Fear the Reaper

by Richard Murray

  Once there, I stood aside as fifty marines, armed with assault rifles disembarked. Admiral Stuart followed as soon as they gave him the ok. He marched down the gangplank, dressed much as the rest of us. Naval fatigues and combat boots.

  He was still the same distinguished looking man I had first met when I awoke in the sick-bay after the zombie attack on the refugee camp. He was all square-jawed good looks with a touch of grey in his close-cropped hair.

  His intentions for the survivors were nothing but good. He had a chance at power, hell, more than a chance. They’d practically offered him the role of leader without any thought as to what form that leadership would take. He could have easily become the next king, had he wanted it. But he hadn’t. All he wanted was to serve the people of his country as best he could, by saving as many as he could.

  He had his rank visible and he wore his peaked cap and a warm jacket that was likely a great deal more waterproof than my own. He had a sidearm on his belt and like the rest of us, a poignard too. I stood to attention with my squad as he approached and gave my best salute.

  “Lieutenant,” he said with a smile as he returned the salute. His smile faded as he did a quick count of our numbers. “Your medic?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “Captain Jennings lost one of his squad too.”

  “And the captain is?” he asked as he studied the black-clad group, taking in their thick leather jackets and black cloth hoods.

  “Remained behind with the leader of this… group,” I said with a nod towards the four silent figures. I leant in close, lowering my voice. “We need to speak about them.”

  “In good time,” he said. “Any problems?”

  A simple way of asking me if the captain was being held against his will, or if the Dead were an enemy or even just hostile. I shook my head.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then we shall speak later. For now, we have another problem.”

  “Reaper?”

  He blinked grey eyes and studied me carefully before nodding slowly.

  “Not much gets by you, does it?”

  “Sir?”

  “Have your squad fall in,” he said. “I’ll require a full debrief from you later. For now, we have a more urgent mission.”

  He gave one last, sharp nod and strode off towards the waiting marines. They were all facing outwards, weapons at the ready and I almost pitied whoever had killed those squads when they found it.

  “Fall in,” I ordered my squad and then glanced at the acolytes. “You better come with us too.”

  They followed in silence, eyes alert and hands on the knives sheathed on their belt. I wasn’t exactly sure that they would need to use those knives, considering the fifty, armed marines surrounding us, but if it made them feel better, who was I to argue?

  Rusted metal girders lay piled to one side while blue barrels were stacked everywhere. Heavy machinery and containers filled most of the open space while cast-off scraps of metal lay rusting everywhere.

  The building we approached was several hundred metres in length and easily fifty high. A harried-looking squad of soldiers, weapons in hand, waved us forward from the door. A group of marines took up station there and the rest filed in behind us.

  A half-formed skeletal frame of a ship filled most of the building. There was steel everywhere I looked, with all the accompanying equipment that would have been used in putting that ship together.

  It would never leave the building, never slide along those rails out to the river and then to the sea. It would rust in that building, forgotten unless the fleet took it apart for materials.

  Admiral Stuart received the salute from a woman I recognised. Kylie, if I remembered correctly, a one-time survivor who had shown that she had the skills required to command a squad.

  “Report,” the Admiral said.

  “There’s something out there, sir,” she said without preamble. “Taken out five squads already.”

  “One creature?”

  “Far as we can tell. Only caught a glimpse of it. Bloody thing’s fast and it’s like a damned maze out there.”

  “Definitely a zombie?”

  “The teams we found were killed by teeth or claw,” she said. “We’re sure of that.”

  “Okay, stand your teams down.” She gave a relieved nod and I was surprised to see her hands shake as she saluted. “Manners?”

  “Sir?” one of the marines replied.

  “Over to you. Find this creature and kill it.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  He didn’t hide the smile on his face as he gathered up his troops and filed out the door. I caught the Admirals eye and he nodded in reply to my unspoken question. I gave one final salute, as I followed the marines out the door, my squad and the acolytes following behind.

  Chapter 17 – Ryan

  Beech trees lined the road, their thick canopies only just starting to lose their leaves. Abandoned vehicles were lined up along the cracked tarmac surface. The occupants long gone when the bridge, three hundred or so metres to the north of us, was destroyed.

  There were ample places to hide along the road itself, though the buildings to our left looked to be pretty much intact. No open doors immediately coming to my attention. To my right, was another matter.

  “Botanical Gardens,” I said musingly as I looked to the sign fixed atop a metal pole. “I don’t recall clearing that place.”

  No one replied and I glanced back over my shoulder, a little irritated until I remembered the soldiers that were with us. By the rules I had helped devise, my people were not allowed to speak to the living unless under specific circumstances.

  Since, I was not bound by those same rules, being the special person that I was, I had no such limitations. I shook my head and held back a sigh. Those rules had seemed like such a good idea back when we were devising them.

  It was entirely likely that at least some of my people had done a cursory search of the botanical garden grounds. Clearly, they had found nothing or I would have heard about it, but that didn’t mean someone or something couldn’t have moved in after our initial sweep.

  “You,” I said to the officer. “Take the left side of the street, we’ll take the right.”

  His face reddened but he nodded agreement. I hid my grin and pulled my knives from their sheaths.

  I’d lost my treasured combat knife back at the Fortress, just before I blew it to hell. For a little while, I’d had to depend on whatever weapons I could find but once I had formed my little group and entered the city, that had changed.

  An ‘outdoors’ store had been a great find early on our excursions into the city. They had all manner of gear that helped keep us alive in those early first days, most notably their wide selection of knives.

  The one I held in my right hand had a ten-inch steel blade, with a five-inch serrated spine for coarse cutting and a three-and-a-half-inch serrated guard before the hilt. It was wickedly sharp and tough enough to drive through bone.

  I held it point facing forward, while in my other hand was a smaller blade. Barely four inches in length and made of the same steel as the first, it was held in my hand with the point facing down. It wouldn’t be a great deal of use against a living person unless you hit them somewhere really specific with it, but for the undead, it was just the right size to break through the thin bone of the temple and into the brain.

  Suitably equipped to face any threat, I started along the street, my minions spreading out behind me, eyes moving constantly as they scanned the road ahead. I fought down the rising excitement as it threatened to overcome me.

  It had taken some time to get that feeling back, to find the right circumstances that would have me feeling true pleasure in killing once again. The Shamblers, I couldn’t care less about, but the Ferals… they were a challenge at times and almost like killing a real person.

  “Keep your eyes on the trees,” I said as I followed my own advice and looked up into the branches.

  The damn things could climb, I’d
known that ever since my time at the Sanctuary, that castle my parents called home. The Ferals that had attacked us there had tried to climb the wall to reach me. It wasn’t too much of a stretch then, for them to climb into trees and drop down on unwary passers-by.

  Perhaps I should have warned the soldiers, I thought as I glanced over to them. They walked with shield arms held before them and those pointed metal spikes in their other hand, ready to strike. Not one of them thought to look up into the trees.

  Nah, they’ll figure it out.

  “Here,” Alison said and I glanced at her in surprise. “They died here.”

  Her voice was kept low so that none of the soldiers could possibly hear her, which I supposed wasn’t technically breaking the rules.

  “Spread out,” I commanded. “Find them.”

  The bodies were gone, so they’d clearly turned and since we’d not encountered them… I looked over the wall into the botanical gardens and knew where they’d likely be.

  Still, we had to be methodical. No point only checking half the road, so we continued on to the far end, checking between the abandoned vehicles and in the branches of the tree. There were plenty of gouges in the bark of several of the trees, and that was useful to see since it was an easy way to identify ones that had been climbed by the Ferals. No actual zombies though.

  “What now?” the officer asked as he clambered over the nearest cars and re-joined us on our side of the street.

  “In there,” I said and pointed over my shoulder at the gardens.

  “Why?”

  “They’re Ferals,” I said and noted his look of abject stupidity, or perhaps it was confusion. “They like to nest and the houses on the side of the street you just checked are all still locked up tight.”

  I led the way over the wall, ignoring the grumbling from the officer and his squad, my attention fixed firmly on the surrounding trees and the glass house in the far distance.

  Set on eight acres of land, there were plenty of open spaces and towards the road where we had been searching, were a large number of trees. Beech and Ash, they rose high above us and to reach the glass house, we would need to pass beneath a great number of them.

  We moved slowly, cautiously, spreading out so that we weren’t clumped together as an easy target. Each step placed with care to avoid the numerous twigs that littered the ground. Any one of which, if stood upon, would break with a crack that would be audible to anything hiding nearby.

  I scanned each tree as I passed, looking at the trunk for signs of claw-marks and up into the branches for anything that might be lurking there. Much good that was, considering how little I could see amongst the heavy foliage.

  A rustle of leaves was all the warning I had before a cry sounded from my left. One of the soldiers was down, a feral raking his back with its claws, blood filling the air, accompanying his shrieks. I held up one hand as my minions rushed forward and they stopped in their tracks. I wanted to see how the soldiers dealt with it.

  The Feral leapt to the side, away from the screaming man as the other soldiers approached, forming a rough semi-circle as they advanced, small shields held up before them and pointed steel held ready to strike.

  It ducked a clumsy swing and swept the soldier's legs out from under him with one sweep of its arm. He landed on the ground, the air expelled furiously from his lungs as his companions rushed forward to cover him.

  Another strike sailed past the creature’s head, and a third barely grazed its shoulder. I began to shake my head at just how inept they were when the officer stepped up. He batted aside a clawed hand with his shield and kicked it squarely in the chest.

  Off balance, it swung its clawed hands his way and he once again used the shield effectively to block them before pushing forward, smashing the shield against its face. It let out a howl of anger as it swiped at him ineffectually. His weapon pierced its skull and the only sound was that of the man shrieking in pain.

  “Help him!” he ordered a man I took to be a medic before he rounded on me in a fury. “Why the hell didn’t you fight?”

  “You didn’t need us to,” I said as I cocked my head to one side, listening.

  “If we can’t count on…”

  I held up one finger to shush him as I caught the sound again, a rustling of leaves, the creak of a branch as something heavy shifted on it.

  “What..?” he began but I ignored him and turned to my people.

  “Ready yourselves.”

  They dropped out of the trees all around us, their grey skin still bearing the poorly healed marks of their deaths. Their clothes were ragged and crusted with dirt, where they wore any at all. Each of them had a balding head, the hair turning brittle and falling away as the skin on the ends of their fingers withered away, hardening over the bone to form claws.

  Each of them crouched, bodies hunched over, their heads raised so that they could sniff at the air. A white film covered their eyes, rendering them almost blind, not that it stopped them. Four of them wore black leather.

  No time for words, no inspiring speeches, just quick movement, the flashing of my blade. Their howls filled the air as they rushed at us and time slowed, a savage joy burning in my breast as I ducked their claws, lashing out with my own talons of steel.

  A Feral fell lifeless to the ground and I pulled back my short blade from its skull, the joy at its death already fading as I swayed away from the vicious swing of another Ferals claws, kicking out at its legs and following up with a glancing blow to its skull.

  It moaned in frustration as I drove my long blade into its neck, spinning on my heel to slam the short blade into the side of its skull. Someone laughed as another died beneath my knife and a distant part of me recognised the sound of my own voice.

  From somewhere in the distance a roar echoed my laughter and I paused, just for an instant as a memory tugged at me. It was long enough for a clawed hand to sweep across my leather jacket and I responded my stabbing my long blade through a bite ravaged face as I appreciated the tough leather that had saved me from a disembowelment.

  One of my minions fell beneath the claws and teeth of two Ferals, while a soldier screamed as a chunk of flesh was torn from his neck. More of the undead were dropping into view and I snarled a response to their moans as I leapt towards the nearest.

  Blood filled the air, the coppery scent mixing with the noxious odour of the undead. Snarling faces, gnashing teeth and sharp claws tearing at me. I moved with purpose, planting each knife just so. Every blow intended to end a life.

  Another soldier died and the screaming of the wounded one stopped as he was torn apart by eager hands, his flesh filling the bellies of the undead.

  “Run!” the officer called.

  Coward!

  Another Feral fell, to join those piled at my feet. My remaining two minions moved closer to my side, their weapons held before them as the soldiers ran.

  No retreat for the Dead.

  I laughed once more as the Ferals rushed in to their deaths.

  Chapter 18- Lily

  The pop-pop-pop of gunfire filled the air as another burst was fired, hitting nothing but the steel containers the creature had ducked behind.

  “Spread out!” Manners commanded. “Find that fucking thing and kill it!”

  Easier said than done, was all I could think as I held the cloth to the gaping wound on the young marine's neck. Blood was spreading in a slowly growing pool beneath him, his mouth moving but no words coming out as I applied all the pressure I could.

  “Medic!” Gregg screamed for the second time.

  “Make sure that damned thing’s dead,” I snapped at the acolyte beside me.

  She grunted and moved the three feet towards where the Feral lay, it’s white eyes seeming to stare right at me, and slammed her knife down into its skull.

  “Medic, for god’s sake! Gregg yelled.

  “Too late,” I told him as the life faded from the young marine’s eyes.

  That made three dead marines for one fera
l. Hardly a great exchange. I lifted my poignard from the dirt where I’d dropped it and pressed the point against the dead man’s temple. A sickening crunch sounded and I closed my eyes for the briefest moment as I pulled it back out of the skull.

  More gunfire sounded from close by and a scream came straight after. The medics would have their work cut out for them.

  “Gather up, people,” I snapped.

  My squad and the acolytes clustered close, Lars and Mark with their guns in their hands, the acolytes with their knives and the rest of us with our poignards.

  “You willing to fight with us?” I asked the black-garbed figures, my tone demanding an answer.

  “We will,” their lone speaker said.

  “Then follow me.”

  Anger tore at me. A roaring fury that demanded a response. I should have known better, I should have warned the marines. I should have known what a fucking Reaper was.

  The area around the shipyards main building was a rabbits’ warren of storage tankers, containers, buildings, vehicles and cast away steel and parts. The marines had been forced to split up into smaller groups as they searched, expecting to find a single undead lurking out there in the shadows. They’d walked straight into an ambush.

  A dozen Ferals had leapt from the tops of the containers, taking down several marines before we’d even known they were there. They hadn’t been making their customary moans and they didn’t stick around to feed. Just killed and ran, soon lost in the maze of storage containers.

  Three times they’d caught us. Three times we’d lost more than we’d killed and I was getting beyond sick of it. They were working together, like a pack of hyenas, they pulled down a few of our number and vanished.

  I wiped the marines blood from my hands and gripped my poignard tight. I’d heard of them behaving like that just the once before. I mean, sure, they’d worked in packs before, but not as cleverly as they were doing then.

  No, the only time they’d worked in such a smart manner was at that lumberyard months back, just after they’d killed Pat. Back when something had seemed to be in control.