Fear the Dead 2 (7 page)

“I love you,” he said.

She bit her lip. “Wish you’d found a
better place to tell me,” she said, a bitter smile on her face.

“I mean it.”

She put her hand on his. “I love you
too.”

I coughed. “We have to go.”

Outside the Wilds loomed. The midday
sun was smothered by a cloud, and the rain tipped down onto our waterproofs. I
gripped the steel bars of the gate, knowing that for the journey ahead I would
have to do without the safety of them.

7

We walked for an entire day with a
raging wind pounding at our ear drums, but when we stepped into the village of
Stowham there was only silence. The volume dropped so suddenly that it made you
question your ears, and though it was eerie, it was not entirely unwelcome.
Better the settling of the silence than the moan of an infected.

Stowham was on the way to Manchester.
We could have taken the motorway, but we decided that if we were making the
trip, we may as well scout out some of the terrain. After all, we could find
something valuable.

Now that we were here, it didn’t look
like we were going to find anything. Stowham was made up of a few houses, a
high street dotted with small shops, a grass-banked roundabout and a pub. A
patch of ivy covered one of the houses, and in the last sixteen years it had
been allowed to grow unchecked so that the green leaves smothered the face of
the house and had spread onto the ones next door. Weeds grew through cracks in
the pavement, and the stone wall of a general shop was caked with black dirt.

Justin walked beside me, shouldering
the weight of a rucksack that was too big for him. Faizel moved in silence, his
eyes engrossed in something I couldn’t see or hear, as if he was listening to a
tune in his head. Dan carried his overnight bag that I was pretty sure had
nothing in it but whiskey and cigarettes.

He stopped, bent over and rubbed his
calf. “Why couldn’t we have taken a car?” he said.

The village was completely still.

“Let’s take a break guys,” I said to
everyone. Then to Dan, “Vasey’s only got two cars and Moe wouldn’t let us take
one.”

We sat on a row of benches outside a
pub called the Slaughtered Calf. The wooden door of the pub was shut as though
it was in the middle of a sixteen year-long lock in. I wondered if we should go
inside and see if any of the booze was still good. I wasn’t a heavy drinker,
but I had a thirst for a beer. That wouldn’t have been a good idea with Dan
around.

Dan took off his right shoe, rolled down
his grey sock and rubbed his toes. “You’re supposed to be the leader, aren’t
you?” he said, hanging a trace of contempt on the word ‘leader’.

I unzipped my coat and let air blow
against my chest. “The cars don’t actually belong to Vasey. They belonged to
Moe, and he loaned them to Vasey. He wouldn’t let us use them for this.”

“So I get stuck walking all the way
to Manchester just because you pissed him off?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a scout?”
I said.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a leader?”

Faizel leant forward. “Dan,” he said,
in a tone that stopped further conversation.

I scanned the village for any signs
of the infected. Despite how small the village was, there were bound to be some
hanging around. I wasn’t worried; alone, the infected weren’t much of a problem
unless they caught you by surprise. I couldn’t see any on the high street, but
there were a few alleyways that twisted off from it, and infected could easily
be waiting there.

A farmhouse sat at the top of a road
that span away from the village centre. A conservatory window stretched the
entire length of one side of it. Three blue solar panels glinted on the roof. A
balcony stretched from one side of the house, probably positioned for premium
sun-catching.

“Justin,” I said, and pointed at the
farmhouse.

He followed my finger, saw the house
and shrugged. “What?”

“Think you can learn how to use the
solar panels?”

He put his hand to forehead, as
though he were trying to block out sunlight, but there was none. Any sunlight
was smothered under grey clouds that teemed with rain.

“Maybe,” he said.

Dan slapped his shoes on the bench,
shaking off flecks of dust.

“We should check it out. Farmers have
guns,” he said. He slapped his shoe a few more times.

“Would you stop that?”

He gave his shoe another thud on the
bench and then set it aside.

I gave the village one more scan,
making sure that Dan’s noise hadn’t drawn anything out. There were definitely
some infected here. I had a sense for these things. Something just didn’t sit
right, but what was it?

Movement out of the corner of my eye.
Something on four legs.

My heart almost detached from its
valves and slipped up my throat. The only things I knew that walked on four
legs were stalkers, but those only came out at night. The sky was dark and
grey, but it wasn’t night-time yet.

I gulped. A chill spread through my
arms.
Please don’t tell me the stalkers are starting to come out earlier.

“Did anyone see that?” I said.

“What?” said Faizel.

Dan yanked his sock onto his foot.
“He’s seeing things.”

Justin sprang off the bench, walked
to the steps that led down from the pub. “Look,” he said, turning to look at
us. Then he pointed to the street. “It’s a dog!”

I got to my feet. Faizel joined me,
but Dan stayed sat on the bench. Justin walked halfway down the stairs. A smile
spread across his face.

“Justin, get back here,” I said.

I used to love dogs, but they were
different now. Most of them roamed in packs. They’d learnt to be suspicious of
anything they saw, and they were aggressive. Food was so scarce that when dogs
looked at humans they didn't see their friends anymore; they saw a meal.

“He’s alone,” said Faizel.

It was a black and white
border-collie. Its fur was overgrown and caked in mud, and it walked with a
slight limp that originated from its hind legs. I thought I saw a red collar
buried in the fur around its neck, but that couldn’t be right. If it had a
collar then it had once had an owner, but there was certainly nobody living in
Stowham now.

“Here boy,” said Justin, and
whistled.

The dog turned in our direction. It
sniffed the air, and its ears sprang up. It started to run at us in an uneven
trot.

I took a few steps forward and stood
in front of Justin. I drew my knife from my belt.

Justin looked worried. “What’re you
doing?”

“We’re going to eat it,” called Dan
from the back.

“Just in case it’s vicious,” I said.

There was no need for the precaution.
As the dog got closer it wagged its tail, and as soon as Justin bent to his
knees the collie ran straight into him and was showered in strokes. I bent down
and ran my hand along its fur. Dried mud shook off and fell to the floor.
Somewhere, underneath this mess, was a fine looking dog.

The collie gave a warm lick across my
hand, and then put its paws on Justin’s knees. The teenager buried his head in
the dog’s fur.

“Give me a break,” said Dan.

Faizel stood back, silent. He watched
the dog intensely.

“First dog I’ve seen that didn’t want
to eat me,” I said.

He nodded. “This one has had an owner
until recently.”

Justin looked at me. “Can we keep
him?”

I thought about it. Having a dog
could certainly be handy. They had better senses than us, and the collie would
be able to smell the infected before we saw them. It couldn’t hurt to have an
early warning system. As long as the dog was quiet and well trained, this could
actually be a good thing.

Dan put his bag on his lap, pulled
out a strip of cured beef. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said, tearing
off a shred of the meat with his teeth. He chewed, and then swallowed. “We
can’t drag a mangy dog around with us. Are you mad?”

I took a few steps toward him. For a
minute, I wasn’t focussed on what he was saying, more on what he was eating.
“Been meaning to talk to you about this, Dan. Where the hell are you getting
all your meat? Because I know you’ve gone through your ration already.”

The collie slipped from Justin’s
arms, bounded up the stairs and sat at Dan’s feet. It stared at him, watching
every movement of the meat as though it were transfixed.

“Get lost,” said Dan.

The collie lifted its paw toward Dan
as though it had been trained to beg for food.

“Fuck off dog,” Dan said, and stamped
his foot on the ground.

The collie started barking. The sound
was gruff and booming, and much louder than I expected. It echoed through the
stillness of the village.

“Come on Dan, give it something,” I
said. “We can’t have it making this noise.”

“Fuck no.”

The collie carried on barking.
Infected lurched into the daylight from the alleyways and open doorways, and I
felt a jolt of panic run through me.

“Justin,” I said. “Shut it up.”

Justin leapt up the stairs, tried to
grab hold of the dog. The collie shifted out of his grasp and carried on
barking as if it were possessed. More infected appeared. They had obviously
been there all along, but they had stayed dormant until outside stimuli woke
them up.

Justin moved from side to side trying
to trap the collie, but it was too quick for him. Dan sat on the bench and
watched with disinterest.

“You’re going to have to do this by
force,” he said.

Two infected were on the high street
and walking toward the pub. Four lurched out of an alleyway. A family of five
stumbled out of a doorway. The collie’s barking would bring even more of them.
We weren’t ready for a fight like this.

I scrunched up my face, turned to
Dan. “You mean kill it?”

More barking. The sound echoed
against the walls of the houses, a siren call for the infected.

Dan nodded. “Only way to shut it up.”

Guttural moans drifted across the
street.

I knew Dan was right. The only way we
would shut this dog up was by killing it. And if we didn’t, it was going to
draw out every single infected in a four mile radius.

I gripped my knife, tightened my fist
around it. My heart hammered, my stomach lurched. I took a step toward the dog.

“Please don’t Kyle,” said Justin, his
eyes wide.

More barks.

“I’m sorry.” I said. I held my knife
tight.

I stopped. My hand felt weak around
my knife. I couldn’t bring myself to kill it. I knew that we couldn’t let it
continue to make the noise, but a tension in my arms dragged me back.

“Jesus Christ,” said Dan.

More infected walked around a corner,
stumbled on thin limbs, their eyes burning with hunger.

Faizel took two strides forward. He
pulled his fire axe from the loop of his belt, bent down and grabbed the collie
by the scruff of its neck before it had the chance to react.

Justin’s face drained white. He held
his hand out, as if to shield himself from a blow that wasn't even coming his
way.

Faizel’s eyes hardened. He lifted the
axe in the air and brought it down in one heave. There was a crunch as it
swiped through bone. The barking stopped, and the collie’s head dropped onto
the floor. Its eyes were glassy, and blood sprang from the wound.