She watched, craning her neck as they all were, aware that they were about to witness the young girl’s death. The Thinker grasped three of the bars of the cage in its free hand and squeezed, melding them together, leaving a gap wide enough to allow its enlarged head to pass through.
Lavender thought she saw what it intended. It shoved its ugly head through the gap, its over-wide, blackened mouth opening to reveal rows of vicious teeth set in bloody gums. She watched it lean out, expecting it to sink its repulsive maw into Yasmin’s neck.
Instead, it clamped its jaw around Yasmin’s arm, just above the elbow. The scream the girl emitted shook Lavender to her very core. The Thinker was relentless and powerful. It bit right through, until all that held Yasmin up there, still in his fearsome grasp, was a long stretch of skin.
Lavender watched, sickened, as the flesh pulled impossibly taut, the air filled with Yasmin’s pitiful cries for help. Then, at last, the skin snapped. The girl’s body fell to the floor in a graceless flop, hitting the ground hard, when the screaming finally stopped once and for all.
Up in the cage, Joel looked down at them with dead, amber eyes, lifting what was left of Amber’s arm to his mouth like a man at a feast might lift a leg of chicken.
*
For a moment, all they could do was stand there in shocked revulsion, looking up at the grotesque scene. Lavender came to her senses first, her anger bubbling close to the surface, driving her will to survive.
“We’ve got two choices: empty that armoury back there of every weapon you’ve got and finish him off in the cage or take what we can carry and get the hell out of here. Either way, he’s a problem,” she pointed at the Thinker.
“What happened to your theory? What about what you hoped to observe?” Harris protested.
“Did you see how easily he bent those bars? Do you seriously imagine that flimsy little cage is going to be strong enough to contain him for much longer? I was crazy to think it and you were crazy to go along with me!”
Harris clenched his jaw, a tiny muscle at the corner of his mouth twitching, “That’s not fair Lavender. I went along with you because you were so convincing. For what it’s worth, I still think your theory’s right,”
Lavender relented, making a concentrated effort to calm down, “I know. Look, I’m sorry. All I meant to say was, things have changed. I still think it’s true too. But that cage just isn’t going to hold him. If it was up to me, I say we kill him while he’s still in it, then move on,”
Something soft thudded onto the gangway behind Lavender, making her jump. She turned, disgusted to see the remains of Yasmin’s arm behind her. Instinctively, she stepped back, as if it was capable of doing her harm.
“I say we hack the bastard to pieces right now,” Drums said quietly.
“Agreed,” Bailey said, spinning on his heel and heading back down the corridor, stepping over the arm as he went.
“I’ll stay here,” Lavender said, watching them go. She saw Harris raise an eyebrow, “In case he gets out while you’re gone or something,” she added by way of explanation, “I can raise the alarm,”
“If he does, you’re unarmed,” Bailey pointed out.
“Then hurry up and get back here!” Lavender retorted, “and bring me something decent to fight with!”
When they had gone, running noisily down the corridor, she approached the discarded limb. She nudged it over the side of the gangway, where it joined the crumpled, misshapen form of its owner below, “No disrespect Yasmin,” she said softly, “but we can’t have anyone tripping or falling, especially if it comes to a fight up here,”
As if in response, the Thinker gave a low, mournful moan; a sound that reached into the blackest depths of Lavender’s heart. A sound she knew so very well.
She looked up. There was no longer any trace of Joel the man, left. This was unmistakably a Thinker. Tall, powerfully muscular, with just enough intelligence left to make simple deductions. Enough to make them horribly formidable.
Both of its hands were gripping the bars. It was staring down at Lavender with a hungry expression, much as a bird of prey must examine its quarry just before it strikes.
Just before it strikes. Lavender was in motion before the realisation had even fully formed in her head. She dodged to the right, towards the end of the collapsed gangway, just as the Thinker landed with a noisy crash, its back to her, buckling the metal where it landed.
“Shit!” Lavender gasped, glancing up at the empty cage. Its bars had simply been pulled aside, as if opening a pair of curtains.
She looked around desperately. There was nothing of any use here. The gangway ended in a ragged slope, supporting joists sticking out like ribs from a corpse. She backed up slowly, her only hope was to get out of the Thinker’s reach. She would have to lower herself down on one of those ribs and hope there was something to hold onto under the gangway.
The Thinker was turning around to face her. Realising she had nothing to lose, she screamed a warning to the others.
The Thinker made towards her, its intentions obvious. Her palms wet with sweat, Lavender knelt to grasp the cold metal joists.
She experienced real alarm when her hands, wet as they were, began to slide uncontrollably towards the end of the joist she was on. The tip of it curled upwards like a sharp wave, bringing her slide to a stop, her injured wrist thrumming with new pain. Gasping, she tried to focus, to see if there was anything she could grab to ease her under the gangway, out of harm’s way for now.
There was a series of bars running along the underside of the structure. Set in rows like railway lines, she wouldn’t be able to hand swing across them like monkey bars, she would have to shimmy her way across. She released one hand to reach across and grab one, when a blast of fetid breath blew warm across her face, making her feel instantly nauseous. She blinked rapidly against the acrid stench, her eyes watering. Aware she had to move fast, she reached out blindly, groping for one of the bars.
“Oh no you don’t!” Harris, up above on the gangway. Lavender looked up to see the Thinker prone above her, its face mere inches from her own. It turned its neck quizzically, losing interest in her. Wasting no time, Lavender took the opportunity to move, propelling herself along the bars until she was dangling over the hard floor below, littered now not only with the debris of ransack and ruin but the newly dead body of a young girl too.
Lavender recalled thinking it might be possible to survive a fall from such a height with no more than a few broken bones. Hovering over it as she now was, she felt less sure.
She could hear the roar of the Thinker, the swing of weapons, the quick exchange of words and occasional shout amongst the others, otherwise it all sounded oddly calm; focused, determined. Deliberate, rather than the reckless, desperate fight for survival she had expected. Whatever was going on up there had a systematic feel about it. She wished she could see what was going on.
A sudden, heavy thud almost dislodged her. She cried out as her injured hand slipped free, forcing it back up to grip the bar. Praying they wouldn’t be much longer, she listened hard.
There was a small cry of triumph that sounded like Naomi. Someone stepped quickly, feet precise and purposeful on the steel surface. She felt as much as heard the violent downward thrust of some sharp weapon, the unmistakable sound of flesh slicing. She heard someone mumble something in a quiet voice, she thought Naomi again, then there was a burst of activity. The gangway shook crazily, making Lavender worry she might lose her grip a second time, that it might come loose of its remaining moorings and send them all crashing to the ground. There was a series of thumps and clashing, the sound of metal impacting on metal. Even the air began to smell tinny.
Something soft and warm landed on Lavender’s head. She looked up, to see a dark liquid begin to seep through a crack in the gangway. Blood, she realised, looking away, shimmying further along to escape it. Whose blood?
She was sure she was too weak to hold on much long
er. The idea of simply letting go, of letting the dice fall where they may, became more and more appealing. If she should break a leg in the fall, then what of it? Someone could take care of her for a change. Then Bailey’s head suddenly appeared, upside down over the side of the gangway. His hair was crazy, his face and beard spattered, his eyes wild and wide, yet he smiled and reached out a hand.
“You can come out now,” he said.
Moving On
Carnage.
That was the only word Lavender could think of that fitted the scene back up on the gangway. Utter carnage, and even that word was not really sufficient.
She recalled Mad Gasher’s obsessive preoccupation with severing the cord in the neck of a zombie, especially Thinkers. Total decapitation was even better, in his view. She thought he would approve of the sight she now looked upon.
This Thinker had been decapitated, yes. It had also been completely dismembered. Further, it had been ripped apart, its body so comprehensively butchered it was hard to identify parts of it beyond ragged lumps of bloody meat.
They were all standing around panting, most of them with weapons still in hand. Lavender caught Naomi’s eye. The girl held her gaze, something new in her eyes; something hard and unrelenting. She wondered just how much of this mess Naomi had been responsible for.
Lavender knew first-hand how it felt to finally fight back after spending so long frightened and in hiding. She knew how liberating it was to finally look the world in the eye and say, ‘fuck you’ and not feel bad about it. She smiled at the girl; a smile of recognition and acceptance.
Naomi smiled back.
*
After gathering together as many weapons as they could comfortably carry, they set out from that place, an unspoken determination between them to put it as far behind them as they could.
They walked in silence, Harris and Bailey out front at first. Lavender overtook them when they reached the holiday park entrance, turning left and striding out, away from the fairground and the seafront that lay back there, making it plain without uttering a word that there was no going back that way. No one argued, they simply followed her.
Behind them, on a whitewashed rock half-buried in the snow, a little robin sang prettily, incongruous in its surroundings, watching them go.
*
The sea draws you, Lavender mused. Somewhere in her subconscious she had set out to reach the water again. This time, they descended the snow-smattered grassy slopes of a long but gently descending hillside. Either the temperature had raised a little, or the snow had not fallen so deeply here, for there was less of the white stuff to wade through. The descent ended in a drop of about five foot, down onto a shingle beach that was entirely snow free.
It was no more than a bay, really, flanked on either side by a gradually climbing cliff face which was unclimbable at its furthest points. Here on the beach, it offered shelter from the worst of the wind. Lavender could easily imagine it in summer, very likely a sun trap when the weather allowed for it.
The sea was lapping gently against the shingle, the stones smaller and finer the closer they came to the water’s edge. Where the waves met the land it was coarse sand underfoot.
Lavender looked across at the motley gang she had found herself with. They were all covered in blood, all of them dirt-smeared and soiled. She was about to suggest a dip, when a vivid picture of Carson’s mottled blue feet came into her head.
Her throat clogged at the memory, her eyes stinging with tears. She turned away, blinking. Evening was drawing on, a red sun showing the first signs of lowering itself into the horizon. She forced herself to think practically. First order of business, they needed to find shelter for the night.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a boyish shout of glee. She turned, to find Corcoran waving to them from a gap in the cliff face at ground level. The boy had found a cave. She sighed inwardly, wondering if she would have to be the one to point out that the tide would likely come in and drown them all if they were foolish enough to sleep there.
Except Bailey was already there, with the boy. Judging from the look on his face he liked what he saw. He turned to her, the last to arrive, as if knowing she was the one who would need convincing.
“It’s dry,” he said encouragingly, “the walls, the rocks on the ground, all of it bone dry,” he added, bending to pick up a handful of the coarse sand and allow it to filter through his fingers, to prove his point, “It’s out of the wind too, and it’s a roof over our heads should it snow again. We’re all exhausted Lavender, I think we should stay here for the night,”
He had done her the courtesy of explaining his decision, but the decision was nonetheless made. He wasn’t looking for permission or approval, he was looking for agreement.
It felt good to be treated like an equal again. Lavender didn’t speak in reply, she just entered the cave, found a good spot and sat down.
*
Full night. Lavender woke slowly, her senses offering clues to where she was. The smell of salt in her nostrils, the grainy taste of sand in her mouth, inexplicably. The soft snoring of the others as they slept, the soothing sound of the sea as it forged new rivulets amongst the shingle.
Someone was crying.
Lavender sat up, rubbing her eyes. The sobbing was outside, beyond the cave. She stood quietly, unwilling to wake the others.
Naomi sat on a rock a little way down from the cave, a touch closer to the sea. She had her arms about herself against the night chill. Her gaze was across the ocean, to who knew what lay beyond it. She was crying freely, no attempt to stem the flow of tears.
“Naomi?” Lavender whispered her name, approaching cautiously as if afraid of frightening the girl off.
“Lavender,” Naomi acknowledged her in turn.
“Are you okay?”
“Is any of us okay?”
“Fair point,” Lavender conceded, “Can I join you?”
Naomi shrugged, “These rocks are not very comfortable,”
“Well, that’s one thing about a zombie apocalypse; you don’t expect comfort after a while,” Lavender sat down gingerly on a neighbouring rock, hard and unyielding beneath her.
“Why the tears?”
“Why not? There’s enough to cry about isn’t there? We’ve all lost someone, we’re all changed, not necessarily for the better. Why shouldn’t I cry?”
“Can’t argue with that,” Lavender agreed, “Stupid question, really,”
“Don’t you ever cry?”
Lavender sighed, folding her hands in her lap, “Of course I do, I just don’t like to show it, that’s all,”
“Why not? You think it makes you weak?”
“I used to think that way,” Lavender agreed, “But then, I used to be coward,”
“You? A coward? I don’t believe that for a second,”
“Well you should, because it’s true,” Lavender smiled, “That’s not why I don’t cry if I can help it though,”
“Then why?”
“Honestly? Because I am afraid that if I start, I won’t be able to stop. There’s too much to cry for, you see,”
Naomi turned to look at her directly. She unfolded her arms from about herself and reached out, taking Lavender by the hand. Lavender fought not to shake the girl off. She was prone to making such familiar gestures, she thought. Perhaps it was something to do with being so young.
Naomi’s hand was warm in hers. Lavender relaxed a little, relishing some simple human contact.
“I am sorry about Carson,” Naomi said, tightening her grip on Lavender’s hand as if to prevent her withdrawing it.
“Me too,” Lavender said, doing just that. She did it kindly, standing up and brushing down her filthy trousers as if the removal of a few grains of sand could do anything to improve them, “and I’m sorry about Yasmin,”
Naomi nodded, wrapping herself up in her arms again, “But I’m not sorry about Joel,” she added defensively.
“I wouldn’t expect you to be,”
“I mean, that wasn’t Joel, that thing we demolished back at the club. That was something else, right? That wasn’t Joel,”
Understanding dawned in Lavender, reinforcing just how young this girl really was. Had she ever been so young?
“You’re not a bad person, Naomi. You’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve no need to feel guilt, or shame, for what you’ve done,”
“I was wild, Lavender! I was like someone crazy! I even scared myself!”
“You were venting all your frustrations, your anger, all of it. Don’t go beating yourself up over this Naomi,”
The girl stopped, relented, “Really?”
“Really. Look, I know it sounds corny, and believe me I know how hard it is to do, but we need to look to the future now. Whether you like it or not, that baby you are carrying really is a symbol of hope. We have to do all we can to keep you and it safe,”
“But what’s the point? It’s going to be born into a world full of undead. It will have to learn how to be silent. How do you make a baby silent, Lavender? How do you prevent a baby from crying when there’s a Thinker in the room next door, hunting you down?”
Lavender sighed again, putting her hands on her hips. She resumed her seat next to the girl, thinking carefully before she spoke.
“I know we didn’t see it through with Joel, Naomi, but I am convinced I am right about Thinkers. I believe it is only a matter of time before they all self-implode. The virus that infected them at the start? I think that’s somehow mutated. Whatever the hell the word is, I’m no scientist. I think that eventually they will remove themselves from this world. All we have to do is survive until then,”
“What about all the other zombies? The ones who aren’t Thinkers?”
“Then we do what we do. We take them down where we find them. It might take some time, but we’ll win in the end,”
“But how do you know that?”
“Because we have to, Naomi. What’s the alternative? We have to survive, that’s all there is to it,”
They fell silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts. The moon shone on the waves, silvering them, making them sparkle.
Mindless Trilogy (Book 3): Brutal Truths Page 18
