The Dying & The Dead 2 (18 page)

She got on the horse. She left Stone
Face on the ground, his eyes glazed over as if he didn’t believe what had
happened to him. She gave the horse a kick. A few seconds later she was already
riding across the wasteland, leaving the bonfire and the dead soldier behind
her.

When she thought she was far enough
away, she slowed the horse to stop and climbed off it. Her belly felt like it
was wrapping up into a knot. She bent over and emptied its contents onto the
ground, feeling the stomach acid burn her throat. When she was done, she
climbed back onto the saddle. The bonfire still crackled in the distance, but
Heather didn't turn her head to look at it as she led the horse into a trot.

Chapter
Eighteen

Ed

Just a few hundred yards out of the
woods, they found a badger caught in a steel trap. The metal had chewed through
the calf of one of its legs, and as they approached it, the animal stared at
them pathetically. The Savage, as if this was now his job, ended its misery
with a rock to the skull.

A few yards later, they found a dead
deer. Later still, another one. This animal had been cut open at the belly, and
something had torn out its entrails and spread them in a line across the
ground. Ed looked around him. He expected someone to be watching them but he
saw no eyes in the bushes and no heads peering at them from the trees.

The plain in front of them was
covered by yellow grass and formed a gentle slope. The deer’s entrails had
stained the grass, though from how it dried, Ed knew it had been placed there a
few hours ago at least. The Savage walked ahead of them.

“We’re really going in that
direction?” said Bethelyn.

“Scared of a little blood?” asked The
Savage.

Bethelyn shook her head. “I was a
nurse. I’ve seen worse than this, trust me.”

“Think of it like that old story. You
know, about the kids who follow the breadcrumbs in the forest.”

“Don’t they end up at a witch’s
house?” said Ed.

The Savage scratched his head.
“Details,” he said, and waved his hand.

As they followed the sinewy trail, it
gradually began to wind up. It made sense, Ed guessed. Deer could only have so
much intestine in their bodies. That wasn’t the end of it, though. A few steps
later they saw a heart nestled in the grass. Beyond that, was a kidney.

The Savage bent down toward the
organ. He took his knife out of his pocket.

“If you need any more blood from me,”
said Ed, “you better not poke that thing with your knife.”

The Savage put his knife away and
picked a twig up from the ground. He turned the kidney on its side. Ed and
Bethelyn watched as he stared at it intently. Ed couldn’t help the shudder run
through him. He still felt eyes gazing at the back of his head.

“It’s a kidney,” said Bethelyn. “A
deer kidney. What else do you need to see?”

The Savage held his hand in the air.
Ed wondered what The Savage had found. He could feel the anticipation in the
air. After a few seconds, The Savage stood up.

“So?” said Ed. “What is it?”

The Savage shrugged his shoulders.

“Did you really think I could just
sniff at the ground and work out what’s going on?”

Bethelyn sighed. “Idiot.”

They followed the trail of organs and
blood along the path until they came to a wooden shed. It had a low sloping
roof, and the walls looked flimsy enough that it would only take a shove to
send the house crashing down. It seemed like the kind of place that was left
out in the wilderness for the use of any passing hikers or hunters.

The Savage turned the door handle and
pushed the door open. He stepped back as if waiting for something, but when
nothing came out from the cabin, he stepped in. Ed and Bethelyn followed.
Before stepping over the doorframe, Ed looked at the plains behind him. His
hairs stood on end as he stared at the animal carcasses that littered the
grass.

Inside there was a metal camp bed.
Paper had been nailed to the walls, and someone had drawn on them. There were
twenty sheets in total, and all of them were portraits of the same man. As Ed
scanned across all of the drawings, he realised that the artwork degraded in
each one. The first started as a realistic-looking self-portrait of a man with
a curled moustache and long hair that he had tied into a bun. By portrait
twenty, the image was just a roughly-drawn circle with pencil scratches all
over it. Where the eyes and mouth should have been, were crosses that had been
etched so hard into the paper that it had teared.

Bethelyn wandered over to a table in
the corner.

“Check this out,” she said.

She held a book up in the air.

“It’s a diary.” She leafed through
the pages, stopping around halfway through.

“What does it say?” asked Ed.

“It doesn’t look like it was
finished.”

“Read some to us,” said The Savage.
“I love story time.”

Bethelyn lifted the diary closer to
her face and started to read.

“Day 28. There’s no cure that I can
see. My body is getting sick and it’s starting to weigh on my mind. I think
with meditation, by keeping mindful and controlling my thoughts, I can stop the
virus as it attacks my brain cells. I can meditate through the change. I’ve
already tried it. It helps, but I don’t know if my body will follow suit. I
worry that my mind will stay human, but my skin will change.”

Ed heard something gurgle from
outside the cabin. He walked over to the window and when he looked out of it, his
legs became unsteady.

A procession of infected stared at
him from outside. Their mouths opened and closed as they moaned, and they
jostled each other to move closer to the window frame. When they saw Ed they
became agitated, and their fingers made screeching sounds as they clawed the
glass.

“The door,” said Bethelyn.

She pointed at the cabin door, where
two infected stumbled over the frame.

“You know what they say about being
born in a barn?” said The Savage. “You ever think to close the door?”

The infected walked towards them. One
was a man with a thick gut, and his hairy legs stuck out from shorts that were
two sizes too small. The other, a woman, had long brown hair that was matted
with blood, and a hair clip clung to a strand of her locks.

Ed looked around for a weapon. He
walked across the cabin to a kitchen area and opened a drawer. Knives, forks
and spoons glinted at him, but none looked sharp enough to stab through a
skull.

The infected gave a rasping groan.
The woman lurched toward The Savage, screaming at him as he backed away from
her. She caught hold of his hand but he shrugged her off and then pushed her
against the wall. Her arms became entangled in the curtain, and as she strained
to get away, the fabric tore from the curtain rail.

Ed turned around. He opened a
cupboard door and found a rolling pin. He picked it up and batted it against
his palms. In place of something better, it would have to do.

The woman’s head was covered by the
curtain, but she still managed to take lurching steps toward The Savage. Across
the room, Bethelyn kept hold of the window as if she expected the infected
outside to learn how to open it. They pounded at the glass with clenched fists,
but the window held firm.

Ed strode across the room. The
infected man spun around. It snapped his teeth at him, and then grabbed for his
chest. Ed raised the rolling pin and brought it down on the infected’s skull.

“Bake your cake in your own time,”
said The Savage, pushing the woman away from him.

“There was nothing else I could use,”
said Ed.

“Then jam it in her skull.”

The infected pounded on the window.
The glass shook. Bethelyn stepped away, and after a few more bangs, it shattered.
Ed had just enough time to look up and see an infected climbing through the
opening, scraping the skin on the back of its neck on the broken glass.

The Savage gripped hold of the curtain
and pulled it away from the woman. He held her hair in a tight grip. She tried
to snap her teeth at him, but he tensed his arms and kept her face away from
his. He dragged her across the room to the kitchen, lined her head up with the
kitchen counter and then brought her down on it face first.  There was a crack
as her nose exploded, and The Savage brought her head down again and again
until she stopped moving.

The man reached for Ed again. Ed
whacked him across the face with the rolling pin, but the infected didn’t even
feel the blow.

Two infected had crawled through the
window now. Their wails bounced against the walls of the cabin. With one of the
infected in front of him, Ed cast a glance at the door. The frame was empty.
Luckily, the other infected hadn’t figured out that a door was easier to use
than a window.

The infected man snarled. When he
opened his mouth, Ed jammed the rolling pin inside until it reached the end of
its throat. The infected gagged, and Ed pushed him away. He ran across the room
and took hold of Bethelyn.

“This way,” he said, and aimed for
the door.

They ran out of the cabin, leaving
the rasping of the infected behind them. After five minutes Ed’s lungs hurt,
and he bent over to catch his breath. He felt adrenaline pumping through his
blood stream. His fingers trembled, so he clenched them into a fist.

“Where the hell did they come from?”
said Bethelyn.

The Savage looked back at the cabin.

“Funny that they should show up the
minute we go in the cabin. Felt like they’d been led there.”

“What the hell was with that place?
The drawings and the diary. Who lived there?”

As they spoke between panting
breaths, a scream rose in the air and seemed to cover the entire plain. Ed
looked up and couldn’t see anything, but the noise spread out across them
again. It was a cry so full of pain that his blood cooled in his veins.

Chapter
Nineteen

Tammuz
(Baz)

The air seemed different when they
left the Capita borders. It was heavier somehow, harder to breathe as if his
lungs weren’t used to it. He’d been away from the border before, but that was a
long time ago. He’d just left home to start a degree in astrophysics at a Mainland
university, and his only worry was having enough money for all the beers he was
going to drink in fresher’s week. Since the outbreak, though, he hadn’t strayed
far from the Dome.

His shoulders ached under the pack on
his back. He’d never been a particularly strong man. Even years later, he still
felt the shame of a school gym session where the other boys had laughed at him
when he couldn't do a single push-up.

The rest of the soldiers walked ahead
of him. The officers were at the front on horseback, and leading them was
Lieutenant Hanks. Baz was at the back with the other Runts, eyeing the officers
on their horses and feeling jealous of their pain-free feet.

Hanks cut an imposing figure on top
of his horse. He rode with his back straight and his gaze never leaving the
wasteland in front of him. He was a career soldier with a reputation for
ruthlessness. Rumour had it that Hanks shot any would-be deserters in the
ankles and let the wasteland take care of them. He was well known as a
commander who treated the Runts the same way he would the dirt on his boots.

Despite that, he was a Capita legend.
He had grey whiskers that poked out of the side of his mask. Some said he was
pushing on sixty years old, yet he had the strapping body of a man half his
age. With more Capita war campaigns than any other soldier, he was as sure a
bet as any to lead an invasion.

“Heard they once locked him in a room
with twenty infected and left him for an hour,” said a Runt next to him. “When
they opened the door the floor was covered in brain chunks and Hanks was sat
there grinning.”

Baz had heard the story. They said
that after that, Hanks had snapped. That was when he started leaving deserters
to die and punishing his own men by having them beaten. He was a demanding man
to have as a unit leader, and if the Runts were given a choice, most would have
chosen any man other than him.

The irony was that Baz, or Tammuz as
he was called when he made the decision, had handpicked Hanks. He needed Kiele
to fall, and he knew that Hanks was the man to shove it. He never imagined that
he would end up being a Runt in his army.

“What’s your name?” said the Runt
next to him.

“Baz.”

“I’m Lerner.”

He nodded. It felt strange being Baz.
It used to feel liberating knowing that he could make decisions in the Grand
Hall as Tammuz, and then walk out of the tunnel and step into Baz's shoes. It
was like shedding a heavier skin and stepping into something light. Now though,
it was far from liberating. He was powerless.

Back at the Grand Hall, Marduk and
Nabu would be whispering in Ishkur’s ear. They’d be telling him that Tammuz was
unreliable and that he’d just left them, and they would say that he should be
replaced. Baz needed to get back to the Capita. He looked at the Runts around
him and knew that he wasn’t one of them. He was Tammuz, one of the Five; one of
the most powerful people in all the Capita. That’s where he needed to be.

Hanks held his hand in the air, and
the unit stopped. Grateful to take the weight off his feet, Baz swung his pack
off his back and then sat on it. The rest of the Runts followed suit. Baz
looked at their faces. Some of them looked worried, no doubt fretting over the
loved ones that they had left at home. Most of the Runts were conscripts, of
course. It was rare that someone actually decided to join the army. Another
decision that wise old Tammuz had more than a hand in making.

He saw a familiar face across from
him, set apart from the rest of the Runts and fiddling with the straps of his
pack. It was Ronnie Alderson.

Baz got to his feet. Glad to see a
face he knew, he walked over to his friend.

“Mine’s a pint,” he said.

Ronnie looked up at him, and he
flinched in anger.

“Piss off.”

Baz scratched the back of his head.

“Listen, Ronnie. I’m sorry about what
happened back at the bar. You know I couldn’t have done anything, right? You
know the guards; they never listen.”

“Think there’s a fart somewhere back
there calling out your name,” said Ronnie.

Baz walked over to his pack. He
opened it, took out his rations and grabbed the dessert. It was a crusty
granola loaf, and Baz’s stomach ached for the sugar, but he knew that Ronnie
had a sweet tooth. He walked back over to him and held it out.

“Here,” he said.

“Think a crappy oat bar is going to
sort things?”

“I’ll buy the rounds the next time
we’re in Darwin’s Bar.”

Ronnie snatched the loaf from Baz’s
hand. He put it in his pack, and then looked at the ground.

“They took me away from Louise and
Curtis, you know.”

Baz nodded. He settled down on the
ground next to his friend.

“And you did nothing,” continued
Ronnie.

Baz was going to answer, when he saw
something in the distance. A group of figures walked across the wasteland half
a mile away. At the front, Hanks rounded his horse and faced the troops.

“Tighten up,” he growled.

Baz watched the figures. They lurched
instead of walked, and he thought they were going to fall over. He might have
lived a sheltered life in the Dome, but he knew what the figures were. He
turned to Ronnie.

“They gave me some top class
training. Just handed me this knife,” he said and patted his side where the
long knife blade hung in a leather pouch. “Then they told me to stick it into
anything that moved. Don’t know if they meant sticking it into Hanks.”

Ronnie shrugged.

“Only thing is,” said Baz, “I’m not
sure which end I need to stick.”

He pulled out his knife and held the
grip in front of him, as if he was confused which end was the blade. Ronnie
gave a begrudging laugh, and it seemed to break the barrier between them. He
kicked out at the dirt in front of him.

“I did sod all wrong, Baz. Absolutely
nothing. When the Five sit in their little chairs and decide to attack
somewhere, arrests and conscriptions go through the roof. Think that’s a
coincidence? I’ve left a wife who’s ready to drop another babe, and I don’t
even know if I’ll make it back. Think I’ll get to hold my kid in my arms? I
don’t. Some other bloody bloke will get to cut the umbilical cord.”

Baz stared out into the distance.
Somewhere out of sight was the Dome, and in it was the Grand Hall. As Tammuz he
was so used to thinking on a high level that he never stopped to wonder who his
decisions would affect.

As the figures got closer, Baz
counted. He saw twenty infection-riddled faces staring back, expressions
twisted by pain and hunger. Their bodies were thin and their steps were shaky.
They got closer, and he could smell them. The mixture of sweat and rot made his
nose twitch.

Hanks ordered them to their feet. The
officers galloped forward and circled the infected, keeping their distance so
that the monsters couldn’t reach them. The Runts were ordered to engage. With
shaky steps, Baz moved forward. He held his knife in his hand and the blade
felt heavy. Somehow, he had never thought he would actually have to use it.

A few adrenaline-soaked minutes
later, all but five of the infected were dispatched. Baz didn’t think he’d
forget their cries as they reached for the Runts, or the smell of clotted blood
as it seeped from their wounds. Five of the infected stood in front of them,
heads darting from side to side as if they didn’t know which of the soldiers to
attack.

Hanks pulled on his horse’s reins and
trotted over to the Runts. The infected snarled at him as he passed, and one
reached out for the horse. The lieutenant stopped in front of the men. Up
close, Baz saw how thick his muscles were and how wide his chest spread. He
couldn’t believe the man was in his sixties. A sickle hung from his belt, cut
down in size so that he could wield it in one hand.

“Runts,” he said, his voice booming
over them. “I need two volunteers.”

The infected growled and took clumsy
steps forward.

“No one?” said Hanks. “Then I’ll
pick. You and you.”

He pointed at a Runt across from
them, the man who had introduced himself to Baz as Lerner. His second pick was
Ronnie. Baz’s friend closed his eyes, sighed and then got to his feet.

“I want you to defang and declaw
these fine specimens,” said Hanks. “Do you know why?”

Ronnie shook his head.

Hanks grinned. “You’ll see soon
enough.” He nodded at one of the officers. “Give them some pliers.”

An officer explained that it was
Ronnie and Lerner’s job to remove the teeth from the infected. After that, they
were to pry off their fingernails.

Ronnie walked over to the first
infected. The monster sniffed the air, and Baz saw that its eye sockets were
empty. It turned to face Ronnie, nose twitching. The Runt stepped forward and
grabbed it by the collar. He pulled the infected back by the hair and lifted
the pliers toward its mouth. Baz could see that his friend’s hands were
shaking.

As he fixed the pliers on one of the
infected’s canine teeth, the infected swung its arm. It managed to grab hold of
Ronnie’s ear, and jerked it so hard that Ronnie shouted out in pain. In a
momentary lapse he let go of the infected, and the monster launched its head
forward and sunk its teeth into his arm.

Ronnie shrugged himself free. With
his face growing paler by the second, he took his knife out of its pouch and
then sank it deep into the infected’s skull.

“We’ve got a turkey,” shouted one of
the officers.

Ronnie held his hand against his
wounded arm. When he pulled it away, his fingers were covered in blood. He
edged away from the infected. He looked at the other Runts around him, as if
waiting for help. His eyes were so wide that they looked completely white.

Other Runts were chosen by Hanks to
finish defanging the infected. Ten minutes later they were left with a pile of
teeth and nails. Next to them were a herd of infected who clacked their gums
together like pensioners sucking on lemons.

Baz walked over to his friend and put
an arm on his shoulder. Ronnie winced and then backed away.

“Stay back, Baz,” he said. “It bit
me.”

Hanks trotted over on his horse. The
animal snorted.

“You’re old enough to know it doesn’t
work like that,” said the lieutenant. He looked at an officer behind him, and
nodded.

The officer wandered over to a supply
cart. When he walked back, he had a clear plastic bag in one hand, and a sealed
container in the other. In the plastic bag there was a lump of meat with red
juice underneath it. In the container, blood swished against the sides.

Hanks looked at Ronnie. Beneath the
lieutenant’s khaki coat, his shirt was unbuttoned to show a hairy chest. Fixed
into the pocket of the shirt was a child’s action figure. It was a man with
bulging muscles, and its head was chewed.

“Hope you’re good with decisions,”
said Hanks. “Because here’s a doozy. Do you know how infection works?”

“As much as anyone, I guess,” said
Ronnie. He seemed to be thinking clearer now that the initial panic had worn
off. He spread his palms in front of him and looked at the blood. Baz had never
seen his friend looking so subdued.