After the Fall (Book 2): The Demon Writers

by Cross, Stephen

  “Let’s just get inside.”

  They stood up and moved slowly; Angie with her bad legs and walking sticks, and Ellie with her little limpet feeding on her, oblivious to the women’s fear.

  The pub’s back door was only ten yards away when the silence was shattered by a hooting sound rising in the air. Angie’s immediate thought was that a dog was somewhere in the garden. Mac had warned them that packs of dogs would be as dangerous, if not more so, than the zombies.

  But then the sound morphed through a higher tone, one that she had never heard from any animal. It struck out in a staccato series of yelps that reminded Angie of the old western film depictions of red indians she used to watch as a young girl.

  “Quickly,” said Angie, her insides cold, frozen at the sound.

  Ellie let out a small cry and started to jog, holding on tight to little Eddy. She reached the back door and pulled it open, where she stood, motioning for Angie to hurry.

  The invading cry started up again, incessant and piercing like the shrill panic of a fire alarm.

  Angie reached the door.

  Another cry joined the first. Two chattering animalistic howls filled the air.

  “Close it,” said Angie hobbling over the threshold of the pub.

  Ellie shut the door. Angie put down the cross bar barrier that Mac had fitted only a few weeks ago, and turned the lock in the door.

  “To the cellar,” said Angie. It had the strongest door, and Mac had decided that was to be their redoubt in any time of trouble.

  They passed through the lounge, behind the bar, to the door of the cellar. Still the infernal calls from outside could be heard. It seemed they were closer. Maybe right outside.

  Ellie was crying as they stepped down the dark steps to the cellar carefully, still holding her baby.

  Angie shut the cellar door, its heavy frame closing with a dull thud.

  The howls were silenced behind the solid wood.

  The two women cuddled together in the bottom of the cellar, sitting on bean bags they moved down for just such an occasion.

  Once again, thought Angie, Fate had taken her peace.

  She started to cry, and hugged Ellie.

  “It’ll be ok,” said Ellie.

  Angie reached out her hand to the little baby, and its tiny hands gripped her finger.

  She closed her eyes and thought of her and Mac’s own child, lost at only nine months, all those years ago in a car accident from nowhere.

  And now this.

  When would it all just stop?

  Chapter 4

  Mac banged on the pub door for the second time, which he never had to do, and louder than he usually had too. He wasn’t prone to flights of fancy, but he was worried. There was too much to worry about in this new world. The slightest thing could become a life changing event in minutes. What if Angie had fallen? Or the baby had a temperature?

  Ellie opened the door, her face ashen. She only glanced at Mac, before looking quickly behind and around him. “Come on, get in,” she ushered Mac through the door.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as Ellie locked up with a frantic urgency that caused her to fumble with the lock. Mac helped her.

  “What is it?” The graffiti in the pharmacy filled his mind. “Has someone been here?”

  “No, maybe. Come on, we’re in the cellar, Angie is sick with worry.” Ellie hurried to the cellar, motioning for Mac to follow. He noticed she had a large kitchen knife hanging from her belt.

  “What are you doing with that?” he asked.

  She ignored him and shouted down to Angie. “It’s Mac, we’re coming down.”

  Mac found his wife in the darkness of the cellar, on a beanbag rocking Eddy in her arms. The little boy was asleep and Mac couldn’t help but look at him. Sometimes, just watching the baby would remove the outside world and fears. But not now; now he just became more anxious.

  “What happened?” he said.

  “Oh, thank God you’re back.” Angie struggled to get up and Mac rushed to help her, passing Eddy to his mother.

  Angie hugged her husband. “I was worried they might get you.”

  “They? What the hell is happening around here?”

  Angie and Ellie told Mac what had happened in the garden, now over an hour ago. The retelling took on a sinister edge in the dark of the cellar.

  Mac rubbed his brow, a headache forming. He had originally decided not to tell the women about the graffiti and the feeling of being watched on the farm. But it didn’t seem right to keep the knowledge now. They weren’t children. He told them what had happened.

  “All in capitals. Still wet,” he said. “He, she, they, it, whatever must have been there only minutes before I was. And now this…”

  He looked around the cellar. He had blocked up the beer drop into the cellar right after sealing all the windows. He would check it again though. Check all of it. The doors, the windows. He would have to decide a second redoubt with an escape route. He wondered if he could keep the beer drop sealed, but have a way to open it quickly in case they needed to get out fast. How long did he have to do all this?

  Someone was talking. Angie.

  “Mac, are you listening?”

  “Say again?”

  “What do we do? It’s not safe here, I, we, don’t fell safe,” Angie’s voice was shaking and weak. It cut a chill to his heart, for he had heard her talk in that voice only once before, many years ago, in the months after they lost their child.

  “We can’t go anywhere,” he said. He glanced at Ellie. “We can’t travel, not with little Eddy here. It would be too dangerous.”

  “Is there anywhere else we could go to stay?” said Ellie. “What about some of the farmhouses near here?”

  “I don’t know what difference that would make,” said Mac. “There’s someone round here, more than one person, and they’re watching us. They must know we’re here. They could follow us.”

  “It depends what they want though,” said Angie. “If they just want the pub to stay in, then if we leave, that could put an end to it.”

  Mac shook his head. “We just said there are other empty places around here. I don’t know what they want. I don’t think we should waste time trying to work it out either. These days, who knows what’s going through folk’s minds. From what I’ve seen, and what you girls tell me, they sound fucking crazy. Excuse my language,” he deferred to Ellie.

  “So what do you suggest? We stay here? With them watching us?” said Ellie. “I don’t think I can stay, sleep here, knowing they are out there. Who knows what they’ll do.”

  Mac closed his eyes and sighed, buying himself a few moments of quiet thought. “Let’s get out of this cellar for one. I’ll make a cup of tea, and we can talk this through.”

  They sat in Mac and Angie’s bedroom. The wooden boards on the window, combined with the blackout curtains, let in none of the early evening light, but more importantly to Mac, let out none of their low candle light.

  The storm had come and heavy rain patted against the window.

  Angie had got into bed, exhausted due to the day’s scare. She cuddled Eddy tightly. “No matter what, this little boy can’t help but calm me.”

  Mac took a sip on his tea.

  “The problem is, they know about us, and we know nothing about them,” said Mac.

  “So how do we find out?” said Ellie.

  “We sit tight, make sure this place is locked down, and wait for them to make their move.”

  “Is that safe?” said Ellie. “There may be lots of them.”

  Mac shrugged. “Could be, but then you only heard two people. If there was lot’s of them, what’s to stop them from coming at us straight away.”

  “I think it’s dangerous to guess.”

  “What else can we do?”

  “How many of them, what do they want, who are they - get any of those things wrong and…” Ellie cut herself off. One thing they hadn’t discussed was what they were all scared of actually happe
ning. It had just been agreed that their invisible stalkers were bad. No one wanted to voice what the outcome could be.

  “We can’t be sure about anything. Neither can they. I guess that’s why nothing has happened yet apart from some scare tactics.”

  “Scare tactics?” snorted Ellie. “More like actions of a psychopath.”

  “Or two,” said Angie.

  Mac finished his tea. “Look, I’m going to check around the pub. Make sure everything is locked down.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Ellie. “That ok Angie?”

  Angie nodded.

  “Ok,” said Mac. “Let’s go.”

  Mac spied out through a small gap in one of the wooden boards on a window in the pub’s lounge.

  “What do you see?” whispered Ellie from behind him.

  “Nothing much, it’s getting dark. Just the trees, the entrance onto the main road.”

  They had spent the last hour pulling on every board, re-locking every lock and plugging any gaps that let light out.

  “So what do you really think?” said Ellie, sitting on the long leather couch by the window, cracked and stained with years of beer spills and cigarette burns.

  “What do you mean?” said Mac.

  “Now that Angie isn’t here, what do you really think?”

  Mac let out a small laugh. The three of them had become close over the past three months since the Fall. A family. It seemed that extended to Ellie being able to read him like a book.

  “I’ll tell you, but-”

  “I know, don’t tell Angie.”

  “Right.” He eased himself into the seat next to Ellie. “This whole Fall thing, the zombies, all the death. It’s not something that we can cope with, not us modern folk. It’s too near to horror stories and camp fire tales for people to accept it. You saw on the news, how crazy everyone was going. We’re all too soft these days.”

  “I don’t think you’re giving enough credit. Look at us. We’ve coped.”

  “Yes, we have. That’s true. But we’ve had each other, and we’ve had a purpose, little Eddy. Others, maybe they haven’t been so lucky. When you take away people’s homes, their heat, their safety, their families, and replace it with death and mayhem… Blimey, some of the folk I had in here even before all this - fully grown men that could hardly cope with an electricity reminder bill. Jesus…” he paused for a moment. “What do I really think? I think some folk have gone completely mad. Crazy as a bag of monkeys. That’s what I think.”

  “You think that’s what we have out there?”

  “I hope so.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ellie.

  “Because if they aren’t crazy, then they know exactly what they’re doing. And that would make them a whole different kind of crazy, and even more dangerous.”

  They sat in silence. The gentle settling sounds of the building creaking under the storm creaked around them.

  “So what’s with the knife?” asked Mac, motioning to the kitchen knife Ellie was carrying.

  “You need to ask?”

  “Guess not. But you need something better. That’s sharp, but not too strong a blade. Nothing to carry it in either. Come with me.”

  They went to the cellar. Mac dug around in an old sideboard covered in paint and various tools. He pulled out a large bowie knife, with sheath.

  “This is much better,” he said. “Blade ain’t going to break when you stick in a zombie’s skull.”

  She took the knife carefully. Smooth, sharp, and solid. She attached the sheath to her belt. “Thanks.”

  Chapter 5

  Mac didn’t sleep, and neither did Angie. Mac could hear her turn, sigh, and tut as the clock ticked through the hours of the early morning.

  The pub had been a little island of respite from the craziness outside, the collapsing world of madness and death. But now, with the arrival of the Demon Writers, as Mac had taken to calling them, that was no longer the case.

  The crazy had arrived at their little enclave.

  How long had he really expected their peace to last though? He needed to be grateful that Ellie had been able to give birth in a warm bed in a safe place, and that little Eddy’s first few weeks had been spent in relative comfort.

  He worried about Angie though. It had been a long walk back for her after they had lost their son. Many times he had thought she wasn’t going to make it. She acted strong, but he knew she harboured an inner vulnerability that had never healed. A hole had been pierced in the fabric of her being that would always remain ripped, and life became a continuous battle to keep it repaired. Predictability and safety had been a large part of this ongoing repair process.

  If the pub was taken, it scared him to think what would become of her.

  As if to answer his fears, the sound of shattering glass from downstairs broke the silence of the night.

  “Mac!” shouted Angie, sitting up in the darkness.

  Mac jumped out of bed. He pulled on his trousers and grabbed his axe from beside the bed.

  Another window shattered.

  The howling started. It was the first time Mac had heard it, and in the darkness, in the middle of the night, it terrified him. Something primeval in his stomach was reminding him what it used to be like to be human, to be prey.

  “Mac, it’s them!” said Angie.

  “Stay here, I’ll go and get Ellie and Eddy.”

  They were already in the hallway.

  “Stay with Angie,” he said to Ellie.

  “I’ll come with you,” she said.

  “No, you need to stay with Angie and Eddy.”

  “No,” said Ellie, “Angie can look after him, that will keep her busy. You might need help.”

  “Ok,” conceded Mac, “come on then, be quick.”

  Another shatter of glass, the howling fading in and out as the Demon Writers ran around the building.

  Ellie left her baby with Angie, went back to her room to get her knife, then joined Mac as he stepped slowly down the stairs.

  It sounded as if every window was being broken.

  Mac and Ellie stood in the centre of the main lounge, the shadows of the furniture indifferent to the chaos around. Moonlight peeked in through gaps in the boards.

  Mac motioned Ellie towards a window, “Peer through there, see what you can see.”

  He went to a different window on the adjacent wall of the pub and looked through a tiny gap.

  An electric blue moonlight bathed the everything in a dark cobalt.

  The howling stopped.

  Mac’s heart beat in a combination of fear and anger. His primeval spark was introducing new options from being scared; there are no rules anymore. No police to arrest you for defending your property, no politically correct crowd to castigate you for looking after your own.

  A figure danced across his field of vision, dark and fast. Followed quickly by another.

  “Coming your way Ellie,” he said in quiet breath.

  “I see them, heading for the front door,” she leapt off her seat and ran to the door.

  Mac had replaced the beam across the door with a thicker one earlier that afternoon. He was glad he had, for before he could reach the door, heavy thuds rattled the frame. The bangs pushed the door against the guarding beam.

  “They’re trying to get in!” shouted Ellie.

  Mac pushed his body up against the door, absorbing each painful blow.

  The howls from outside turned into screaming and unintelligible shouting; words that made no sense, the incoherent babbling of a madman.

  Blow after blow reigned against the door. The lock splintered and a gap appeared, the only thing holding the door being the beam.

  “Mac!” shouted Ellie, joining him in pushing the door shut.

  With each blow, a gap opened in the door, threatening to burst open wide.

  A face appeared at the gap, red and white, painted with what looked like blood. Hair the colour of scarlet. It stuck out its tongue and yelled, its face contorting as
if in pain.

  Mac swung his axe and the face disappeared. The axe hit the door and embedded itself in the wood.

  “Come on! Come on then, you bastards, come out where I can see you!” shouted Mac, his anger now promoted to rage, flowing freely. He let out a yell and pulled the beam up. He pulled his axe out from the door.

  “No!” said Ellie.

  Mac flung the doors open, “Come on you fuckers! Think you can come here and take my pub, I’ll kill you!”

  Ellie grabbed Mac and held him by the door.

  Silence. The Demon Writers had gone. Only the trees, swaying gently.

  Mac stood gripping his axe, his heart beating fast. There was spittle on his chin. His head hurt.

  “Come on Mac, they’ve gone,” said Ellie, gently easing him back into the pub.

  They had disappeared, like shadows. Like ghosts.

  Mac let Ellie guide him back inside. She closed the door and put the beam back down.

  “I’ll stay here,” he said. “In case they come back. This door ain’t safe anymore. You go up and stay with Eddy and Angie.”

  “Come and get me if anything happens,” said Ellie.

  “Sure.”

  “You ok Mac?”

  “Yes.” His heart was slowing, his mind returning from the cloud of rage. It all seemed like a dream to him now. “I don’t know what happened, I just felt so angry.”

  “I could see that, and I guess they did too. Well done, I think you scared them off.”

  Mac allowed himself a small laugh, “We’ll see about that. Now you go and get some rest. Tell Angie everything’s ok.”

  Ellie left him alone on the bar. He sat down in the seat by the door, and even thought he tried to stay awake, he eventually fell asleep.

  Chapter 6

  Angie hobbled from the kitchen, carrying Mac’s tea carefully. She rested it on the table next to the leather seat he was sleeping on. It was just past eight in the morning. He was usually up by six. She was glad he was getting some rest.

  She accidentally knocked a chair leg with her crutch as she walked away. It rattled loudly against the floor.

  “Eh,” Mac jumped up, his eyes wide open. He looked around, “Where are they?”