Mitch moved forward to volunteer, but Liz held him back. "I'll go." She jumped down onto the road before anyone could argue.
"Factory is just about half a mile away," Gabe told them, raising the tailgate. "So get ready." He turned to the blond zombie. "Alice, can you drive? I'll be escorting Liz here."
The Returners formed an arrowhead around the truck as it rumbled onwards, Liz trudging alongside with Gabe's hand on the small of her back. She knew it was for appearances' sake only, but still she bristled, feeling uncomfortably exposed and unhappy at having to trust these stiffs. She'd taught herself to hate the things, to paint a clear delineation between the living and the dead; in the early days, it had been simple, you were either one or the other, and if you stank of tomb-rot then you deserved nothing more than a bullet in the brain. But despite the straightforward battle-lines, it hadn't made the fight against them any easier, and the truth of the matter was that the dead were winning. Before this self-aware ghoul had turned up at their door, she had been fast losing hope, although she had said nothing to the group. She couldn't see how they could've survived much longer. Now, though, there was a slim chance they could change the situation; it was unbelievably risky, but it was one more chance than they had a few days before. And it was through trusting the enemy, the one thing she imagined she would never do.
"So who are they? Your friends, I mean," she asked Gabe.
"Other dead souls that I came across on my wanderings, of a similar level to me. They were just the same: frightened at what they'd become, still human enough to want to stop the mass extinction of the living, but ultimately undead and therefore now another species. In the eyes of groups like yours, at least."
"Can you blame us? We've spent years fighting the zombs. It was them or us. That kind of mentality is hard to shake, even if you wanted to."
"Things are a bit more complicated now."
"Tell me about it." She looked at the Returners either side of her. "How did this happen? How are you able to retain so much of your life and personality? Why you?"
Gabe shrugged. "I guess you could call us the next generation. There seems to be no rhyme or reason why any of these people -" he gestured to the others - "should've resurrected differently, and yet here we are, the anomalies. I'm sure there're others still, all over the country, growing in number. It must be the virus, I'm convinced of that. It's almost like it's developed into an entirely different strain over the course of the past decade."
"All over the country," Liz mused quietly. "You think this thing is everywhere?"
"Don't doubt it. This isn't confined to London. I've heard rumours that it's global." He turned to her. "You lost family too?"
She shook her head. "No one close. My folks were living up in Newcastle, and I haven't heard from them since the outbreak. But I must be one of the few that hasn't got a spouse or kids to worry about - guess that was why I could take charge of this bunch; I wasn't quite as shell-shocked as the others. Used to just doing things, I suppose."
"They've survived, thanks to you."
"I got them this far. Nothing's guaranteed, though, is it? Not these days."
They came within sight of the body shop, the requisitioned school. The high brick walls concealed much of what was going on behind them, but there were at least eight Returners on sentry duty, guarding the short driveway into the car park. They spotted the truck and its entourage heading towards them, and several peeled off from the main group and strode out to meet it.
"Flesh?" the lead ghoul asked Gabe, peering past him at the vehicle.
"Yes. Resistance humans," he replied, modulating his speech to that of the typical collector stiff. "More in truck like this one." He pinched Liz's upper arm and held it up for the creature to see. She winced, holding her breath.
It looked her over and ran its bony fingers through her hair. It made a noise of approval. "How many?"
"Another six in back."
It nodded at a pair of its colleagues, who sauntered round to the rear of the truck. Then it turned its attention back to Gabe. "Don't recognise you. Where all come from?"
"Across the river. Heard foodstocks running low. That true?"
"Boss demanding more, but living scarce. Avoiding patrols. Can't make quota."
"We might be able to help food situation. Bring in more like this, work for boss?"
The zomb narrowed its eyes. "What makes you think you can find humans?"
"Got this flesh to talk," Gabe replied, motioning to Liz. "Knows where we can find more. Bring them in for processing?"
The two deadheads came back from inspecting the truck. "Good batch," one said.
The leader nodded. "OK. Bring them in," he called, and stepped back to allow the procession to pass by. "Show them where to take the meat," it added to its assistants.
They entered the car park, and brought the truck to a stop by a line of similar vehicles standing empty. It looked like there hadn't been a delivery for a while. The humans were ordered to leave the truck bed and hustled into a tight knot, Returners on each side. Over to the left was a large green expanse of playing fields, netted goal posts strung at either end, and a fenced-off cricket strip next to them. Further away was a cement yard, with a trio of outbuildings circling it. As ever, it was eerily quiet; given the setting, it was especially unnerving. Once upon a time there would've been thousands of young voices echoing across this area, but now it was as silent as a tomb.
"Processing in main hall," one of the body shop's guards told Gabe. "Follow us."
"Got their weapons," Alice said, emerging from the cab, a set of canvas bags in her hands.
"Bring them to armoury on way," it answered.
They marched down some steps and into the school's quadrangle, heading towards a pair of double doors. Once inside, they gestured for them to continue down a corridor lined with lockers. Despite the silence outside, now they were within the building's walls they could hear cries drifting in the distance. They grew louder with each step they took.
"The sound of flesh," one of the ghouls said, grinning.
Gabe didn't reply, merely cast an eye over his shoulder. There was no one else in the corridor; it seemed as good a place as any. He nonchalantly stuck his foot in front of Liz and gave her a gentle push, sending her sprawling. The group splintered as she fell, the two stiff escorts looking back in confusion. Gabe drew his machete. "She trying to escape," he warned.
As they moved forwards to grab hold of her, he beheaded one with a swift swing of his blade. Before the disembodied skull had even hit the parquet floor, he speared the other one through the mouth, the machete tip embedding itself in a locker door; it hung there, an expression of surprise etched on its features. He yanked his weapon free, allowing the zomb to fall to the ground.
Alice opened the bags and tossed the humans and the other Returners their weapons. John greedily snatched his shotgun, and thumbed in some shells that he had stowed in his pockets. Gabe leaned down and offered his hand to Liz, who looked up at him with a mixture of fury and mistrust; but she grasped his palm and allowed him to pull her up.
"Sorry about that," he said. "Needed a diversion." He handed her a knife.
She took it. "Let's just get this done."
"Kill every deadhead in here," Gabe called as the group hurried up the corridor, the groans from the hall luring them forward. "No mercy."
Mitch hefted the baseball bat in his hand, slippery with sweat. He prayed they were in time to save Donna. He passed a classroom and glanced in, noting the overturned desks, trampled books and bloody footprints. He could feel anger building up inside him, for everything the zombs had done to them. He felt like smashing skulls for every ounce of hurt they had been responsible for.
The doorway to the hall opened and a stiff wandered out, a scream bellowing in its wake, cut short as the door flapped shut behind it. It glanced up, uncomprehending, at the group of figures charging towards it. A second later there was an explosion of fire as John discharged his shot
gun, catching it in the belly, severing it in two; its lower half stood stationary while its upper torso flailed around in a mess of entrails, trying to squirm its way back to where it had come from. Gabe shouted a caution, but John ignored it. He quickly chambered another round and put the barrels to the back of its head, blasting a hole in it the size of his fist.
"You were saying?" John asked Gabe.
"Guess there goes our element of surprise," the Returner muttered in answer. He glanced at the group, nodded, then pulled open the door to the hall.
"Christ," Mitch whispered as he crossed the threshold, shock at what he saw bringing him to a standstill.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was an atrocity, a waking nightmare. The living were strapped to beds and gurneys haphazardly lining the length of the cavernous hall, more than two dozen of them in number; a violent splash of white linen and crimson rags. Drips and saline sacs stood attendant by each stretcher, tubes running into the arms of the prone humans, feeding them nutrients, keeping them alive while strips of their flesh were removed from their deathly pale, still-warm frames. They were being farmed for their meat, but the ghouls had no appetite for cold cuts - the skin and muscle had to be drawn from the bodies of the breathing, rich with oxygenated blood, and so food parcels were being carved from their thighs and buttocks while they were kept in a sustained state of awareness. They clearly felt every incision of the knife, every tear of tissue, as their pained cries filled the room, shrieks of agony rebounding off the high walls. Some had yet to be touched or were missing just small squares of body fat; others had been ripped raw, limbs amputated, sinew stolen in vast swathes to the point where they resembled scarlet plastic dummies, with little clue offered to the casual observer as to whether they were once men or women. Yet despite the damage wrought upon their person, incredibly even these unfortunates still clung on to life, their veins weakly pulsing.
The pounds of flesh torn from the living were being stored in an adjacent area, evidently what were once the school kitchens. Somehow they had to be transported from here to Flowers' mansion, and still retain their freshness. Mitch saw wheeled containers stacked with ice and guessed the set-up: joints were being kept frozen for the journey, ensuring that the meat didn't spoil or lose its tenderness. It was a huge butcher's operation, slaughter on a massive scale, but without any notion of limiting the suffering of those being farmed. Indeed, the Returners seemed to relish each wail of distress that emanated from the humans writhing beneath their knives, as if it added texture to the soft tissue. However, the zombs' satisfied expressions as they went about their bloody business abruptly changed once they looked round and realised they had company.
For a moment, as they took in the full extent of the hall's horror, there was only stunned silence, punctuated by the moans of the humans tied to the gurneys. Mitch, Liz and the rest had scarcely wanted to imagine what dread deeds were being perpetrated in the stiffs' body shops, and now, face to face with it, the shocking reality was breathtaking. Yet even in the presence of its barbarity, they still wanted to shy away from the full truth: they shuddered to think how long some of these poor wretches had been tortured here, slowly consumed in segments, or what had become of their minds in the process. It was too awful to contemplate.
It was the image of Donna, a victim of this abattoir, that kick-started Mitch into action. With a yell, he charged forward and clobbered the nearest zomb in the head with his baseball bat, powering it into the hard tiled floor. The shout of defiance acted as a catalyst, snapping the others into focus; they let rip as if fired from a cannon.
"Bastards!" John roared, and blew another away with both barrels.
The Returners seemed taken aback by this sudden invasion, but were quick to regain their senses, lurching forward in a stumbling half-run to engage the enemy, wielding whatever instruments came to hand: scalpels, meathooks, tenderisers. The humans initially took the advantage, spraying their opponents with the few semi-automatic weapons they had at their disposal, but their lack of skill with them quickly became apparent - too many shots went wide, or slotted the ghouls in their arms and midriffs - and they began to panic, unnerved at the speed with which the resurrected were moving towards them, shrugging off the rapid impacts of the bullets. Occasionally, the back of a zomb's head would explode as a missile found its target, but such hits were seldom, and the humans watched the gap between them and the flesh-eaters rapidly decrease.
Phillips' revolver clicked empty at just the wrong moment, and the instant he dug into his pocket for some spare rounds, a hook embedded in his skull. Pulled off his feet, he was dragged into the throng of advancing ghouls, who fell upon him hungrily. His stomach punctured, loops of intestine were tugged from his belly, and his shrieks were only cut short when his tongue was wrenched free.
One stiff flung a carving knife, and it glanced off Liz's cheek, knocking her backwards; she staggered, dizzy, a hand held to her face to stem the flow of blood that streamed down her jaw, and her legs collapsed under her. The zomb pressed home its attack, and leapt upon her, pushing up her head to fix its teeth on her throat. She got a hand to the side of its skull and tried to force it away, her fingers curling away from its bared incisors, but it was too strong and too determined. It shook itself free like a tangled animal and resumed its attempt to savage her neck. She screwed up her eyes, hoping it would be quick.
Then there was a rush of movement, and the deadhead was gone, pulled off her and thrown to the side. She looked up to see Gabe stalking towards it, kicking it onto its back and stamping hard on its face so that its features disappeared into a craggy hole. He turned back and helped Liz to her feet.
"Did it bite you?" he asked matter of factly, studying her wounds.
"No... no, I don't think so," she replied, gingerly running her hand over her throat. It was sticky with blood, but there were no teeth marks.
"That's quite a cut you've got there. You're going to grow faint, you keep losing blood like that."
"Don't see I've got much choice. I can't sit this one out."
"Here." Gabe took hold of her T-shirt and tore it along the bottom. She stiffened as he tied it around her head as a makeshift bandage. "What it lacks in grace, it'll at least keep your brains in."
"Thanks." She touched it; it felt tight and secure.
"Give support where you can," he told her. "We're taking over, and things are about to get a little crazy."
Gabe instructed the surviving gun-wielders to cease fire and take a step back, while he and his band of Returners moved in front of what remained of the body shop's ghouls.
"Out of the way, dead things," one of the zombs snarled at Gabe. "Why not consuming this flesh? Why siding with them?"
"Because they're us," Gabe replied. "And you were them once, only you've forgotten that you used to be human. How does it feel, eating your own kind to extinction?"
It frowned, confused. "Not our kind. Never our kind."
"No. You've gone too far to remember, haven't you?"
With that, Gabe lashed out and slammed his fist into the creature's face, its nose crumpling and its forehead buckling, as if the bone had grown supple beneath the skin. It keeled over backwards, and with a yell of fury Gabe jolted his elbow into the next one's throat, leaping upon it and ripping open the top of its scalp with his teeth. The others followed suit, tearing their way through the undead horde like wolves, biting and scratching, all sense of civilised restraint lost in the melee. Liz looked on, both appalled and fascinated, as Gabe and the other Returners became whirling dervishes of destruction, punching and gouging, seemingly ignoring the jaws snapping at their own flesh. If they felt any kind of pain then they showed no sign. It was a depraved, bestial display, Gabe annihilating all those within his grasp; his machete flashed and a pair of severed heads tumbled across the floor.
"Liz!" It was Mitch, beckoning her over. She ran towards him. "I've found Donna. I think... I think she might be OK. Help me get her free." She nodded, and turned to tell th
e others to start trying to loosen the restraints on those that were still capable of walking out of the building.
He led her to one of the beds, upon which the girl was tied. She was conscious, moaning softly, and had lost a couple of fingers on each hand, but the rest of her body was virtually untouched. She did, however, have a cotton pad taped over her left eye. Liz and Mitch exchanged glances; then the woman leant across and lifted the material, exposing the dark red abscess beneath.
"Mother of God," she murmured.
"Fuckers," Mitch rasped, spinning away in anger.
"She's still alive, though," Liz asserted. "Be thankful for that, at least."
They eased Donna upright, Mitch whispering platitudes in her ear and stroking her hair, though whether the girl heard or felt anything was another matter. She was shivering uncontrollably, and wouldn't open her remaining eye to look at either of them, continuing instead to merely murmur to herself. Liz tore her gaze from Donna's trembling figure and regarded the rest of the hall: attempts were being made to cut the living loose but with mixed results. Some were all too eager to leap from the gurneys, tearing out the drip feeds from their arms and sobbing with relief; others didn't move, even if they still had the limbs to do so. They stared up at the ceiling, their expressions blank and unreadable, sanity probably having long deserted them.
The last of the zombies were being despatched by Gabe and his small undead army; their speed and strength had eventually overwhelmed Flowers' Returners, who had looked distinctly creaky in comparison. Even so, Gabe's team had suffered a couple of casualties - one of them was struggling on the ground, its back broken, another was lying in pieces, scattered over a wide area; still animated, but unsalvageable. There was something brutal about the aftermath of the fight between the dead factions, Liz thought, surveying the scene. It reminded her of nature documentaries she'd seen back in her old life, of the uncompromising attacks that insects perpetrated on each other, and the twitching, quartered corpses that they'd leave in their wake. Gabe himself was wiping blood and other fluids off his clothes, but it was clear he'd taken some hits too: he had deep scratches across his face, and a chunk of flesh from the nape of his neck was missing. His bottom lip was drooping lower than it used to, and he held a hand across his torso, as if he was pushing something back in that had been rent open. He appeared to pay them no mind, though; he was dead meat, and surely incapable of feeling any sensation. As long as the brain remained intact, he could keep on going, even if bit by bit he was slowly falling apart.
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