Death Plague Omnibus [Four Zombie Novels] (51 page)

“There is no other choice. The Keeper didn’t tell me where she was, he implanted it. I’ll only know the direction once I get to specific points.”

“Are you joking?” I turned around. “Why the fuck did he do that? I mean, I might be new in town, but even I know that we’re all about to enter the equivalent of a fucking wasp nest, and to make matters worse, these wasps know I’m here and are very eager to meet me. If you come with me, you will all die, it’s that simple.”

“We know the dangers,” replied Marcus. “I’ve already lost one son. Do you think I’m eager to lose another? Even though we know the dangers, we also know that there is no other choice. The Keeper wills it, so we must obey.”

“Then your Keeper is a fucking dickhead!” I shouted. I turned to the woman. “This is madness, I’ll find her myself.” I stormed off, marching towards the other hole in the thick foliage, still expecting those three to run after me. When I reached the climbers, I was relieved, yet a little disappointed, to find the three of them hadn’t moved from that fruit tree. I shrugged to myself and pushed my way through, so perhaps they really did have the sense they were born with after all.

I shivered. The temperature in here was close to freezing, The Keeper’s illusion of a serene garden had stopped at the screen of vines. In the dim light I saw what I was used to – human built decay, the remains of our once great civilization. In this case, a Victorian railway tunnel. I jumped off the packed down earth and onto the bed of gravel, gazing up at the curved stones. I might be out of that garden, but there was no mistaking that I was still within the influence of the strange effeminate hunter. He even decorated in here. Old metal road signs were attached all the way around the tunnel interior. It must have taken some ingenuity to get them up there. Some of them were directly above me, about twenty feet above my head.

My night sensitive eyes picked out other, more familiar, objects attached to the walls, objects that were a total contrast to the Keeper’s usual style of decorating. Hidden in an alcove a few metres from where I stood were a collection of human skulls. I knew immediately that they’d been purposely placed there. I saw no stonework behind the bone. There must have been at least a couple of dozen skulls filling the archway.

“One of his earlier works?” I muttered, walking up to it. If it was the Keeper’s doing, and saw I saw no reason how it could have been the work of anybody else, it put the Hunter’s whole outlook into disrepute, especially the bit about no human flesh ever passing his lips.

“Fucking hypocrite.” I had a good mind to go back, find this lying dog turd, and kill the bastard for subjecting me to all of his fantasy. My feet stayed where they were. What was the point of going back anyway? It made sense to keep going and to hope that everything that had vomited from his gob was a total lie, especially the bit about my sister being just like me.

I turned around and saw another mural in the alcove opposite me, this one, though, was filled with footballs, and each one had a smiling face painted on it. I decided there and then to keep walking and to put all of this weird shit behind me. Interacting with other people apart from my sister was obviously my worst ever mistake. They were all fucking mental.

My ears picked up the tell-tale sound of footsteps. I turned back towards that fuzzy circle of daylight, but saw nobody. It wasn’t difficult to work out that those three hadn’t given up on me; I guess their master, the freakazoid Keeper, wouldn’t let that happen. Right now I had no idea of his true motives. If he was anything like the devious minds of the three humans behind me, though, there was no chance of working that out. Their brains followed soap opera scripts.

I shook my head and continued walking between the tracks. From now on I’d keep my interaction with the denizens in this shithole of a town to a bare minimum. I only needed to locate Danielle, and I could achieve that through torture. The humans were less likely to confuse me if they were trying to stop their insides from falling out of their ripped open stomachs.

Those footsteps continued to echo through the tunnel. I paused and turned in a tight circle, still unable to see the family. Perhaps I should start my interrogation with Linda? That did sound logical. Would she be able to control her duplicitous mind and tongue while I eviscerated her? I’d have to kill the males first, though, simply because they really did annoy me. Also, I might even chance upon that serum; one of them were bound to have a vial of that secreted upon their person.

“Come on, out you get, Linda.” I said, watching the shadows. Stop playing games. I know you’re in here with me.”

I looked back towards the skull collection, wondering if perhaps I had it wrong. What if it wasn’t the humans in here with me but their freakazoid master? And I was about to discover what really lay behind his jolly mask. The footsteps increased in volume. I frowned, it couldn’t be the keeper, not unless he’d magically grew an extra pair of legs.

At last my eyes caught movement. I jerked my head towards the tunnel roof and saw a huge shadow race past. I had no idea what that belonged to, but I knew that it wasn’t the humans or their Keeper. My senses went into overdrive, finally realising that I was in great danger. Hunters can become the hunted. I ran over to the wall and pressed my back against the stone, trying to see if I could spot my adversary. I saw nothing but more stone, gravel, track, and way too many fucking shadows.

I raced alongside of the tunnel, my eyes darting from one shadow to the next. The ever present sound of those footsteps told me that whatever was in here with me hadn’t given up the chase. It wasn’t until I saw the faint glimmer of light in the distance when I realised that I should have just turned around and ran back the way I came. Even if it did follow me, at least I would have been able to see what the fuck I was running from.

Fear is an alien concept to me now; I was used to inflicting it not being on the receiving end. It made no sense why I should even be scared. My rationality did nothing to calm me down. I continued to run, still convinced that something very large was right behind me, ready to consume my body and soul.

Something heavy did drop on my back. The weight buckled my knees, and I crashed into the gravel, the sharp stones cutting into my face and hands. I couldn’t move my body, and whatever it was had pinned me down. I was helpless. I tried to crane my neck to see what it was and received a bolt of piercing agony pass through my spine for the trouble.

I heard a very human groan of pleasure coming from the thing on my back, and I fully realised exactly what was about to happen to me. There are monsters in this world and tales of monsters that preyed on them. I now saw that what the Keeper said had more of a grain of truth hidden in his words. He wasn’t a lawkeeper, the other hunter was the Keeper of this thing, and I was about to become its next meal. My skull would soon join the others in that alcove.

I attempted to shut off my pain receptors in anticipation of the first bite. The excitable sound of a ravenous animal filled my ears. I gritted my teeth and just hoped that my oblivion wouldn’t take forever to claim me.

“Thank you for coming,” gurgled a voice.

I glimpsed a flash of green, the weight on my back vanished, and then I saw nothing.

Chapter Ten

Dying Seeds

It’s really surprising how a simple image from my past had the power to revitalise my supposedly dead emotions. I skidded to a halt as the building came into view. The tip of my boot smashed into a wall and a precariously balanced lump of concrete smashed onto the pavement.

The noise of the masonry hitting the floor sound thunderous in the silent town, and we both automatically assumed the crouch position with our eyes scanning this desolate landscape for any sign of movement.

“You clumsy oaf,” hissed Danielle.

I shrugged before standing up. Our efforts were wasted, and from what we had been able to discover already, this place hadn’t seen passersby for a long time. Still, habits were hard to break, especially when those habits had saved the pair of our skins for such a long time.

“There’s no greenery, Danielle; that’s not right.”

My sister slowly nodded, but she didn’t say anything, and I suspect that she knew the reason why. Probably the same reason as to why she led us back home. I wanted to think that her sole purpose in bringing us back to the town where we grew up was to help me sort out my messed up head. Perhaps that was one motivation as to why, but she had another purpose, and she had no intention of sharing. Not that I was all that concerned, After eleven years, I was used to her habit of keeping everything close to her chest. I put it down to her sex. My mother was just the same, always up to something.

“You’re smiling, Colin.”

“Oh, you’ve noticed?” I smiled even more. “Too right I am. Just look at where we are.”

“I know where we are, for crying out loud. It was my idea to come back here, remember?”

The eleven years hadn’t been kind to what used to be my favourite sweet shop. Black and grey ruled where once garish reds and greens were king. To the untrained eye, the shop looked like the rest in this row of stone buildings. I guessed that most of the damage must have occurred in the first few weeks after the outbreak looting. Why on earth anybody would want to steal from a sweet shop was beyond me. Mars bars and Sherbet Lemons weren’t exactly part of the main food groups.

The shop was now a slave to time and weather, but I looked past that, and I stared at the shattered shop front, remembering how it used to look.

Every single day without fail at exactly ten minutes after school had closed, you would have found me in there, either browsing through the comics or pondering what sweets to get to eat after supper.

I drooled at the memory of the huge amount of goodies stocked in the tiny shop. The shopkeeper, Mr Singh, was very tolerant of my extended stays. As long I didn’t get in the way of his customers, he’d let me stay as long as I wished.

Looking back, it sounded like I lived a pretty lonely life as a kid. I guess I was never much of a social butterfly. My sister had inherited that particular talent. She had tons of friends. “Danielle, what do you suppose happened to the shopkeeper?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter? The same as everybody else, really. There’s not much to choose from, Colin. He either turned, was bitten and turned, bitten and eaten, or he’s still around wondering where his next meal is coming from. Take your pick.”

I should have known, that would have been my response. Ever the practical, having no time for whimsical ideas. Strange really, considering back before the outbreak, she was more of a dreamer than anyone in our family.

We continued walking down the middle of the high street, each building triggering a memory. Some good and some bad, but each one stripped away the layers of miasma that had built up ever since I had last feasted on human flesh. I shivered even now; I could remember how good it felt as their warm meat slid down my throat.

“Are you okay?”

I started. “Yeah, sorry. I was lost in the past for a moment there.” Mum used to take us to that coffee shop every Saturday afternoon, do you remember?”

“Oh yeah, she made a point to buy us both a sandwich and a milkshake. God, I miss the taste of milkshake.”

I smiled to myself, glad of her input. She inadvertently pushed my more recent thoughts back to where they belonged. “I never understood why she did that. I mean, the stuff she bought us were so expensive.” I pointed to a building on the corner. “Remember that one? Mum’s favourite discount shop. Well, they had sandwiches and milkshakes, and they were like a quarter of the price.”

Danielle shook her head. “Unbelievable, you really don’t get it.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me away. “Come on, you, let’s keep moving.”

I blinked, wondering what I’d said wrong. I smiled again, not that it mattered. I felt pretty good, and judging from my sister’s reaction, she looked happy to be back here as well. I won’t lie. I have missed the place, and even in this state, it felt as though we had come home.

Danielle and I were born and brought up in this suburb of our great capital. Consequently, we were more comfortable in a mall, a skatepark, an amusement arcade, or in my case, a sweetshop. To us, grass and trees were what you found in gardens.

Perhaps that was one contributory factor as to me feeling so good. We both learned  right at the beginning that staying in the urban areas was the equivalent of walking into the middle of a tiger pit.

We, like the rest of our species in England, were a nation of consumers. Our food and supplies came from the shops. Living off the land was something we only saw on TV. So it made sense that the survivors would stay in the towns and cities, close to where the food was. It made them easy prey for the shambling dead.

Danielle stopped opposite the flyblown entrance to the Mall. I opened my mouth, ready to ask her if she was ready to tell me why we had come back, when she spun around and dug her fingers into my shoulders.

“Tell me what you can hear, Colin.” She shook her head. “No, scratch that idea. Tell me what you can sense.”

I closed my eyes and focussed on the building in front of us; my talent for spotting other minds, either dead or living had exploded since that last meal. Lately, though, I have been finding my sphere contracting. Right now, I could barely reach the entrance. “I can’t sense anything.”

“Thought you wouldn’t. This place truly is a ghost town. Just like the others I’ve scouted.”

“Wait, you mean you’ve been to other towns?”

“Of course I have. Where do you think your food’s been coming from?”

Even after the shock of finding out that I was a hunter, Danielle still insisted on looking after me. To be honest, I was happy with the arrangement. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself if I bumped into another human survivor. “Wait, is this related to the reason as to why there’s hardly any plants here?”

She nodded. “Probably.”

That hadn’t made any sense to me. When she suggested that we ought to pay a visit here, I expected vines discovering the buildings, and weeds, grass, and shrubs pushing up through the tarmac and concrete. The ground under my feet was buckled alright, yet I saw no sign of anything green; it was as if the soil had been sterilised.

Danielle smiled. “Listen very carefully. I need you to make your way home, and wait for me there.”

“What?” I jumped back, completely shocked by this mental poleaxe. “What are you talking about? I’m not going to leave you.”

She sighed. “Don’t be a baby, it won’t be for long.”

“But why?”

“I’d rather you didn’t ask, Colin.” She wrapped her arms around my waist and kissed me on the nose. “Just do this for me, hun.”

With that, she released me, turned around, and jogged towards the Mall doors. I watched her climb though one of the smashed windows, and I stayed there until her form had merged into the darkness.

To say I was totally thrown by her behaviour was an understatement. I fought the urge to follow her inside, turned around, and slowly made my way towards our old home.

The commercial area soon gave way to residential building. Here, I saw more evidence of lack of vegetation. Whole gardens were stripped of grass and flowers, leaving nothing but bare earth. I’d never seen anything like it before. Everywhere else, nature had softened every edge with all manner of plant life. The green dominated—except here, it would seem.

The puzzle almost made me forget my sister’s strange behaviour. Almost, but not quite. Still, with greys still abundant in town, it made my journey home remarkably easy.

The sight of my childhood hood made me go weak at the knees, vividly remembering how we left the place after taking care of what was left of the bodies that stained the floors and carpets. We couldn’t leave them like that.

I stopped in front of the faded white wooden gate, but the disbelief that I was actually back home vanished when I saw the state of our front garden. Eleven months previously we had closed this gate and looked back at four rectangular mounds of brown earth, looking like parallel dominoes on a pool table. Now the garden resembled a World War 1 trench crossed with a muddy ploughed field.

Dried mud decorated the path and the front of the house. I pushed open the gate, my mind trying to process this sight. Someone or something had dug up the bodies that we buried. I knew they couldn’t have climbed out themselves. We made doubly sure that none of them was going to claw their way out of their resting places.

It took a fair amount of navigation to traverse from the gate up to the front of the house. Due to the total lack of vegetation, I found it impossible to even guess what this had happened. This desecration could have occurred last year, it could have happened over a decade ago; there was no way of knowing.

I noticed the first bone embedded in the hard mud about a metre from the front door. As I neared, other bones showed themselves. I bent over, plucked the nearest one out of the mud, and ran my fingers along the surface. The deep scratches suggested that it been gnawed. Whether it was by whatever had dug it up or from other scavengers was impossible to say.

This event worried me, not just because I could be holding part of one of my parents, but because they and our neighbours were already infected, and as far as I knew, not one creature was capable of eating tainted meat.

Bodies of the infected had always lain where they fell, blighting the landscape, their changed meat resisting all attempts to rot down. I dropped the bone and slowly turned around, feeling very scared. I felt as though I was witness to an occurrence almost as powerful as the first outbreak. This town had been sterilised, and the word strip-mining ran through my mind. Every piece of flesh, either living or infected, had just ceased to exist.

Not just the flesh either. Whatever had done this must have been responsible for the lack of plant life as well. The only thing moving was me, and right now that fact made me feel very conspicuous. I wanted to turn tail and run back into town, find my sister, and get the fuck out of here, and yet, instead, I turned back to the house, hurried over to the side door, and let myself inside.

Slamming it shut was the easy part, but by now the unknown terror of what befell this town had already taken residence in my guts, and the only way that I could think of easing it, apart from getting out of here, was by thoroughly checking every room in the house.

Whilst climbing the stairs, I found the terror easing slightly. Although Danielle wouldn’t tell me her reasons as to why she felt the desire to return home, I had confidence that she must have some vague idea of what had happened here. It pissed me off a lot that she refused to share; I had enough confidence in her judgment to believe that she wouldn’t knowingly lead us into danger. After all, she was only human, and though Danielle might be the most resilient person I had ever known, it didn’t make her invulnerable.

Just like the lower floor, the next two levels gave me no surprises, they were just as we left them. The only footsteps showing on the dust-filled floorboards were mine. Nobody had been in this building while we had gone.

I gazed out of my parent’s bedroom window, the elevation gave me a better opportunity to witness the change. A thousand shades of grey coloured the town and surrounding districts, and yet despite being a suburb of London, the rest of the city merged into the greenery.

Strange to think that when I first clapped eyes on the ruined sweetshop that I actually welcomed the return of my emotions. Now I’d do anything to return to that state of mental non-living when the inside of my mind resembled this very fucking town.

I turned from this blighted picture and sat down on the edge of my parent’s bed, averting my eyes when they ended up looking at a faded stain on the wallpaper. I moaned softly; that area was where dad killed mum, and yet even the organic residue on the wallpaper had gone.

“Fuck this. I can’t stay here any longer,” I muttered, standing up and running over to the open door. As I stumbled out into the hallway, my left foot kicked a small object across the mouldy carpet. I fought down gales of hysterical laughter as a mobile phone clattered down the steps. I remembered just how easy it had been for our parents to get in touch with Danielle back then.

I purposely stamped on the bloody thing as I passed it. There was no way that I was prepared to spend another minute in this house. If Danielle wasn’t prepared to share her explanations, then I wasn’t prepared to wait for her to return. Fuck it, I was out of here.