Death Said No

by Talia Mason

  She waited and waited, fought against her instinct to survive and endured the dreadful panic as not a single bit of air reached her lungs.

  For as long as she could she fought the urge to free herself as her throat burned and her eyes felt as if they would pop from their sockets yet she continued to live.

  When the panic became overwhelming Gracie managed to free herself from the noose and fell to the floor where she lay, hating... just hating all and everything, the dead, the undead, herself, the cruel world.

  At that moment a spark had been lit within her.

  Gracie's hate burned like that of the creatures but hers was the more dangerous, for the root of Gracie’s hate was a sudden understanding of the situation.

  As Gracie looked about herself she had to admit that this place, her humble abode was not really suited to be that of the possibly sole survivor of a whole race.

  Not only that, if she was to be constantly rejected by death yet could suffer injury and pain, it struck her that she may need somewhere a little more secure than a two bedroom semi surrounded by fences, alleyways and blind corners from which the dead could catch her unprepared.

  Her modest little house also lacked any of the necessary amenities that she needed, no longer was there the gas supply to give heat or on which to cook.

  Nor was there now electricity or running water.

  What she really needed was a good old fashioned coal or wood burning fireplace or stove.

  As there was nobody to whom she must give payment for her new property she found herself, for the first time in her life, thinking that money was not of an issue...oh the irony, the first time that she could have all she needed or wanted and there were flesh hungry monsters spoiling her enjoyment of it.

  So it was that Gracie had to find a secure building that may afford her some of the resources she needed.

  As she looked around at the little house where she had spent the last fifteen years of her life she couldn't help feeling a sense of loss that she would had never of expected.

  Gracie forced her thoughts quickly from the past to the future in effort to avoid becoming bogged down in the depression that had led to her experiments in death.

  On consideration Gracie decided it best to stick close to the area she knew, the area where she had spent most of her life from being a child playing in and knowing every path and forest surrounding the village of Ravenswood to being an adult and learning all its streets.

  After some thought she came to the conclusion that two buildings offered suitable potential for security either in or around the village.

  The closest was the old police station which was by nature the securest, having barred windows and a heavy reinforced door.

  It was a sturdy Victorian brick built building with plenty of space, its own generator (good as long as she could find fuel to run it) and a high steel fenced car park at the back and as far as Gracie was aware it had never been extensively modernized and should still have its old fire places.

  The problem with this building is that it was situated in the center of the village where entrance and exits would leave Gracie vulnerable to attack from both the dead and the living.

  The second building too had the same drawback.

  It was an old, large house in the centre of the village, with a medium garden that was surrounded by a high wall yet she believed that the inside had been converted to become a school so no doubt all fireplaces would have been removed or at least covered over.

  Suddenly a third option struck her.

  A few miles across the fields from the village sat the estate manager's house that dated from an era when the land around the village all belonged to the stately home a few miles away.

  The house was surrounded by a large garden and enclosed by a very high wall and hidden from the closest road by several acres of forested land.

  In fact if you didn't know the area you would never know it was there and most of those who did know the area had most likely forgot, in the case of the dead it was because they had no memory in which to store the information and in the case of the living because they numbered so few and due to its previous irrelevance it would be unlikely they should think of the place.

  Thus the estate manager's house was chosen.

  Getting there was to be the next issue.

  For the last few months Gracie had lived her life hidden behind the drawn curtains of her semi-detached home venturing out only when her food or water supplies ran out.

  At these times Gracie would spend quite some time peeping out of her bathroom or bedroom window to be sure the coast was clear before hurrying down stairs and slipping out of her house, out of her garden and hurrying unseen through the gardens and into any of the houses of her neighbours that happened to be unlocked.

  Then after quickly checking that there was no threat, either live or dead, inside the house she would slip the catch on the door to keep it that way and relieve their kitchen cupboards and pantries of any non-perishable goods, shoving as much as she could find and carry into a backpack and as much as she could drag into a drag along, wheeled suitcase.

  Then away she would scurry back to her hiding place after carefully checking the coast was clear, as quietly and cautiously as a rat hunted by a cat.

  Now Gracie had to travel the three miles across the village, full as it was with the undead.

  As she sat thinking how the only easy bit was likely to be the few miles across the fields once she got clear of the populated area of the village it occurred to Gracie that although the journey would be almost five times longer she could probably skirt around the village and make the whole trip across the fields where the dead were seldom seen.

  At the beginning of the outbreak the farmer's fields had been full of ripe peas and potatoes and many of the living had gathered what Precious harvest they could before the crops began to rot.

  The dead, it appeared, in death stuck true to many of the habits of behavior they had exhibited in life and therefore seldom ventured beyond the built up areas of the village and onto the open farm land beyond.

  If Gracie gave the village a wide enough berth she should remain unnoticed by its rotting inhabitants.

  She would however need a weapon of some kind in case one of the undead creatures did choose this day to wander away from their normal haunts.

  Gracie had nothing suitable because though the creatures were slow and stupid they could only be killed by decapitation and the few kitchen knives that she owned would be useless for the job, besides Gracie really didn’t want to get quite that close.

  Again she snuck out of her two bedroom semi, crept from one neighbour’s house to the next searching in the dim light of her torch, room by room and shed by shed until she found, in the eighth house, under the bed a replica sword.

  Though this magnificent find were blunt as the minds of its intended victims it was of good strong steel and Gracie imagined that it could easily be sharpened with a little work.

  As she squirmed her way a little further into the darkness under the bed where she had made the fortuitous find the rapidly dimming beam of torch light fell upon a long wooden case.

  Pulling the case out and dropping it on the bed to open it, Gracie feared that it would be locked and that she would have to haul it all the way home so she could open it in candle light because the beam of her torch was beginning to falter.

  Carting the unwieldy box home was all well and good if it contained something of some use, but what if it didn't?

  She would be wasting precious time and taking an unnecessary risk.

  Gracie’s heart fluttered a little when upon closer inspection she found not only was it unlocked but there was no lock, just the type of catch you find on an old fashioned suitcase and upon opening it her excitement was almost overwhelming.

  In the case nestled in stiff foam padding were two medium length Japanese style swords and set between them was a whetstone.

  Whilst she didn't really relish the thou
ght of killing anything, even if that thing was technically already dead, Gracie knew that she had to at least be able to defend herself against an attack and in a “me or them” type situation she was determined it would be she that survived.

  Closing the case Gracie hurried down the stairs and after quickly checking the coast was clear scurried through the shadows of the street, slipped through her own back gate and hurried through her kitchen door closing it as quickly and quietly as she could.

  She stood leant against the locked door thanking god or luck, whichever was the cause of her success, that there was no moon that night to illuminate the spaces that the streetlights once lit as she had crept from garden to garden and house to house.

  After both locking and bolting the door, and quickly running through the usual routine of checking all the windows were secured and properly covered, Gracie took case and swords upstairs to her room, carefully stepping over the stacks of empty cans on the third, ninth and twelfth steps which she’d set in place at the beginning of the outbreak in fear of being attacked in her sleep.

  It wasn't until now that she finally had the means of defense in her hands that it occurred to her that she had previously had no means of defending herself if stumbling feet had toppled those cans to fall noisily down the stairs and into the hallway.

  Pushing the thought aside Gracie entered her room, the place where she felt the safest, and locked the door.

  This was the room in which she had lived since the outbreak had become a serious threat and not just something happening at the other end of the country.

  In one corner all the food she had looted was stacked along with candles and bottles of clean water she had drained from the kitchen taps and taken from fridges of the houses she had visited on her search for necessities since her own meager resources had ran out.

  Next to it on the back wall was her dressing table, which once housed bottles of perfume and makeup and all the things a woman usually has cluttering up such a space, that had in the last months become her food preparation table.

  Next to that was an empty space where the wardrobe had once stood before she had pushed it with great difficulty in front of the closed blinds and curtains of the room’s one small window to keep all traces of light from showing to those stalking the streets beyond.

  The only other piece of furniture was her bed, now piled high with the quilts and blankets that had once belonged to her neighbours because the nights were cold without a heat source.

  Had Gracie the means to light a fire of wood or even looted coal it would not have been safe to do so.

  Smoke rising from a chimney in the middle of the village would have been like a beacon to alert all, dead and alive, that somebody was alive within the house that would provide food for the dead or resources for the living.

  Gracie laid the case across the bed and the blunt sword she propped up in the corner to deal with later, the Japanese swords, that the label on the inside if the box identified as katana swords, were by far the better option and on examining them she found they had been kept sharp and well cared for.

  After her brief examination of the swords she sat down to eat her meal of baked beans, cold and out of the tin, and to consider the journey to the old estate managers house beyond the fields at the other side of the village, a journey for the sake of discretion that would have to be taken at night.

  The first obstacle, she reasoned, would be the three streets she would have to pass through to get to the open farmland that surrounded the village.

  As many of the creatures prowl the streets at night, even though their eyesight was no better than Gracie's, this would likely be the most hazardous part of the journey.

  Another concern was that between the fields there was a network of drainage ditches to cross, some narrow enough to be able to jump across but others would be more of a problem especially if Gracie was stumbling through the fields in the dark.

  Gracie also considered how far from the village she would have to be to use a torch without its light being seen.

  Although the creatures were stupid they did tend to be curious and the last thing she needed was to draw their attention.

  She thought a while on these issues and eventually fell asleep.

  Gracie awoke with a start early the next morning the jangle of cans still clear in her mind yet the house was silent.

  Taking up one of the swords she turned the key in the silent, well oiled, lock and slowly opened the door.

  Peering to the right, the only direction an attack could come from as there is was wall directly to her left, as she ascertained the coast was clear the only other bedroom door was still securely locked.

  The bathroom door stood wide open giving Gracie a clear view of the whole of the unoccupied room.

  Inching forward towards the solid waist height partition that separated the landing from the stairwell below she peered over the white paintwork to an empty staircase with empty cans still neatly stacked on steps three, nine and twelve.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After quickly running her regular checks of doors and windows, more to quiet her nerves than out of any logical reasoning, Gracie went back to her room and locked herself in once more.

  Opening the wardrobe and pushing aside the clothes that she would in all likelihood never have occasion to wear again Gracie came to the gap between the boards that made up its back.

  Approximately halfway down the back panel of the wardrobe, just above the height of the window sill, there was a widening of the gap that coincided with both a narrow opening where the blind was not completely pulled down and where the curtains were not completely closed creating a viewing window wide enough to get a fair view of the far side of the communal green at the front of the house.

  The beauty of this spy hole was that when the hanging clothes were in their rightful place and the wardrobe doors were closed it was impossible to see from the outside any amount of candle light that may illuminate the interior.

  Using binoculars to peer through the gap Gracie focused on the two foot square bathroom mirror that was propped against the inside of the window of the house facing hers across the green lawned square.

  She had put the mirror there on one of her resource gathering expeditions.

  The mirror gave Gracie an excellent view of the front of her house, the one adjoining it and of either side of each.

  Seeing all was clear she backed out of the wardrobe replacing the clothes in their rightful places along the rail and re-closing the doors.

  Sitting back down on her bed, nerves still taught from the false crisis caused by the dream Gracie's mind returned to that dream.

  The first thing she recalled of the dream, naturally, was the jangling of the cans.

  The next was stumbling around a field in the darkness of night and seeing no more than a foot of ground before herself as she was being pursued by the undead.

  Every direction she turned she traveled no more than a few feet before the ground dropped away from her, leaving her struggling to keep her footing before turning again in another direction for the whole terrifying ordeal to repeat itself.

  All the while the deafening sound of jangling cans filled the air around her until in desperation she attempted to jump the next drainage ditch that she came to.

  Looking down mid leap Gracie saw the ditch appeared bottomless in the darkness with the sound of moaning undead and snapping jaws drifting up from its depths.

  She seemed to be in the air forever until she began to doubt that she would land on the other side and believed that soon she would fall to the mercy of those below, suddenly her fingers made contact with the rim of the bank as her knees and shins struck its steep downward slope.

  As Gracie scrambled to try and pull herself up its slippery banks and onto the safety of solid ground the swords slipped from her grasp and fell into the blackness below with a splash and the awful groans became screeches of excitement.

  Just as Gracie truly believed tha
t she was doomed a foot found purchase and she managed to heave herself to the bank where she laid panting and gasping in breathless relief.

  Then a rustling of clothing and dead skin and clattering of bones in the darkness beside her alerted her to a more immediate danger, but with no sword the battle was lost before it began and the creature fell upon her tearing at her flesh with yellowing teeth protruding out of torn and rotting lips.

  Dead eyes met Gracie’s for the briefest second as she struggled.

  Then another of the creatures fell upon her and the deafening jangle of cans finally succeeded in wrenching her from the dream.

  Gracie lay back on the bed considering the visions of doubt and fear that her dream had made her face up to and the new obstacle the dream had alerted her to.