Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2)

by Stephen Charlick

  Liz knew there was more to come; she could see it in his eyes.

  ‘And?’ she said, dreading what he was about to say.

  Looking Liz directly in the eye, Duncan sighed. Then turning back at the map, he simply let his finger follow a dark wriggling line until it stopped at another point, forty or so miles away from Lanherne. Liz knew that spot, because she had been there, many of them had.

  ‘The Substation,’ Liz whispered, a million scenarios running through her mind, none of them ending happily for her friends at the Pylon.

  ‘If anyone had been on the Pylon when the electricity surged…,’ said Duncan, slowly shaking his head, not needing to finish the sentence.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Imran. ‘We’ve got to see if anyone’s still alive.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Damien said, his chair squeaking across the floorboards as he stood, looking from one worried face to the next. ‘They’re gone. Either they’ve been fried or their own Dead have already got them. By the time we could get there, it’ll be all over. I’m sorry but you know I’m right.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Imran replied, ‘There are good people there… people who don’t deserve to be so easily abandoned or written off as corpses… Patrick would come for us if he knew we were in trouble, you know he would.’

  Silence descended on the group. Nicky held Justin tightly as she looked into Richard’s eyes, willing him not to volunteer to go.

  ‘We have to try,’ Imran said, then kneeling down and cupping Liz’s face in his hand. ‘I have to try.’

  Liz knew he was right and simply nodded, leaning into his hand for comfort.

  ‘I’ll go too,’ said Phil, his hand wiping back and forth over the bristles of his shaved head.

  As much as he didn’t really want to put himself in danger, he knew he was the only other choice if Nicky wasn’t going to let Richard volunteer.

  ‘Right, so Imran brings the accuracy, I bring the muscle, so we just need the expertise,’ Phil continued, turning his gaze slowly towards Duncan.

  ‘Yes, I should come,’ Duncan nodded. ‘I might be able to do something with the transformers at the Substation to make sure this doesn’t happen again.’

  ‘That’s hoping there’s still someone there to live on the pylon,’ Richard mumbled, finally tearing his gaze away from Nicky.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Liz said, looking from one group member to the next. ‘So, when do you leave?’

  ‘You’ve only got another four or five hours of daylight left,’ Lars said, looking out the window to the cloudy grey sky beyond. ‘You’ll never get there before nightfall and even with your skill with the bow, Imran, you still need to be able to see the Dead to hit them.’

  ‘We could make it as far as the Penhaligan place though, couldn’t we?’ he responded. ‘What do you think, Phil?’

  ‘Yeah, and then go on to the Pylon at first light. Sounds like a plan,’ said Phil, nodding as he toyed with the hairs of his thick beard.

  ‘Right then, let’s get busy people,’ Imran said, clapping his hands and taking charge. ‘Sister Rebecca, Mother Josephine, we’ll need food and water for the trip. Sister Claire, Penny, can you get Delilah ready? Oh, and put some extra reins and rope in the cart in case we need to lead their livestock back here with us. We’ll just have to leave their chickens. We’re not hanging around trying to catch them if there are Dead about.’

  ‘I’ll put some of the extra weapons in the cart too, just in case,’ Richard added, wanting to be useful.

  ‘Thanks,’ Imran said, trying to think if there was anything else.

  ‘Sally, could you go and relieve Nadine with the children, fill her in on what’s happened and ask her to sort out some medical supplies for them to take,’ Liz added.

  ‘Will do,’ Sally replied, jumping up to join the exodus of people with jobs to do, leaving the refectory.

  ‘I need to go sort out my arrows,’ Imran said, mentally calculating how many he had ready to take with him, ‘back in a minute.’

  With most of the group leaving to do what they could to help prepare for the unexpected trip, Phil walked over to Liz as she watched Imran walk through the door. Kneeling down, he took her hand in his. His large fists made hers seem delicate by comparison.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Lizzy, I’ll bring him back safe and sound,’ he said giving her hand a small squeeze.

  Tearing her eyes away from the now empty doorway, she was unable to hide the worry from her friend.

  ‘I know you will, Phil,’ she said, managing to force a small smile, ‘and anyway, you don’t fool me, Philip, you only want to go to see if Patrick and Helen have any male visitors who happen to be fond of bald men with beards.’

  ‘Busted,’ he said, giving her a wink.

  Leaning forward, Liz pulled the bear of a man into a tight a hug as her bulging stomach would allow.

  ‘You be careful too,’ Alice added, touching the man’s arm with concern. ‘Don’t forget you promised to do all the nappy changing for this one.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ Phil said, gently patting Alice’s belly. ‘Don’t you pop before I’m back, promise?’

  ‘Promise, Mum,’ Alice replied, rolling her eyes comically.

  Alice had grown close to Philip since Charlie’s death. He had offered her the proverbial shoulder to cry on, and as a gay man, she knew there was no hidden agenda behind his friendship.

  ‘Right, I’d better go sort myself out,’ said Phil, ruffling Anne’s curly blonde hair as he stood up, ‘and you be good for your sister, scamp.’

  ‘Don’t forget your good pants, in case you pull,’ Alice called after him, as he walked out of the room.

  Suddenly, a large fist appeared back around the doorframe giving her the finger before disappearing again with a deep chuckle.

  ***

  With a prayer on her lips, Helen threw herself from the pylon ramp. She knew if she had hesitated for even a fraction of a second longer, both Jasmine and herself would surely now be dead. She had placed her life and that of her daughter in the will of the gods. Only they would decide if either of them survived the seven metre plummet to the ground beneath them. Again, time seemed to slow down and as she fell, every detail shouted out to her for recognition. She watched as a buckled section of one of the cabins flew past her and knocked Patrick from her sight. Then a second section, broken and aflame, banged heavily against her shoulder, knocking into her mid-air. With the force of the passing debris, she was twisted round so she now fell towards the earth backwards. Mercifully denied the sight of the ground rushing up to her meet her, all she could see was the place they had made their home above her, burning and broken. She knew the impact would shatter many of the bones in her body but at least Jasmine had been given a chance of survival. Somewhere the Gods were looking favourable upon Helen and her child, for the piece of corrugated iron that had knocked into her landed at an angle to the section that had hit Patrick. So as she came into contact with it, the force of the impact was only a fraction of what it could have been. Still feeling the jarring impact in every bone, the wind was painfully knocked from her lungs as Helen rolled uncontrollably off the crumpled corrugated iron that had broken her fall. In the rolling confusion, her head banged heavily against something and as she came to a stop with Jasmine screaming but unharmed in her arms and with the blackness threatening to close in on her, Helen glanced up at the ruined pylon to see a torn and damaged figure pulling itself free of the twisted wreckage.

  ‘No…’ she managed to whisper and then the darkness claimed her.

  Leon, Sarah, J-Man and three others of the community that had luckily left the pylon to help unload the cart, all watched with shocked expressions as out of the blue, their world fell apart. For a second, they all just stood there unable to comprehend what had happened. Slowly, Leon took a shocked step forward and then another, until he was running to where he had seen Patrick hit.

  ‘Help me!’ He shouted to some of the still stunned survivors.
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  One by one, they snapped into action. With J-Man’s help, Leon managed to lift the wall section off of Patrick, who despite a cut to his forehead was already coming round.

  ‘H…Helen?’ Patrick stammered, as he slowly pushed himself up on his elbow. He tentatively reached his other hand up to his forehead and finding it coming away wet and red, he winced and looked up at Leon and J-man.

  ‘She didn’t make it. Helen, she didn’t make it…,’ he continued, heavy tears welling up in his eyes.

  ‘Man,’ was all Leon could say, his own tears beginning to mirror Patrick’s.

  ‘No, wait!’ J-Man said, running over to the crumpled form partially covered by a ruined piece of corrugated iron a few metres away. ‘She’s here! She’s here!’

  Pulling the debris frantically off her, he could now hear the wailing sound of a baby.

  ‘Jasmine’s here too and she sounds okay to me,’ he continued, turning to wipe away the tears that had moments ago threatened to fall.

  By now, Sarah had reached them and she fell quickly to her knees at Helen’s side.

  ‘She’s alive,’ she said, feeling for a pulse. ‘She’s unconscious but alive.’

  Looking around her for a safe place, Sarah caught sight of movement on the pylon. At first, her hopes flared that there would be other survivors but when she saw what was moving about up there, her hopes faded fast.

  ‘Patrick, we’ve got to move,’ she called, not taking her eyes from the reanimating Dead above them. ‘Now, Patrick!’

  Even as she spoke, a Dead man, who up until moments ago had been one of their friends, threw himself from one of the platforms ten metres above them. With self-preservation an alien concept to the Dead, the corpse happily plummeted down to the living flesh below him. With a sickening thud, his body impacted with the hard earth. Bones broke and skin tore but this did nothing to deter him. Pulling himself along by his arms, the Dead man now dragged shattered and broken limbs behind him with only one need compelling him to move. It had to reach the living, warm, bloody flesh. It must feed this unquenchable hunger that burned inside him.

  ‘Shit!’ Leon said, as he turned to stamp on the crawling cadaver.

  As he raised his boot, a moaning call to arms was sounded on the pylon above him.

  ‘There’s no time!’ Patrick shouted, as he rose shakily to his feet and looking around for a safe haven. ‘Get everyone to the stable.’

  Lying among the broken beanpoles and winter vegetables, where the explosion had thrown him, Ryan’s burnt body twitched. Something new within the burnt shell he had once been was taking control. As seared eyelids opened, milky eyes saw their new world for the first time and Ryan was no more. No longer able to register pain, Ryan’s Dead eyes barely spared a glance at the piece of smoking wood embedded through its ribcage, part of some bloody ripped organ dripping from its end. The only thing that mattered was the hunger, the hunger that burned and consumed his whole being. Turning its head to the sound of panicked voices, it knew it should seek out its source. It knew those sounds promised release from this need. It knew those were the sounds of the living, the sounds of life itself and it would not be denied its share. Pushing itself upright, the thing that had been Ryan began to stalk the darkness, intent on ripping into something bloody and warm.

  ‘They’re coming back!’ A young woman wept, her life having been spared by pure chance.

  As she backed away from the pylon, the moans of their Dead companions already drifting down to them, she did not see Ryan’s charred and ruined body running towards her from the shadows of the tall plants. The Dead man had found its prize and he would not be deterred. Slamming into the woman’s warm flesh, he brought her violently down. With a shriek, the shard of wood pierced her body, pinning the two together like macabre lovers. The Dead man wasted no time and began to tear into her flesh with a ferocious abandon. No sooner had she screamed from the shock and pain of the wood ripping into her lungs, than the doomed woman began to drown in her own blood. It did not take long for that spark of something indefinable to leave the woman’s shell and instantly, it was no longer of interest to the Dead Ryan. With a wet ripping sound, he pulled himself and the piece of wood free of the woman’s savaged body.

  With Jasmine held in one arm and his head still spinning, Patrick relied heavily on Leon for support, as they made their way to the stable building. Following them closely behind, J-Man and Sarah dragged Helen’s unconscious form.

  ‘They’re coming down the ramp!’ J-man shouted, glancing up as the burnt bodies of their friends appeared at the top of the ramp. ‘We’ve got to hurry, man!’

  Patrick turned his head. Leon was right. They didn’t have much time.

  ‘Help J-Man with Helen!’ Patrick cried, pushing himself away from Leon. ‘I’m okay. Just get Helen to the stable.’

  Even as Leon dashed back to Sarah and J-Man, a wave of dizziness hit Patrick and he had to steady himself briefly against a water barrel. As he waited for the spinning to pass, he saw Ryan appear. With a gasp, he took in Ryan’s burnt and bloody form and realised his friend was now one of the Dead. Even as he watched, he saw Ryan lock his predator’s gaze on J-Man.

  ‘J-man!’ Patrick shouted, ‘Behind you!’

  Before J-Man could turn his head, a pair of Dead hands fell upon his shoulders. He barely had time to drop Helen’s feet before he was pulled violently backwards towards a pair of snapping jaws with nothing to promise but death in their bite.

  ‘No!’ screamed Leon, terrified at what he may be forced to witness.

  Still holding Helen under her arms, Leon knew that even if he dropped her, he would be too late to save his friend. Helplessly watching Ryan lean in to take a bite from J-Man’s neck, Leon did not notice Sarah swiftly grab from the ground a short section of scaffolding pipe that been thrown from the pylon. With a fraction of a second to spare and with Sarah screaming with the effort, the pipe flew passed the back of J-man’s head to smash Ryan full in the face. It gave J-Man the smallest of opportunities to save himself and he took it. Twisting in the Dead man’s grip, J-Man turned and kicked at him hard. Ryan’s Dead body that had been knocked back just enough to give J-Man a fighting chance stumbled slightly before reaching in again for the flesh it so desired. J-Man wasn’t to go down without putting up a fight and before he felt Dead hands upon him again, he quickly reached for the pipe Sarah had thrown. Holding onto it with only one hand, there wasn’t enough power in his backhanded swing to do any real damage, but as the pipe connected with the side of Ryan’s head shattering the bone beneath, burnt Dead flesh ripped free.

  ‘Down!’ shouted a familiar voice behind him and trusting his friend’s instincts, J-man did just that.

  With a wet ‘thud’, one of Leon’s knives appeared in the Dead man’s skull. For the briefest of moments, Ryan’s body stood motionless before falling to the ground, its unnatural existence ended.

  ‘Move it!’ Sarah screamed sprinting to the stable, as a dozen of the reanimated Dead began to stampede down the ramp towards them.

  As the wave of death descended upon them, they knew their time running out. With Leon and J-Man lifting Helen’s unconscious body again, they followed Sarah as fast as they could.

  Needing to ensure Jasmine was safe first, Patrick had managed to force his unstable feet to get him to the stable. Reaching the safety the metal doors promised at the same time as Sarah, he kicked open one of the doors. Even as she ran past him, she plucked the screaming infant from his arms and ran inside. Standing in the doorway with one hand ready to slam it closed should the Dead attack, Patrick watched as the running corpses drew closer to Leon and J-Man. They weren’t going to make it. He could tell and even as the thought demanded recognition, he saw the Dead splinter into groups. One group of four instantly took down and tore into one of the other fleeing survivors. Even from where he stood, he could hear the growls and grunts of the Dead as they ripped apart the screaming terrified man. Elsewhere, two badly burnt Dead men and a woman were chasing
a screaming petrified girl fleeing for her life

  ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ Leon was shouting, as he saw the Dead were now only metres behind them.

  Turning his head briefly towards the stable still ten metres away, he knew even if they dropped Helen, there was no chance of getting to safety before they were taken down by the Dead hoard on their heels. Then, like a saviour from the Middle Ages, Gabe charged past, riding Shadow.

  ‘Come on, you fuckers!’ shouted Gabe, the black mare rearing up to knock two of the Dead off their feet with her front hooves.

  It was just the distraction they needed and fighting though his dizziness, Patrick ran forward to help Leon and J-Man save Helen.

  ‘Get back!’ Patrick yelled, lifting Helen up onto his strong shoulders.

  Not waiting to be told twice, they ran the short distance to the stable door and after the briefest of stumbles, as Patrick fought of a wave of spinning that threatened to unbalance him, he joined them.

  ‘Take her,’ he said, dropping Helen into Leon’s arms.

  Turning, he saw Gabe charge after the group chasing the terrified young woman, Shadow’s hooves running down two of the Dead in her path in the process. However, four of the Dead had almost reached the stable and although Patrick hated himself for it, he slammed the heavy doors closed, leaving Gabe and the girl to their fate.

  ‘What about Gabe?’ J-Man asked, panting as he tried to force oxygen into his shocked body. ‘We can’t just leave him…’

  Patrick just looked at him not knowing what to say, his silence speaking volumes. They all knew if they wanted to survive, there was nothing they could do for Gabe. Their own situation was hopeless enough as it was and they knew it. Already Dead hands had begun to bang on the steel double doors.

  Outside, Gabe charged past a Dead woman, kicking her head hard to knock her down, if only temporarily. That left just one Dead man who was now almost within arm’s reach of the screaming woman.