‘Thank you,’ she replied.
‘You might not be grateful for long,’ Banks said. ‘Haynes, give Jethro here his hatchet back.’ He gestured towards the wiry man, and the other soldier walked over to him and offered him the double-edged tool.
The wiry man snatched it from him. ‘The name’s Jake, asshole,’ he said.
‘Now get going. You should reach the sawmill in an hour.’ Banks watched the rag tag group head off and disappear into the maze of black ash.
‘What the hell was that, Sergeant?’ Skully said.
‘A bargaining chip,’ Banks said, continuing to stare into the shadows of the woods. ‘Maybe it will turn down the temperature in Hell a little for when we get there.’
12
‘It’s been longer than an hour,’ Kristin said. There was no sign of the trees around them thinning out. The gentle chirp of crickets and grasshoppers reached their ears and the smell of rotten vegetation made them feel queasy.
‘Here. Let me take her.’ Vincent held out his arms to take Emily’s limp body from Adam. He was grateful the boy had offered to take shifts carrying her, but he wanted her close again.
Kristin couldn’t let the feeling of unease go. Every patch of woodland looked identical to the last; it was like they were walking on a treadmill of revolving scenery. ‘We’re going in circles.’
‘You’re wrong, lady. I’ve been marking the trees,’ Jake, the wiry man, said. ‘We’re going exactly where we’re meant to.’
Jake’s tall silhouette reminded Raine of a wooden marionette. His nose protruded from his face, complemented in its strangeness by his elongated neck. ‘I’d feel rude if I forgot to thank you for blowing our cover at the camp,’ she said.
‘You’d have never made it out anyhow,’ Jake said.
‘What the hell were you doing back there?’
‘Article Twelve.’
‘What?’
‘Everyone lawfully within the territory of a state shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence. I was just exercising my God-given right.’
‘God didn’t write the constitution. Besides, none of that matters now.’
Jake chewed on his bottom lip and frowned at Raine, before spitting another wad of mucus into the swampy ground. ‘Firstly, the founding fathers made those laws, and they were ordained by the man upstairs. Secondly, there’s nothing that matters more right now than Article Twelve.’
‘Oh, you’re one of those,’ Ethan said, struggling to keep up the healthy pace Jake had set.
‘If you mean I’m a patriot – guilty as charged. And before you start, I don’t need some wet-nosed Brit lecturing me on definitions. I know full well I’m surrounded by liberals here. If it wasn’t for you assholes, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.’
‘How you figure that?’ Raine said.
‘Always thinkin’ science has the answers. Taking the attitude that if it can be done, it should. This is one experiment that worked out real well for us, didn’t it?’
‘Got even a single shred of evidence this was man-made, chief?’ Ethan said.
‘Why you think it started in Egypt? They were testing some weaponised virus out there and it got out of control like it always does. Only this time the Band Aid they tried to stick on it just wasn’t big enough – not nearly big enough.’
Raine and Ethan glanced at each other in disbelief. ‘You sure you haven’t been bitten there, chief? Perhaps you’re running a fever?’
‘I’m sure, and the name ain’t chief either. It’s Jake Masterson. Most folks call me Salty.’
‘Of course they do,’ Ethan said. Even in the moonlight, the colour of Salty’s angry orange hair sprouting from beneath his cap couldn’t be tamed.
‘This is all very fascinating, but it doesn’t help us find a way out of here,’ Kristin said.
‘We’re almost there. Trust me, I know my way around a forest,’ Salty said. ‘I was a conservationist before all this.’
‘Isn’t that just a fancy term for gardener?’ Raine said.
Salty gulped hard and turned to face up to her. ‘Y’know, I’ve had just about enough of the jive you’re talkin’’
‘The jive I’m talkin’?’ She knew what he meant – why he chose that specific word. The round neck of her sweater left most of her shoulders exposed, and as she flexed, her trapezius muscles popped beneath her skin.
‘Both of you shut up a minute,’ Kristin said. ‘Listen.’
It didn’t sound like much of anything at first – just the movement of a small animal or a rotten tree branch falling. Then it got louder; it sounded like it was being made by something heavy. Moans started to accompany the noises. The group zeroed in on its location; it was coming from the direction in which they were heading. They all took a few steps back. Vincent shifted to the back, pressing Emily’s face into his chest.
‘Is it the monsters, Daddy?’
‘Yes, I think so. Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.’
The creature broke through into the clearing from behind a shrub. Its chest was concave, the bare bones protruding. A huge hole gaped beneath where its guts used to be. The putrid stench that oozed from the corpse almost made them choke. Its lips had receded over its gums long ago, exposing two brown rows of splintered teeth. Its eyes were sunken into their sockets, the black of its pupils replaced by a sickly grey fog. It lurched forward, clearly ravenously hungry, reaching out for them with its shredded arms of hanging flesh and tissue.
Episode Two
Teething Problems
1
‘Back up!’ Salty pushed his hand out behind him at the rest of the group and raised his hatchet. The creature kept coming. It had once been a man, but it was something else now. It possessed a hunger that it never had in life, and it wanted them for the empty space where its stomach used to be. It gnashed its brown teeth as it closed in.
Salty braced himself for the impact of metal on skull-bone, but before he could swing, a second creature shambled from the darkness and gripped Raine by her shoulders. She spun around to avoid its bite, crying out as her back slammed into a nearby tree trunk.
Distracted by the new attack, Salty turned his head. By the time he’d refocused on his target, it was too close for him to strike. He put his hands on the dead flesh and forced it away. When he tried to retreat he felt the denim tighten on the arm of his jacket. It had managed to get hold of him.
The others gasped, trying to process the danger they were in. A third corpse took them by surprise – this time from behind. The tibia of its right leg was broken and splintered fragments jutted from the exit wound. It struggled to maintain its balance, but that didn’t stop it from heading straight for Emily as she clung to her father.
Vincent saw what its intention was and had no choice but to let go of Emily. She landed awkwardly at his feet and began to wail. The creature grabbed a handful of his shirt in its spindly fingers, almost taking some of his skin with it. Vincent pushed back, and there was a crisp snapping sound as its already fractured bone broke into two parts. All of its weight shifted forward and they both toppled over in the wet earth.
Kristin drew the Beretta and pointed it at the creature as it recovered from the fall and began to crawl towards her stranded daughter. Emily sat up and fixed her terrified gaze on the monster. It gargled its own coagulated blood as it edged closer. Less than five yards away, Kristin took aim at its head and tried to squeeze the trigger. It wouldn’t budge. She rotated her wrist and saw the safety lever still locked in place.
The reanimated body reached for Emily’s foot and the little girl shut her eyes in the hope that it would transport her somewhere else – somewhere safe. Adam raced over and scooped her up just before the creature could get to her leg.
Kristin released the safety, lined it up in her sights and fired. She hadn’t prepared for the recoil and the shot missed its intended target, kicking up the ground inches from Vincent’s back. He rol
led over and covered his head. Attracted by the noise of the blast, the crawler twisted and dragged itself in the direction of Kristin.
Raine continued to fight her attacker. She used all the leverage she could, but with her back right against the tree, she couldn’t force the creature off her or lift her legs to kick out. It opened its rotten jaws and snapped at her neck like a turtle.
Ethan had backed right up from the mayhem and tangled bodies, watching it unfold at a safe distance. There were so many people in danger; he couldn’t decide which one he should help first. What he really wanted to do was run and never look back. He looked frantically about him for inspiration and spied a broken branch. Picking it up, he ran up behind the creature that had Raine pinned, and smashed the branch over its head.
To his dismay, it disintegrated on impact without causing so much as a blemish to the creature’s flaking skull – the wood was rotten to its core. Maybe the thing realised that Ethan was easy prey – maybe it smelled his fear. It let Raine go and ambled after him instead. Raine slid down to the base of the tree, fighting to catch her breath.
Kristin trained the Beretta on the crawler again. It was now almost upon her so she couldn’t miss, and this time she was ready for the kick. As the bullet struck, its face caved in. Its body fell limply to the ground. She immediately ran to her husband and helped him up.
Ethan attempted to flee from his pursuer, but the ground suddenly started to slope down in front of him and he slipped into a ditch, landing on his back. The creature followed him in and grasped for his flat sneakers. He kicked out with both feet, hyperventilating as he sank further into the mud. He didn’t have the power in his legs to fend off its advances. It gained enough traction to crawl on top of him, eyeing up the flesh on one of his thighs. As it opened its shredded jaw it froze before it could sink its teeth. Its eyes rolled to the back of its head and it released its grip on his pants. Ethan couldn’t comprehend what had happened until Salty put his foot on the corpse to extract the hatchet buried in the back of its shattered skull.
Salty adjusted the brim of his cap and stared down at him with an air of disappointment. ‘Are you gonna lay in the dirt all night there, Twilight?’
Ethan, still shaking from his ordeal, took the man’s hand and struggled to his feet. Once he saw the state of the others, he realised that he wasn’t the only one. Raine still sat at the base of the tree, panting. The dark skin of her chest glistened, her sweat pooling in the indent at the bottom of her neck.
Vincent took Emily back from Adam and Kristin joined them in a family embrace. ‘You saved her,’ Vincent said.
‘Just picked her up is all,’ Adam replied.
‘Thank you,’ Kristin said.
‘You’re welcome, Mrs. Graham.’
Unlike the others, Salty seemed relatively unfazed by the ordeal. He surveyed the gruesome scene, checking first that the creature Kristin had shot was out of commission, and then he strolled back to where the first one had grappled with him. Its severed head lay next to its body, still animated, staring up at him with its soulless, grey-tinged eyes. It groaned with the same desire to feed as it had before its amputation.
Salty brought the hatchet blade down onto its face, almost splitting the thing in two. What was left of its brain escaped and soaked into the marshland. Everyone else turned away in disgust at the popping sound it made, as if the blow had relieved a trapped air pocket. ‘I take it by all the pansy-assing around that none of you have had to do that before?’
They all shook their heads except Raine, who just glared at him from against the tree.
‘Well, you better get used to it,’ Salty said, picking up his bag. ‘Otherwise, ya’ll been better off eatin’ Uncle Sam’s mercy meal.’ He set off again into the trees, leaving the others to recover and collect their things.
2
Salty boldly made a path through the undergrowth, knocking away any twigs and plants with his hatchet. The trees began to thin out and eventually they saw fields and the distant shape of a building. It was a pale night, casting a blue haze over the relatively untouched world around them.
The tall southerner stopped at the edge of the tree line, placing his hands on his hips. There were walking corpses in the fields – at least twenty in sight.
Kristin came up behind him, holding the Beretta like it didn’t belong to her. ‘We should have listened to you,’ she said.
Salty continued to gaze into the field. ‘Yeah, looks can often be deceiving, darlin’.’
His response was condescending, but she let it slide. ‘Thanks for getting us this far.’ She stretched out her arm and held the gun right under his nose.
He took one look at it and adjusted his stare back to the danger in front of them. ‘You should keep it. You’ve had a crash course in its use now. Besides, by my reckonin’ you’re gonna need it more than I will.’
Kristin tucked the Beretta into her jeans. He was right again. It dawned on her that being smart now meant fighting to keep it, not looking to give it away.
The others hung back, delving into their bags to get some water to clean the sweat and dirt from their skin. Raine came face-to-face with Ethan for the first time since their skirmish with the dead. ‘Not so tough after all then, huh?’ he said.
She narrowed her eyes at his self-satisfied tone. ‘As soon as we find a safe place, you and I are going to have a conversation, and you’ll be doing most of the talking.’
Ethan took a moment to consider her less than veiled threat and gave her an enthusiastic salute before turning his back to put his bottled water into his shoulder bag.
‘Daddy, my tooth’s getting really sore.’ Emily looked up at her father, barely able to keep her eyes open. Strands of her thick hair stuck up in every direction like a bird’s nest, but running a brush through it wasn’t a concern for Vincent. The side of her face had started to swell again. This time it seemed twice the size as before.
‘We’re gonna be stopping in a little while, sweetie. You can have something to eat and then it will be time for your pills.’
‘I don’t like them.’
‘But they’ll make you feel a whole lot better, and you can sleep. We all can.’ He ran his hand over her forehead, pretending to move some stray hairs from her vision, but he was really checking to see if she had a fever.
‘Hey, kid. Get over here,’ Salty said.
Adam glanced around and then pointed to himself. ‘Me?’
‘Yeah, you.’
Adam made his way to the edge of the field.
‘I want you to double back into the woods and look for any branches you can find. Not the rotten crap – the sturdy ones we can use as weapons.’
‘Erm, OK.’
‘Don’t stray too far past the tree line, and keep your eyes peeled for any more of those things wandering around back there. You see one, you come and tell me. No being a hero.’
‘Right. I mean, yes, sir,’ Adam said.
‘Don’t call me that. I’m not one of your teachers. Salty or Jake will do just fine.’
Adam nodded sheepishly and set off into the woods.
Salty snorted and spat on the ground before he addressed the rest of the group. ‘OK, listen up. We’re gonna head across those fields to the mill. There’s a few of the dead in sight, and there’ll be more when we get closer. They’re pretty spread out, so it won’t be too tricky to get around ‘em. They’re as slow as they are dumb. Stay on your toes and they will go hungry.’
Vincent gathered Emily up again and kissed her. ‘We just need to make the walk over this field and we can take shelter,’ he said.
‘Are there cows?’ Emily asked.
‘What?’
‘In the field. Are there cows?’
‘I’m not sure, honey. I can’t see any.’ All Vincent could see were the round-shouldered silhouettes of the dead. If there were cows in the field, they were most likely lying on their sides with their guts open to the night air.
He bent his knees to collect h
is bag, but Kristin picked it up before he could get there. She slung it over her free shoulder. ‘You have enough to deal with, and I have this.’ She lifted her shirt to flash the handle of her pistol. ‘Just concentrate on getting her across.’ The couple turned as they heard the snapping of twigs coming from the trees. Adam emerged carrying two reasonably straight branches under his arm.
Salty pointed to Raine. ‘I need you up front with me.’ He then looked at Kristin. ‘Don’t pull the trigger unless you have no choice. The sound will draw the rest in on us, and there might be military patrols nearby.’
Adam approached them, looking pleased with himself. Raine took one of the branches and bounced it on her hands to assess its weight.
‘You keep the other one, kid, and take the rear.’ Salty then gestured over to Ethan who had sat on the ground away from the others. ‘Twilight can stay back there with you. If things get wild, I don’t like the idea of him mething out anywhere near me.’
Everyone got in line and readied themselves for the short but potentially dangerous journey. ‘There seems like a lot of them,’ Kristin said as she examined the expanse of land and the amount of corpses drawn to the sawmill itself.
‘They move like old folks. As long as you keep up with me, we’ll avoid them easy enough. It’s whether there’s any waitin’ for us inside that we should worry about,’ Salty said.
Adam made his way over to Ethan and the man removed his hood to greet him. ‘Erm, we’re going to make a play for the sawmill. Jake would like you to bring up the rear with me.’
‘Seeing as we’re bringing up the rear, it would be a pleasure… Adam, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’ The innuendo went straight over Adam’s head. He offered his hand to help Ethan up.
‘It’s OK, Adam; I’ve got this.’ Ethan got to his feet and staggered a couple of steps to the right before regaining his balance.
‘Jeez, are you alright?’
Ethan rubbed frantically at his eyes. ‘I’m fine. I just went a little light-headed. It’s low blood sugar or something.’
Everything Dies [Season One] Page 6
