Outside, the vehicles were roaring to life, one by one, filling the small compound with their choking exhaust smoke.
‘Sir, do you want us to look for the missing woman and the two children before we bug out?’ asked Clarkes. ‘They can’t have gotten too far.’
‘No, orders are to return to base,’ he replied, scanning the surrounding trees and hedgerows. ‘Dr Farrell wants to examine Morris’ data asap, so we’re to get to the pick-up point asap.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the solider snapped, saluting before jogging over to board one of the Jackals.
The Sergeant turned to scan the tree line one more time. As much as it galled him to let the woman and two children escape, orders were orders. Consoling himself that without weapons and in a terrain crawling with walking corpses, they were surely as good as dead already, he pulled himself into the lead Jackal and gave the signal to leave. As his vehicle pulled out of the small picnic area they had made their home for the night, Sergeant Graham Blackmore didn’t even look back at the figure of his son he had left hanging within easy reach of the Dead. In his mind, the man was already dead, and quite frankly, he would not grieve for his passing.
***
Jen pulled the two children close to her at the base of a large snow blasted oak. Already exhausted and out of breath, she dusted away much of the shallow snowdrift to find the large gnarled roots beneath to sit on. Holding her finger to her lips for quiet, she listened intently for any indication they were being followed. She knew their trail would be easy to follow through the wild overgrown fields that ran alongside the road. Their tell-tale tracks in the snow gave them away, so it surprised her that they had managed to get so far from the convoy without any sound of pursuit.
‘We’ll just catch our breath here for a moment,’ she whispered to the two children, but it was really for her own benefit that they had stopped.
Despite the children being small, they seemed to be in a much better condition than she was. They obviously had a good life at the convent, certainly better than she and her brother had been forced to endure. They had lived with a constant hunger burning in their stomachs, always finding just enough food to keep them going. After years of living like that, she simple didn’t have the reserves of energy to call upon and already she was fighting the stitch in her side that pained her with every step.
‘Perhaps if we follow the road we can find our way back to Lanherne,’ Anne suggested hopefully.
‘I don’t think so, sweetie,’ Jen replied, placing a comforting hand on Anne’s shoulder, as she nervously scanned the tree line for soldiers or any sign of the Dead. ‘We turned a lot of corners since we left the convent and any tyre tracks they made would have been covered over by last night’s snow, but first we’ve got bigger problems to think about. Okay, we need to find something to protect ourselves with, so look for something heavy you can fit in your fist like a large rock or something.’
As upset as the two children were, they knew if they couldn’t protect themselves, they were as good as dead already.
‘How about this?’ Anne asked, digging out a large stone from the base of the tree.
‘It’s a start,’ Jen replied, the weight of the rock in her hand making her feel slightly better about being out in the open with two children to look after. ‘See if you can find some more.’
Suddenly, the two children froze, their heads snapping to look in the direction from which they had come. In the distance, they could hear the convoy’s engines suddenly roaring to life. It was odd to hear such a sound after so many years of its absence and even to Jen, it had become something alien and unnatural. For the children who had few, if any, memories of working cars, the sound was quite unnerving.
‘It’s alright,’ Jen said softly, pulling the children’s attention back to the task at hand. ‘They’re leaving, so we’re safe. Well, at least from them.’
As much as she hated to admit it, the soldiers were the lesser of two evils that challenged them at the moment. The Dead, that surely must even now be pulling themselves through the snow-covered hedgerows to follow the departing sounds of life, were by far a greater concern for her.
‘Right, let’s follow this ridge… it seems to run parallel with the road for a while,’ she said stuffing more of their collected rocks in her jacket pockets, ‘keep close, keep low and if I tell you to stop, just do it, no questions, okay?’
‘Okay,’ both children replied in unison, their eyes nervously scanning every shadow about them.
‘Oh… and if we do come across any of the Dead,’ Jen said turning each child to look at her to know just how serious she was. ‘For God’s sake don’t scream, or we’ll be swamped with them.’
Anne and Justin nodded silently that they understood, and once Jen was satisfied that all was clear, the three escapees began their journey through the snow covered high winter grasses and brambles. A journey that the children hoped would eventually take them back to the safe walls of Lanherne.
With the threat of the soldiers catching up with them now gone, Jen decided they could afford to slow their pace down to a simple walk. This also allowed them to move with the necessary stealth that they would need if they hoped to avoid the Dead. Every so often they would hear the snap of wood or an ominous rustle of unseen movement somewhere deep in the thickets and each time, with her heart pumping loudly and a surge of adrenalin flooding through her, Jen would hold up her hand for the children to halt. Jen didn’t know if she could take this tension for long, since they had only been walking for ten minutes and already her nerves were frayed. It had been different when she had been travelling with her brother, he could take care of himself and she had always felt safe with him by her side. Now that she had the two children depending on her and with only a few meagre rocks for protection, safe was the last thing she felt.
‘We’ll stop here for just a minute,’ she softly said, resting against a tree.
The effects of the adrenalin pumping through her was taking its toll on her already strained and weaken body and even if was for a short while, she needed to try to calm herself down.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Anne, crouching down beside Jen.
‘I’m just not in very good shape, I’m afraid,’ she replied looking across into the young girl’s concerned eyes. ‘I’ll be alright in a minute…’
Suddenly, a tattered shape barrelled into Anne, knocking her to the ground.
‘No!’ cried Jen, throwing herself at the Dead man that even now was struggling to get to the soft flesh of the small girl’s neck.
From somewhere deep within her, Jen found enough hidden reserves of strength to grab hold of the animated corpse to pull him away from Anne but as she did so, her hands slipped on his wet and slime covered clothes, allowing the cadaver to twist in her grasp. The Dead man did not care whose flesh he tore into and as he refocused his attention to Jen, he lunged for her. Catching her off guard, he pushed her back against the tree and darted in with his jaws snapping, eager to bite into the flesh of her face. As his decaying face came perilously close to hers, Jen could not help but cry out. At that moment, time inexplicably seemed to slow down for Jen, allowing her to take in every detail of the mottled and emaciated face rushing towards her own. Somehow frozen in time, she noticed a small metallic green beetle moving within the dead man’s matted hair, burrowing into the corpse’s thin putrid skin. Then in an instant, time sped up again and she was throwing her arms up to fend off the deadly snapping teeth rushing towards her.
Even as she fought to push away the Dead man, she feared she could not win this fight. Already she could feel the strength draining from her arms, her muscles protesting against what was suddenly demanded of them. Then with a dull thud, the Dead man’s head was knocked sideways by a fist-sized rock bouncing off his skull. Over the struggling Dead man’s shoulder, Jen could see Anne pounding at his skull with a second rock. However, Jen could tell Anne’s efforts, though admirable, would be wasted. The small girl simply didn’t have the pow
er to crack the Dead man’s skull enough to save her and she prayed the children would have the sense to flee the moment the Dead man bit into her. Nevertheless, she had survived the Dead for almost eight years with her brother and for him alone she would not give up her life so easily. Therefore, with determination she slipped her hands up to lodge under his chin to keep his snapping jaws away from her as long as she could. Her fingers dug deeply into the rotten flesh of his throat and she could feel the cartilage of his trachea crunch beneath her grasp. Tearing her eyes from the Dead man for a split second, she noticed Justin had pulled his pulse detector from his neck and had rushed past Anne to press it against the Dead man’s head. Remembering what the soldiers had said would happen if someone died wearing one of the small metal boxes, Justin had obviously had a flash of inspiration and already Jen could see a tiny red light flashing on the small box, the rate of flashes increasing as its counter thankfully ran down. Knowing that now she only had to hold the Dead man at bay for a short while longer, she found within her a hidden compulsion to survive that burned at her very core. As the flashing increased and the seconds passed, Jen held onto this need to live, this need never to give up and then finally the moment came. One moment the small red light was flashing and then it was a constant red glowing dot. Suddenly, there was a small snapping sound and the pressure explosive sent a single metal bolt into the Dead man’s skull to end his unnatural existence. With a sob of relief, Jen pushed the now still corpse away from her, allowing it to flop lifelessly to the ground by her side.
‘Th…Thanks,’ she whispered, her voice still shaky as she pulled the two children to her.
‘We should go,’ Justin said, releasing Jen to help her to her feet.
***
‘So he’s going to help get our people back?’ Phil said after Liz had told them about Steven Blackmore. ‘But can we trust him?’
‘Well, he had more than one opportunity to hand me over to his father the Sergeant and perhaps seeing Penny and Lars again after all these years reminded him of how life used to be,’ she replied softly, as she checked through one of the spy holes to watch the Dead ambling pass.
After Phil had secured Samson to the back of the cart, they had used a layby to wait for the bulk of the following Dead to pass them by. Now, twenty minutes later, the decaying crowd had thinned down enough for their pursuit of the convoy to begin again. They made their way back to junction and started their slow trek along the road the Private told Liz to follow, when they heard the distant rumble of engines starting up.
‘Sounds like they’re on the move again,’ Patrick whispered. ‘I’m surprised they’ve hung around this long. Would’ve thought they’d have left at first light.’
‘Perhaps, our soldier friend has already done his bit?’ Imran said hopefully.
‘Well, if he has let’s hope he’s had the sense to take with him some sort of vehicle,’ Phil added. ‘All those children out here unprotected…’
He didn’t have to finish the sentence, but they all knew what he meant. With the best intentions in the world, if the Dead attacked and you had a group of young children to protect, it was inevitable someone would end up getting killed. You simply couldn’t watch your back effectively with a toddler in your arms. They had all seen it before. Parents desperate to keep their children safe in their arms were unable to defend themselves when the Dead inevitably pulled them to the ground and they ultimately sacrificed not only themselves but also their children to the very creatures they had tried to protect them against.
‘From what I saw of the sergeant, I don’t think he’d just let someone under his command waltz off with one of his prized vehicles without trying to get it back first,’ said Liz, turning away from the spyhole. ‘Anyway, the Private knew I was in this direction and the convoy is moving away from us, so I’m guessing he either hasn’t made his move yet or they’re making their way on foot towards us.’
‘So we’d better keep an eye out for them then,’ Leon said, pulling aside one of the spyhole covers.
‘Watch for movement in the hedgerows,’ Patrick said, following Leon’s example. ‘They’ll know it’ll be too risky for them to walk along the road out in the open, so I’m guessing they moved into the undergrowth for a bit of camouflage.’
***
By sheer luck rather than by design, Jen and her two charges hadn’t come across any more of the Dead since the man by the tree, although the presence of the walking copses could clearly be heard as they crashed and stumbled through the thicket to get to the road and the sound of the disappearing convoy. With each snap of a branch or flurry of disturbed starlings, the small group would halt, their hearts pounding as they awaited the appearance of the Dead. So far, someone had been looking down on them favourably but Jen knew this was too good to last and soon enough, they would be battling against Dead hands and teeth desperate to tear into and consume their flesh.
When they suddenly reached a natural break in the thick hedgerows and saplings, Jen pulled the two children down into a crouch to listen for any close movement. The plant cover on this narrow stretch was noticeably thinner than what they were used to and Jen realised it must have once been an access lane leading from the road to what would have been a field behind them. Knowing that if any of the Dead had, by chance, also come across the overgrown lane that they would use it as an easy way to get to the road, Jen wanted to make sure she and the two children could cross the breach undetected. Even as they patiently listened, they could hear something crashing its way somewhere through the hedgerow to begin its slow painful approach to the road. Opposite her and a few metres to her right, Jen could see a Dead woman stumbling into view. As the woman made it fully into the breach, what was left of her rotten jumper snagged on a broken branch causing her to fall face first to the snow covered ground. Jen instinctively pushed her arm in front of the two children, edging them behind her deeper into the shadows, where they would hopefully be unseen. Jen watched as the Dead woman slowly pulled herself to her feet.
Even from a distance, Jen could see the woman had become one of the Dead in a terrible manner, because in the process of righting herself, the Dead woman turned what was left of her face in her direction. Much of the flesh from her nose upwards had been viciously torn away, together with one of her eyes, leaving only a full bottom lip surrounded by shreds of decaying skin and muscle as a testament to the horror this woman had gone through. Luckily, Jen and the children had been unnoticed by the Dead woman and as she stepped further away from the dense thicket, Jen was relieved to see that the fall had inadvertently pulled the caught jumper free of the branch, allowing her to continue on her endless trek. With her back now facing them, Jen edged silently forward on her stomach to see if any other of the Dead had found this path of least resistance. As much as she feared for his safety, Jen felt a small wave of comfort when Justin nudged up alongside her to look also. Thankfully, the snow here was relatively shallow so she brushed some aside to get to the winter grass beneath and as Jen sneaked a peak from her prone position at the retreating Dead woman, she cursed silently under her breath. Another four of the Dead were making their way to the road but at least these too had their backs to them. If they were quiet and moved slowly, they might be able to cross unseen. Reaching behind her for Anne, Jen nodded silently and giving the scared child a smile, took her hand.
When she realised the situation wasn’t going to get any better any time soon, Jen decided they would have to take a chance, before any more of the Dead added to this already risky situation. Pointing across the breach to where the thickets grew wildly again and then pressing her fingers to her lips, she silently told the children they would be making the stealthy break to the other side. With one final quick glance at the retreating Dead, Jen edged forwards in a crouch stance, out into the open. The track itself could only have been six or seven metres wide but each exposed step she took felt like it could be her last. It wasn’t until they were over half way across that she realised Justin had not o
nly stopped and was standing up but he was peering intently down the track towards the road. Looking back at the boy who was scared for his life, she saw his eyes widen and little mouth open in surprise as something he recognised came into view. Slowly, Justin managed to pull his gaze from the road back to Jen.
‘Cart,’ he whispered, raising his hand to point.
Jen immediately stood up herself, just in time to see the rear of a cart disappearing from view with a large horse tethered to the back.
‘Samson!’ Justin continued, ‘That was Samson… one of our horses from the Convent.’
Jen could see what was about to happen and made a grab for the two children before they could bolt off.
‘Wait!’ she whispered urgently. ‘If we just run after them without a plan, we’ll get killed.’
Justin looked from Jen to Anne, visibly itching run after the cart.
‘But that’s what I used to do all the time before Mum and Dad found me,’ be replied. ‘If you just keep moving and don’t stop, you can weave in and out of them, no problem. They can’t catch you, because they’re too slow and too spread out.’
Jen knew every second she thought about it, the cart was getting slowly further and further away, which meant more of the Dead would be between them and a rescue. She looked into Justin’s eyes and knew he meant it. This child had survived on his own this way for God only knew how long, and perhaps if he could do it, so could they.
‘What about you, Sweetie?’ she whispered to Anne, ‘do you think we can make it?’
‘Yes,’ Anne said with a nod.
She might only be eight, but she knew this could be their only real chance if they wanted to live longer than a few days. They simply couldn’t survive for long out in the open like this, not without proper weapons. They had been lucky with the Dead man, but their luck could only stretch so far.
‘Yes… we’ve got to,’ she added in a tone older than her years.
Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) Page 22
