Six Days With the Dead

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘Thanks,’ Liz said, as she spooned the dark gold honey over the porridge, ‘Are you on patrol with me then?’

  ‘Yep, just you and me for the next six hours walking the wall… Can’t wait.’ Alice said, reaching for her coat.

  Alice’s favoured weapon was a metal baseball bat, which always seemed to be within arm’s reach, no matter where she was.

  ‘Come on, we might as well get going.’ She continued picking up her bat, as Liz finished off the last of her warming porridge.

  ‘Thanks Sister Rebecca, lovely as always.’ Liz said, handing back the now empty bowl with a smile.

  ‘You’re welcome dear. Now off you two go. I tell you, I always feel safer when you two girls are watching out for us on the walkway. Damian and Sally are up there at the moment and I think they’re more interested in each other than if the Dead are pawing the walls,’ the Nun said, rolling her eyes, ‘You should have seen the love bites on her neck this morning. You’d have thought the Dead had been at her already.’

  Sister Rebecca had a surprising talent for gossip for a woman who had spent a good portion of her life in a convent but there was no malice behind it.

  Damian had joined their small community six months ago, making his attraction for Sally quite obvious. With Damian only twenty-two and Sally in her late forties, they were a bit of an odd couple. They had taken solace in each other’s arms, despite the age difference. Of course Liz couldn’t blame them but she wished they could show more control when other people’s lives were on the line. Liz herself had found similar comfort with Imran. His soft touch and dark sensitive eyes had calmed her in a way she never thought possible. She loved the secret moments they stole together. Their love making brought joy into a life of tragedy and struggle, even if just for a short while.

  ‘Ok then let’s go and see what’s happening in the big bad world.’ Liz said, following Alice out of the Kitchen.

  ****

  Liz and Alice slowly made their way through the dim lit corridors. As always there was a chill here, the only warming light coming from the small leaded windows running along one side. She could see it was a beautiful morning outside, the sun just breaking through the last of the clouds. As they strolled, Liz was given snap shots of the outside world. Each window they passed, ‘click’ a new image. If she could run down here at super speed would the walls disappear entirely, she wondered to herself, each frozen image joining the next like a roll of film, and then in one of the images a figure appeared. With the sun just behind him he was thrown in to shadow. A silhouette with long lithe limbs, moving purposefully down the gravel path. Limbs, only she knew the tender touch of. ‘Imran!’ she thought to herself and as if the sun has just come out from behind a cloud, the corridor felt slightly lighter, warmer, more welcoming, than it had done mere seconds ago.

  As always he carried his trusted bow. On his back arrows could be seen neatly packed in their quiver, death, to be dispatched at a moment’s notice with a twang of his bow. His accuracy was well known among the convent refugees. He had stopped many of the Dead in their tracks, saving souls for another day. A sniper lost from another time, his arrows would fly through the air dropping the dead where they stood. The needed ‘brain’ shot with every release of his bow. Liz was slightly jealous of Imran in that respect. He could fight at a distance, well away from the stench and the horrors that were the Dead. As swift and as capable as she was at removing rotten heads from shoulders with her sword, she still then had the not so pleasant task of knifing the now bodiless head. To be that close to the dead faces, their tongues black and dried like carrion in their mouths, turned her stomach. Even without a body to feed, the heads would still strain their jaws to get to any live flesh that was near. Silent moans never escaping their lips, still desperate to render and tear skin, flesh and tendon. Steadying the head she would turn their empty eyes away from her. Thankful for her thick canvas gloves at least removing the displeasure of having to touch their maggot ridden flesh. Then using the same sword, she would plunge sharply down, puncturing the skull and sending the corpse back to the stillness nature demanded. Of course most of the time she wasn’t afforded the luxury of stopping the Dead permanently for another corpse would be stepping up to fill its fallen brothers place, with more cracked decaying flesh reaching for her. No, more often than not, once a head was dispatched, the Dead were pushed aside while she moved onto the next. A few times she had had to end the torment of someone she knew who had come back. For them, this little act of mercy was her gift. She did not want to think of her friends being the sad walking shells of what they once were, becoming the very thing they had fought for so long and so hard against was beyond acceptance. For these, her sword gladly broke through scalp and bone to end the bastardised existence these brains forced upon their rotting hosts.

  Liz and Alice reached the end of the corridor, pulling open the large oak door. As soon as they passed the threshold, the silence was left behind them. It was if the walls themselves refused to acknowledge this strange new world that surrounded them. The sunlight warmed them and the sounds of nature became a pleasant background murmur. The very smells of the garden itself reminded them that life went on, even when surrounded by so much death.

  The tall shadow fell over Liz. Holding a hand up to shield her eyes she looked up.

  ‘Hi Imran.’ She said, as she reached up to stroke his arm affectionately.

  Then as he stepped to the side the light fell across him, showing his face clearly.

  ‘Oh, sorry Mohammad, I thought you were Imran.’

  She lowered her arm feeling slightly embarrassed, though she had no reason to feel this way. Imran and his brother were identical twins. Most people found it difficult to tell them apart but Liz didn’t usually make this mistake. Imran had something in the way he looked at her. He somehow knew what she was thinking just from a glance.

  Imran and his brother had been lucky to escape London with their family. Like all cities, London had become a domain of the Dead, a wasteland. The sheer number of people who had lived there, meant the infection had claimed almost the whole city within a few days.

  Travelling into the less densely populated areas, the family had fought to survive like everybody else. They had faired better in the larger communities where there was some diversity but when they came to the smaller outposts, the Muslim family stood out and were often the target for the small minded. It didn’t seem to matter that Imran’s father had only been an accountant and his mother had worked in a library, people scared and needing some-one to blame saw them only as the mythical bio-terrorists, figures to blame for all the nightmares that had become all too real. Then two years after the End of everything, some men came for their family, drunk and blind with vengeance. The brothers had only escaped when their father had pushed them into a cupboard as the mob stormed the house. Holding each other in the dark they wept silently, trying to block out the screams of their mother and sister. The men had made their father watch as his wife and daughter were raped and murdered in front of him. When they had finished they then viciously beat and tore at their father, until he too was taken from the boys. Finally the mob left, allowing the two boys to flee into the night. They swore vengeance for their murdered family, vengeance that they took in full, four years later. In one night they took one life after another from the community that had ripped their family apart and by the time dawn came the dead walked freely behind those walls with no-one to challenge them.

  When the brothers had joined the convoy they had been angry and trusted no one but Charlie saw something in the boys that could be moulded, a way to use their anger for the good of all. He gave them the discipline to use their rage to help clear areas of the Dead. The brothers soon became valuable members of the convoy and all could trust their swift arrows to protect them. Over time Imran had slowly opened up to Liz and soon their simple friendship had blossomed into something deeper. Something they both needed to mend that part of them that had been shattered by the Dead.


  ‘No problem Lizzy,’ he smiled ‘Imran went out with Charlie at first light. They’ve gone to check out the village, see if Crazy Jackson needs anything and knowing those two, clear out some of the wandering dead on the way. He should be back in a few hours… sure you can wait that long for a smooch, eh Lizzy.’

  He had grown close to Liz and loved her like the sister he had lost. That his brother could find a small amount of happiness after all that had happened gave him hope that maybe, just maybe life wasn’t all bad now.

  ‘Yeh, sure, I think I’ll be able to cope,’ Liz replied, ‘Anyway, Alice and I have to get up on the walkway, we’re on shift and with Damien and Sally still up there, I’m surprised we weren’t half eaten in our beds this morning,’ She jokingly punched his arm, as she and Alice carried on walking, ‘Oh, you better get down to the kitchen, Sister Rebecca’s got some porridge on the go.’

  ‘Thanks, keep us safe up there. Tell those two I’ll eat their share if they don’t hurry up.’ He called after her, reaching for the door.

  Liz and Alice continued on their way through the vegetable garden. Every area in the garden had been turned over to food production to feed the Sisters and the refugees they had taken in a year ago. With the surrounding fields also providing for them, those staying in the Convent had the luxury of full stomachs every night. They had also cleared many of the local areas of the wandering Dead so they could work the fields in relative safety. Those on watch duty now had to deal with only a few of the walkers each day. Thankfully, the Dead didn’t really go looking for the living as such but would generally stay where they died. They would wait patiently, only moving if they saw the living. Then they would follow relentlessly, reaching for the flesh that had caught their attention. If their prey escaped them, the Dead would become Wanderers, walking with no purpose, aimlessly putting one put foot in front of the other forever. These were the Dead that could appear out of nowhere at any moment. They blighted the small communities dotted around the Cornish countryside, bringing the infection back again and again to haunt the living. Liz thought that if the Dead ever developed a pack mentality that acted with a purpose, then humanity would really be in trouble. She prayed continually that would never happen.

  Liz and Alice made their way to the ladder that led up to the walkway that circled the high convent walls.

  ‘How much do you want to bet those two aren’t even looking out over the wall?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I somehow think I’d lose that bet,’ Liz replied, ‘Charlie’s going to have a word with those two. Perhaps we could give them some sort of punishment. What do you think?’

  ‘How about extra toilet duty? That should cool them off a bit.’ Alice suggested, as they reached the top of the ladder.

  As they had both suspected, Sally and Damian were not taking their duty seriously. Arms folded and foot tapping with frustration, Liz watched the two kissing each other before she spoke.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake you two, can’t you be trusted for just a few hours to keep watch?’ Liz was angry and they could tell. More than once she had been forced to flee a community that had been overrun by the Dead because someone had screwed up.

  ‘Sorry, Liz. Honestly it won’t happen again.’ Sally said, having the good grace to at least look embarrassed, as she re-buttoned her shirt, which was more than could be said for Damian.

  ‘Calm down Liz, nothing happened. We’re still all alive.’ he said, with typical adolescent bravado.

  Liz walked up to him and with a quick practiced movement, landed a clenched fist on his jaw. Damian, landing on his backside looked up at her, shocked.

  ‘Hey! What gives?’

  ‘What gives! I tell you what gives, you randy arsehole. When lives are in the hands of those on watch up here, we can’t afford you screwing around getting your jollies when you’re supposed to be watching out for the Dead.’ Liz was almost shaking with anger, thinking of the possible danger they had put Anne in, ‘Look, we’ve got a good thing here in the Convent and if you don’t want to help keep it all running then perhaps it’s time you moved on?’

  She could see the panic in his eyes. The last six months had been the safest he had felt in years and he really didn’t want to be forced to leave.

  ‘No, I’m sorry Liz, please, I’ll do my bit. Don’t make me go back out there.’ He said, getting up.

  ‘Well just stop pissing around then. We’ve all got to work together here to survive and if we can’t rely on each other then it’s all going to get shitty, real quick.’ she replied, as Damian finally hang his head in remorse.

  Alice glancing over the wall, tutted.

  ‘Looks like we’ve got company after all, guys,’ she said, pointing at the base of the wall with her bat.

  The other three leant over the rail, seeing what Alice had noticed.

  There, below them, were two of the Dead. Attracted by their argument, they reached their decaying hands to them in desperation. The larger of the two had once been a man, probably in his forties, Liz guessed. He must have been infected around six months ago from his mottled greying pallor and state of slow decomposition. The lower half of his face had been ripped away by his hungry attacker, leaving a dark clotted mass of broken teeth and torn flesh. Part of his scalp had also been torn, showing the yellowing skull beneath. Perhaps someone he himself had then gone onto attack had tried to put him down but the attempt had been unsuccessful. A strip of dry leathery skin now hung down over his left ear, a testament to the valiant but fruitless efforts of someone in their last moments. His tattered shirt was darkly stained with his own long dried blood and in areas, putrid puss had leaked from his decaying body leaving oily smears of filth. Darkly sunken eyes looked up at them, the usual milky film, barely hiding an imploring hunger that would burn unceasingly.

  But it was the other figure that made Liz’s heart sink. Looking to be no older than Anne, the Dead child was as equally grotesque as her taller counterpart. Naked, apart from her underwear and a single sock, her small sunken torso was covered in bite marks. A clear indication that this poor creature had been taken in a most horrific manner. One arm, its hand missing entirely, had been stripped down to the bone at the wrist. Her once blond hair hung lank and thin, partially covering her face. On one side of her head sat a small clip with a ladybird motif. Liz could not take her eyes away from the clip. Like a window into the Dead child’s life, it was a reminder that this horror had once been loved and cared for, as Liz had been. What had this creature’s parents done to keep their child safe in a world full of monsters. Was the Dead man actually her father, somehow tied to the child even in death. Of course, Liz would never know who they had been and what story they had to tell but one thing was certain, they would find release today.

  ‘Right, lets do this.’ Liz said, reaching for one of the leather neck protectors hanging on the pegs with the gauntlets.

  The Dead were fond of diving for exposed necks and hands, so they had made leather neck coverings that buckled all the way from the shoulder to the jaw line. They were a little un-comfortable if you had to wear them for a long time but Liz herself had been saved by this layer of leather between herself and the Dead more than once.

  ‘Do you want me to get Mohammad? With his bow he can sort this out without going out there.’ Sally asked, making her way to the ladder.

  ‘No, Alice and I can handle this. Just stay up here until we’re done, just in case.’ Liz replied, as Alice handed her a pair of gloves.

  ‘You ready?’ Alice said, as she finished doing up her final buckle.

  Nodding, Liz walked down the walkway. On the count of three the two women each threw over the wall a rope ladder. Liz hooking her leg over the top of the wall, removed her sword in one smooth motion. At this sign Alice started shouting and waving her arms to gain the attention of the Dead below. Once Liz had reached the bottom, she too then began to shout to draw their attention allowing Alice to descend her ladder.

  The creature that had once been a man t
urned towards Alice. He raised his claw like hands to her as he let out a low dry moan. Painfully dragging one foot after another, he moved toward her, his stiff dead limbs, fighting against their unnatural movement. At such close range the smell was appalling. Rancid and cloying it had become a foul taste in her mouth. Alice spat as she tested the weight and balance of her bat in her hands. Once he was within an arm’s reach she prepared herself to strike. Her bat held back and high, she swung forward with as much power as she could. At that precise moment the man lost his footing, slipping slightly on the gravelly earth. The bat still in motion, missed the desired skull shot and instead impacted with force on what was left of his jaw. Bone and dried skin splintered and broke. Hanging there at a grotesque angle his jaw, attached now by only a few strips of ligament on one side, moved as the Dead man rocked back and forth re-gaining his balance. Seemingly unaware that the lower half of his face was all but gone, he still reached for Alice desperate to bite into her living flesh. Alice, pushing against his chest with the end of her bat, gave herself the room she needed to swing again. This time using an overhand motion, she brought the bat smashing down on the front of his head. With a dull ‘thunk’ his skull shattered, as the bat destroyed the front section of the brain. To be sure Alice pulled back preparing to hit him again but she had been fortunate this time, with his arms falling to his sides finally motionless, the Dead man slumped first to his knees and then fell face forward on the ground. Satisfied he was no more, Alice glanced over at Liz.