to the left of the road up ahead,” she said and pointed. They were about a hundred and fifty metres away. “Keep going past them for a few hundred metres and we’ll come to the driveway that the ambulances used to get to A&E and the eastern car park.”
“We don’t want to use that driveway since that will lead to where the undead are,” I pointed out and she grinned.
“Cut through the gardens of those houses and over the fence, then you’ll be on that open stretch of grass that surrounds the landing pad.”
“Okay,” I said as I considered our options.
Gregg was fine, he had his bat and I could trust him in a fight. Reece, the sandy-haired student had a butcher's knife in his hand and I had no idea how he would react or if he was any use. That, of course, meant that to me, he wasn’t.
Charlie was an immediate problem since she had limited mobility due to the chair and carried all of her belongings in a heavy duffel across her lap. No weapon in sight so not sure how well that would work for her but again, I couldn’t trust her in a fight just yet anyway. I did need her to get me to the drugs in the hospital though.
“This isn’t going to be easy and we’ll need to get the lay of the land first,” I said. “Gregg and me, we’ll clear the houses first to make sure we’ve no surprises and a direct route back. You two check the fence. See if you can make an opening and get me a count of any zombies on the landing field.”
“Sir, yes sir!” Charlie said and threw her hand up to press fingertips against her temple in a mock salute.
“Just great,” I said as I glanced at Gregg who shrugged. I could really use Lily right now.
I stalked past them towards the houses and ignored the giggles and chatter from behind me. If they weren’t going to take it seriously then that just made it easier for me to leave them when the time came.
Just because I couldn’t specifically kill them, didn’t mean I couldn’t abandon them in the middle of a zombie infested hospital as soon as I had what I wanted.
We reached the houses in short time and I watched Reece and Charlie head around back while Gregg moved to the first door and twisted the handle. He shook his head to indicate it was locked and moved on to the next.
It didn’t take long to check the three houses. They were all single storey and we chose to ignore the first which had the locked door. The second was empty of life and even absent the stains and gouges in wood and plaster that had become so familiar. Whoever had lived there previously had taken all of their food when they left and anything else remotely useful to us.
As we walked through the door of the third house, Jinx bared her teeth in a silent snarl and I nodded to Gregg. With bat held ready, he took up position to protect my back as we moved through the house. The living room door hung open and I pushed it inward with one foot before stepping through and that’s where we found the zombie.
Emaciated, slow and utterly pathetic. It lay propped against the wall with wasted limbs and sunken cheeks. Its greying skin was torn in places and tiny gouges covered its bare flesh. The dark stain of old blood was around its mouth and covered its chin and it held something in one hand.
The creature seemed to struggle even to look at us and when it did, empty eye sockets were all we could see.
“It’s blind,” Gregg whispered and I nodded slowly as I crept closer. I waved Jinx back and she stood, hackles raised by the door with eyes fixed firmly on the undead creature. She obeyed though and that was what mattered.
I reached out with my free hand and my fingers hovered just over its skin. Closer to it, I could see that the gouges on its skin were bites and I suspected what had made them had fled at our entrance. My gaze moved over its tattered clothing, across its torn flesh, and down its arm to its hand and what it held.
Lightning fast my arm shot out and my blade sank into its already empty eye socket. Gregg jumped at the sudden movement and I held back a grin as I pulled clear the knife and stood.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded as I led the way back through the front door and pulled it closed behind me.
“Probably been there since the start,” I said. “No food, growing weaker as the winter wore on. It settled there and was too weak to do anything.”
“About what?”
“The rats,” I said as I thought back to the broken fur covered rodent body it held in one hand. “Judging by the number of bites and its missing eyes, I’d say a lot of rats.”
“Oh hell,” Gregg said, a look of horror crossing his face. “I hate rats.”
“Yeah well that house is probably full of them and they’ve just started feeding on that zombie. Given some time, they’ll get bigger and meaner as they look for more food. I don’t want to be around when they do that.”
“Crap,” Gregg said with a shudder. “Please tell me they aren’t zombie rats now.”
“No, just normal ones. Though I suspect we’ll start seeing much larger numbers of them now the undead are weakening.”
“Crap,” he repeated and I grinned back at him as we turned the corner to the rear of the house. My grin faded as I saw what lay beyond the fence.
Bones. Hundreds, thousands of them, spread across the field and bare of flesh. Scattered around the fire-ravaged remnants of the helicopter that lay on its side on the landing pad.
“What the hell…” Gregg said and turned to look at me as though I would have answers.
Charlie and Reece were beside the wooden fence, staring dumbfounded at the scene before them. Here and there, small shapes moved amongst the bones and carrion birds lingered in the fields, picking at remnants.
“Make a gap in the fence,” I instructed the two young students. Reece looked at me with mouth agape while Charlie snorted.
“Why? I can’t get across that field in this chair and to be honest I really don’t want to.”
“They’re bones,” I said and didn’t bother to hide my exasperation. “They won’t hurt you and we can make a path for you as we go.”
“More bloody rats,” Gregg muttered as he watched the small rodents dart around the field.
“It will be fine, they’re more scared of you,” I said before pointing at the nearest fence panel. “Now get that down now. Time’s moving on.”
Slowly at first, the Charlie and Reece set about the task. Once I was sure they were doing as they were told, I nodded my head back the way we had come and indicated Gregg should follow.
He did, with a perplexed look on his face and as soon as we were around the corner, I pulled him close.
“This is a problem,” I said and his eyes widened.
“You just said…”
“I know what I said, but rats didn’t leave all those bones.”
“Then what did?”
My voice lowered even further. No need to spook the newcomers since I still had need of them and I doubted they’d come with me if they suspected what I did.
“Either a lot of the undead were devoured by other zombies out there on the field, refugees were killed and eaten, soldiers shot and killed a load of the undead that were then eaten by vermin or some of the zombies got to the stacked bodies of the dead and began eating them.”
I risked a quick look around the corner to see the two students had almost pulled the panel free. “No matter which of those scenarios it was, the likely result is the same.�
�
“Ferals,” Gregg said and visibly wilted before me.
“Yes. If they’re eating their own kind then this place would be a banquet hall for them. All the dead bodies and the undead… it won’t just be one or two Ferals, it will be a lot more.”
“Oh fuck me,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and squeezed his eyes shut. “This gets better and better.”
“Could be worse,” I said with a widening grin. “We could be stuck with two people we barely know and can’t trust in a fight.”
“Ha, bloody ha.”
I left him shaking his head and muttering to himself and walked back to the others. I watched Charlie carefully. Once she had shown me to where I would find the medicines I required, she could be then used as a distraction if needed.
She looked up at my approach and frowned at my grin. “We all set?” I asked.
“Sure thing dude, fence panels off and we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
“Then let’s get going.”
Chapter 14 – Ryan
We moved carefully across the once well-tended lawn. Gregg moved alongside me, each step placed carefully to put it between the bones before sweeping out to the side to brush a path through them.
Behind us, Reece helped push his friend in her chair, their few belongings in the large duffel on her lap. They at least managed to keep their flow of constant muttering to an acceptable level. The canine kept pace with me and ignored the two former students as much as I tried to.
Gregg grimaced as he kicked aside a small skull and there was something behind his eyes when he looked at me, something I hadn’t seen in him before. Even at his lowest, he’d still held out hope that things would get better, but somehow, that field of bones was leeching that away from him.
I glanced back to the two youths and saw something similar reflected in their expressions. Distaste, despair and perhaps a little fear. It was interesting and something I’d need to discuss with Lily when I got back. If she’s still alive, a dark little part of my mind said.
“Did you bring your drone?” I asked and smiled a little at the way they all jumped at the sudden noise.
“I’ve got it dude,” Charlie said. “Not much use until I can recharge it though. Used most of its battery helping you two.”
“Shame, it would have been useful,” I said and turned back to watching where I was going, as well as the hospital.
The stench that seemed to follow and hover around the undead was something you never really got used to. There were times though when it faded into the background as just a part of the new world we lived in. It was there, noxious and ever present, noticed only when it was absent.
As we approached the hospital and the edge of the landing field, the stench began to grow to the point where we couldn’t ignore it. I glanced to Gregg and saw understanding on his face. For it to be that bad, it would have to be a hell of a lot of the undead.
I waved the others to stop and took a good look at where we were going. Behind us were the few houses and the road beyond while to the west were a few scattered administration buildings for the hospital and behind them the road that we were originally travelling along. It was likely that that road was packed with the undead but the buildings prevented them seeing us.
Straight ahead of us was the end of the hospital. The tarmac path that led from the landing pad with its helicopter carcass went all the way to building with a several metre long concrete bridge when the raised area of land we were on ended.
According to the signs, that bridge led to the A&E department and from what Charlie had said, the road beneath the bridge was used by the ambulances to reach the same place which put that one department on two levels.
The area of land we were on, ended rather abruptly with just a wooden fence to prevent us wandering over the edge and down the slope to the car park beyond. Before that fence were several mounds of tarpaulin-covered bodies, many of which had been spread across the grass.
There was little sound to speak of, other than the flap of the tarpaulin in the distance, moved by the light breeze and the cawing of the carrion birds. No moans, no screams of terror, nothing to say the undead were just out of sight.
“I can’t see any movement,” Gregg said and I glanced at him. He had one hand over his eyes to shade them as he scanned the side of the hospital. I followed his gaze and saw little to warrant attention. A few open windows, occasional smear across the glass.
“Something’s not right,” I said and had the others attention immediately. I smiled mirthlessly.
“What do you mean?” Gregg asked.
“There’s five storeys to that hospital,” I said. “That we can see, which means another two below this level.”
Three sets of eyes watched me intently and it seemed I had their full attention. Their fear was palpable.
“A hospital full of them, the car parks packed tight with them and mounds of corpses,” I continued. “Yet none here.”
“What’s your point dude?”
“My point, is that why eat half the bodies and scatter the bones then wander off?” I looked from one to the other, settling finally on Gregg. “We’ve seen ourselves that they only wander off if they have a reason to.”
“Then they had a reason?” Gregg said. “What though?”
“Look around,” I said, quiet and insistent. “There’s buildings all around us, this landing area is pretty much enclosed and the chances of anyone having come to this hospital since it began is ridiculously low. These bones were picked clean over time, likely over the winter.”
“What you trying to say?” Reece asked with a quaver in his voice.
“I’m trying to say that something used this area to feed over the winter and then when most of the bodies were gone, moved on. That’s not typical behaviour of the Shamblers, but it is of the Ferals.”
“Ferals? What the hell you on about dude?”
“Shit,” Gregg said and tightened his grip on the baseball bat as he turned his head this way and that, almost as if afraid something would jump out on him.
“But there’s still bodies stacked over there,” Reece pointed at the tarpaulin covered mounds and Greggs eyes widened as he finally realised what I had.
“This is their feeding area,” he said and I nodded. “Oh fuck, fuck me.”
“Feeding ground? What? They don’t have feeding grounds…” Charlie said.
“It looks like these Ferals do,” I said as I considered what I would need to do. “I’m going to have a look. Stay here.”
“I’m coming with,” Gregg said and I shrugged. The other two looked at each other but didn’t volunteer. I put them from my mind as I set off at a brisk walk after waving for the dog to remain where she was.
As we moved closer to the tarpaulin covered mounds, the stench if anything, grew greater and I noticed the ground was stained almost black with the fluids that had oozed from the bodies. I gestured for Gregg to duck low and did the same myself.
When the bodies had been first stacked there, many had been in body bags, then when those ran out, wrapped in cloth sheets. The top handful of layers of bodies didn’t even have that. Instead, they had just thrown a tarpaulin over the lot and tied it tight.
After the Ferals had begun dragging bodies from the pile to feed, they’d created a gap between the top of the pile and the tarpaulin. It wasn’t huge but it was enough. I caught a muttered curse from Gregg as he realised what I was about to do and I held back my laughter as I lifted the edge of the tarpaulin and ducked under.
With normal decomposition, within a couple of months, even in the winter, most of the flesh would have rotted away. In the six months since the world had ended, I would have imagined even the stacks of bodies at the hospital would be little more than bone.
Whatever had started this whole thing had killed those bodies though and while they might not have returned to life as undead, it had slowed the progression of decomposition much as it did for the zom
bies.
Which meant that as I crawled over the stacked bodies, my hands sank into putrefying flesh, releasing fresh odours to assault my senses. Gregg gagged behind me and I hoped he’d have the sense not to be noisily sick where we could be heard.
I had to move carefully in that dark space. I had no idea if the virus or whatever was still active, but if I pierced my skin on a jutting rib bone, if I scraped my skin on bone or teeth, I could become infected. So I moved at a snail's pace, each hand probing before gripping.
“Fuck!” Gregg whispered furiously as a rat squealed in the darkness. A low litany of curses came from him as I pulled myself forward and found the way blocked by the thick tarpaulin.
It was loose enough that I could grasp a handful of the material in one hand and push my combat knives blade through with the other. I cut horizontally to make a six-inch hole that I could see through.
Gregg crawled up beside me and leaned close, our heads almost touching as he peered through the hole I had made. His shadowed form moved as he turned to look at me and I didn’t need to see his expression to know he would be as puzzled as I was.
Hundreds of zombies stood, packed tightly together in the carpark before the hospital. Cars, ambulances, and trucks with military colouring were still parked there and scurrying around the zombies were Ferals.
Some crouched in small groups, others moving between them, they were fast and alternated between two legs and dropping to all fours. As we watched, zombies would separate from the larger group and one or more of the Ferals would dart over to growl and snap at it until it returned to the herd.
“Animals,” I said to Gregg in a voice little more than a whisper. “They’re acting like animals, keeping the herd together.”
“Why though?” he whispered back.
“Food perhaps,” I mused. “The zombies are slowly dying. The Ferals are getting stronger, faster and to do that they need energy which comes from food. With less living people around, they need to eat something.”
“All these dead bodies?” he said with a pat on the body he lay upon.
Killing The Dead 9 (Season 2 | Book 3): Family Matters Page 10
