Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘Well, here goes nothing,’ she thought, dropping down as far as the expansive rose bush would allow before darting across.

  Sparing a brief glance into the forlorn looking room as she sped past, Fran couldn’t help but notice the rust-brown splashes and handprints that littered the walls inside. Instantly she recognized them for what they were, for these were the calling card of the Dead and dying; and it had happened within the last week or two, judging from their colouring.

  ‘The cart,’ she thought to herself, realising whoever had been in the burnt cart had probably sought sanctuary in the house after their accident only to later succumb to injury or find themselves being overrun by the Dead just like now. ‘Idiots… we should have made time to look around properly last night,’ she continued, berating herself that they had prioritised getting out of the storm and starting a warm fire over doing a more thorough search of the area first. ‘Won’t make that mistake again… that is if we’re not ripped to pieces.’

  Forced to now edge herself between the house and a huge Rhododendron bush that blocked her progress, her back scraping painfully against the brickwork as she went, Fran slowly made her way beyond the corner of the building and found herself in a shadowy corner of the front garden.

  ‘Shit!’ she spat, noticing the corpse of a Dead woman dragging itself along the garden path towards the front door; the excited calls of its compatriots in death adding determination to its painfully slow and awkward movements.

  ‘Come on…’ Fran silently urged it onward, knowing she needed to get to the garage on the opposite side of the house and would rather do so unseen by the army of the Dead currently clambering about the house, hungry for living flesh. ‘Come on… shift yourself!’

  No sooner had the cadaver latched its hook-like fingers onto the splintered door frame and pulled itself over the threshold into the house than Fran silently began to creep forward; ever mindful that the creature could turn at any moment as spot her.

  ‘Go on… go upstairs,’ she willed, moving as fast as she dare across the overgrown garden to the gaping front door.

  Positive that the very hammering of her heart would alert the Dead woman’s corpse of her presence, Fran cautiously stole a glance into the dimly lit hallway just as her foot fell upon the cracked and weed infested path.

  ‘Don’t… look… back,’ she tried to project, watching as the woman’s corpse slowly shuffled its way across the dusty hallway, drawn to the staircase and the hungry moans and banging coming from the floor above.

  She waited a few more precious seconds, just to make sure she had crossed the Dead woman’s path unnoticed and then, with a shaky sigh of relief escaping her lips, she darted across the garden to garage door where she knew Star and their cart of supplies awaited her.

  ‘It’s just me, old girl,’ she whispered though the wide door as she ducked down and began to unloop the rope holding the door down. ‘It’s just Fran.’

  Glancing nervously over her shoulder to the open garden gate still swinging back and forth in the breeze, its rusted hinges creaking with each movement, she quickly tossed the rope latch aside and started to pull the door towards her. She had barely lifted it off the ground when a dark shape suddenly bolted through the gap.

  ‘Jesus!’ she gasped, startled by the mangy looking cat that streaked past her and disappeared under some nearby bushes.

  ‘Christ, Fran,’ she thought, grunting with effort as she lifted the garage door; adding the extra shove needed as it drew level with her shoulders to force the counter-weight mechanism to take it up and over, ‘the world is full of the Dead and I’m having the shit scared out of me by some old moggy… very smooth.’

  Almost as if she instinctively knew it was time to leave Star immediately started to plod forward, slowly pulling their box covered cart behind her.

  ‘Good girl,’ Fran cooed, giving the mare’s muzzle a friendly pat as she darted past her to open one of the side hatches.

  Just why the Dead didn’t attack horses, no one really knew for sure but when this proverbial gift horse suddenly became your only means of transportation, you definitely didn’t waste time questioning it. Just like in days of the Old West, horses were now imperative to survival and worth more than their weight in gold; presuming you could find anyone stupid enough to trade them for it. These beasts gave humanity a chance to move among the Dead unnoticed and unmolested; all you had to do was stay out of sight, hidden in the box shaped cart. It was a fairly simple design, hinged hatches were built into the sides, back and roof of a box like covering giving travellers quick access or escape depending on their situation; while at the same time randomly cut spy holes, roughly the size of a large coin, not only allowed fresh air to flow through but also enabled those inside to discretely watch the world go by, safe in the knowledge they would be unseen by the Dead.

  ‘Ouch! Whoa, girl,’ tutted Fran, the still moving cart causing the open hatch door to knock sharply against her hip as she reached in, ‘not so fast.’

  As always the steady animal did as she was told; almost immediately coming to a stop and limiting her movements to merely an anxious bob her head and or irritated stamp of a hoof.

  Reaching in, Fran quickly slipped the coiled rope with the grapple end off of its hook and looped it over her shoulder and then glanced at something else attached to the inner the wall. After a brief pause a decision was made.

  ‘Better to have it and not need it…’ she thought, smoothly sliding her knife back into the sheath on her ankle before leaning over to grab the crowbar in front of her. ‘Though knowing my luck,’ she continued, briefly testing the weight in her hand before turning away from the cart, ‘it won’t be long before…’

  ‘Shit!’ she hissed, stopping in her tracks as the sight of what was lumbering into the garden broke into her train of thought.

  There, pulling itself hand over fist along the pathway was the brutalized remains of a Dead man. Missing most of its body from the ribcage-down and trailing the withered remnants of blackened entrails behind it, the creature had been transformed into a crawling abomination from the darkest of nightmares. From the tattered scraps of what little clothing remained on its back Fran could tell the pitiful Dead man had been a policeman in life and she could only imaging the sheer horror he had gone through to reduce him to this state. Yet it was not this determined atrocity that caused her to instinctively tighten the grip about the heavy crowbar in her hand but the two equally lifeless but upright corpses that happened to be following it into the garden; the last of which, a Dead man that must have been over seventy when his life had been brutally ripped from him, was turning its hungry gaze upon her.

  ‘Oh well, here goes nothing,’ she muttered, switching her attention to the nearest of the lumbering cadavers, a short Dead man dressed in filthy mechanic’s overalls, before breaking into a run; the crowbar in her hand already swinging.

  ***

  Kai wiped his sweaty palms one by one against his trouser legs, nervously transferring his knife from one slippery hand to the other as he did so. Despite the comforting weight of the large blade in his tight grip he still felt terrified, vulnerable and as he watched Tom hacking away at the Dead limbs that clawed and pushed their way through the ever increasing breach in the bedroom door, he couldn’t help but wonder if Fran had been wrong about simply jumping from the balcony after all.

  ‘Come on Fran,’ he thought, anxiously looking away from Tom’s carnage down to the garden below him. ‘Where are you?’

  Despite the barrage of shouts and swearing coming from Tom behind him, Kai’s ears still instantly honed into the fearful sound of more wood cracking and as it sent a cold shiver of horror through him his head spun, once again taking in Tom, the limb strewn room and the remains of the inadequate door that clearly wouldn’t protect them much longer.

  ‘Tom!’ Kai shouted, stepping back into the room, kicking aside a severed hand; the tarnished rings and chipped nail polish remaining on the grey withered fingers te
lling him it had once belonged to a woman. ‘You… you need to g…get back!’

  Whether Kai’s words managed to penetrate Tom’s self-induced mania, he couldn’t tell but as the man’s curved blades continued to slash and slice at the Dead reaching though the disintegrating door, Kai knew they had but a few seconds left before they spilled forth into the room and were upon them.

  ‘Tom!’ he shouted again, the man’s angry yelling and the hungry moans of the Dead almost drowning out his cry. ‘We need to…’ he continued, reaching out a hand, hopeful the physical contact would somehow break the spell the fight had over him.

  Yet no sooner had his fingers brushed against the fabric on the back of Tom’s jacket then he was spinning, his eyes wild and blades raised high ready to strike at the imagined cadaver that had somehow crept up on him.

  ‘Tom!’ Kai bellowed, instinctively bringing up an arm to defend himself from an imminent attack.

  Just at the last moment Tom faltered, a flicker of confusion tinged with shame flitting across his face as he blinked his way back to reality and realised what he was doing.

  ‘Kai,’ he started to say, the blade in his hand shaking from the adrenalin pumping through his system as he slowly lowered it to his side. ‘I…’

  But whatever Tom was about to say was abruptly cut off by a terrible crashing and splintering of wood. What was left of the bedroom door had finally succumb to the sheer weight of the Dead fighting to get through it and even as Tom turned, the voices of his lost family once again claiming him, the Dead spilled forth into the room like a wave of death and decay.

  ‘No!’ gasped, Kai, fighting to pull air into his lungs while Tom simply stepped calmly away from him to meet his destiny head on.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Kai stood motionless, helpless but to watch as Tom immersed himself in his family’s demands for retribution. Like a dervish, the older man span and sliced, hacked and kicked out at the Dead, felling any that dared to get too close but as the seconds slowly ticked by more and more of the Dead shambled through the open doorway; eagerly drawn by the sounds of the living and the tantalising chance to feed. Yet as skilled and as wild as Tom was, Kai could see this was a battle he could not win. Their numbers were simply too great and it was inevitable that sooner or later the Dead would taste the flesh they craved; and with it one more would be conscripted into their hellish army.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Kai growled, deciding he couldn’t let that happen and even if he had to drag Tom with him backwards over the edge of balcony, the Dead would not claim them just yet.

  Stepping into the fray, his own knife held tightly in his shaking hand, Kai hoped Tom had enough hold onto his sanity not to mistake him for one of the Dead and as if to put this immediately to the test, Kai found himself having to stand shoulder to shoulder with him just to prevent the corpses encircling them and cutting off their only escape route. Then as he stabbed at the hungry cadaver of a tall Dead man, the grey shredded skin on its neck exposing yellowing tendons amid strips of putrid muscle, Kai managed to briefly lock eyes with Tom. With a flash of gore covered steel, one of his curved blades slashed forward, removing the head of a small Dead child that had ducked under the tall corpse’s arms. But so short-lived was the acknowledgement of his presence that Kai was unsure Tom had seen him at all and even as he opened his mouth to speak Tom’s attention moved on, slashing wildly at the grasping hands around them.

  ‘There’s t…too many!’ Kai shouted over the moans of the Dead and Tom’s almost gleeful one-sided conversation with his phantom family. ‘Tom, we got to g…go!’ he continued, grunting as he frantically kicked out at a naked Dead woman already missing one arm. ‘We’ve got to go! Now!’

  Kai tried to grab a hold of the back of Tom’s jacket hopeful he could start edging him back to the open glass doors and the balcony beyond, but just at that moment Tom lunged to one side, his two arms crossing each other to turn his knives into the curved blades of a monstrous pair of scissors.

  ‘Tom!’ Kai called again, his attention leaving the older man just long enough to stab one of the Dead through the eye, the knife scraping sickeningly against the eye socket at it journeyed onward into the creature’s brain.

  With a grunt Kai kicked the now lifeless decaying meat away from him, freeing his blade from its putrid skull, and tried to reach for Tom once again. It was then, just as Tom uncrossed his arms, severing the head of what could have been a beautiful woman had it not been for the fact she was missing half of the flesh from her torso, that Kai heard the clanging of metal against metal coming from behind him. Sparing a glance over his shoulder Kai was relieved to see the hook-like grapple was now latched onto the ironwork that made up the balcony railings; they now had a way to escape.

  ‘We’re leaving!’ he shouted, shoving the rancid corpse of a teenage boy away from him with his shoulder as he took the proverbial tiger by the tail and grabbed hold of the back of Tom’s jacket; physically dragging him backwards toward balcony and their salvation. ‘We can climb d…down!’ he continued, hoping Tom could keep the Dead at bay long enough to give them both a few precious seconds to climb over the hand rail.

  Within seconds Kai found himself out on the narrow ledge, with Tom slashing blades momentarily keeping the Dead from advancing.

  ‘Kai!’ he heard Fran suddenly call from below him, the fear in her voice feeling like a knife though his heart.

  Glancing down, their eyes briefly met and he knew he had to survive; he had to take this chance even if it meant leaving Tom behind lost in the grip of his ghostly spectres.

  ‘Tom!’ he shouted, taking the rope in both hands as he lifted his legs over the balcony rail, ‘Follow me d…down… Tom, did you hear me? Tom!’

  Yet if he heard him, Tom gave no indication and even though it tore at him to abandon the man, Kai knew this may be his one chance to escape. So with a heavy heart and sparing a final look back at Tom, who even now was kicking the corpse of another Dead child away from him, Kai climbed over the rail and began to lower himself down.

  ***

  Fran let the gore covered crowbar slip from her hands and took hold of the rope dangling in front of her. Pulling it taught so it was easier for Kai to climb down, she looked nervously about the garden for more of the Dead. She knew the three corpses she had been forced to deal with in the front of the house where just the tip of a deadly iceberg about to crash into them. For no sooner had she rendered the skull of the last of this Dead trio to a pulpy mess then another appeared at the gate, fixing her in its hungry glare; and she knew it would not be alone. Alerted by Tom’s manic bellowing and the crescendo of hungry moans emanating from the house, the Dead were being drawn to them like moths to a flame; dragging their decaying carcases as fast as their withered limbs would allow, the Dead honed in on them knowing the source of these sounds meant a chance to taste the warm bloody flesh they craved.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ she silently thought, glancing over her shoulder as Kai made a slow but steady descent.

  With the rustling of foliage, Fran knew the first of the Dead were upon them.

  ‘Kai,’ she hissed, slowly reaching down with one hand to retrieve the crowbar from the long grass by her feet.

  She was about to say more when a badly burnt corpse slowly pushed itself through the Rhododendron bushes, its head moving back and forth looking for the living flesh it knew had come this way. Just then Kai let himself drop the last few metres, landing with a grunt by her side. Instantly the creature’s head snapped in their direction, zeroing in on them within the wild overgrown garden.

  ‘I’ll finish this one,’ whispered Fran, somewhat pointlessly considering the noise Tom was making above them. ‘You get the cart back out onto the road… and then wait for me and Tom.’

  For a moment Kai’s eyes filled with worry as they danced across the dark stinking blood and gore that was splattered across the woman he loved. But deep down he knew this was her world and, unlike him, she had spent the last five years surviving
in it. So despite his reluctance, he pushed aside his need to keep her safe and with a brisk nod followed Fran as she purposefully stomped her way towards the blackened cadaver.

  ‘When you’re through the other side of the bush,’ she began, her crowbar already clipping the side of the corpse’s head, sloughing a strip of burnt skin and flesh from its skull, ‘just make a run for the cart. There’ll be more of them coming, so don’t hang around.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kai murmured, watching impotently as Fran kicked out at the charred abomination, knocking it’s legs from beneath it before darting forward; the crowbar held high over her head ready to strike.

  It was only as the crowbar fell, ending its unnatural existence with a nauseating wet ‘cracking’ sound, that Kai realised he couldn’t actually tell what sex the creature had been in life; such were the severity of its burns.

  ‘God, you poor bastard,’ thought Kai, shaking his head as imagined images of the unknown soul’s horrific demise played across his mind.

  ‘Go!’ said Fran, as she gave her weapon a sharp tug to pull it free from the lifeless cadaver’s skull. ‘And remember, don’t stop. Just get to the cart and wait for us.’

  Wishing there was time to take her in his arms one more time and tell her how much she meant to him but knowing there wasn’t, Kai simply nodded that he understood what he had to do and after giving the burnt remains one final glance he started to push his way through the bush.

  ‘I love you,’ Fran called softly to Kai’s disappearing back just as the Rhododendron leaves closed about him; the huge bush seeming to swallow him whole.

  For a split second she had to stop herself from following him, such was her compulsion to ensure he was safe. Yes, he was taller, bulkier and physically stronger than her yet she would always hold the upper hand when it came to dealing with the Dead and she knew it. She knew she should not mollycoddle him, this was the way of the world now and if he was to stand any chance of surviving in it he would have to adapt, and quickly. Of course that wasn’t to say he hadn’t already sent many of these sorry creatures back into the welcoming open arms of true death, it was just more a case of that life among them was yet to become instinctive for him; and deep down that worried her. Unlike every other survivor who hadn’t spent the last five years safely shut away behind the stone walls of a vast boarding school, much about this way of life was alien and strange to him. She still remembered the look on his face when she first suggested that he and Tom watch out for each other when the call of nature beckoned. Clearly, despite spending his youth in an all-boy’s school, the thought of evacuating his bowels with an audience was a step too far for Kai to accept. But when Tom had pointed out that Kai could have his privacy or he could have the Dead taking a bite out of his privates when his back was turned, but probably not both, Kai soon relented, if somewhat reluctantly. For privacy, like so much of their old lives, was a thing of the past; what mattered now was survival. Survival was the first thought each morning as they woke and the last as sleep claimed them at night. It dominated their lives and until they found another ‘boarding school’ type sanctuary of their own, it always would.