The Lingering (Book 1): Outbreak At Hope Cove

by Ben Brown

  Callum crashed to the floor, and the full reality of his situation took hold of him. He lie there covered in blood, and began to cry. For more than a minute, he could not find the strength to move. This in itself filled him with even more fear. No one was coming to his aid, which meant only one thing … Sally and Alfred had fallen victim to the sickness.

  Callum forced himself to his feet and looked back out of the window. In spite of the rope wrapped around its driveshaft, the waterwheel below still managed to turn steadily in the current of the river. It was then he saw four creatures stood on the jetty, apparently the ones he had heard during his ascent. They seemed mesmerized by the wheel’s slow rotation, and for the briefest of moments, he could have sworn he saw one of them gesture to the wheel. With luck, they would throw themselves at it, in which case they would suffer the same fate as their predecessors. If not, then he would simply deal with them in the morning.

  He took a deep breath, and readying himself for what he might behold, he turned. His father lie on the only bed in the room, but apart from him, the place appeared empty. Suddenly, a loud whickering came from outside, and Callum instantly knew the horse he had tethered to the pole had fallen victim to the creatures. His eyes fell on a musket by the window, and he decided to put the poor beast out of its misery. He ran over to the gun, and then looked out at the horse below. Two creatures had disemboweled it, yet still the horse struggled against their attack.

  Callum targeted the unfortunate animal’s head, and with a single shot, ended its torture. For a while, he thought about putting a round of lead in each of the creatures’ heads, but he decided against it. He felt tired, hungry, and as of yet he had not found Sally or Alfred.

  He headed to the bed and checked on his father. His condition seemed the same as when he had left him. With a sigh, Callum made for the floor below.

  He found them slumped over the table. Alfred’s head lie in his arms, and he looked as if he had simply decided to take a nap. Sally, on the other hand, seemed to have succumb in mid action. She still held a loaf of bread in one hand, and a knife in the other.

  Callum moved closer to them, but even from a distance, he could tell they had fallen to the same sickness as his father. The boy fell to his knees and started to sob. He was alone in a mill with three all but dead people, all of whom he cared for. Outside, foul creatures fed on the horse he had just ridden. On top of everything else, the rancid smell of death lingered everywhere. He had truly fallen into hell.

  Chapter 14

  Callum crawled to the corner of the room, and pulled his knees up against his chin. He then wrapped his arms around his knees, and began to rock back-and-forth as he wept. The sound of movement to his left caused his breath to hitch. Had one of those monsters made it inside?

  Then, as the noise grew louder, a small smile lit his face.

  “Hector, is that you?”

  The dog peeked timidly from behind a flour-filled sack, and on seeing the boy, he bounded excitedly out from his hiding place. In two quick bounds, the dog arrived at Callum’s side, and he covered the boy with joyful licks.

  Callum embraced the dog with all his might, and started to sob all the harder. Hector pulled back and looked at his master worriedly. Then, as if he had sensed the boy’s needs, the dog carefully pushed himself onto his master’s lap, and allowed the weeping boy to hug him.

  The two sat that way for more than an hour. Outside, both creatures and wind howled alike. Upstairs, his father lie in some terrible silent stupor. At the table, Sally and Alfred did the same, but because of his proximity to them, he could hear their breath as it rattled in and out. Yet, in the corner, Callum could block all this from his mind.

  At that moment, all he felt was the love exuding from his trusty dog, and it comforted him. His hand went to his cheek to wipe away a tear, but he quickly withdrew it as pain erupted in his face. He then remembered stories his father had told him. Stories of men going into shock after an accident or injury, and because of the shock, they seemed to feel no pain. He also remembered his father telling him how dangerous shock could be. He knew that if he sat there much longer, then he might be in real trouble.

  Callum patted his dog’s head, and then wearily pushed him off his lap. The dog looked at him, and Callum felt sure he saw pity in the dog’s eyes. He shook the feeling off, and went in search of a mirror. He found one hanging on a wall upstairs. Below the mirror sat a bowl of fresh water. Clearly, this was where old man Marsh did his shaving.

  The boy looked at himself in the mirror, and his legs almost went from beneath him. He reached out and found Hector’s head. The dog stood stoically at his side, and he bore the boy’s weight with ease. Hector whimpered slightly, but Callum felt sure it was a whimper of concern, not pain. The boy closed his eyes for a moment, and as he regained control of his nerve, he returned his eyes to the mirror.

  Two large splinters of wood projected from the ragged mess that had once been his face. To his horror, half his cheek seemed to be hanging in a grotesque flap from the side of his jaw. Blood oozed and bubbled from the gaping wound. Again, Callum’s head started to spin, but this time he felt the contents of his stomach rushing towards his throat.

  The boy ran to one of the open windows and vomited. He gagged and choked, coughed and spat until all of his stomach’s meager contents ended up in the dirt below. His head swam with images of his cheek, images of the dead, and images of the disemboweled horse. He sunk to the floor shaking, and Hector moved to his side. The dog eyed him, and then pushed his head into the boy’s hand. Callum patted the dog absently, but Hector continued to push at the boy.

  “Just give me a minute,” Callum whispered as his eyes began to shut.

  Hector barked, and the boy’s eyes sprang wide. The dog barked again, and then pulled at Callum’s filth covered shirt.

  “Alright, aright. You win.”

  Callum struggled to his feet and headed back to the mirror. He grimaced at the thought of seeing his injury again. But on second inspection, his wound seemed nowhere near as bad as before. There was no flap of flesh, just a ragged laceration with two large splinters of wood poking out of it. He now understood that his fragile mind had amplified the severity of the wound. While the injury was still very painful, and grim, he could handle it.

  He reached up and tugged at one of the splinters, and it pulled free with almost no pain. Slightly uplifted, he reached for the second of the barbs. This one, however, did not want to yield quite so easily as the first.

  He gritted his teeth and pulled harder. Finally, it released its hold on his flesh, and pulled free with a sickening ripping sound that only he could hear. He took a moment to steady himself, and then set about the task of washing his cheek. The more he washed, the less serious the wound looked. By the time he was done, he started to feel much better.

  He walked back to his father and gently kissed his forehead. “I love you, Pa,” he said as he stroked his father’s head. “Everything’s going to be fine. As soon as you’re back on your feet, we’ll go get ma and Tilly, and then everything will be like before.”

  Callum looked down at Hector. The dog had not left his side since his return. “Come on, Boy; let’s see if we can find something to eat.”

  He headed for the stairs, but stopped and turned to look at the open windows. The fetid smell of a hundred or so corpses drifted in through the openings. The smell turned his stomach, and he knew he would not be able to eat with the smell assaulting his nostrils.

  One by one, he locked the windows tight. The smell still lingered, but he had at least blocked the worst of it out. Satisfied that he could do no more to halt the stench, he headed for the stairs again.

  ***

  Callum spent ten minutes hunting through old man Marsh’s prolific winter stores. He discovered a jar of pickles, some well-aged cheese and a leg of smoked ham. Half an hour later, both he and Hector had eaten until full. The weight of the food in their stomach’s caused them both to feel sleepy.

&n
bsp; Callum checked on his father again, and then laid a blanket on the floor beside his pa’s bed. He and Hector then curled up together, and Callum finally settled into a deep, but disturbed sleep.

  Chapter 15

  Callum tied together the back legs of the two rabbits he had just killed, and then swung them over his shoulder. One of the dead animals rested across his chest, and he could smell both its fur and its blood. The scent combined into a heady brew that smelt both metallic and sweet. This was what life was about. You took from nature only that which you needed, and the warmth of his newly killed prey against his chest confirmed this as the truth of all existence. He could have killed a deer, but two rabbits would feed his family, so that was all he took. To kill more would have fallen into the sin of gluttony.

  He walked slowly home and gloried in the beauty of their state. His pa was right; New England really was God’s country. The day was as beautiful as any he could remember, which made him want to marvel a little longer in the fragrant magnificence of his surroundings. With a smile on his face, he decided to take the long route home. After all, it was early, and he had more than enough time to prepare his brace of rabbits for the pot.

  After an hour of strolling through the woods, the home in which he had been born came into sight. A smile lit his face, and in that moment, no one on Earth could have been any happier. He knew that many city people would think his family’s way of life was backwards, maybe even simple, but he knew better. Sure, they lived a simple life, but simplicity was pure and good. He was proud to be raised a woodsmen, and he would be proud to one day raise his son the same way. There was no shame in living respectfully alongside nature. It seemed to him that city folk wanted nature beaten back, and then enslaved to their will.

  He walked closer to his beloved home and spotted his mother hanging out washing. She had her back to him, but in spite of the tedious task she performed, her movements still seemed graceful, even deer like. She was tall and willowy, and she move with a slow grace that he had always thought beautiful.

  His father once told him of a trip that he and his mother had taken to Boston. They had seen a troop of traveling Russian dancers performing at a fair. The man running the show had said they were ballet dancers all the way from Moscow. His pa told him that the women could dance on the points of their toes, and that they moved like angels. His father said he had never seen anyone move like the ballerinas. His pa had then paused and corrected himself.

  With a smile that told Callum of his father’s love for his wife, his pa said, “My Emily makes those dancers look like a bunch of stumbling clowns.”

  Callum thought he had never heard a truer word. His father rarely betrayed his emotions, and when he did, it always filled Callum with a mixture of deep admiration and love.

  “Ma, I have supper,” Callum called as he looked down at the rabbit across his chest.

  He looked up again, and the smile that lit his face disappeared in an instant.

  The woman at the washing line turned, and the sight of her filled the boy’s heart with not just fear, but also a deep and unyielding pain. The thing now staring back at him seemed little more than a monstrous caricature of his mother. Her eyes, which had once been a dazzling blue, were now as black as ebony. Her skin, once creamy and free of even the tiniest of blemishes, now looked grey and haggard. In spite of the fact that her face no longer seemed to be her own, Callum might have still been able to see her as his mother. However, there was only so far the human heart could stretch before breaking.

  What cut him to his very core were the horrific injuries she had suffered. The front of her dress looked like countless tearing fingers had clawed it to ribbons. Almost none of the dress remained, and he could clearly see her naked flesh below. To his absolute horror, her flesh had faired a similar fate to her dress. Large ragged gashes ran from her neck to her waist, and her left breast was completely gone. A gaping eviscerated hole had taken its place. Bloody and torn tissue hung from the hole, and the ribs below appeared broken from the savagery of the attack she had endured.

  Callum gasped, and watched on in horror as his mother’s mouth seemed to dislocate and unhinge. It yawned as wide as a cavern, and she let out a terrifyingly animalistic sound. She then began to shuffle towards him. Callum matched her pace and started to back away towards the trees. Suddenly, a searing pain erupted in the side of his neck, and his hands sprang reflexively towards the agony. His eyes went wide at what his hands found. The rabbit, which had happily hung across his chest dead, now tore at his throat.

  He grabbed the creature with both hands, ripped it from his neck, and then threw it clear. Because of his actions, both reanimated animals flew through the air and then slammed into the dirt in a matted mess of gnashing teeth and clawing feet. He screamed with pain and anger as he stared down at the two tiny thrashing monsters. Both rabbits lie in the dirt, and now they fought over his flesh.

  Their rear legs remained tied, so like a bickering set of hideously evil conjoined twins, they clawed at each other with their front feet. They growled and hissed, and the one without the boy’s flesh, latched savagely onto the other’s ear. It shook its head wildly and all but ripped its companion’s ear off.

  Callum had seen enough. He shuddered, and then moved closer to the tiny demented creatures. As if sensing fresh meat had just moved into range, they stopped their battle, and stared up at him hungrily. The boy brought his heavy boot down on their skulls, and the feeling of their fragile bones shattering under his boot filled him with a grim pleasure.

  A strong but slender hand gripped his shoulder and spun him around. The hideous thing, which had once been his mother, grabbed his chin and lifted him from his feet. He desperately wanted to fight back, but all his strength abandoned him the moment her hand touched his skin.

  She pulled his face close, and her black eyes seemed to study him. He could both see and smell the rotting meat that hung from her jagged black teeth. Before he could stop himself, vomit exploded from his mouth and covered his mother’s face. She did not react to his eruption; rather she continued to study him.

  Callum began to think she might spare him, but then her jaw unhinged again, and she lunged for his face. He could feel her teeth latching onto his nose and he opened his mouth to scream…

  ***

  Callum woke and let out a gut-wrenching scream. Hector jumped to his feet and started growling, but the dog almost instantly recognized there was no threat at hand. The loyal canine returned to his young master and started nuzzling the weeping boy.

  Callum now sat bolt upright and his chest heaved as he gulped for air. Hector whined, and curled up at his master’s side. Slowly, the boy began to regain control of his sobs. After all, it had only been a dream. The boys gaze drifted to the window, and he could see the sun straining against the horizon. It would be daylight soon, and things always looked brighter in the light of day.

  Callum let out another scream as something touched his shoulder. Hector looked up briefly, and then returned to his sleepy state.

  His father’s hand had slipped from the bed and had clipped his shoulder as it fell to the floor. The boy took his father’s arm, and lifted it back under the covers of the bed. He then looked at his comatose father wearily. His dream had made him nervous, but it had also given him a warning. Anyone could fall victim to the disease now running rampant through their home state, which made everyone dangerous, including his own pa.

  Callum stood and slowly edged away from his father’s bed. He was suddenly very aware of the open wound in his cheek, and of the fact he now shared the mill with three potential creatures. He moved to the window and looked up at the lightening sky. As soon as morning had fully broken, he would look for the creatures outside, and then deal with them. After that, he would take care of the dead surrounding the mill. Lastly, he would try to transport his father, Sally, and old man Marsh to Warrington, so Dr. Channing could care for them.

  He hoped keeping busy would stop his mind from dwelling
on things he had no control over. Being busy meant he could divert his fears into good old-fashioned hard work.

  Chapter 16

  Callum heard the horse and cart before he saw it. The sun was high in the sky and it shone down on him warmly. Sweat beaded his brow, and his muscles ached. He had ventured out at daybreak, and on finding the place clear of the undead, he had started clearing the corpses. With Hector’s help, six hours later the job was almost complete.

  A mound of rotten bodies exalted his hard work to anyone foolhardy enough to approach it. The stench rising from the pile was enough to take the breath of even the stoutest of fellows. Callum countered the smell, by wearing a lavender oil soaked rag as a mask. The rag made him look like an outlaw now ready to rob the closest bank. The improvised mask covered both his nose and mouth, and it stopped at least some of the evil stench from entering his system.

  Callum dropped the body he had just been dragging towards the mound, and turned to see whom approached. He saw a man driving a horse and cart, but his hat hid his face. The boy’s eyes turned to the musket resting against the side of the mill, and he decided it best to be a little closer to the weapon.

  “Come on, Boy,” Callum said in a hushed tone.

  He walked casually towards the weapon, but his eyes never left the horse and cart. Hector, who had the corpse’s shirt firmly between his teeth, released his bite and trotted off after him.

  Finally, the man looked up, but the brim of his hat cast a long shadow over his face, thus concealing it from Callum’s curious gaze.

  “Callum, is that you?” the faceless man shouted as he drew closer.