by WR Armstrong
He checked the coast was clear and, taking Kate’s hand, he hurried round to the eastern side of the church grounds, staying close to the perimeter wall. Here they were out of view of the road and nearby housing estate. The wall was at its highest here, reaching seven feet. Aided by McGrath, Kate managed to scale the rough stonewall, landing cleanly on the other side, with McGrath following hot on her heals.
Arriving at the church, they slipped behind the stone pillar jutting from the main building and checked to make sure the coast was clear, before continuing at a brisk pace until they arrived at the gate guarding the rectory. The torch wasn’t yet needed for the moon, unhindered by cloud, continued to spill its borrowed light onto the earth.
They passed through the gate, and hurried across the wet grass to the back of the old house from which, according to reports in the local rags, the priest of St Anthony’s had mysteriously disappeared. It was yet another unexplainable incident that had plagued the church recently. It was common knowledge that graves had been desecrated at St Anthony’s, as was the fact that the priest’s housekeeper had become a victim of the murderous practice that was alarming the city population.
With Kate close by, McGrath arrived at the edge of the woodland reserve. He glanced back over his shoulder at the darkened silhouette of the rectory, knowing that on the other side was the excavation site, the discovery of which had heralded the start of the trouble. He thought he heard a noise come from the vicinity of the crypt. It sounded alarmingly like a muffled scream.
He heard someone approach and ducked for cover, pulling Kate down with him. Lying flat on their stomachs, camouflaged by the dense undergrowth, they waited to see what happened. Time seemed to pass very slowly. Kate grew impatient to make a move, but McGrath warned her that it would be unwise. He had learned long ago that patience is a virtue. Many times he’d done reconnaissance involving days spent cooped up in a hole in the ground without sleep, doing toilet business into a plastic bag, ignoring muscle cramps, surviving off basic rations, until the job was done. He shifted position slightly so he rested his weight on one elbow, and pulled out the Taurus.
Persons unknown were making their way through the woods, drawing nearer. He could hear bushes being disturbed, feet flattening the undergrowth. He thought he glimpsed vague movement—silhouetted figures numbering maybe half a dozen, carrying what looked ominously like a body. Beside him Kate watched in silence as the anonymous procession stumbled through the dark woods, ungraciously manhandling their bounty. McGrath dared raise his head fractionally, straining to see more clearly but it was too dark. Who or whatever was being carried did not struggle. The body, yeah, it was definitely a body, McGrath saw, was limp, unconscious or dead, easily supported by the bearers who marched raggedly in the direction of the crypt. The procession drew still closer. McGrath crawled silently through the undergrowth, urging Kate to follow. A twig snapped beneath his body, a muted gunshot in the stillness of the night. He froze in position, with Kate beside him, eyes glued to the shadowy cortege. The procession was now very near. There were six of them, resembling pallbearers in a funeral procession. The sight of their faces made McGrath’s skin crawl, for they exhibited not a trace of human emotion. They were expressionless—dead.
If McGrath needed further proof that nature had somehow gone haywire this was it. He saw the woman who brought up the rear, and grimaced at her skull like features, the sunken rolled back eyes, the thick strands of mucous hanging from her gaping mouth, her face covered in what surely was blood. Blood that belonged to the ruined body she helped support perhaps.
The cortege came within spitting distance. One individual, McGrath noticed, looked quite normal save for the dishevelled state of its blood soaked clothing. He realised that left to appearance, some of these creatures might even pass for ordinary members of humanity. The thought was alarming. He brought his attention to bear on the ravaged body, and the tattered remains of the policeman’s uniform it was dressed in. The injuries sustained by the corpse were as bad as anything he had encountered in times of war. This, he decided was all the evidence he needed to confirm his worst fears. He would wait until the group was inside the crypt, then contact the police using his mobile phone, and leave the rest to them regardless of what Kate might think.
The zombies, as McGrath now thought of them, were moving away from him. Then they stopped and one by one, turned their heads as if sensing his presence. At McGrath’s side Kate watched, apparently mesmerised. The ex-soldier waited with bated breath, prepared to make a run for it if necessary, reassured by the fact that he and Kate almost certainly had the advantage of mobility. Why the group had paused as they had, he had no idea, though he supposed it was always possible they had caught his and Kate’s scent.
Keeping his head down, prepared for anything, he observed them closely as they surveyed the terrain, knowing from experience how easy it was to be caught off guard. He’d seen or heard of many a good soldier being killed, maimed or captured by enemy forces through lapses in concentration, complacency or from being over confident in their abilities.
The bedraggled troop moved on, heading down an incline before disappearing out of sight. McGrath unhitched his mobile, deciding he had all the evidence he needed to warrant calling in the police. He dialled the emergency services number only to be frustrated by a “no service” response from the phone. He recalled the catatonic faces of the zombies: the awful sight of the dead cop. Going after them would be insane and would serve no purpose. He had played along with Kate, allowed her to lead him here, and he accepted she was right. Zombies had indeed found sanctuary in the crypt. And yes, they had to be flushed out and annihilated. But that was for others to do. He wanted no part of it.
Kate had other ideas. No sooner had the murderous troop disappeared from view than she was on her feet and heading down the incline in pursuit. McGrath was left with no other option but to follow and lend support. In one hand he held the golok. In the other the flashlight, which as yet he failed to employ, for the moon emitted sufficient light to see by.
He negotiated the uneven terrain, catching up with Kate just as the group manhandled the dead policeman through the part open crypt door.
“Going any further is sheer madness,” he warned, but Kate seemed determined to see it through to the bitter end. She waited until the last of the figures disappeared inside, and then scrambled down the incline leaving McGrath with little choice but to follow.
At the bottom of the hill, perhaps thirty feet from the crypt, they again paused, concealed from view by a thick spread of bushes; beyond the bushes stood the crypts stone entrance. Although a seasoned soldier who’d seen more than his fair share of bloody conflict, the thought of what might lie ahead filled McGrath with terrible foreboding. Yet Kate, perhaps due to ignorance or some misguided belief that she could single handedly save the world, appeared to have no such misgivings. Leaving the comparative safety of the bushes they approached the crypt.
In the distance a dog barked like a sentinel, trying to betray their position to an enemy. Glancing up at the dark sky McGrath saw a multitude of stars through the ragged wisps of night cloud. The moon, a luminous disc in the darkness served to make their job easier than it might otherwise have been. He and Kate silently edged their way up to the crypt entrance, which was bathed in pale blue light. Something flew across McGrath’s line of vision—a bat. He approached the stone door; at the same time wondering what awful secrets it hid.
The freezing ground was hard and unforgiving beneath his booted feet. A chill in the air bit at his face. His breath left his mouth as frosty grey vapour. The weather was similar to that which he’d experienced on training exercises in the Brecon Beacons. He hated it. Undoubtedly, inside the crypt it would be colder still—dead cold in fact.
He slipped the golok back inside its sheath and pressed a shoulder against the stone slab that served as the crypt door. At first it refused to budge. He exerted a little more pressure, digging his heels into the earth for extra
leverage, and heard an ominous creak as it finally gave.
He continued to push, whilst thinking about the murders that had wreaked such havoc in the capital. The general public now attributed them wholly to the influence of the burial pit, and called for the excavation site to be closed and filled in, before further damage was done. What’s more, the news media was growing braver, openly describing the pit as unholy, cursed, and unhallowed; referring to it as a “Hell Pit”. People were scared, truly scared, because the murders were happening for no apparent reason, yet there was a very clear pattern, and there seemed to be no let up with the police appearing no closer to solving the mystery of why they were occurring in the first place. That murder suspects claimed to be attacked by those they had murdered only deepened the general public’s anxiety. People were deserting London in droves. If the murder suspects were to be believed and their victims had returned from the dead, it meant an inestimable number of the creatures wandered free. If the cannibalised bodies were also victims of those they had killed, it pointed to there being a flourishing community of living dead. And those were the ones that were known about. God only knew how many more cannibalised bodies were lying around undiscovered.
McGrath increased pressure against the door forcing it open another inch. A noticeable gap was now evident through which he and Kate might squeeze. He peered inside, cautiously. It was pitch black in there. He switched on the torch, attempting to shine its beam into the crypt, but the angle wasn’t right. He pushed against the slab again. A hollow grinding noise disturbed the silence as the slab scraped against the stone floor, exposing the black interior more fully. McGrath took a deep breath and slipped inside, with Kate following.
They were waiting for him—three of them, stalking the shadows like phantoms to be caught in the torchlight simultaneously. McGrath dropped to one knee, deftly drawing the Taurus from its holster and took aim. One of them charged forward, a man, half his face missing, eaten away by disease or decomposition. It was hard to tell which. The second, a pretty female whose outward appearance offered no hint of what she had become, trailed behind, seemingly uncertain of her role. The third lurched, arms outstretched, a gaping hole the size of a cricket ball in his face, exposing glistening white bone and blood-reddened gristle. Grotesquely his eyes had rolled right back into his head. McGrath recalled Kate mentioning that the consumption of human flesh was supposed to rejuvenate these beings. In the case of two of the individuals he now faced, it appeared the process either hadn’t worked correctly, or hadn’t had time to be effective.
Holding the gun steady with both hands, he squeezed the trigger, which was firm yet smooth. There followed a loud bang and a blinding flash of light. The man with the rolled back eyes caught the slug squarely in the chest. He hitched as the bullet impacted but kept coming. McGrath fired at the spot again, aiming at the largest area, only to get the same disastrous result. The man was staggered by the force of the shot, but failed to fall. It was the brain or nothing McGrath realised as the creature loomed over him. He took aim, knowing he had to make this shot count or it would all be over. He pulled the trigger, scoring a direct hit. The top of the man’s head exploded, sending bits of skull and brain tissue flying through the air in a sea of dark blood, much of which landed on or near McGrath. The creature staggered, then dropped to its knees and keeled over, missing him by a whisker. He had no time to feel any sense of relief, for the other two were coming at him, with clawed hands and bared teeth.
The girl seemed to have found her sense of purpose and flew at McGrath like a wild thing. McGrath kept his cool, aiming the gun dead centre of her head and fired another shot catching her between the eyes. She dropped like a lead weight, landing on top of the first casualty, whose broken head McGrath now stamped on making doubly sure the creature wouldn’t be further trouble. Aiming for the third and final member of the unholy troop, he did likewise with the girl, crushing her skull beneath the heel of his boot, the bone crunching loudly as it shattered. McGrath glanced down to see brain matter oozing out of the ruptured head, though he felt not a tinge of regret for what he’d done, knowing that to show these demons mercy would prove a costly mistake. He squeezed the trigger for a fifth time, aiming for the face of the third member of the hellish trio.
The gun jammed.
The creature lunged. McGrath took evasive action rolling to one side, narrowly avoiding contact and sending his clumsy adversary crashing into the wall, narrowly missing Kate, who stood transfixed. The creature turned and then tripped and fell. The brief interlude allowed McGrath the opportunity to slip four bullets into the gun chamber before his attacker regained the advantage. Rising to his feet he was caught by a powerful blow to the temple that rocked him back against the wall, dazed and hurt. Clawed hands grabbed for his throat, attempting to crush his windpipe. He struggled to break the hold, jabbing rigid fingers into his aggressor’s eyes, hooking them inside, drawing blood. The thing opened its mouth to snap at his face and bit on the stubby barrel of the Taurus instead. This time the gun fired, the report muffled. The ex-soldier turned away sharply as the top of the zombie’s head flew off, together with most of its contents. The deadly hands that had hooked themselves around his neck fell uselessly away as the creature slid harmlessly to the ground, dead for the second and hopefully, thought McGrath, last time. Once again he used the heel of his boot to crush the head of the enemy. He retrieved the torch, dropped in the scuffle, and shone it on the ground, unbelieving of the carnage he had caused. Cordite hung thickly in the air, mingling with the coppery smell of blood, and the indescribable stench of the dead. Kate stood motionless, backed up against the wall near the crypt entrance. She stared vacantly at the corpses in front of her. McGrath stepped carefully over the destroyed bodies, half expecting them to react to his presence, but that didn’t happen. They were dead, their skulls smashed in, their brains reduced to pulp.
Nevertheless, he returned to the girl’s body, positive she had moved, nudging her in the ribs with the toe of his boot. She failed to respond. The flashlight exposed the damage done to her head, the jagged hole at the top of the cranium where the bullet had lifted the bone having exploded the brain. There wasn’t a lot left of the top of her skull. Her eyes were open, fixed straight ahead, unseeing, McGrath hoped—the sight perversely distressing. The ex-soldier experienced something verging on pity for her. Despite what she had become she was a victim nevertheless. He reached down to close those unseeing eyes; to put them at rest. Without warning the body convulsed and the part open mouth snapped shut with force, almost taking his fingers. He sprang to his feet, the torch raised to ward off a possible attack, but the girl’s body fell motionless once more.
He tried to tell himself that the incident was merely a knee jerk reaction following death, though he didn’t really believe it. Whether he liked it or not the corpse had actually tried to bite him. He continued to watch the dead girl closely. The eyes had sprung open again, as if rebelling against death to stare blankly ahead. The jaw had dropped, shaping the mouth into a silent scream. Her face was an obscenity, he thought. He pulled out the golok to place the lethal blade in her open palm to establish whether she was truly dead. The hand immediately snapped shut around it. The blade was withdrawn slicing into flesh. It was then placed against her lips. This time the teeth clamped down firmly on the metal. McGrath again pulled the weapon free, glancing nervously at the others, knowing he and Kate must be careful to avoid contact with these creatures, even when their brains were destroyed, for they continued to exist, albeit in a most primitive form, reacting instinctively even when their consciousness was obliterated. He likened the dead girl’s reaction to the knife blade to that of the carnivorous Venus flytrap, which devours any insect unfortunate enough to stray within striking distance. The only way to completely eliminate the threat these creatures posed, he decided, was to destroy their physical forms entirely. He looked over at Kate. She was watching him closely.
“We need to get out of here while we have the cha
nce,” he told her. He glanced sharply towards the crypt door. Someone or something was outside. A heart stopping moment later livid fingers curled slowly around the stonework.
It was too late. They were trapped. McGrath searched the crypt interior for another means of escape. There wasn’t one. Their only option was the sealed inner door, which according to Kate, led into an underworld occupied by a populous of the living dead.
Before he could react, she took the initiative, leading him to the back of the crypt, careful to give the bodies a wide birth. The zombies were dead, although the term was neither totally accurate nor appropriate, given the circumstances.
They came to the narrow passage leading to the second door. Here McGrath took a deep breath knowing there would be no turning back once they stepped through to the crypt’s inner sanctum. He glanced back, heard a sound that made him think of dragging feet, and knew he had no choice but to proceed. Others like those he had just slain now occupied the crypt. He shone the flashlight along the rough grey walls and ceiling. The passage was narrow, claustrophobic. The door standing at the far end, with its mottled surface and heavy iron ring for a handle looked impregnable. It was damp inside the passage. Lichen grew freely along the walls. Black mould covered the ceiling like a second skin. McGrath was momentarily haunted by the memory of the girl attempting to bite, even though her brain was destroyed. Satisfied she and the others were no longer any threat; he walked to the end of the passage, with Kate following, and slipped a single bullet into the chamber of the Taurus so it was again fully loaded. He had a nasty feeling he was going to need every available bullet.
The passage stank, the heavy cloying smell turning his stomach, reminding him of an incident during the Iraq war when he was sent in to inspect an enemy bunker taken out by a phosphorous grenade. The occupants, in the form of Taliban soldiers, had been fried alive, and although the smell filling the passage wasn’t as intense, it was close. McGrath recognised it for what it was; the stench of death.
