Lanherne Chronicles (Book 3): Last Days With The Dead

by Stephen Charlick

  As much as they hated to admit it, they all knew Patrick was right. Any poor soul who had been unfortunate enough to find themselves out on the streets of Bodmin, unprotected and among the Dead, was on their own. There was simply nothing they could do for them, not if they wanted to see another day through living eyes.

  With the screech of straining metal reaching those hidden within the cart, Steve and Phil returned to the spy holes to grimly watch the horror outside them unfold. Sure enough, they could already see, in places, the fence popping free of its supports and starting to buckle under the weight of the multitude of the Dead pressed against it. Such was the pressure from those Dead at the rear that many of those in front were having what little flesh they had left on their bones, cut deep into by the criss-crossing thick wire that confined them. Others were simply falling, only to be trampled to a bloody pulp by those behind them. Then suddenly, one minute the sea of Dead faces were being pushed against the wire fence, and then the next, there was a sharp snapping sound and the fence was finally torn free. Like a wave, those at the front went down alongside the twisted and broken wire, and were instantly crushed beneath the bodies of those behind them. Their minds, unable to comprehend anything beyond the need to find the source of the scream, could not fathom how or why they were no longer being held back, and with the closest thing to excitement that their Dead minds could muster, the Dead let forth a terrifying collective moan. Desperately clawing to be free of the moving mass of limbs and bodies, many of the Dead were already puling themselves free of the pile to drag themselves upright slowly, while others behind them, simply clambered over the moving mound that now blocked their way.

  Inside the cart, Steve and Phil moved to spy holes set in the back wall of the cart to watch the wave of the Dead flow out of the car park, past the wreckage behind them, and quickly disappear from view.

  ‘God help them,’ Mumbled Phil, guessing that almost one hundred of the Dead had already forced their way through the small breach in the fence in pursuit of whoever had screamed.

  The sound of the crowd as they began to advance upon their living prey was fast becoming overwhelming. As each of the Dead heard one of its brethren’s pitiful moans, it too would add its own unearthly call to the deadly chorus, and before long, it felt to the four men in the cart that the whole of Bodmin was calling for a mouthful of bloody flesh.

  ‘My God! Get us out of here!’ said Steve, turning away from the spyhole and covering his ears with his hands.

  ‘No argument here…’ began Patrick, but was immediately shushed quiet by Phil.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, holding up his hand for quiet, ‘can you here that? Someone’s shouting, you can just about hear it above the sound of the Dead.’

  Each of them strained to make out the words being shouted.

  ‘No, it can’t be!’ whispered Imran, standing quickly back up to look through the roof hatch.

  Sure enough, no sooner had Imran stuck his head back into the upturned laundry basket, than he was met with the awe-inspiring sight of Liz, suddenly appearing through a wave of the Dead. With lightning speed, her blade flew from one side of Samson’s back to the next, removing decaying hands and heads with every stroke. She slashed her way through the Dead like a wild thing possessed, cleaving any limb from its body that dared to come too close, all the while, Samson charged his way through the Dead horde toward the relatively clear road ahead of them.

  ‘Jesus, Liz!’ a stunned Imran managed to say to himself, as he watched her jerk Samson abruptly to the left, the beast’s very size raining a permanent death down upon any of the Dead in his path.

  ‘What,’ said Phil, ‘what’s the fuck is she doing here? She’ll get herself killed!’

  ‘She’s got a woman with her, a soldier I think,’ Imran said, looking nervously back at Phil. ‘What do we…’

  However, his words where cut short by the sound of Liz shouting outside.

  ‘Stay in the cart!’ she shouted, stabbing down with her sword at the head of a Dead man who was reaching for her, while her companion smashed the skull of another of the Dead with a length of pipe. ‘Turn back! We’ll double back and catch you up!’

  ‘We’ve… we’ve got to help her!’ Imran said, ducking back inside the cart, his voice shaking in fear for the woman he loved.

  ‘No!’ said Phil, grabbing Imran firmly by the shoulders to stop him from kicking open the side hatch. ‘She knows what she’s doing, Imran. You’ve got to trust her. You go out there now and you’ll be killing yourself as well as her, she can’t save herself if she’s trying to save you.’

  ‘Stay in the cart!’ they heard Liz shout again, as Samson hammered past carrying the two women.

  ***

  ‘How are we going to lose them?’ shouted Karen over the constant groaning of the Dead, bringing a length of pipe crashing down on the skull of decrepit Dead teenage girl, ‘There’s so many of them!’

  ‘We’ll need to draw them off somewhere and then double back somehow…’ Liz replied, hacking away the hands of a Dead man dressed in a gore encrusted Policeman’s uniform.

  Thanks to Samson’s help, they had barged, hacked, sliced and smashed their way through the main swarm of the Dead that had appeared out of nowhere to almost swamp them. Escaping the main bulk of the Dead horde, Samson had galloped just far enough ahead to give Liz and Karen a little breathing space. Admittedly drawn by the hungry calls of the Dead behind them, even more corpses were now pulling themselves through broken windows, shattered doors and the twisted wrecks of cars to get to the two wonders made of warm blood and flesh that had suddenly appeared among them. But even a fraction of a second that allowed Liz or Karen to think of what they could do next was a God send and as Liz stabbed down into the top of the Policeman’s skull she saw just the thing she was looking for.

  ‘There!’ she shouted, pointing over to a roundabout, ‘That might just work.’

  The centre of the roundabout had once been a simple grass covered disk of green with three small decorative Cypress trees planted at it centre. Perhaps at some point it may have even had some sort of small flower bed running its circumference, adding a splash of colour to the utilitarian patch of grass, but now what little grass that could be seen was high and choked with weeds. The flower beds, without their yearly pruning back, had ballooned into vast wild rose bushes that spilled out across the road, while the quick growing Cypress trees now not only shared their home with a half a dozen struggling saplings, but they had also become huge monsters of swaying pine scented greenery, each some eight metres tall.

  ‘If there are any of the Dead on the other side of the roundabout, you’ve got to shoot them,’ called Liz to Karen over her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about the noise, we’ve just got to make sure none of them see us, okay? But don’t start shooting until we’re on that side.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me twice,’ Karen replied, pulling both of the handguns from their holsters.

  Suddenly, Liz pulled Samson to a stop just in front of the roundabout and began to wave her arms about to make sure all the film-covered eyes were focused on her movements.

  ‘Come on, you shit bags, come and get it!’ she said quietly under her breath, not wanting to alert any of the Dead on the other side of the roundabout of her presence.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Karen, twisting round on Samson’s back to see the vast swathe of the approaching Dead along the road behind them.

  ‘One thing about the Dead,’ Liz whispered, ‘they have a one track mind, and if they physically lose sight of their prey, they don’t have the mental capabilities to hunt it down.’

  ‘So?’ Karen replied, the weight of the guns in her hands doing little to dispel the panic rising in her chest.

  ‘So, they simply carry on walking in the direction they last saw it go,’ Liz replied, her eyes darting from one walking decaying mess to another.

  Glancing briefly to her left, she could see partly along one of the other roads that connected with
the roundabout. Unlike the road she had just battled along, this one was dotted with many more crashed, stalled, or abandoned cars. Doors and car boots had in their blind panic to flee the Dead, been left wide open by their owners, the plush interiors now nothing but spongy seed beds for wildflowers and weeds. During those first days, this road must have been used as a main thoroughfare either into or out of the town, the burnt and rusting shells that remained testament to the horrors that had befallen this place. Looking back along the road they had come, Liz tried to gauge how many more seconds she could chance acting as a lure before turning to make her escape. She knew she was cutting it fine, but she wanted to be sure that they would follow the way she expected. At the very last second, Liz yanked Samson’s reins to the side and with a sharp jab with her heels; they were off again, following the curve of the roundabout.

  ‘Karen!’ said Liz, seeing the three Dead figures shambling toward them along the road on the other side of the roundabout.

  ‘Got them,’ Karen replied, extending both arms over Liz’s shoulders and taking aim on the first of the Dead and firing.

  The second animated corpse soon fell lifeless to the ground and although she was grateful Karen was such a crack shot, Liz also knew they didn’t have long before their situation went from dire, to deadly.

  ‘Hurry, get the last one! We’re running out of time.’ Liz whispered, their urgency adding weight to her words.

  ‘Scaring the shit out of me isn’t going to get it done any quicker.’ She replied, pulling the trigger a final time on the last word.

  The corpse had barely started to fall to its knees before Liz abruptly turned Samson, and ploughed through the rose bushes and high grasses and into the Cyprus trees. The moment Liz could tell the greenery had closed behind them; she pulled Samson to a sudden halt. With the dense pine scented branches pressing in on them from all sides, Liz pushed aside a sticky sap covered branch from near her face and leant forward to stroke Samson’s thick neck. Whether it was to calm herself or the horse, Liz wasn’t sure and didn’t care. This was their only chance and she knew it. With luck, they could hide in the almost non-existent gap between the three trees, and wait patiently for many of the Dead mistakenly to follow their path past the roundabout and along the road. One thing that worked in their favour here, was that the Dead had almost a lemming mentality when it came to getting something bloody between their teeth. If they saw another of the Dead moaning and in obvious pursuit of something alive, they simply followed suit, whether they had actually witnessed the object of desire or not.

  For fifteen minutes, the chorus of moans surrounded them. Like some chilling dirge from an unknown circle of hell, their calls were a constant reminder to Liz and Karen that death lay in wait for them just beyond the safety of their hiding place. Liz knew if she were to push aside the branches that hid them, she would see the Dead slowly dragging their rotting corpses around the roundabout in pursuit of the living flesh they had seen come this way. Like a macabre game of follow the leader, or some hellish twist on the Pied Piper, many of the Dead were now simply being whipped into a frenzy by those in front of them, and were mindlessly following because they too would be interested in whatever had caught the attention of those ahead.

  ‘How long?’ whispered Karen directly into Liz’s ear.

  Not wanting to risk talking, Liz reached her hand back and tapped Karen’s thigh twenty times. She wanted to allow as many of the Dead swarm to pass them before they broke their cover, and as she could only guess how many of the Dead were still on the road, she thought another twenty minutes should do it. They would only get one chance at this, and Liz knew if they bolted too early, they could be torn to pieces.

  As the minutes ticked by, the cries of the Dead grew less and less, and although they could still hear the scraping of Dead limbs being dragged along the road by those who had been too slow to keep up with the rest of the cadaverous herd, Liz knew that with each minute, their chances of surviving increased just that little bit more.

  ‘Ready?’ Liz finally said, when she realised they hadn’t heard any movement beyond their Cyprus cocoon for a while.

  ‘I guess so,’ whispered Karen in reply, her arm tightening about Liz’s waist.

  With a gentle tap from her heels, Samson took a step forward. Briefly closing her eyes against the feathery Cyprus branches brushing against her face, Liz took a deep calming breath. Even over the ever-present stench of the Dead, she could smell small spots of sticky pine scented resin being left on her cheeks. With his second cautious step, Samson’s head was free of the trees and as he took a third, Liz opened her eyes. The veil of shadowy greenery suddenly fell away and blinking at the sudden brightness, she raised her hand to cover her eyes.

  ‘Yes!’ she said, a smile creeping over her face when she saw the relatively clear road ahead of them.

  There were barely a dozen of the Dead left on the road now, and these were in such a bad state that the danger they posed was minimal. Their bodies had been so brutalised, both when they died and since, Liz almost felt a twinge of sympathy for them. These cadavers would certainly never get the chance to satisfy the hunger that burned at their very core. They were doomed to be denied even the briefest of satisfaction in their Dead state. Of all of the Dead left on the road, not one was able to stand. Forced to drag their torn and shattered limbs behind them, they pulled themselves hand over hand through the rancid dark smears left by the earlier passing of their more able bodied brothers and sisters.

  ‘Hold tight!’ she said over her shoulder to Karen, before allowing Samson to burst completely from the protection of the Cyprus trees.

  Barrelling through the rose bushes ahead of them, Liz hoped Samson didn’t get too badly scratched up by them. The last thing they needed was for the poor beast to get an infected wound. A sick horse could prove fatal for all concerned.

  ‘Yah!’ she cried, charging down the street, veering Samson around a pitiful slug-like Dead woman who was missing all of her limbs apart from one arm.

  The unfortunate Dead woman, whose mould covered body technically ended just below her tattered rib cage, helplessly rolled onto her back as Samson sped past her. Glancing down, Karen could not help but wonder how this creature had come to be here, looking back at her with nothing but a pure hunger smouldering behind its film covered eyes, or rather eye, for one side of the Dead woman’s face was nothing but a mass of grey infected rot. Just how had Nature let the human form become perverted to such a degree as this, and just what terrible sequence of events had led this specific human being to become this wreck of flesh and bone that reached out a blackened hand demanding its bloody communion.

  Karen knew this was a story no one would ever know, and that saddened her. The woman, who at some point had loved, and presumably had been loved in return, had been savagely torn apart and would now forever be nothing but a nameless decaying shell, slowly succumbing to the ravages of the elements. As Samson galloped onwards, Karen turned back her head to briefly to watch the thing on the ground. For a few seconds, the Dead woman’s eye followed her passing, but then with almost a resigned acceptance that the warm bloody flesh was to be denied her again, her arm slowly fell back to the ground, her head tilted back and she was still.

  ‘Keep an eye out for the cart,’ said Liz, having to raise her voice louder than she would have preferred to be heard over the thunder of Samson’s hooves. ‘If they managed to turn round, we should run into them soon enough.’

  Careful of the uneven surface and the million pieces of left over detritus scattered along the road, Liz guided Samson as quickly and as safely as she could past the car park from which the Dead had poured forth in a wave of decay and rot. Just like on the road, only the Dead in the most sorry of states still remained, and even as they passed, Liz saw they were slowly dragging their savaged bodies, barely held together with rotting skin and putrid flesh, towards the breach in the wire fence. But Liz paid them no mind, she knew these too would be denied the taste of her warm
blood and living flesh. In what seemed like seconds, Samson had left behind the horrific nightmare of the make shift rescue point, sped past the twisted wreckage that had almost cost Karen her life, and was well on the way to consigning the town of Bodmin back to the silent graveyard of an untraveled red zone.

  ‘There!’ said Karen, pointing over Liz’s shoulder to the cart nestled amid the shadows of some large bushes and overhanging tress in a small layby.

  ‘Thank fuck!’ said Liz under her breath, relieved Karen and herself would soon be hidden from Dead eyes.

  ***

  ‘Sir, Intel from the Jackal, they say there’s more abandoned vehicles up ahead,’ came the voice of Private Samuel Grimes in Ridge’s ear piece. ‘With the row of cottages butting up against the roadside and the ditch on the other, we’re going to have trouble getting past.’

  ‘Christ!’ snapped Ridge, annoyed that the return journey to Carlyon bay was taking a lot longer than he had hoped. ‘ Erm… okay, we’ll just have to back up and take that other turning after all. Let them know, Private.’

  ‘Sir,’ replied Sam before he cut the connection.

  ‘Oh, and Private,’ continued Sergeant Ridge, glancing from his watch to the map spread out on the small fold away table in front of him, ‘radio ahead to the Logistic carrier and inform them not to expect us there until tomorrow morning now. With the rate we’re covering ground, we’ll never get there by tonight.’

  ‘Sergeant, it’s imperative we get this child safely back to base and as soon as possible,’ said Dr Lambert, the soldiers words somehow piercing his almost hypnotic fascination with Charlie’s electronic readouts, ‘Dr Farrell was quite insistent…’

  ‘Yeah, alright, Doc, cool your bollocks,’ Ridge replied, barely looking up from his map. ‘The kid’s survived this long without your help; I think he’ll make it through another night, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think you can appreciate just how important this child is, Sergeant Ridge,’ said Dr Lambert, stunned that the solider could so casually delay their return.