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

by Stephen Charlick

  ‘Good idea,’ said Sister Josephine, ruffling the silent Danny’s hair sitting on Penny’s lap. ‘The little ones will be growing fast.’

  Ten minutes later, leaving the noisy warm kitchen behind her with a clip board, paper and a pencil tucked under her arm, Liz made her way up to the attic room they had put aside for the clothing store. With the sound of her boots echoing off the cold stone walls, she annoyingly readjusted the strap to her sword for what seemed like the hundredth time. The strap that had once fit snugly over her small taut frame had to be lengthened considerably since pregnancy had changed her body beyond what she thought possible. By the time she had managed to place the strap so that it didn’t rub uncomfortably or dig into her, she had already gotten to the small door that would lead up to the attic.

  ‘Damn,’ she said to herself, pushing on the door handle.

  With a forceful shove or two, the warped door finally jolted open inwards. In a building as old as Lanherne, it was to be expected but what concerned Liz was that this area definitely had the distinct smell of damp hanging in the air. She would have to tell Sister Rebecca they needed to find another place to store the clothing if they wanted to keep it for any length of time. They simply couldn’t afford to lose their precious fabric to mould.

  Leaving the door ajar to let some fresh airflow through, Liz took a deep breath and began to climb the small winding staircase up into the attic. After cursing her body for having to rely half way up on the banister for support, she finally reached the top of the staircase a little out of breath.

  ‘Right,’ Liz said, taking in the mounds of boxes jammed into the small dark room.

  Outside, the cold wind buffeted against the old roof tiles creating a constant whistle and low moan as it sought to find a way in. She realised the promise of a warming fire in the tiny fireplace was quite out of the question. The room was simply too full to risk a stray ember.

  ‘Well,’ Liz thought to herself, ‘I might not be able to have heat but I don’t see why I have to work in this half light.’

  With barely enough room for her to guide her protruding belly around the boxes, Liz quickly began squeezing herself through to get to the single window set into the roof eaves. After much huffing and puffing and a particularly undignified clamber across the top of a large box, she finally managed to get to her goal. Using the back of her sleeve, she wiped away months of dust and cobwebs from the small planes of leaded glass sending a few startled spiders scurrying off into the shadows in the process. When she had finally removed as much of the grime that would come off, the small window filled the room with a soft cold light. Liz hoped cleaning the window would help lift the sad atmosphere of the musty smelling room but with the overcast sky outside doing its best release more of the snow they had had during the night, it didn’t have much effect.

  Liz looked out of the small leaded window, down to the courtyard far below her. Smiling, she could see Justin and Anne taking charge of the other children, showing them which logs from the pile they could carry inside. Glancing over to the walkway, the smile fell from her lips as Liz’s dark eyebrows creased together in concern. There, on the walkway, running towards the gate section was Sally. She was shouting something and waving her arms at Damian, who was positioned by the gate.

  ‘No, No, No…’ Liz found herself saying, her heart beginning to pound in her chest.

  Even from here, Liz could tell the outer gate was already open and for some insane reason, Damian was also opening the inner gate. The whole point of their two gates was to prevent the convent from being openly exposed to the Dead forever at the walls. Once that inner gate was open, those in the courtyard would be in danger. Scenes of the terrified children below her being torn to pieces before anyone could save them, flashed in her mind. Frantically, she began to bang at the small handle locking the window closed.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ she said, with increasing urgency, as she banged her palm painfully against the latch to release it. ‘Come on! Fuck!’

  With a snap and a low ‘thud’, the latch slipped downwards, opening the window.

  Frantically pushing open the window, Liz took a sharp intake of breath, readying herself to scream down to Anne and the other children. However, what she saw rolling through the gate stopped any sound that she was going to make abruptly in her throat. There, arriving in a convoy of noise, hard metal, camouflage paintwork and exhaust fumes, where four heavily armoured large army vehicles. Tearing her gaze from these metal monsters from another time, Liz glanced down at the children in the courtyard. The stunned children had already begun to draw close to Justin and Anne slowly, scared of the strange machines before them. As she watched, Sally practically threw herself down from the walkway ladder and ran over to the scared group of children, putting her between whatever Damian had let into their home and them.

  Even as she watched, Sally raised her club in defence of the children behind her. Side doors on two of the armoured vehicles slid open and soldiers in combat gear poured out, positioning themselves in an arc with their rifles cocked and aimed.

  ‘Shit!’ Liz said, the howling wind stealing the word from her lips, as it whipped her short hair across her face.

  She had seen enough and she knew she needed to get down there as soon as possible. Turning away from her position in front of the window, she realised her mistake almost immediately. She had now given the wind what it wanted, a way in. With a slam, the door at the bottom of the staircase was blown shut.

  ‘Fuck!’ Liz snapped, pushing herself back across the boxes to the door that she prayed she would be able to open again.

  Then, as a single shot rang out from the courtyard below, Liz froze. After what seemed like an eternity, she collapsed onto a pile of old coats, her hands instinctively moving to cover her unborn child. She knew even if she did get the door open, everything had changed. The world they had created behind the safe walls of Lanherne was gone and it scared the hell out of her.

  ***

  Patrick looked down at the woman he held lightly in his arms as she slept fitfully. Nameless horrors had stalked her dreams much of the night causing her to call out his name as she fought against the terrors that danced behind her eyelids. Each time she said his name, Patrick would stroke her face, hoping his love would somehow break through her dreams and bring her back to him. At first, they tried to keep Helen awake for as long as possible, afraid her head wound was worse than they feared, but thankfully simple natural exhaustion had eventually taken its toll on her late into the night and she finally drifted off into a fitful but natural sleep.

  Touching her cheek again, Patrick glanced up from the face of the woman he loved and then over to see Sarah holding in her arms the other girl in his life that he would die for, Jasmine. It had been cold in the stable that night and each of them had made the best of the limited resources they could find. Horse blankets, sacks and even an old tarpaulin had been used to trap their precious body heat. The remaining mare, Flo, and the one sow with her four piglets, which had luckily been inside when the disaster struck, had added their body warmth to the stable but even so, it had been a far from comfortable night.

  ‘How is she?’ Sarah whispered through the dimly light stable, as she nodded towards Helen.

  ‘She’s fine, apart from the splitting headache,’ came Helen’s voice, as she slowly raised her hand to touch the back of her head.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Patrick said, relief flooding his voice, ‘Thought we’d lost you then.’

  ‘It’ll take a bit more than almost being electrocuted and falling fifteen metres to get rid of me,’ Helen mumbled, her brittle smile cracking when she tried to sit upright. ‘Ouch’

  ‘Hey, just take it easy,’ Patrick said, gently trying to push her back down to stop her from moving too fast.

  ‘Easy is not going to get us out of this,’ Helen replied, easing away Patrick’s concern to force herself slowly into an upright position.

  ‘She’s right,’ came J-Man’s voice from
the other end of the stable.

  He and Leon were standing on some crates, straining to look through the long high window at the Dead just outside the door. Their hungry jailers had wound down in their ferocity during the night, but still, they pounded relentlessly against the door to get to the living flesh they knew was being denied them.

  ‘We’ve got to come up with a plan to get out of here,’ he continued.

  ‘We need to somehow draw some of them off to give us a chance when we open the doors,’ Leon mused, biting on his thumbnail to help him think.

  ‘Hmm… any ideas?’ Patrick asked.

  One by one, he was met with blank expressions. Ideas, it seemed, were thin on the ground today. With the window too thin for anyone to fit through, they knew their only option was the main door but with so many of the Dead eager to get in, they would be swamped before any of them had a chance to get out.

  ‘Bollocks!’ Patrick growled, realising their only option was really no option at all.

  ***

  Above them, Gabe and Chloe sat huddled down with their heads together in one corner of the flat roof. A dusting of snow rested on their still heads and shoulders. If it wasn’t for the soft plumes of their fogging breath rising slowly above them, they could easily be mistaken for statues, they were so motionless. They had walked back and forth across the roof for hours, trying to keep warm but the biting wind, whipping across the exposed roof stole any heat they could generate. They had finally decided to wedge themselves in one of the corners. At least there, the high lip that ran the perimeter of the roof would offer them some relief from the wind.

  ‘We need to move, Chloe,’ Gabe whispered to the cold face, so close to his own, ‘If we sit here much longer, we’ll freeze to death.’

  When he got no reply, he gave her a gentle nudge and prayed to God, she hadn’t fallen asleep. If she had, hypothermia might have taken her from him and he would have to get rid of her before she came back.

  ‘Chloe?’ He repeated, his apprehension creeping into the word.

  ‘It’s… it’s alright, G…Gabe,’ she finally replied, trying to form the words through her numb cold lips and chattering teeth, ‘I… I don’t want to d…die here, Gabe.’

  ‘Right then, get up,’ Gabe said, pulling her stiff body up from the roof.

  Grabbing hold of her hands, he began to pull her arms up and down in front of her.

  ‘Now, jump,’ he continued, showing her what he wanted her to do.

  Now that the biting wind had died down and the sun was adding its appreciated, if weak warmth to the sky, their frantic jerky movements soon managed to generate a little warmth in their stiff, cold muscles.

  ‘Ring, a ring, a roses, a pocket full of posies,’ Gabe sang out loudly, as he and Chloe did star jumps together to get warm.

  Chloe began to laugh at the absurdity of it all. There they were singing nursery rhymes and jumping about like idiots, while a couple of metres away, the Dead pawed the walls for their very flesh. Her laugh was infectious and soon, Gabe too was laughing, as he clapped his hands over his head in time to the tune.

  ‘Gabe!’ shouted a voice from nowhere.

  Immediately, the pair stopped. With their panting breath pluming in the cold early morning air and their cheeks flushed, they looked at each other. Each hoped they hadn’t imagined it.

  ‘Gabe!’ Shouted the voice again. This time, they could tell it came from beneath them. ‘Gabe, are you there?’

  ‘Leon?’ Gabe cautiously said into the air.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ Leon replied, ‘Thank God you’re okay… and who’s with you?’

  ‘Chloe,’ Chloe added, rushing to the side of the roof, ‘It’s Chloe. Leon, is anyone with you? Did anyone else make it?’

  They could hear Leon mumbling to someone else in the stable, so Gabe and Chloe knew he wasn’t alone.

  ‘Yes, there’s me, J-Man, Sarah, Helen and the baby too,’ came Patrick’s voice replacing Leon’s through the narrow window beneath them.

  Chloe and Gabe looked at each other, hope blooming in their eyes. Patrick had looked after them, he would save them now; they were sure of it.

  ‘Gabe, we need a diversion to get some of the Dead away from the door,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s a lot to ask, son… Gabe?’

  Gabe silently peered over the lip of the roof to the Dead below, waiting for their opportunity to feed. Then, standing, he gazed over at the fence where at least a dozen the Dead had arrived, drawn by the hungry moans of their Dead brothers and sisters. He then slowly walked a complete circuit of the stable roof, looking over the edge on each side. Bit by bit, a plan was taking form in his mind.

  ‘It’ll be tricky,’ Gabe finally called down to Patrick.

  Chloe looked into Gabe’s eyes, slowly shaking her head, guessing what he was planning to do.

  ‘No, Gabe, you can’t,’ Chloe said flatly.

  She knew before the words were even said that Gabe had made up his mind.

  ‘I have to, Chloe,’ Gabe said, taking her cold hands in his own. ‘We don’t stand a chance without the others, even if we do get off of here, you know that.’

  Chloe snapped her hands angrily away from his, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she said quietly, though as she said it, she knew there was no truth behind the words.

  Their options were limited and she knew it.

  ‘Just don’t get yourself killed, okay,’ she finally said, looking back up into Gabe’s face.

  ‘They won’t get the chance,’ Gabe said, forcing a smile.

  ‘Patrick!’ Gabe called down. Now that he had the plan sorted in his head, he just wanted to get it over with, ‘I’m going to lower myself down off the roof, run like crazy to get to the fence and climb it. Chloe can then give you the heads up, when enough of them have moved away to follow me. How’s that for a plan?’

  After some more mumbled talking from within, it was agreed that this was their best chance.

  ‘Ready?’ Gabe said to Chloe.

  With a sad nod, Chloe began to shout and holler, as she waved her arms over the edge of the roof. They were well out of reach of the Dead hands below, but it distracted and enticed them long enough for Gabe to begin lowering himself down one of the other sides without getting his legs chewed on. Hanging from his fingertips, Gabe panted as the adrenalin coursed through his small body. Glancing down, he knew he should be able to make the last two metre drop easily. Then out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. One of the more badly burnt Dead had been slow to react to Chloe’s calls from above and had been rewarded with Gabe for its diligence. Fixing its Dead gaze upon the living meat lowering itself into view, the burnt corpse began to shuffle towards its prize.

  ‘Shit!’ said Gabe, his fingers slipping from the roof edge, dropping him to the ground below.

  As he landed, his right foot twisted and collapsed beneath him, a blast of pain shooting up his leg.

  ‘Fuck!’ shouted Gabe, reaching for his ankle and praying that it wasn’t broken.

  Broken or not, he knew he had to get moving. Already some of the other Dead had noticed their burnt brother’s moans and had begun turning in his direction.

  ‘Fuck!’ said Gabe, using the wall to pull himself upright as he tested a fraction of his weight on his ankle.

  Again, pain shot up his leg but he knew he would have to ignore it if he wanted to live. With a thrust, he pushed himself away from the wall. Already the burnt cadaver was reaching for him, its blackened crispy skin cracking with each movement revealing its dark bloody flesh beneath. Hobbling away from the wall at a lot slower pace than he would have liked, Gabe ducked under the waving burnt arms only to be confronted by a Dead woman less than a metre in front of him.

  ‘Shit,’ he said to himself, quickly changing his direction as she reached her blood covered hands towards him.

  With a brief glance up to the roof, he could see Chloe still shouting to distract the Dead but his very presence meant
more and more of them were beginning to ignore her. One by one, the Dead had turned away from the stable and focused their cannibalistic hunger upon Gabe. Ducking out of reach of another of the Dead, Gabe began to hobble painfully slowly to the fence. With each step, excruciating pain would blossom in his ankle causing his breath to falter but it was by far the lesser of two evils. If the Dead caught up with him, he would soon know pain beyond belief.

  Chloe watched from above as Gabe began to make his way to the fence. He was limping terribly and already the Dead were only a few paces behind him. Tearing her eyes away from him to check the door of the stable, she could see there were still four of the creatures lingering, perhaps the memory of the escaping flesh hiding within too strong for them to give up on. A sudden cry from Gabe tore her attention back away from the door; he was on the ground. Chloe screamed.

  ‘Patrick! NOW!’ she yelled, panic making her dig her fingers into the concrete of the roof lip so hard three of her finger nails split and bent backwards.

  Unaware of the blood pouring from her fingers, Chloe watched in horror as two of the Dead stood over Gabe, their arms and bodies already covered in last night’s congealed stolen blood. Below her, J-Man, Leon and Patrick charged out through the metal stable door and immediately began to hack and club at the hungry cadavers in their path. One by one, the Dead fell under their swift powerful blows but Chloe knew they would never reach Gabe in time to save him. She watched as Gabe kicked desperately at the Dead man looming over him, knocking him backwards slightly only for the second corpse to reach forwards to take its place.

  Gabe looked up at the creature above him and screamed. The spasm of pain that had caused him to slip in the icy mud would be miniscule in comparison to what he was about to experience. He prayed he would leave this dead world before he was forced to watch his organs being ripped out, handful-by-handful to be stuffed into the hungry mouths around him. At that moment, the animated corpse threw itself down onto Gabe, a frenzy taking hold of it now that living flesh was so near. Instinctively, Gabe raised his arms to keep some life-saving distance between himself and the snapping jaws so keen to rip into his flesh. However, his hands could find no purchase on the gore covered cadaver and they slipped about the beast’s shoulders and chest. Eventually, born more of luck than skill, one of Gabe’s hands slipped upwards and grabbing his only chance, Gabe gripped the Dead man just under the chin. But even this action was ultimately pointless because over the struggling and snapping creature’s shoulder Gabe could see another of the Dead almost within reach and behind that, another three. His time had come to an end. Instantly, his focus returned to the burnt and torn face, merely centimetres from his own. He looked past the snapping and snarling mouth that housed filthy and broken blood covered teeth, past the torn cavity, where the nose should have been and up into the milky, blind eyes of this Dead thing that would end his life. He wondered if this thing, that up until yesterday had been a friend, knew that he would be an instrument of his death or was the outcome purely incidental. This thing’s teeth would soon become his father and his mother and just like his real birth, he would enter his death and new un-life terrified, screaming and bloody.