Last Days With the Dead (33 page)

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Grimes replied, gesturing up to one of the back bedroom windows where a man’s emaciated corpse was pawing pointless at the glass.

‘Pity,’ was all Sinclair could say, catching the hunger crazed glare of the cadaver.

Apart from one other animated corpse that Pelling eagerly consigned to its long overdue oblivion, the rest of the gardens they crossed had been thankfully empty
, and they had soon made their way to the last in the row of houses.

‘Are going through this one, Sir?’ asked Mallon, looking up at the shattered windows and soot stained brickwork of the final house.

‘No,’ mumbled Ridge, double checking the map, ‘too risky that the corpses will see us and we need to turn at this corner anyway.’

The Sergeant then quietly walked over to the bushy plants that bordered the garden’s overgrown patch grass, slowly pushed aside the branches of a misshapen laurel tree
, and paused.

‘Damn
,’ he whispered under his breath, disappointingly finding a two-metre high wooden fence running the length of the garden.

For a few seconds
, the Sergeant pondered how to deal with this new obstacle. Of course the flimsy barrier wouldn’t normally pose a problem, but with God knows how many of the corpses possibly milling on the other side, they could hardly just jump over. Sergeant Ridge glanced at Lucy, knowing that any moment, she was about to show him up again with another one of her little gems of practical knowledge. But this time he knew he already had the tools at his disposal to complete this task, and pulling a small black disk from one of his pockets, he turned to look at Lucy.

‘You’re not the only one with tricks up their sleeve,’ he whispered, smiling smugly as he pushed aside the top of the black disk to reveal a mirror beneath.

Lucy ignored the Sergeant and let her eyes wander along the top of the high fence, searching for something she knew they would need. When she finally found what she was looking for, she glanced back at the soldier to see what he would do next. Sergeant Ridge had pushed himself closer to the fence and was slowly raising the mirror, tilted at an angle. Turning left and then right, the Sergeant checked the other side of the fence for any of the hungry cadavers.

‘Right, it’s clear.’ He finally said, putting the mirror back in his pocket
. ‘We need to go left from here and then right at the next crossing. There’s some sort of tour bus or coach on its side at the intersection and another behind it. They’re blocking the view from here, so we’ll just have to see how the land lies when we get there.’

‘S
ir, how’s she going to get over the fence?’ asked Andrews, nodding towards Lucy with the baby in her arms.

‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll get through
okay,’ she said softly, walking away from the group.

‘Lucy!’ Andrews hissed, giving Ridge a glance before jogging after the apparently escaping girl, ‘Lucy, wait!’

Lucy soon stopped at the spot she had chosen and turned to look at Andrews.

‘You need to look at the top of the fence.’ She muttered, once again giving him the baby to hold
. ‘See, this panel has dropped out of line from the others. It’ll be loose and easier to pry away from the post.’

Lucy then ran her fingers down the post along the edge of the wooden panel. At one
point, she stopped and began to work her fingers into the small gap she had found.

‘The
re’ll be less plants on the other side to block it,’ she whispered, glancing back at the fascinated soldier, ‘and as the bottom of the panel is probably higher than the road anyway, all it needs is one good shove to…Open!’ she finally said, as the fencing panel suddenly creaked opened onto the roadside of the fence.

Normally
, she wouldn’t have been so bold, but with Sergeant Ridge already giving them the ‘all clear’, she knew nothing that wanted to rip her open and feast on her warm organs was waiting for her on the other side. So with just one further shove of the fence panel to make the gap wide enough, she slipped through. Looking back along the hedge, Lucy could see the other soldiers were already crouched down against the fence some ten metres away. No matter how much they were trying to hide it, she could tell from their expressions that they felt exposed and vulnerable standing out in the open like this, so close to the horde of the Dead they had just bypassed.

‘Ten metres can save your life,’ Lucy whispered to Andrews, as he pushed through the gap and handed her back the baby.

Immediately, Lucy wanted to kick herself for passing on another piece of survival knowledge. She had to keep on reminding herself that she didn’t want to like this young man, she didn’t want to be his friend, and she didn’t want him to be safe. But with each minute she spent with him, her resolve faltered and her need for revenge on them all waned.

‘Come on, Lucy,’ whispered Andrews, lightly touching her shoulder and breaking her from her thoughts, ‘the others are moving
.’

Lucy looked over at the other soldiers and saw that they had already crossed to the other side of the road
, and were crouched near the back of one of the crashed coaches. As she watched, the Sergeant slipped the holdall carrying the body of the small child off his shoulders and casually dropped it at his feet with a sickening thud. In that moment, the world seemed to fall away for Lucy. She could not hear Andrews next to her urging her to move. She was unaware of his worried and concerned expression, as he knelt before her trying to make her look at him, trying to reach her. In that moment, all Lucy could see was the holdall at Sergeant Ridge’s feet; the holdall that held a tiny body, pale and still. Suddenly, the ember of revenge that burned within her began to ignite, transforming in ever increasing waves into an uncontrollable firestorm. How dare he treat the baby with so little respect, dropping the bag to the floor as if it held nothing but rubbish. How dare he come to their home and tear her family apart. How dare he be one of the living when so many had been snatched into the gaping maw of death, bloody, and terrorised. She hated him, of that she knew in the very core of her being. She hated him and she could wait no longer for her pound of flesh. She would see him bleed for his sins.

‘Lucy? Lucy, what’s the matter? Are you alright?’ Came Andrews’ worried words, suddenly breaking through her mania.

Lucy shook herself and looked deep into the concerned eyes that even now searched her face for meaning, and she knew she could not hurt him. His hands were free of the blood of her family, of that she was sure, and she somehow knew she could trust him. He was innocent and she would try to save him if she could.

Finally tearing her eyes away from the young man knelt before her, Lucy looked down at the sleeping child in her arms. Gently
, the back of her fingers traced along the child’s cheek and instantly she knew what she must do.

‘Here,’ she said, quickly passing the baby over
to Andrews, ‘take him.’

‘Lucy?’ Andrews whispered, nervously glancing up and down the street.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy managed to reply, her hand discreetly slipping into her pocket to clutch a shard of broken glass from the window pane that she had managed to hide.

With that, Lucy noticed the Sergeant was staring in their direction, curious why they were taking so long.

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, her voice barely audible as she swiftly stepped past Andrews.

But Andrews could see she was about to run and reached out to grab her arm. Doing so, he pulled the hand holding the sliver of glass from her pocket. Already the sharp edges were cutting into her palm
, but the young girl seemed unaware of it or the blood slowly dripping from her hand.

‘Lucy, don’t,’ he begged, seeing that Sergeant Ridge had just waved the others onwards
, but was moving back towards them, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, ‘he’ll kill you, Lucy, please.’

‘What the fuck’s going on, Private?’ Ridge hissed, looking from Andrews to the young girl as he slipped the holdall back over his shoulders.

‘Sir?’ Andrews automatically replied, stepping slightly in front of Lucy, desperate that what she held in her hand went unnoticed.

‘I said…’Ridge began to repeat
, but his words were suddenly interrupted by a blood-chilling scream from across the street.

Whatever the annoying girl had been up to
, had been instantly dismissed as no longer important, as Sergeant Ridge spun back to face the crashed coach. Suddenly, Pelling appeared running at full speed from behind the wreckage, an uncharacteristic look of wide-eyed terror on her face. She was closely followed by Sinclair and Grimes, their own face contorted into masks of pure fear.

‘Run!’ shouted Pelling as she sprinted toward them.

‘What the…’ Ridge began to say, but when Mallon stumbled from around the side of the coach, the corpse of a woman clamped to his neck, he knew what had happened, ‘Pelling!’

‘We didn’t see them until it was too late
,’ said Pelling, reluctantly skidding to a halt. ‘They were on the other side of the second coach. Fuck! There must be over a hundred of them on the road. He just walked right into one, Mallon; he just walked right into the bitch.’

Even as she said his name, Mallon screamed again. He was trying desperately to throw the woman off
, but at last, the flesh she craved was within her grasp and would not let go until she had rightfully claimed her prize. Then almost as if in slow motion, the woman began to draw her head back. For a second, Mallon’s screams intensified as the flesh of his neck stretched and then finally tore. With a spray of blood violently erupting into the air to rain down on them both, the woman ripped free a chunk of the doomed Mallon’s flesh, and began to chew.

‘Christ!’ said Andrews, watching in horror as Mallon fell to his knees
. ‘We’ve got to help him. We’ve got to help him!’

‘He’s as good as dead already!’ shouted Pelling above Mallon’s wet gurgling screams
. ‘We’ve got to go! Sir! We’ve got to go!’

Already more of the groaning cadavers were pulling themselves around the side of the coach, drawn by the promise of warm, wet, bloody flesh. At the sight of Mallon
, some of them instantly fell upon him, tearing into this already weakening body with gusto, while others began to advance on the rest of the small group.

‘Andrews,’ Lucy said, tugging at the stunned soldier
’s sleeve, ‘they’re coming.’

Shaken from his shock by the young girl’s almost normal tone, he looked down at her. He briefly noticed the shard of glass was no longer in her hand before realising she wasn’t even looking in the direction of the approaching corpses
, but back the way they had come.

‘Fuck,’ he whispered under his breath, as he saw the group they had already bypassed coming round the corner.

‘Sir,’ Andrews shouted, grabbing the Sergeant’s shoulder with his free arm, ‘they’re approaching from the right too!’

‘Shit,’ said Ridge
, glancing at the forty strong crowd swarming slowly towards them, drawn by Mallon’s screams.

With hungry corpses now approaching on two sides, he knew if they didn’t act soon
, they would be swamped.

‘Back up. Back up!’ he shouted, looking up along the road behind them that was now their only chance of escape.

Although this road also harboured its own walking cadavers, there were by far a lot fewer of them, and if they were quick and stayed out of arm’s reach, Ridge knew they should be able to run past them safely. He only prayed wherever the road led them, it wasn’t to their deaths.

‘Come on
,’ Ridge shouted, ‘follow me!’

Already the first of the cadavers had closed the gap between what was left of Mallon’s corpse and the rest of the group
, and as one reached a decaying hand out to a stunned Grimes, Sinclair kicked it hard in the chest sending it flying back into the arms of its unnatural brethren.

‘Sinclair!’ Andrews shouted to the man who was now risking using his fists to punch back a man
with much of the flesh stripped from one of his decaying arms.

Turning, Sinclair deftly caught the spade Andrews had thrown him
, and in a motion like he was swinging a bat, smashed another of the cadavers in the side of the head.

‘There’s too many of them!’ cried Grimes, pulling on the back of Sinclair’s jacket before tuning to run, ‘Sinclair, we’ve got to go
. Come on, we’ve got to go now!’ 

With one final shove at the decaying body of a lipless teenage girl, Sinclair knew Grimes was right. Within
seconds, more and more of them were pouring from the other side of the coach. No matter how you looked at it, it was time to run for their lives. Spinning, Sinclair ran after Grimes. Ahead of him, he could see the Sergeant, Pelling, and Andrews, who was holding the baby in his arms, were each dodging around the corpses trundling towards them with arms outstretched. Despite Andrews slowing his pace to pull her along, the young girl was falling behind, and Sinclair could tell if he didn’t do something, any second she would feel the putrid touch of the death on her.

‘Time to get going, Girl!’ he said, barrelling the corpse of an old woman out of the way as he scooped a shrieking Lucy up into his arms, barely losing his stride in the process.

‘Thanks,’ said Andrews, holding the baby close to his chest as he pushed aside the arm of a faceless creature reaching for him.

‘Anytime,’ he replied, shifting Lucy in his arms.

‘Up here!’ shouted Ridge, pausing by the wide entrance to what looked like some sort of tourist attraction. ‘We’ll try to lose them inside.’

They were soon running through a weed choked cobbled entrance, while on either side of them
, flowering plants and creepers exploded out across their path. Jogging past a burnt out visitors centre, its vast windows shattered, and interior nothing but a blackened shell, Sergeant Ridge paused briefly for the others to catch up. Looking over their shoulders, his eyes suddenly widened in fear. Despite their running, the excited corpses were only twenty or so metres behind them, and all the while, more and more were appearing to join this parade of death. A wave of unbearable stench rolled off the approaching corpses, clouding all about them in a miasma of putrid rot, and Ridge fought the urge to vomit. The constant desperate groaning they made was vibrating deep in his chest now, such was the number of these hungry cadavers with nothing but tearing into his living flesh in their decaying minds. Yet, if he thought there was any camaraderie among these denizens of death, he quickly realised he was mistaken. He saw many in the crowd falling to the ground, only to be trampled by their eager brothers and sisters behind them. There was always another savage corpse to take their place, and as he watched the advancing mob, his gaze darted from one hideous abomination to the next, each seemingly more vile than the next.