Dead Beat

by Remy Porter

  CHAPTER 39

  I saw her face, clear as if she was in front of me. There was Kateyana’s harsh Scandinavian beauty undressing before me, steam rising from the boiling bath water. She had always liked it that way, hotter than hell. I used to say it was because she had ice in her veins, that she needed to thaw them out. Once upon a time, she had liked that.

  Her mouth was moving, but no sound was there. It was if I had to tune in somehow, to hear her words clearly.

  ‘I don’t think I can stay like this any longer. Once upon a time, I thought we were so alike. Now I know, Johnny, you just don’t believe in anything. Not a single thing.’

  ‘I believe in you.’

  ‘I don’t mean the simple things, Johnny. Where’s your passion for anything? Art or music, all the important things I love?’

  ‘What’s going to happen to us?’

  ‘I am going to move out, Johnny, move away from this nasty village. I’m drowning in it. I hate it.’

  ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘No, you stay here and rot Johnny.’

  Looking down on her, I wondered if this would be the last time I’d ever see her lily white body, the firm but soft contours I would caress for hours. ‘I have to come with you.’

  ‘I haven’t said all yet ... I don’t know how. There’s somebody else, Johnny. It hurts so much to tell you these things. I wish it wasn’t like this.’

  ‘Why can’t you stop then?’ I said reaching down, just to touch her.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, brushing my hand off. ‘It doesn’t feel right anymore. Can you leave my bathroom? I want my old life back.’

  ‘But I love you,’ I said, lost in tears now.

  ‘You know things haven’t been right, I don’t know if they ever were Johnny. We were young ...’

  ‘Who is this man, Kateyana? Do I know him?’

  ‘Why do you assume? Why does it have to be a man? Perhaps I want a woman who actually has emotions, that doesn’t just pretend all the time. When do you ever see my friends? You just want to stay in this awful little job, your dead end existence.’

  ‘I’m a policeman, Kateyana; I help people.’ My hands above her soft shoulders. They pushed down, life in them of their own. Her face went under the water, oddly easy. I ignored the kicking feet, the hot splash of the water, all the time watching her face. Sinking down, I sat against the bath and wondered what I had done. There would be a trial; I would live a life in shame. There would be beating when other inmates found out who I was, and what I had done. There was no part of me that could live with that.

  My knowledge had saved me in the short term. I took her remains and burned them in an old clay kiln that I knew of, hidden in the woods near Haven. Scraping out the brittle bones a day later, I smashed them to dust with a hammer. The residue was given to the sea; there was nothing left of Kateyana. I took her things out of my house and burnt those too. I told everyone she had left. Eventually friends and family would ask questions. Eventually I would be doomed, I knew that. I waited for the other shoe to drop, but instead the world ended around me, just another murderer in the new barbarous world.

  My eyes opened and I was floating. My limbs numb from the cold water, the rising sun on the horizon. The rig was a burnt cinder, the structure sagging down on its supports back into the sea. Small fires still raged, melting metal like butter. There would be no going back.

  I saw a body in the water fifty feet away, bobbing and twitching. It was undead, and I swam lashing strokes away from it. Part of me wondered why I hadn’t died already, the cold had numbed my limbs so much that I wasn’t even sure where the stab wounds were anymore. Closing my eyes, I stopped paddling, letting the roll of the waves carry me. I wanted to dream again, to be carried away again. A noise kept interrupting my thoughts, like a buzz of a wasp. My eyes wouldn’t focus. There was something in the water above me, then a voice.

  ‘Did they not teach you to wear a life jacket at police school?’

  Lester.

  He pulled me aboard and I lay immobile in the dinghy, like a freshly caught flounder gasping for air.

  ‘How did you …’ I managed before exhaustion took hold.

  The sea spray roused me, already the sun had climbed high into the sky. Sitting up, my head swum and the small fishing boat rocked.

  ‘Easy, Johnny,’ Lester said, his hands wrapped round the outboard throttle.

  Blinking, I looked away, sighting the land maybe a mile and a half ahead. I recognised the distinctive shape of coves and inlets. We had a course dead set for Haven.

  ‘I thought you were dead, Lester.’

  ‘Perhaps I am just a figment of your dying imagination, or a sea demon taking you away for a lifetime of torment,’ Lester said. ‘No, that gunshot didn’t kill me. Just a flesh wound then a lot of pain tweezing all that buckshot out. It turned out those farmers made their own DIY shotgun shells. I got a bit lucky and got the fine stuff shot into me. It did manage to knock me out for a while though. Some nice scars.’ He showed me the dimple marks below his ribs.

  ‘Chicks will dig those,’ I said.

  ‘That Alison, Jack’s little lady, helped me with it. She’s a kind woman.’

  The full horror of what Summer and I had run away from came back to me, the dead overrunning everything.

  ‘What the hell happened after we left, Lester?’

  ‘I won’t butter it up for you Johnny. When I came to, I woke in the dark. Thank God, it wasn’t the barn. That rotten lump of wood collapsed against the new building and climbed up like ants, didn’t they? No, I woke up in the generator room. And I hadn’t got there by magic either. That angel, Alison had seen everything and dragged me out of harm’s way. Some kind of miracle it was! She saw the mess my stomach was, and got me on my feet again. By dawn we even dared look outside; world flipped upside down.’

  ‘There must have been hundreds, maybe a thousand zombies, Lester. Why the hell are you steering us back there?’ I shouted over to him, trying to make details on the distant shore. It was too far to see clearly.

  ‘Well here’s the rub of it, Johnny, there wasn’t half as many of those dead, walking types as you would have expected. Turns out after Griffin was killed, Jack took it badly. The man fought through the masses and mounted a tractor. He started bellowing, flashing every light and headlight he had on that thing and led ’em out of that gap in the fence again like he was some kind of damn pied piper! Man went and martyred himself. The men blocked up the hole we blew in the fence and started about culling the dead folk we still had left inside the village perimeter. There were still a lot of casualties; I said I wouldn’t butter it up none, but in the end we got ’em all. We had our peace again.’

  ‘So what about the farmers, Lester?’

  ‘They’re done; dead, every last one of them. We actually found the dead version of Griffin sat with his brother Dexter in the ruins of the barn. They looked kind of happy together in a sick kind of way, brotherly love and all that. We shot them in the head without a second thought. Nobody left in the village now ’cept the good folk. That’s why you can go back, start again. There must be about sixty people left, hanging on just fine. Sorry Summer’s not here, liked her a lot.’

  ‘How did you find me, Lester? I was as good as dead out here.’

  ‘I’d watched the rig from the beach for weeks, that distant flashing red light. Kind of liked the fact you had made it. Figured you may come back one day if the food ran out. I kept the fact of your whereabouts to myself, a man needs a few secrets. I considered joining you, but old Lester likes the earth under his feet best. Then last night I saw the flames, knew there must have been trouble. Took the boat at dawn to see what could be done. Lucky I did ...’

  The beach was close; I remembered it from the dead seal so long ago. It felt like years, but I knew it was only six or seven months. On the outside, I’d had a life and a job, everything was superficially right to the observer. But I remembered how I had really felt, the shadow of the murder hang
ing over me, colouring everything with darkness. Now the world would never ask the right questions. I would never be tried and there would be no justice for Kateyana. It had cost the whole world to make me a free man. Looking at the empty beach, I felt a wave of warmth on my skin.

  ‘Peaceful, ain’t it?’ Lester said.

  A flicker of movement caught my eye as I waded to shore. Looking over, I saw something run out onto the rocky beach then dart back into the small caves in the small cliff face. Just a rabbit.

  ‘So where have you been living ...’ I began to say, but something in Lester’s face stopped me dead. There was a tension, something was wrong. Then I saw them creeping along the beach, hunched down, villagers with guns. A group of ten or more was coming one way down the beach, I looked the other way and there was at least as many again. More started to come out of the woods above the cliff path, and behind I heard the hum from more than one outboard motor. Completely surrounded; we had no choice but to stand and wait.

  Leading the group from one side of the beach was Jack Nation. ‘What have you done to me, Lester? You said he was dead.’

  ‘Officer Silverman, so good of you to join us again. We really had no idea you were sunning yourself out on that oilrig until Lester let it slip last night. If I’d known, we would have visited so much earlier. But you’re here now, that’s the main thing,’ Jack boomed, a broad smile.

  There was a noise coming from my right, a grinding crunching sound of hooves on the loose shingle of the beach. I could see shire horses, pulling a canvassed wagon.

  ‘What are you doing, Jack?’ I said, my throat dry.

  ‘They’re my horses Johnny, my new pets. I like to do a few things the old-fashioned way. The fuels aren’t going to last forever, so I’m going back in time. These beasts can pull pretty much anything you ask them to.’

  The wagon drew to a stop, the giant horses’ breath pluming in the cold morning air. The villagers circled me, and I saw other faces I recognised. Alison was there, Jack’s partner, but no sign of Jefferson, Bob Sack or Griffin. For the most part the villagers just mumbled to themselves and stared at me. Better armed now, battle hardened.

  ‘Jack,’ I said. ‘Are you itching to kill me?’

  ‘Not me, Johnny,’ he answered. ‘Them.’

  The large canvas sheet covering the wagon fell away. Beneath was a black wrought-iron cage, perhaps ten feet square. Inside were two familiar figures, blackened by remorseless decay, but moving and alert. Looking up into the dead faces of Griffin and his brother Dexter, I felt sick.

  ‘Hold him!’ Jack’s voice boomed again, as if telepathically reading I was about to bolt.

  Rough hands gripped each of my arms, and I looked over at the half-recognised faces either side. They pushed me towards the steps at the rear of the wagon, and a small locked gate in the cage. Jack had a key in his hand. ‘I’ve waited too long for this,’ he said. ‘Tie his hands!’

  ‘Listen, everybody, before this happens there are things you should know,’ I shouted. ‘On the rig I met two people, two strangers Alice and Trent. They were behind everything that has happened to you all. They were terrorists ... infected the water in this country with a virus. It turned everyone who was not naturally immune in the walking dead. Are you people listening to me?’ I shouted, looking into the blank faces surrounding me. Jack went up to the lock and started to turn the key.

  ‘This man here wants to kill me. Jack Nation, the man who built a fence, a man who with his sadist, twisted son kidnapped and raped my girlfriend. Now he wants to kill the law, and it won’t stop there. How many of you will fall out with this man one day, a petty squabble that ends with you tied to a tree or in this fucking cage. Now I don’t see a single blood relative of this man alive here today. You all have the power to stop him right now,’ I pleaded.

  Jack hit me, a hard slap that twisted my head to one side. My face was on fire. ‘Lucky I don’t cut out your tongue first.’

  ‘Wait,’ a female voice said. It was Alison. ‘Don’t let him go in until I’ve hurt him too.’

  ‘He’s about to get torn to pieces and you want to put the boot in as well. God love you.’ Jack’s lizard face cracked a smile.

  Alison walked out of the crowd and faced me, the woman who had helped me save Toby Hanson at the farm. She had a hunting knife in her hands, the blade glinting silver in the sunrise.

  ‘Where did you get that knife? Now don’t cut him too deep, sweetheart; we don’t want Griffin and Dexter to go short,’ Jack said, edgy.

  Looking into Alison’s eyes, there was something dead in there, as if they had seen too much. Along the way, she must have lost everything. Killing me would be nothing. She drew the blade up to my neckline. I could feel the blood in my jugular pulsing, terrified. ‘It can end now,’ she hissed.

  ‘Not the neck,’ Jack said, coming forward. Then a look of surprise on his face. All at once, he was on the floor in a pool of red, murmurs from the crowd rising to shouts.

  ‘Throw him in the cage.’ Alison’s voice cutting through everything. For a second I thought she meant me, but then it was Jack being lifted and carried. He was trying to speak, but instead blood flowed from his mouth, and from around the knife still lodged in his lung. The cage door was slammed behind his prone body, and for a moment, I watched both Dexter and Griffin looking down, hesitant. It was as if some part deep in their rotted synapses remembered their father, the man they would respect and follow to the end of the world. Then, like a breeze, the moment passed, they dropped down like hungry dogs and tore out their breakfast. I watched Jack’s wide, helpless eyes until the life dulled out of them. Finally over.

  My hands were free, and I looked out over a sea of expectant faces. What do murderers say at times like these, I wondered?

  ‘The terrorists behind the zombies,’ I shouted. ‘We’re going to kill them all.’

  They applauded me. It was the new life.

  EPILOGUE

  The figures crept through the dark and crouched against the rusting chain-link fence. Bolt cutters snipped at the wire, making holes big enough for people and equipment.

  ‘What is this place?’ Santiago said to the big man beside him, his comrade.

  ‘It was Greenham Common airbase once upon a time. The Americans stored their Cruise missiles, the women protested and chained themselves to these fences. They closed the place years ago, it’s just silos now.’

  ‘Hushhh!’ the sound came through their ear pieces. ‘Stop talking now.’

  They crept forward, slow and steady, clouds in the sky smothering the moon.

  ‘The one in the middle,’ the voice came again. ‘Santiago, move forward now.’

  The young Spaniard ran the last twenty metres and hugged the cool wall of the silo. Walking crab-like he edged up to the door, a heavy metal construct opening by key not padlock. He listened keenly for any sound within. Nothing. Perhaps they had been mistaken this time.

  ‘Open it,’ the voice in his ear said.

  Santiago took the delicate tools out of the pocket in his black combat jacket. Switching on the dull light of his head torch he sorted through the spindle sticks until his fingers found the one he wanted. He pushed it slowly into the lock and began to knock the lock’s levers down one by one. It was a skill that had been hard-earned one hot summer in Madrid, killing the hours during a three month stretch for pickpocketing one stupid tourist too many. Now he was their craftsman.

  The lock was defeated. ‘Ouvre,’ he whispered into the radio mike.

  They came in a rush to join him. The wranglers, how he hated their job. It gave him the bad dreams. The men with their long poles and dog collars on the necks of those things. One by one they launched them forward into the black space beyond the open door. half-trained, half-obedient, the wretches disappeared. They could be called back later. Sometimes there were accidents.

  Santiago stood with the others and waited. He thought the silo must be empty, that it had been a wasted journey after all. Then the first scr
eam came, followed by more, a cacophony of rising howls and cries for mercy. As always they came running out, some naked, others bitten and sick already, like rats from a ship The lights came on then, blinding halogen to burn their retinas and slow them down.

  ‘Who are you?’ one shouted.

  The marksmen fired, crisp accurate shots knocking them down like bowling pins. Only children could be spared, but he saw few of those anymore.

  Santiago’s leader was among the fallen, the pistol in his hand. John never liked it when they played dead. Each one of them got an extra bullet to keep. We had finished with this country now, but the whole world was waiting.

  THE END

  BIOGRAPHY

  Remy Porter is British. He recently emigrated to South Australia with his wife and young daughter. Dead Beat is his first novel.