Gabe shambled over towards her. "Is she OK?" he asked, nodding towards Donna.
"I don't know," Liz answered with a sigh, shaking her head. "She's lost an eye and several fingers, and I think she's in an advanced state of shock. She's going to need medical attention, though God knows how we're going to treat her. As for her mental state... it's impossible to guess what she's been through."
Mitch looked up, his expression grim, and pulled the girl closer, holding her head against his. "I'll take care of her."
"We all will," Liz said, "but it's going to take time."
"There's going to be no shortage of casualties," Gabe remarked, gesturing to the other humans pulling themselves free from the gurneys. "You're going to have to look out for each other. Some will probably need putting out of their misery." He shrugged when they glanced sharply at him. "Be the kindest act you can do; they've suffered enough. Just make sure you put them down so they don't get back up again."
"Does that go the same for your friends?" Liz asked, pointing at the two Returners still jerking spasmodically amongst the necrotic remains.
"I'll deal with them."
"So what now?" Mitch wanted to know. "How do we get nearer to Flowers?"
"We nothing, son. You and the rest of the humans' part in this is done. We're going to commandeer a shipment," Gabe replied, hooking a thumb over at the wheeled containers filled with ice and body parts. "Make it look like we're delivering a regular supply of sweetmeats. Once inside, it's payback time."
"You think you can go up against the might of your old boss? Just you and your undead pals?"
"You got a better idea?"
"I reckon you need all the help you can get."
"I thought your place was with Donna." When the kid didn't answer, Gabe continued: "I appreciate your offer, but this is going to be no place for the living. I'm not sure I'm going to come out of there in one piece, and I've got certain... advantages. I said at the beginning, you wouldn't see me again after we did this, and it still stands. Whatever happens, whether I take down Harry or not, I'm gone."
"I want my revenge too," Mitch said quietly.
"You already have, son. You've helped save these people, and now you have to look after them. Show the deadfucks that they've lost." Gabe reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I couldn't have got this far without you, you know that, don't you?"
Mitch nodded grudgingly and gave a tight smile, hugging Donna to his chest.
"I'll get some guys together," Liz said. "Help you load up."
"First, we need to do a complete sweep of this place," Gabe replied. "Wipe out any ghouls still left in the building. I don't want any word getting back to Flowers and having him waiting for us. Once the area's secure," he turned to Liz, raising his eyebrows, "then it's time to pay the old man a visit."
Gabe sat behind the wheel of the truck, guiding it out of the city, aware that he was possibly leaving it for the final time. Beside him, Alice was staring out the passenger window with unblinking eyes, while in the back, standing over five crates of fresh meat, were two others: Adam and Beth. It had been grisly work for the living to have handled these containers - the guards at the mansion would be checking the vehicle's contents, so there was no question that they had to carry them if they were to get inside the house's perimeter - but it had been equally hard for the Returners, controlling their hunger in the face of such temptations. After the battle, having sunk his teeth into rotten carcasses, the thought of devouring these succulent morsels was overwhelming; but the human Gabe that still resided in his resurrected body nixed that notion before it could take hold.
He often felt there were two sides within him fighting for control: the man that he used to be, and the wretched graveyard creature, lusting after the flesh of the living. He was ashamed, and a little scared, to admit that he had succumbed entirely to the latter when he had launched himself at the stiffs in the body shop, revelling in the slaughter, reverting back to his primal instincts. Certainly, he was aware he was no longer a human being when that element was to the fore. He was more akin to a force of nature, an amoral carnivore driven by the centre of his brain that the virus had reawakened. He had had no desire to eat the zombs' putrescent tissue - it was warm skin and bone that he craved - but taking apart the things with his teeth had been a gloriously atavistic act.
There had been a similar sense of satisfaction as they wiped out every one of Flowers' zombies that were still remaining in the school. Their look of uncomprehending shock as their factory-farmed food rose up and smashed their brains out, the ones standing guard at the main gate repeatedly rammed with purloined trucks until they resembled nothing more than greasy smears on the tarmac. For so long the body shops had been places to fear, casting a long shadow over the area; now one had been disabled, its evil vanquished, and that had given the living hope. Other humans could be saved, the tyrannical rule of the deadheads could be shattered. When Gabe had said goodbye to Liz, she had shook his hand and for the first time had looked him in the eye without a wrinkle of distaste souring her expression. She and Mitch and the others already appeared stronger, despite what they had been through, and although he didn't know where they would take the battle next - it was something they still had to decide for themselves - he guessed that they were more than ready.
Maybe the air of revolution had gone to his head, but he thought he could discern a vulnerability amongst the stiffs as they passed them through Greater London's streets: a sense that their time was passing. Change had always been Harry's ally, the belief that things couldn't stay the same. It had served him well, certainly since the outbreak all those years ago, and it had eventually brought him the city he'd dreamed of possessing. Now, however, events seemed to be undergoing another shift; Flowers' ghouls looked tired and clumsy and slow, and they were losing their grip on what remained of the human populace. Their generation was coming to an end, and something else was emerging to take their place. Was it him, Gabe wondered; he and others like him that were undead but progressing back to their former selves. Were they the next stage in the virus's evolution? And if he toppled Flowers as the dark ruler of this corrupt kingdom, was he fated to take his place?
Gabe saw the glinting metal strung across the road too late; they weren't travelling at speed - the refitted trucks could barely reach more than twenty miles per hour, so he could've avoided it if he'd spotted it early enough - but the spikes were hidden beneath a layer of debris strung across the width of the thoroughfare, with only the jagged tops visible. He knew as soon as he stamped on the brake pedal that he wasn't going to miss them, and sure enough there was a shudder and a low rumble as the tyres were punctured.
"Shit, what was that?" Alice asked as the tremor passed through the vehicle.
"Homemade stingers," Gabe replied, wrestling with the wheel. "Somebody's set a trap for us."
"Humans?"
"Must be. They're gonna be thinking that we're taking Flowers his next three-course meal."
"Hell." The truck started to skew to the side, and Gabe realised that it was pointless to try to progress any further; he pulled on the handbrake to bring it to a halt. "What are we going to do?"
"Do what we usually do," he said, pushing open the driver's door. "Talk our way out of it."
He walked round to the back, opened the doors and told the pair inside what had happened, and warned them to keep their wits about them. As he did so, he saw figures emerging from the derelict office buildings on either side. Can't believe it, he thought ruefully, never thought I'd be on the wrong end of a carjacking.
But there was something odd about the way these humans were moving, and as they came closer their shuffling gait was explained: they were deadheads, and ones in a particularly bad way. They looked like they were rotting right before his eyes, their bodies stick-thin, their skin almost translucent. They carried no weapons either, as if they didn't have the strength in their arms to lift anything. Instead, they merely stared at Gabe and the truck hungril
y, a faint groan issuing from the group.
They're pusbags, he thought, frowning at Alice, who came out to join him. They're not capable of setting anything like this up. Someone else has to be behind them.
"Can you talk?" Gabe asked them. "Can you understand me?"
In answer, they parted and allowed another figure to step through. He was a zomb too, but more sprightly; a short guy with a sprig of unruly dark hair atop his heavily lacerated face. He gazed at Gabe uncertainly, hefting a small revolver in his hand.
"You're not one of Flowers'," he said, a Scottish lilt to his voice still audible despite the slightly slurring quality of its timbre. It was a statement, rather than a question.
"No."
"But you're Returners? Fully cognitive resurrected?"
They both nodded.
"My God. I'd heard there were more, I knew your numbers were growing, but trying to track any of you down..." He seemed genuinely excited. "My theories were right. You're the living - well, undead - proof of that."
"Theories?" Gabe repeated. "Who are you?"
"Gannon," he said, holstering the gun and extending his hand in greeting. "Doctor Robert Gannon. Welcome to my world."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On a clear day, the view was magnificent. Standing at the upstairs picture window of his mansion, binoculars held to his atrophied eyes, Harry Flowers surveyed his kingdom spread before him with approval; it was everything he could've asked for, everything he'd strived for. From his vantage point, London curled into the distance, a grey mass choked of life. At this time of the morning, just after dawn, a mist rose off the iron waters of the Thames, seeping past the office blocks standing silent sentinel on its banks. The dance of those few wisps, chased from the surface of the river by a stiff wind, was the only movement that he could see; the metropolis was inert, a desiccated corpse the colour and vibrancy of cold embers. A few pockets of resistance still remained, he knew; a few parasites still clung to its rotting hide. But he was slowly, inexorably, consuming the city, gradually absorbing it into his domain; and the best thing was this was only the beginning. Once the capital fell utterly under his command, then he could extend his reach - send out his men to the peripheral settlements that he knew to exist in the satellite towns and stamp his mark even further. He saw it as spinning a web, casting the strands wider and wider until the entire country was his to control; and with him naturally at the centre, at the hub. He never wanted to be anywhere else.
He lowered the binoculars, studying the grounds nearer to home. He had ordered the woods that had backed on to the house to be cleared completely, so he could obtain just such an unobstructed view of the city that was now his. There wasn't a day that went past when he didn't like to gaze upon it and marvel. Elsewhere, the gardens had been allowed to grow wild, his interest in keeping them manicured and healthy having waned over the years. It was an odd sensation, one that he hadn't expected come his resurrection: his appreciation of beauty had diminished, to the point where he found the still, bare qualities of the barren landscape more appealing. He had allowed the weeds to choke the roses and the rhododendron, the nettles to encroach from the edges of the paths to virtually engulf them, and the potted plants to wither and die. There was nothing of colour out there now, just decay and those feeding upon it, and yet he felt unmoved by this loss. It seemed to suit his mood, and the empire he was building - a bleak, desolate land fit only for the dead, and the man (or what was once a man) that ruled it. Instead, in place of the flora that had once ringed his mansion, he had devised more fortifications: fences, sentry posts, anti-personnel weaponry, to keep him safe from those that would do him harm.
He turned away from the window, placing the binoculars on the sill. A familiar gnawing ache resounded in his empty belly, and he reached out and grasped the back of a nearby chair to steady himself, waiting for the moment to pass. It was taking longer these days, and he gritted his teeth, the pain blossoming. Despite his dead nerve-endings, the need to feed still brought with it its own singular sting. It was the one reminder of his undead status, the one link to the pusbags that staggered through the city streets, and he could not rid himself of it. All that he had accomplished post-death - an organised militia, enforcing his rule, a London paralysed by fear and ripe for the taking - and yet still his body was slave to the demands of his zombiehood.
At the start, it had been easy satiate his hunger. Warm flesh was readily available, and once the pangs took hold he had no trouble feeding. In the interim, as he and his troops established the body shops that enabled the living to be distributed in convenient, pre-packed states, he fought to lessen the control his stomach had over him; as far as he was concerned, he called the shots, not the virus squatting in his brain. Sheer strength of will enabled him to gain the upper hand, and he found he could manage and maintain his belly's insistent need for sustenance, not requiring living meat more than once a week or so. Such a diet was soon an act of necessity as much of choice as the regular deliveries from the processing stations were beginning to dry up, and humans became increasingly difficult to find. Others lesser than him took to stumbling about the mansion grounds, groaning, not much better than the rotting deadheads they themselves looked down upon. But not he. He had not been dictated to in life, and he certainly would not become a mere puppet at the whim of his own body post-death.
But in his heart, he knew it could not be denied, no matter how much he fought it. The hunger, the lust to feed, was his nature, and it was impossible to resist. It had to be at least a fortnight now since he'd properly feasted, and the throbbing pain that swelled from his gut was a wake-up call, an intestinal nudge to suggest it wasn't going to go away. However, unless the situation changed, he didn't know how he could face the eternity stretching ahead of him, a victim to cravings he couldn't satisfy. What good was it to rule over an empire, when there was nothing left to consume? And what would become of him if his belly's desires were not met?
Despite Flowers' instructions to his resident boffins many years ago (just how long was it, he wondered; time seemed to slip past him with little relevance) to find a way of tweaking the virus's demand for flesh, they had come up with few results. Given its stubborn refusal to be adapted by artificial means, he suspected the best he could hope for was that the bacteria would continue to evolve along a similar path that it had taken so far; but that process could take decades, if not centuries. He hated being at the mercy of elements he could not manipulate to his own ends. It left him helpless, and that was a state of being that had previously been an anathema to him.
The ache in his belly gradually subsided, and he straightened. Perhaps he should investigate the pantry and see what supplies remained, he pondered, loathing the junkie-like caving of his willpower. He left the room and crossed the landing, noting the disrepair the house had fallen into; the wallpaper was streaked with dirt, the carpet frayed and stained. How long had it looked like this, he wondered. How many months had the mansion slowly slid into decay without him being aware of it? It felt cadaverous itself, a crumbling, hollow shell. He realised with a sudden stab of amazement that he hadn't ventured beyond these walls for over three years, too wrapped up inside his own addiction to see it falling apart around him.
He padded to the first floor, then paused in his descent. He glanced across at the closed door to his right, hesitated, but finally rapped upon it and stepped across the threshold without waiting for an answer. As ever, the room was silent save the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, and the rising sun cast the chair in front of the window in silhouette, an aura of light haloing the figure seated upon it. He squinted as he strode towards the window, casting an eye to the woman staring at the landscape beyond the glass. He pulled a curtain across the view, lengthening the chamber's shadows. She blinked and stirred, conscious of the gloom that had settled upon her.
Flowers pulled up a chair and sat beside her. "Anna," he said. "Have you slept at all?"
"Like the light," she replied in a tiny
voice, fidgeting in her seat.
"It's too bright. You shouldn't sit so close to the window."
"S-scared of dark. Scared of what's t-there. Want to close eyes, but scared."
"You need rest."
"Don't tell me w-what I need," she muttered. "And s-since when have you cared?"
"I'm still your father."
She looked at him for a second, then laughed, an eerie sound as dry as kindling. "You? You're n-not even human."
He studied her, a mixture of sadness and frustration and self-hatred churning in his chest. That he had cut himself adrift from his daughter like this hurt him as deeply as a knife to the heart; or at least when he was still capable of feeling such a wound. His resurrection might've brought him a lack of physical sensation, but the mental anguish at what he'd done all those years ago was sharp as ever. He had selfishly hoped that he could slough off the trappings of his former life upon coming back as a Returner, his sins fading like the memory of breath in his lungs. But it was not to be, his torments were as fresh as they ever were in life and they were here in front of him, represented by the young woman that had once been his kin. But now... now she was the past that he would not allow himself to forget. Her condition, her indifference towards him, the future that she had been denied, was all his fault, and every time he came to visit, it was to reaffirm his guilt - a confessional not to absolve his failings as a parent but to refresh them anew.
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