Devouring The Dead (Book 1) (23 page)

“Okay, yeah
, I know I should. I just worry a lot, I...” Caterina started crying. “I miss my mum. I just want my mum and I don’t know where she is, I don’t even know if she’s alive or...”

Christina
pulled Caterina to her and let her cry. It was strange, but Christina felt good. She felt sad for Caterina; with everything going on and being pregnant, at the same time, the stress was taking its toll. It had been a long time since anyone had cried on her shoulder though. She had caught Linda crying at work a few months ago. She had gone into the toilet and heard her in one of the cubicles. When Linda had come out, she’d explained to Christina that her husband had left her. What had been Christina’s advice? She had told Linda to pull herself together, or something ridiculous. She had told her that if she was too upset to work, she would have to go home and use annual leave. Now she thought about it, she could still picture Linda leaving the bathroom with such hatred in her eyes. She had looked at Linda leaving at the time and thought how pathetic she was. Linda was probably dead now. Christina felt like crying. She had turned that woman away when she needed help. It had always been work first, relationships second.

Christina pulled
Caterina closer and hugged her. “It’s going to be all right, honey, it’s going to be all right,” she whispered in her ear.

Benzo
was sat up and holding his arm out.

“I’ve got a blinding headache,” he said. “My arm doesn’t really hurt
anymore though. You’ve done a good job. Thanks, Jess.”

“Well
, it’s not perfect, but it’ll do. You should really get it seen to, you probably need stitches.” Jessica was sat beside Benzo trying to ignore the crying she could hear from both Caterina and Rosa.

“I’ll be okay. Don’t
think there’s much point calling for an ambulance, eh? Hey, there’s a thought, you still got your phone? I don’t know what happened to mine. We should see if there’s any signal.”

Jessica fumbled through her pockets and pulled out a white tissue. “No, I must have left it behind somewhere. Shit. I’ll ask the
others, see if anyone else has got one.”

“Yeah
, but maybe wait a bit, yeah? By the sounds of it, they’ve got other things on their minds right now.”

Jessica listened to the crying and bit her lip. She was on the brink
, but refused to succumb to the relief it would bring. Everyone saw a pretty girl and assumed she would act like a princess. She was stronger than that though, stronger than most girls she knew. No, she would not cry, not now, not in front of anyone.

“I should take a look at Reggie, he’s pretty cut up,” she said turning to look at him. He was still kneeling, praying.

Benzo lowered his aching arm. “Damn, I don’t know what happened on the bus back there. Did you see? All I heard was Brad and Don going at it and all of a sudden, I was flying through the bloody air.”

“I don’t know what caused the crash
, but I expect Brad had something to do with it. I guess it doesn’t matter now. Don and Angel are dead and we’re not. It might sound selfish, but I’m fucking glad to be alive.”

Benzo
was surprised at her forthrightness. He had half expected her to crumble like Caterina. She was tougher than he thought.

“Me too, me too
,” said Benzo. “You know, there are seven of us left now. Do you know how many people worked in our office? Over a hundred. With those odds, how many people do you think are alive in this whole city? Jeez, I hope my family got out.”

“Where do they live? They may have.”

“Brixton. It’s a hard place to live at the best of times, but with the streets full of zombies too? My mum, my dad...I can’t imagine them gone, you know? It doesn’t seem real, all of this. I still picture them at home watching telly.”

“It seems
very
real to me,” said Jessica curling her hair behind her ears. “When I think of my family, I picture them shuffling round our house, dead. I don’t for one second, kid myself that they’re alive. Parker’s dead. My friend, Brie, she’s dead, too.” An image of Brie’s distorted dead face flashed through Jessica’s mind.

They sat in silence for a while, accompanied by the soft sound of sobbing.
Benzo was unsure how to respond to Jessica and decided the safest option was to say nothing at all. His head was spinning and he needed the rest. After a short while, Jessica stood up.

“I’m going to find Tom and Jackson, see what’s going on,” she announced. “Maybe see if there’s some water too
. I’m starting to get a head ache as well.”

She walked slowly through the church
, admiring the colourful windows. The only other time she could remember being in a church was for her grandmother’s funeral. Apart from that, there was no need to go. Her family wasn’t religious and she didn’t believe in God, so it felt odd being in a church now.

She noticed the ornate crosses on the walls, the paintings and the tapestries. At the altar
, a set of steps led up to the pulpit and she tried to imagine the church being full of people. She couldn’t hold the picture in her head though. The church was so huge and empty now, it seemed bizarre that people would come here and sit and listen to an old man telling even older stories.

She saw Reggie who was lying on some cushions near the altar, just next to the front pew. He had a lot of cuts and bruises on his face
, but he appeared to be sleeping now, so she tiptoed past quietly and left him to rest.

Apart from where they had come in
, she had seen no other entrances or exits. There was one open door off to one side and she glanced back; nobody was following her. She ventured into the side room and pushed the door shut behind her. The room she was in now was like a storeroom: there were chairs and books piled up, cloaks and coats hanging on hooks and candles in boxes. The room had two doors on either side, both closed. She tried one and it opened into a small kitchen. There was no sign of Tom or Jackson, so she returned to the other door.

Jessica found herself
faced with uneven stone steps leading upward. There was a cold bronze handrail and she began climbing the winding staircase. The cold air pinched her cheeks and the higher she climbed, the colder she got. She decided that when she got back down, she would have to borrow one of those coats she had seen.

At the top of the staircase was a small door
, and she could hear voices on the other side. She pulled the creaky door open and stooped to get through the frame. She found herself in the open air and a hand reached for hers.

“Take care, Jess, it’s slippery up here,” said Jackson helping her up.

Jackson and Tom were side by side on the church tower.

“Thanks
, Jackson,” she said, bracing herself against the cool wind.

“Hi
, Jess,” said Tom. “Everything okay downstairs?”

“As okay as it can be.
Some crying, some praying; nothing this church hasn’t seen before I expect. Wow, that’s quite some view.”

She looked out over the city. To the south
, she could see the spires of the Dome, its yellow cranes in the air trying to touch the clouds. To the east and the west, were rows of buildings: houses, shops, and offices. To the south west, she could see the city they had come from, its skyscrapers still resolute, standing firm despite the crumbling world around it.

When she looked closer, she began to notice the details. The houses and shops were lifeless
, and there was smoke pouring from several of them. The streets were empty; there was no traffic, just the odd figure walking across the road aimlessly. She could tell they were dead by the way they moved.

The sun was low in the sky and casting shadows across the rooftops. It was strange
not to be surrounded by noise; the city was so busy and bustling that even at night, you wouldn’t normally hear the perfect silence that she heard now. Not even the birds were singing in the twilight.

“I
t’s like the city doesn’t want us to leave,” said Jessica. “Look over there, zombies. Every direction, wherever you look, they’re fucking just
there
. What the hell are we going to do?”

“Look down there,” said Jackson peering over the edge
of the steeple, looking directly to the ground beneath them. Clamouring at the church doors were around ten dead, the ones who had followed them from the park. Scattered throughout the church grounds were several more. Some were drawn to the noise of the zombies clawing at the wooden doors, but others were shambling aimlessly through the gravestones. “If we’re lucky, that group won’t get much larger.  If it does, we’re gonna find it difficult to get out of here.”

“Well
, so far, they’re only drawn to the main doors. Look around the side there, to the left. I think that’s where we found the kitchen,” said Tom. “The door was locked and it led directly outside, but they’re not around that door. Why would they be? As long as they stay where they are, that’ll be our way out.”

Jessica saw he was correct
. It looked like they had recently built an extension to the church, somewhere they could prepare for meetings and prayer groups. There was another extension around the corner from it, and it was this building the bus had crashed into. It was still there, Don and Angel’s final resting place. Smoke was still pooling from the cooling engine.

“There was water in the kitchen
, and I didn’t look but there may be some food too,” said Jessica. “We’re in no condition to keep running. Where would we go to? How? Benzo needs to rest up and Reggie was already asleep when I came up here. Caterina is very fragile right now. That new girl too, Rosa? Nobody is in any condition to get back out there.”

Jackson looked to Tom. “This is
a good place to hold up, Tom. For now anyway. From up here we have a good lookout. We could take it in turns to watch, maybe see if there is any sign of life out there in the city.”

Tom nodded. “We should stick to the
plan and try to get to the airport. But for now, I agree, we should rest. All of us need it, me included.” He rubbed his aching shoulders.

Jessica was still looking down at the
green church grounds, leaning over the stone parapet. “It’ll be dark soon. We lost everything back there: our torches, weapons, everything. Jesus, sometimes this feels hopeless, you know?”

Jackson put his hand on her back. “It’ll be al
l right, Jess.”

He crouched down and stooped in the doorway. “I’m going back down. I’ll see if I can find some food and water in the kitchen, take it to the others
and let them know what’s going on.”

“Cheers,” said Tom. Jackson disappeared into the dark stairway and Tom listened as his footsteps faded. Jessica was cupping her face with her hands, elbows
resting on the rough stonework while her eyes scanned the horizon.

“What’s going on out there
, Tom? What did we do to deserve this?”
“I don’t know if it’s a case of deserving it. But I guess if you’re looking for a deeper answer than the one I’m about to give you, then you’re in the right place.”

She remained where she was and Tom leant beside her. He tried to figure out what she was looking for, or at. Her eyes were distant
and not fixed on any one thing, just scanning the horizon.

“Whatever this infection is, I don’t think
it’s divine retribution. I don’t think it’s the work of God, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, or any so-called higher power. It’s a disease, a natural infection like a cancer. It’s obviously not like anything else we’ve encountered before though. I don’t think there’s a cure. If there was, I don’t think the city would be in the state it is now. The only cure for the infection is death, but for some reason that isn’t the end of it. I’ve never heard of a sickness that brings a dead body back to life.”

“Do you think we made this?” asked Jessica.
“Some idiot in government trying to create a superman, a super-soldier? Maybe it’s some experiment that ended up going wrong?”

“It’s possible
, but if you’re asking me, then no I don’t believe it. The governments of this world can’t get the trains to run on time, so I certainly don’t think they could create something like this. They don’t have the intelligence or the organisation. This is something else.”

Jessica yawned. “I feel exhausted. Not just physically, but
...thinking about all this is draining. Trying to work out what’s happened to my friends, my family; are they alive or dead? How do we beat this thing? Where do we go? The questions are endless. My mind reaches so far and then it just wants to give up and switch off. I passed Reggie on the way here and he was asleep, out like a light. When I close my eyes, I just see Parker, slumped in the conference centre, looking like death.”

Tom idly scratched at
the lime coloured lichen on the stonework. He scraped it off and threw it, watching it flutter down to the ground. He let Jessica talk.

“
I had to leave. I couldn’t stand the crying. I know that sounds bad, but Caterina could cry for England. Bless her but if I had to put up with that much more I would’ve cracked up. That other girl, what’s her name again?”