‘I hope for Penny’s sake that you’re nicer than he was,’ Liz said, smiling as she stepped over Sergeant Blackmore’s still body. Her smile dropped when she noticed Phil.
‘How bad?’ she asked no one in particular, pushing past Leon to take Phil’s hand.
‘We don’t know,’ Imran replied, seeing her tears that threatened to fall. ‘There might be damage inside, but we just don’t know how bad.’
‘Right,’ Liz said, wiping a tearful sniff on the back of her sleeve. ‘Get him to the holding truck and we’re getting out of here.’
‘But Liz, that doesn’t help Phil. We don’t know what’s going on inside,’ Patrick calmly added, placing a hand on her back.
‘It does if there’s a doctor half a mile down the road with Alice and her baby,’ Liz replied, looking from one stunned face to the next. ‘Come on, let’s move, people, we’ve got a friend to save.’
‘Man, your woman is fierce,’ Leon said to Imran, shaking his head with a smile.
‘You should see her when she’s not pregnant,’ Imran replied. ‘She’s fucking unbelievable!’
***
EPILOGUE
FIVE MONTHS LATER
‘Oh, stop being such a baby,’ Avery said, his fingers gently feeling the swollen glands in Phil’s neck. ‘I’ve told you, it’s just the flu. Everyone else has had it, so now it’s your turn.’
With the examination done and prognosis given, Avery’s hands fell from Phil’s neck to rest on his shoulders, one of his thumbs working a soft circle on Phil’s exposed skin.
Liz looked over at the two men sitting at one of the long refectory tables, one who she loved and one whose kind nature had already begun to work its way into her affections. That the two men had found in each other something they had been searching for made a soppy smile spread over her lips. She glanced over to catch Alice, who had paused in her folding of laundry to watch the two men, smiling also.
‘Aww, sweet,’ Alice mouthed silently to Liz, pouting her lips and nodding in Avery and Phil’s direction.
Liz was glad Phil had finally found someone to share his life with, the way she shared hers with Imran, and now of course, with Saleana too.
When she found Phil, pale and bleeding in the Med lab she feared they would lose him and even as the thought came to her, she thought her heart would break. It wasn’t until she almost lost him that she realised just how important Phil was to her. Not just because like all those at the Lanherne, she looked to Phil for strength and guidance, but also because she had so few friends left in this world she simply couldn’t bear to lose another. Getting Phil back to the holding truck had been tricky and even now, the short journey was still a blur of swinging clubs, flashing blades and the falling Dead. Only moments before, she managed to sneak through, unmolested by the Dead, to deal with Sergeant Blackmore. Minutes later, the Dead converged on the camp en mass, drawn to sounds of the living. She remembered Patrick lifting Phil’s body back up onto his shoulders while the others formed a circle of protection around him. Countless arrows had flown through the moonlit camp and sliver knives spun with deadly accuracy to find their unholy targets. She herself let her blade slash and flit through the air with desperate abandon, sending any of the Dead that came too close back to the oblivion that nature demanded. They had made it to the holding truck unscathed, unbitten and alive. Steve had jumped up into the cab and as soon as he knew all were on board, the mechanical goliath roared into life, crushing any of the Dead in its path under its powerful wheels.
For a while, it had been touch and go for Phil. Avery, although managing to stop the internal bleeding, knew the operation had certainly been conducted in less than ideal circumstances and was afraid of complications and infection. He stayed by Phil’s side in the holding truck the whole journey back to Lanherne, watching over him day and night, administering constant care for a man he didn’t even know. When Phil finally woke, Avery’s smiling face full of relief was what greeted him back to the world of the living.
‘Earth to Liz,’ Imran said, snapping her back to the present. ‘Someone wants a feed.’
Looking up at Imran, the memories of darker times disappearing like smoke from her mind, she smiled. Held protectively in his arms was an unhappy looking Saleana.
‘Who’s on watch?’ she asked.
Since having Saleana, she seemed even more determined they would never again be caught out by the living or the Dead. Never again would anyone breach the walls of Lanherne, even if it meant more on watch than they strictly needed.
‘Patrick, Gabe and William,’ Imran replied. ‘Leon and Cam are watching Damien and the others are in the field.’
‘Okay,’ she replied, with a nod, satisfied all was well.
‘Come to Mummy, darling,’ she then cooed to her daughter, opening her arms to receive the precious cargo. ‘I know, I know… isn’t Daddy terrible, eh?’
‘Hey, don’t gang up on me,’ Imran said, reaching forward to kiss Liz on the forehead as she began to breastfeed Saleana.
‘Get used to it, buddy,’ she replied with a wink. ‘mothers and daughters… special bond… us against the world…’
‘I thought that was supposed to be mothers and sons,’ said Alice, resuming the mammoth task of sorting the huge pile of washed clothes.
‘Ignore her, Imran,’ said Liz, shifting Saleana’s position slightly. ‘She’s saying that because she’s only got a boy. What does she know.’
‘Only a boy?’ Alice replied arching her eyebrows. ‘Look at him, he’s gorgeous.’
Alice nodded over to Charlie, angelically asleep in Sister Josephine’s arms, who was also dozing.
The invasion of Lanherne had hit the Mother Superior hard and even though everyone managed to get back safely, the whole experience left her somehow frailer for it. Avery assured her that is was perfectly natural for a woman of her age to feel the way she did and that the best advice he could give her was that she should just listen to her body. If it was telling her to slow down and rest more, then that’s exactly what she should do. There were now enough people at Lanherne that she didn’t have to worry about keeping on top of every detail. She should sit back and try enjoying life for a change. As soon as he said it, Liz knew he might as well ask the sun not to rise than ask the feisty Mother Superior to slow things down. So it was nice to see her relaxed for a change and able to take an afternoon nap when she needed it.
‘Yeah, okay,’ replied Liz rolling her eyes, ‘he’s gorgeous.’
‘Ladies, ladies,’ Steve said, walking into the refectory his hand around Penny’s shoulder as she carried a distant looking Danny, lost in his own world of his making. ‘I’m taken… sorry.’
‘Dump him, Penny,’ said Alice with a grin, ‘you can do better.’
‘Yeah, I’m thinking about it,’ she replied, letting Danny down to the floor and waving a small stuffed giraffe in front of him, trying to engage his interest.
Immediately, the small boy ignored the stuffed toy and waddled over to Sister Josephine and Charlie.
‘No, Danny,’ Penny said softly, ‘don’t touch, you’ll wake them up.’
‘Oh, he’s alright,’ said Alice, waving off Penny’s concern. ‘You’re just curious, aren’t you, Danny, eh?’
Surprisingly, Danny turned, looking blankly at Alice when she said his name, but he soon returned to looking at the sleeping baby that lay in Sister Josephine’s arms.
Shrugging her shoulders, Alice raised her eyebrows in surprise. Any reaction from Danny was so rare that even the slightest recognition of those around him was noteworthy.
‘Still no sign of Matt and his sister?’ Alice asked Steve, reaching for a pair of socks that had fallen from the pile of clothes onto the floor.
‘No, nothing yet,’ Steve replied, shaking his head.
After everyone had collected in the holding truck, ready for the off, Matt surprised them by saying he wouldn’t be going with them. He promised himself he would return to the island base to get his sist
er, Karen. With no other survivors from the squadron to contradict him, he could his spin any story he liked about what happened, and he assured them he would make it clear that Alice’s baby had not survived the rampaging Dead that had wiped out the rest of the camp. Therefore, after emptying the Jackal of the weapons, he bid farewell to Matt and the Lanherne group and left them with the promise he would return to the mainland one day and seek out the sanctuary they had built for themselves. Alice certainly hoped so, because she owed the man more than words could ever express and he deserved to live out his life in a community held together by trust and love, rather than one bound by fear.
‘Well, the base will be down on manpower since losing our squadron and the one sent to the power station, he might be finding it difficult to get away,’ Steve continued, pictures of the cold steel corridors with their CCTV cameras watching every corner of the base, coming to mind.
‘He’ll find a way,’ said Penny, stroking Steve’s arm reassuringly. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Hmmm,’ mumbled Steve, lost in his thoughts before snapping back and giving Penny a weak smile and a quick kiss.
Alice and Liz exchanged glances once again, each knowing what the other was thinking and smiled. With the smile still on her face, Liz let her eyes roam over the group in the Refectory. It was when her eyes fell on Danny, that it started to falter. Something was niggling at the back of her mind, and then small boy slowly reached up to touch Sister Josephine’s arm. As his small fingers touched her sleeve, her arm fell limply to side. Then Liz knew.
‘Alice!’ Liz whispered, horrified at what could be happening.
Almost as if in slow motion, a smiling Alice turned to look follow Liz’s wide-eyed stare and in a split second, she could see her world falling apart.
‘Charlie!’ She screamed, throwing herself over the table to get to her son before the unthinkable happened.
Shocked into action, Penny darted forward to pull Danny away just as Alice plucked Charlie from Sister Josephine’s arms and spun away with a startled Charlie crying in her arms. A heavy silence enveloped the adults in the Refectory as each of them realised Sister Josephine had finally been taken from them. She had died peacefully in her sleep.
‘I’ll do it,’ Phil said, solemnly stepping forward as he pulled a long knife from his belt. ‘Before she comes back… she deserves better.’
‘No wait!’ Avery said, reaching for Phil’s arm.
Phil turned back to Avery, looking quizzically down at the hand holding him back.
‘Avery?’ he asked.
‘Just a few minutes,’ Avery replied. ‘Please Phil… please trust me.’
‘What is it, Avery?’ Phil said knowing it must be important.
‘I don’t think she’s coming back…,’ Avery replied softly.
‘What do you mean, Avery?’ Phil said taking the man’s hand in his.
‘It’s the flu,’ he began, looking from one questioning face to the next, ‘I think the antivirus given to Charlie may have mutated. I think it became air-born and I think we’ve all been infected. The flu we’ve all had was actually the new virus battling with the Death Walker virus that was already in our bodies and I think it won, Phil. Don’t you see, if she doesn’t come back, none of us will and we’ll be free… it’ll be over.’
As the meaning of Avery’s words sunk in, Imran instinctively reached his out his arm and pulled Liz and his daughter to him. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and when she turned her head to look up at him with tears of loss in her eyes, Imran lent forward to kiss her softly on the forehead.
‘It’ll be alright,’ he whispered. ‘Whatever happens, it’ll be alright.’
Then as one, everyone in the room turned to look at the still body of Sister Josephine and waited for nothing to happen…
The End
Last Days With The Dead: Book 3 of the Lanherne Chronicles is out now on Amazon.
Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) Page 31
