Six Days With the Dead

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘Why was he standing in snow?’ He thought to himself.

  ‘Why couldn’t they be warm like the fingers now resting on his head, tightly gripping his hair?’ He wondered.

  The fingers began to pull his head back. The fingers became a hand and then an arm until Mohammed, his vision nearly totally gone, was looking into the set of pale blue eyes behind him. With a tug, the hand pulled Mohammed’s head back sharply, the force ripping the wound across his throat wider. Satisfied her job was done, Ruth carefully closed the razor, placed it in her pocket and walked out of the Refectory. As she closed the door behind her she smiled, thinking of the surprise someone would shortly find inside.

  Slipping back into her shoes, Ruth looked up at her husband with the baby sleeping in his arms.

  ‘The Heathen is no more. The Lord has passed his judgement upon him. One by one, each shall be judged by God’s hand and they will fall before Him, unworthy and tainted by the age of Man,’ Ruth said, calmly as she reached up to stroke her husband’s cheek. ‘Now, take the infant to the cart while I get the girl.’

  Function by function Mohammed’s brain began to shut down. As his blood seeped across the table in front of him, it dripped steadily to form a puddle on the floor. Within one minute, the real Mohammed was no longer sitting in the Refectory. What had made Mohammed was now gone for ever. His memories and personality were now nothing more than fading electrical impulses in a brain, no longer capable of working. Within the shell that had housed Mohammed for nineteen years, something else was taking over, something alien to Nature’s normal plan. For three minutes the body of Mohammed lay as it should, still and motionless but then like a slap in Nature’s face, one of the fingers twitched. The movement was so slight, if someone hadn’t been looking directly at the finger they would have missed it. But then with a spasm the whole hand moved and violently his right leg kicked out against a table leg. A low gurgle began deep inside the corpse’s chest and behind its Dead eyelids, milky eyes moved rapidly back and forth in a hellish parody of sleep. The body that had been Mohammed moved its neck, causing its head to loll forward, hiding the deep gash across its throat. The gurgle that had started within its chest began to force its way up the creature’s throat and as cold lips parted, a low chilling moan echoed around the Refectory. The thing that was no longer Mohammed, slowly opened its eyes and began looking around the room for something it needed, something it needed with such desperation that the need burned at the very centre of its being.

  Up on the walkway, Imran watched as the Reverend walked out of the convent holding his baby in his arms. Looking behind him all the time, the Reverend Moore went to the back of his cart, opened the hatch and rather indelicately dumped the baby inside. Lars had already hitched up the poor beast that would have to pull the Reverend and his family to Cawsands Bay. Despite a good feed and a night’s rest, the horse still looked to Imram, to be on its last legs and he wondered if they would make it at all. Charlie and Liz had already gone to the village, so Lars had moved the Reverend’s horse and cart, positioned in front of the gate, ready for their departure.

  Ruth walked briskly down the dim corridors to the room she knew held the child they would take with them. The child that was the one beacon of purity within these cursed walls. She had hoped the small boy could also have been saved but he was tainted like the rest of them, the stain of Man on his soul. She could feel the cold metal of the razor knocking against her leg with each step she took and although it was an instrument of God’s will, she hoped she would not have to use it again today. As she turned a corner, she almost bumped into one of the Sisters. She did not know her name and didn’t care. This woman was as damned as the thing she had left in a pool of its own blood.

  ‘Oh, Sister I am sorry, there’s so little light in here,’ Ruth said, her hand hovering in her pocket, ready to grab the razor.

  ‘That’s perfectly alright Ruth, I should’ve been looking where I was going,’ the sister said, smiling kindly.

  ‘Well, we’re about to leave and my husband will be waiting for me in the courtyard. May God go with you, Sister,’ Ruth said.

  Knowing she didn’t have much time, Ruth moved aside so she could walk around the Sister. She had walked a few steps when she stopped, turned back to the woman walking away from her and called, ‘Oh, Sister! I forgot someone was looking for you in the Refectory.’

  ‘Thank you, Ruth,’ the woman said, with a little wave.

  ‘See, I didn’t need to know her name,’ Ruth thought to herself, as Sister Margaret walked unknowingly to her death.

  Ruth stood silently outside Anne’s door, waiting for her call to action. As if on cue, a woman’s terrified scream echoed through the corridors. She heard movement from inside the room, as a little hand secured the bolt across the door.

  ‘Her sister has taught her well,’ Ruth mused, as she waited a few minutes to add to the authenticity.

  When she thought she had waited long enough after the scream, she began to pant, sob and pound on the door, as if she had just run to that point in the corridor.

  ‘Please Anne! Please it’s me, Ruth the Reverend’s wife. Please let me in, the Damned are inside the Convent! Please, for my baby, Anne, don’t let them kill me baby. Please!’ The last word caught in her throat, as she was wracked with a panicked sob.

  Inside her room, Anne listened to the Reverend’s wife pleading to come in. Liz had told her if the Dead ever got into the convent she should never open her door to anyone, no matter who it was. The Reverend’s wife sounded terrified, why didn’t she go to one of the other rooms? Didn’t she know the noise she was making would attract the Dead if they heard it? This woman was stupid but she didn’t deserve to die and neither did the baby. Hoping she was doing the right thing, Anne reached up and drew the bolt back across. Slowly the door swung inward, revealing the Reverends wife, standing with tears running down her face. As the small woman turned to look at Anne, her face seemed to change before Anne’s eyes. The tears stopped immediately and a cold hardness appeared in her pale blue eyes.

  ‘You’re coming with me, the Lord had commanded it,’ she said coldly, lunging for the small girl standing in the doorway.

  Five minutes earlier Sister Margaret was walking along the corridor to the Refectory, mentally ticking items off a list of things she needed to do that day. As she reached the door she noticed a strange smell in the air which she was unable to place. Like an itch in the back of her mind, the smell triggered a basic warning, but a warning of what, she could not pin down. Her hand hovered momentarily over the door handle, some primal instinct whispering an alarm to stop. On some deep subconscious level she knew she should not open the door but Sister Margaret was not a woman who gave into such things. After she briefly scolded herself for being so silly, she turned the handle and opened the door. As the door swung inward, the sight she beheld froze her to the very core. Immediately she realised the smell was the coppery tang of blood in the air. Her wide shocked eyes somehow took in every detail of the room in an instant. The wide spray of blood across the wooden table top, the pattern of droplets running down the glass on the window and of course the man sat slumped in the chair, droplets of blood dripping from his long fingers adding to the large pool of blood. A deathly silence filled the room, broken only by the rhythmic dripping of blood hitting the floor. Sister Margaret’s world suddenly shrank down to the path of a single droplet of blood slowly running down the corpse’s index finger. She could not move her eyes from the scarlet fluid running along the finger nail groove, to pool at the tip of the finger. The droplet expanded until it could hold no more liquid and then suddenly fell to the puddle below. She so desperately wanted to scream but the only thing to escape her throat were sharp panicky breaths. She willed her legs to move, she needed to get away from the carnage in the room but her body refused to do as commanded. When a tiny whine finally managed to pass her lips, the corpse sitting at the table sprang violently to life. A face turned sharply in her direction, a f
ace spattered with blood and with teeth bared. It was a face she recognised. Looking into Mohammed’s Dead eyes she knew she was what the Dead man wanted most in the world. Fighting against the primal fear that had taken control of her body, Sister Margaret managed to move one of her feet to take a step back. Before her shoe had left the stone floor, the Dead Mohammed sprang from his chair, knocking it backwards to the floor. With a massive flood of adrenalin now pumping through her body, Sister Margaret managed to fight off the paralysis that had taken control of her muscles, to turn her body away from the fast approaching blood covered corpse. Before Sister Margaret was more than two steps into the hallway, the Dead thing lunged and landed heavily on her back. As they both fell to the floor, Mohammed’s blood covered hands were already ripping away at her veil, desperate to get to her flesh beneath. Finally Sister Margaret’s vocal cords let forth the horrified scream that had been building inside her. But for Sister Margaret, the scream had come too late. She had run out of time and as the echo of her cries died in the dim corridor, she knew no one would come in time to rescue her. With her veil now completely torn from her head and her wimple ripped at one shoulder, Mohammed threw himself down onto her exposed flesh. Sister Margaret screamed wildly and carried on screaming, while his teeth bit violently into her cheek. Such power was behind the bite that his teeth reached almost to the bone and as Mohammed pulled his head back he tore away a large chunk of her face. Sitting astride the struggling woman, the creature that had once been Mohammed chewed upon the stolen flesh hungrily, barely swallowing the mouthful before returning to tear another strip of flesh from the woman’s face beneath him. By the time the Dead Mohammed had stripped the flesh from one side of Sister Margaret’s face and neck, the woman’s body had ceased in its struggle to survive, and as the body went into a cardiac arrest brought on by the shock and pain, Sister Margaret thankfully died.

  While the last sparks of life fled Sister Margaret’s body, the animated shell that had been Mohammed, jammed his fingers deep into her right eye socked and ripped out the eye, together with most of the optic nerve. Just as he was about to devour Sister Margaret’s eye, a brief spasm rippled through the body beneath him. Looking down at the corpse, the Dead Mohammed did not understand what was happening. His Dead brain could not comprehend that Sister Margaret was about to join him in the ranks of the Dead, as all of a sudden the warm thing that had captivated him to the point of frenzy and had promised to satisfy the hunger that burned within him, was suddenly of no interest at all. Stuffing the eyeball in his mouth, Mohammed’s animated corpse pushed itself off Sister Margaret and stumbling slightly, began to walk down the corridor in search of other warm things to bite into.

  By the time Sister Margaret’s reanimated corpse, managed to open its remaining film covered eye, the thing that had once been Mohammed had disappeared down one of the many dark corridors of Lanherne in search of warm flesh. Letting out a pitiful moan filled with such desperation and need, Sister Margaret’s corpse pushed itself up from the blood covered floor and unsteadily got to its feet. It knew it needed something, something to stop the pain, surely if only it could eat, the pain would go. Yes, it would eat and eat and never feel pain again. Of course the Dead brain in Sister Margaret’s head could not think of these thoughts in any rational way or intellectualise the cause and effect of eating the living. No, this was knowledge on a far more basic, fundamental level. Just as a wildebeest or sea turtle is hardwired to migrate across thousands of miles, or a spider spins its web over and over. To ignore the need to rip, tear and feed on the flesh of the living was impossible for the Dead Sister Margaret. You might as well ask the living to stop breathing. Devouring the flesh of a living being was what she was meant to do, on some level she knew this. So with nothing more than this basic compulsion demanding to be sated, the body that had once housed Sister Margaret, went in search of something warm to eat.

  As tears streamed down Anne’s face, Ruth held her firmly behind the door that led out into the courtyard. Ruth had dragged Anne, with her hands tied and mouth gagged, to the door and truly this was God’s work, for he had made sure she had encountered nobody else on her short journey through the corridors. Holding the small girl behind the door she waved to her husband, letting him know all had gone to plan. At the signal, Reverend Moore ran over to the ladder leading up to the walkway.

  ‘Hey! Hey, young woman!’ he called to the woman turning in his direction when he stepped on the walkway. ‘The Damned are in the Convent! Didn’t you hear the screaming? You must save them.’

  ‘What? Oh, shit!’ Alice said, a million scenarios rushing through her mind, all of them bad ‘Imran!’

  As she screamed his name, Imran came running along the walkway, his bow already off his back ready for attack. At the sight of Imran running towards him, the Reverend stepped back, a shocked look on his face.

  ‘Surely Ruth had sent this one to Hell?’ he thought to himself, ‘No matter, they will all be there soon enough.’

  ‘Imran, the Dead are in the Convent! They’re inside!’ Alice said, her eyes wide with fear and panic.

  Climbing down the ladder as fast as she could, Alice knew within minutes her metal bat would be swinging at the skulls of friends no longer alive. Imran, knowing time was of the essence, did not wait to be told twice. He leapt to the ground when he was only half way down the ladder and ran after Alice, as she disappeared inside the building. Hidden behind the open door, Anne watched Imran and Alice run past her, unaware she was there. She tried desperately to make a sound so they would turn but to no avail. Struggling against her kidnapper was useless, with the razor pressed to her throat there wasn’t much she could do. ‘Stay alive’, that’s what Liz had always told her. No matter what happened or what she had to do or go through, as long as she stayed alive, she knew Liz would come for her. Once Ruth was sure the coast was clear, she pulled Anne roughly from their hiding place, out into the courtyard. Already Nathan had got the first gate open and was starting to winch open the second outer gate so they could make their escape. Ruth thought it would be good to be on their way home again, they had spent too long among the Damned and it sickened her. Throwing open the back hatch to their cart, Ruth thrust Anne inside.

  ‘Just sit still and nothing will happen to you, OK’ Ruth said, climbing in and pulling closed the hatch behind her. Seeing the fear in Anne’s eyes, Ruth leant forward to gently, almost reverently touch her cheek.

  ‘Don’t worry, you are one of the chosen,’ Ruth said, nodding as a strange madness danced behind her pale blue eyes, ‘The Lord has sent you among us to begin again. Don’t you see? You are untainted by the age of Man. You were born into a world where the Damned have been judged by our Lord and found wanting. There is no stain of the past world upon your soul.’ With a far away smile on Ruth’s face she moved to the front of the cart and gathered up the reins.

  ‘You are pure,’ she said, quietly over her shoulder, ‘and with the others, the Lord shall repopulate his kingdom.’

  With a yell and a sharp flick of the reins, the cart began to move out through the open gates. Once the cart had been pulled all the way through, one of the side hatches opened and the Reverend Moore climbed in, panting.

  ‘I thought you were going to kill the heathen?’ he said, glancing briefly at Anne, tied up and gagged in the back of the cart.

  ‘I did?’ Ruth said a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘Oh… ’ the Reverend said, absentmindedly toying with his crucifix. ‘I guess he had a brother then. Never mind. God’s demand will be done by one hand or another.’

  A sob racked through Anne’s terrified body, as she realised the Reverend’s wife had murdered either Imran or Mohammed and now, one by one her friends would fall to the Dead stalking Lanherne.

  Alice and Imran skidded to a halt at a junction in the main corridor. Pausing so she could listen for any sounds, Alice nodded for Imran to take one direction, while she would take the other. With an arrow pulled taught in his bow, Imran walked slow
ly with his back pressed to the wall, towards the Chapel. Wishing him luck, luck that she too would need if they were to survive this day, Alice made her way towards the kitchen. She soon reached the next corner and paused. Listening intently she could clearly hear a set of footsteps coming briskly towards her. Pushing herself flat against the wall, she held her bat high and readied herself for what may be coming. The figure came into view and Alice breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Adrian,’ she whispered.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, jumping at Alice’s unexpected presence. ‘Damn Alice, you scared the crap out of me! Did you hear the screams?’

  ‘No, but the Reverend did. Where did they come from?’ she asked in a hushed whisper, continually looking up and down the corridor, she didn’t want a nasty surprise running up behind her.

  ‘Upstairs I think,’ he said, nervously chewing on his thumb.

  ‘Right then that’s where we’re headed,’ she said, handing him the long knife that had been strapped to her calf ‘… come on.’

  Alice began to walk off, leaving a stunned Adrian looking at the knife now placed in his hand.

  ‘Shit!’ Adrian said to himself.

  Adrian wasn’t a fighter, he was good at hiding until things blew over, that’s what he did. Stalking about in dark corridors actually looking for the Dead was crazy. Alice had just reached the stairs leading up to the sleeping cells. With one foot hovering on the first step, she turned to Adrian.

  ‘Well?’ she whispered. ‘Are you coming, or are you going to be a prick you’re whole life? Think of someone else for a change.’