Fear the Dead (Book 3)

by Jack Lewis

  “So with that in mind,” she said, “you’ll understand why you can’t stay here. Our resources are too precious, the balance too fragile. And we’ve already got a stranger problem that I’ve yet to sort out.”

  “What kind of stranger problem?” said Alice.

  Billy took a step forward. “Bunch of travellers turned up outside the settlement a month ago. Fuck knows how they got here, but we can’t get rid of them.”

  “When I was younger, I worked in a hotel kitchen,” said Victoria. “We had a rat problem. They came day after day scavenging food, and no matter how much poison we left down they always came back. Once we had a business delegation in the hotel on a conference. They’d ordered a grand dinner for all fifty of them. It looked like a royal feast. But the rats got into the food. They squirmed through the spaghetti, gnawed on the meat. They ruined everything.”

  “You should have joined a union,” said Lou.

  Victoria ignored the sarcasm. “Once people see an easy meal, there’s nothing that can turn them away. The strangers that turned up at our gates expected sanctuary. They expected us to feed them, no questions asked. They didn’t even stop to think that we had our own people to worry about.”

  I started to get an idea of who these strangers were. I hoped I was wrong. “Who are they?” I asked.

  Victoria shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, we’ll deal with them somehow. Only, I can’t do it by force. I just won’t do that. I know they’re people, but we still can’t support them.”

  Billy screwed his face up. “I could get rid of them in a day if you’d let me.”

  Victoria nodded. “I know you could, Billy. But we’d be cleaning blood of the streets for weeks if we let you have your way.”

  She leant forward on the table, crossed her arms. She held my gaze, her stern expression locked onto mine.

  “But I hope you’ll understand that you and your friends can’t stay, Kyle. I’m afraid you will have to leave. The boy should be better in a day or two, and once he is, I’m afraid it is back into the Wilds for you.”

  9

  Dawn cracked, and weak sunlight spilt through the sky. The rise of the sun marked another night survived, and it should have been a celebration. After hearing Victoria’s words, I didn’t feel like throwing a party.

  I’m afraid it’s back into the Wilds for you.

  Staying in Bleakholt was never on my agenda. I knew that the infected would catch up to us, whether it took them a week or a month. I looked round the room. Alice stood in front of the horrible horse painting, wincing when she put weight on her injured leg. Justin’s expression was blank. Melissa’s face was grey, her eyes tired. I thought of Ben, wherever he was in Bleakholt, recovering from exhaustion. Our group couldn’t go back into the Wilds. Not yet. It would be the death of us.

  Victoria drummed her fingers on the table again and waited for a response.

  “Look,” I said. “Let us stay awhile. We’re running on empty here, we need a bit of respite.”

  Victoria shook her head. “Sorry folks. I gave charity to strangers once, and now we can’t get shut of them. I’ve got my own people to worry about.”

  “You don’t know what’s out there,” said Melissa, and started to get to her feet.

  Justin put his hand on her shoulder, pulled her back into her seat. “You’re not going to persuade her,” he said.

  Victoria pushed her chair out a little. “I know too well what’s out there. There’s the infected. If that’s not enough, we’ve also got the stalkers to worry about.”

  Billy crossed his arms. “Loads of the fuckers around here,” he said.

  Lou looked at me and arched her eyebrows as if to say ‘do something’. Victoria didn’t seem like the kind of cold hearted person who could let someone die. She wasn’t like Moe. But then, she was leader of this settlement, and I knew too well what it took to be a leader. You had to make sacrifices. For me, it had meant giving up a little bit of my conscience and killing a man named Whittaker. I hated doing it, but it had been for the greater good. Victoria had made an error in letting strangers stay in Bleakholt. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake again no matter how bad it made her feel.

  There had to be a way to persuade her. What did we have to offer? We were seasoned survivors, and we knew how things worked in the Wilds. Maybe that would be useful to them. Then again, Bleakholt had people like Billy in it. He looked like he could rip a stalker apart with his hands. So we needed something else.

  A bookcase ran the length of one wall of the room. The wood was stained dark brown like the sides of a casket, and the shelves sagged underneath the weight of the books. The books were of varied subjects, and they were organised in categories like a mini-library. Fiction, photography, politics, science.

  Science. That was it.

  I leant forward. “You said you had a scientist here?”

  “Yeah,” said Victoria, and opened her tobacco pouch again. I noticed that the tip of her index finger was stained brown. “Charlie Sturgeon. He worked with the Scottish government researching renewable energy. But his forte is biology.”

  I nodded. “We have something that might interest him.”

  “What’s that then?”

  I looked at Billy. “Did you keep my pack when you put me in the fence area?”

  He nodded.

  “Then you better go get it. Because we’ve got the cure for the infection.”

  ***

  I told Victoria about the notes we’d taken from Whittaker. He was an insane biology student who had taken it upon himself to find a cure for the infection. He had injected Justin with a chemical solution that he thought was the cure, and I still didn’t know what it had done to my friend. After I murdered Whittaker we took his research notes, thick wads of paper covered in the scientist’s scrawls. Inside those pages, there was the cure. Whittaker had told me he was sure of it, and I had started to believe him. Mad as he was, he had researched the infection more thoroughly than anyone I had ever met.

  Billy fetched my pack and dug out the papers. He passed them to Victoria, and we stared in silence as she read. Lou rapped her knuckles on the desk. Alice sighed, shifted her weight back onto her good leg.

  “Want my seat?” I said.

  She shook her head. “Your leg’s worse than mine. At least mine will heal.”

  Victoria put the papers down, pushed them away from her.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can stay for a few days while Charlie has chance to look these over. You have leave to walk around town, but don’t be disturbing anybody. Most of us have jobs to do.”

  She looked up at Billy. “Make sure they all get ration cards.”

  Billy nodded.

  “Sounds like the Blitz,” I said.

  “It’s the only way to keep track of who gets what. The cards will get you two meals a day. It’s not Michelin star stuff. Our lovely Scottish gruel in the morning, some meat and veg in the evening.”

  “Thanks,” I said. It wasn’t the most gracious offer in the world, but it was the best we were going to get. We had to stay on Victoria’s good side until the rest of the group recovered. Once they felt better, I’d be able to persuade them to hit the road again and get as far north as possible.

  Victoria patted Whittaker’s notes with her palm. “These are ours now, obviously. Charlie’s going to see if there’s any merit to them.” She looked up at Justin. “And you, lad, I want you to go checked out by him.”

  Justin flinched. “Why?”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your eyes. You have the same look as the infected. I don’t think you’re a danger to us, but other people round here don’t think as clearly as me. I want you checked out.”

  Justin turned to me. “Kyle?”

  I nodded. “Just humour them.”

  Melissa stood up and looked Victoria in the eyes. She showed no trace of fear. “I’m going with him.”

  Victoria smiled. “I was crazy about a bloke once too. You go, love. Kno
ck yourself out.”

  Alice walked forward, leaned over the desk. With her strong arms and big frame she looked intimidating, and in a fight she would turn Victoria into a punch bag. Victoria didn’t seem worried.

  “I want to see my son,” said Alice.

  “Billy will take you when he gets back.”

  Alice raised her hand in the air and brought it down on the desk. The loud thud made Melissa jerk back.

  Victoria gave a smile. “That’s a mistake for me to learn from. Never keep a mother from her son. Step outside and talk to Steve minding the door. He’ll take you to Ben.”

  “Thanks,” said Alice, though her face was cold.

  Victoria stood up and patted down her trousers as though they were covered in dust. “Oh and Alice? After you’ve seen how well we’ve treated him, I want you to come back and see me. I’ve got a job for you.”

  Alice looked confused. “What kind of job?”

  “You’ve got something about you. There’s a group of fence workers who could use a stern hand to get them to shift their arses.”

  “We done?” I asked.

  “We are,” said Victoria.

  I got out of the chair, turned to leave.

  “Kyle?”

  I span round.

  Victoria’s face was set in a grimace. “Don’t fuck about. I never make the same mistake twice.”

  ***

  My body ached and my limbs felt like weights were dragging them down. Billy showed me to my sleeping quarters, which turned out to be the second bedroom of a townhouse. The first thing I did was slump to the bed and sink so hard into the mattress it felt like I was melting into it.

  By the third day I got sick of sleeping. I had averaged twelve hours a day, and most of the time I couldn’t get out of bed save to eat or go to the bathroom. Every so often nightmares broke my sleep. I saw half a million hollow-eyed corpses walking toward me, their feet pounding on the ground and booming out like a bomb. Their groans drifted across the plains like a sick orchestra, and the smell clawed its way up my nostrils and tugged on my gag reflex.

  I woke up in the middle of the afternoon and unzipped my sleeping bag. Pale light crept in through a gap in the curtains. My body felt fine but I had a heavy tiredness in my head. I dressed and went outside. I had been shut away too long, and I needed to see what the rest of the group were doing.

  The air was tinged with frost and the cold seeped into my bones. I zipped up my coat to my chin and felt the wind blast my face. The streets of Bleakholt were almost empty. A man walked past me with a bin liner in one hand and a mechanical fork in the other, stopping from time to time to pick up litter. The streets were free of rubbish, but dirt lined the cracks between the cobblestones. The windows of the buildings were covered by a film of grime, and their stonework was blasted with dust. The smell of compost weighed heavy in the air and reminded me of the rot in my nightmares.

  Every so often I passed people on the street. Some nodded, but most ignored me and went on their way. Nobody idled in the street; everyone had a place to be. Victoria kept things tight and gave everyone a purpose. The men and women of Bleakholt were as cold as the air that blew through the streets, but it was because they were practical.

  I reached the house where I knew Lou was staying. It was a two-storey cottage that looked like it had been built when Queen Victoria sat on the throne. The windows were shut save one on the ground floor, and the curtains were drawn.

  I hadn’t seen Lou since the meeting with Victoria. I knew it was because I had slept most of the time, but it was strange that she hadn’t come to see me. Something had happened in Victoria’s office. There had a curious exchange of glances between her and Billy that I had seen despite their attempts to hide it.

  I stopped outside the front door. Lifted up my hand and prepared to knock. Then I stopped. I heard hushed voices sneak out through the open window.

  “You’ve gotta keep it together for fuck’s sake,” said Lou.

  “I wished to hell you’d never come here,” said a man’s voice. It was Billy.

  “Well you’re going to have to get over it.”

  “Do they know?”

  “Who?”

  “The people you’re travelling with.”

  I heard a bang, as though something heavy dropped on the floor. Then Lou spoke. “Look, we did what we had to do. It was either them or us, you know that. Would you rather be dead?”

  There was silence. Then Billy’s voice. “Yeah. Sometimes, I’d rather be dead.”

  I stepped away from the door, careful to avoid making any noise. I’d always known there was something Lou wasn’t telling us. We all had secrets in our past, but Lou had something heavy in hers.

  ***

  I went to see the gardens before the daylight drained away. Victoria hadn’t lied when she bragged about the size of them. There were acres of ploughed soil with vegetables springing out. Onions, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage. There was enough to supply a supermarket. It seemed like they had enough food to last them the winter, and come summer they would rotate the crops and get other things growing.

  Workers filled the fields. Some picked vegetables from the ground and put them in baskets. Others turned the soil, dug drainage holes or spread compost. The whole place was a sea of colour; brown soil, lush green leaves, orange carrot stalks. The only dull colours were on the faces of the Bleakholt workers, who wore stern expressions on top of grey skin.

  I stood and watched the people work, and I couldn't help feeling impressed. It was everything I had envisaged back in Vasey and more. When I had started the crop growing programme in Vasey, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I learned on the job and made mistakes. Here, they had expertise. I guessed there had to be more than a few farmers putting their skills into making this work. Maybe this really was salvation after all.

  I walked away from the gardens and back to the town centre, letting the compost smell fade behind me. Drops of rain pattered from the sky and landed on my face and my coat. Darkness seeped into the sky and made it look like coffee. When I got to the centre I saw the statue and the dried–up fountain. I heard voices shout.

  There was a crowd of people, some stood on one side, and others stood across from them. On one side the people looked clean and well fed. On the other, the people were gaunt and they wore dirty clothes. Their faces twisted in anger. I got closer and heard some of the gaunt people shout.

  “Selfish bastards”

  “Fucking hogs.”

  “You’re letting us die.”

  They looked painfully thin. Their bony arms seemed like twigs wrapped in blankets. They stared at the Bleakholt people with dead eyes, and their sick-looking skin reminded me of the infected.

  Despite how weak they appeared, they looked like they were ready to riot. Some held rudimentary weapons in their hands; chunks of wood, bars of metal. I stopped in my tracks. My heart hammered. As I scanned their faces, I recognised some of them.

  Realisation shot through me. These starved-looking people were from Vasey. They were the ones who had abandoned the rest of Vasey to their fates with the stalkers. Seeing them was bad enough, but a worse thought hit me and took the breath out of my chest. These were the strangers Victoria had talked about. They were the ones who left Vasey, and if they were here, then that must mean that Moe was too.

  10

  The echoes of my boots bounced off the steps leading up to Victoria's office. A guard waited at the top, a baseball bat in his hand. He eyed me with suspicion and tightened his grip around the bat. He straightened his back as if standing to attention.

  “Need to see Victoria,” I said.

  He gave a tap on the wooden door.

  “I told you not to bother me,” she replied.

  “Got one of the strangers here to see you. The one with the beard and the gimpy leg.”

  A pause, then “Let him in.”

  He opened the door. I walked through, heard it shut behind me. I expected to see Vi
ctoria engrossed in some serious occupation. Making plans, deciding strategies, I didn’t know what. Instead, she stood at the window with a canvas in front of her and an easel in her hand. A white apron covered her clothes. She didn’t look at me. Instead she tickled her paintbrush into a blob of paint and drew a faint line on the canvas.

  She looked out of the window from time to time, then back at her painting, as though she were illustrating the landscape in front of her. Only, instead of the grey streets of Bleakholt, the dull winter sky, the dirt-cracked cobblestones, she painted a scene of colour. Sunlight pouring from the sky and bathing the streets. Happy faces, children running, a dog jumping with a grin on its face. The buildings and the streets were of Bleakholt, but it was from a different era. As though she were painting how Bleakholt had looked like in better times.