Fear the Dead (Book 3) (2 page)

Alice bit
her lip. “He needs some downtime.”

“Does he
seem okay?”

“As good as
he can be, given the circumstances,” said Alice.

I folded my
arms. “Then we better get going.”

“Bullshit,”
said Lou, the harsh echo of her words bouncing off the roof. I looked up at the
statue of Jesus as if I expected him to be shaking his head disapprovingly.
There’s
a lot more shit than swearing to worry about these days, buddy.

Alice put a
hand on my shoulder. “I get what you’re doing Kyle. You want to keep ahead of
the wave. But we’re not machines. We need to rest.”

A hot
feeling rose in my chest. I tried to let my thoughts settle. “Do you think
they’ll ever rest?” I said. “Or will they just keep coming?”

Lou shifted
her weight onto her other foot. “We’re running on empty, Kyle. We’ve got
nothing left.”

“The
infected are never going to stop.”

“No, but we
have to,” said Alice. She frowned. “What’s our end goal? Where are we running
to? Is there a point, or do we keep dragging our arses ahead of the wave just
long enough to survive?”

I thought of
what to say, but Alice jumped in before I could open my mouth. Her face was
red. “This isn’t living. We’re not dead, but we’re not alive. We’re just
running. Existing. We’re no different than the dead buggers out there.”

I knew this
wasn’t much of a life for them. What was the alternative? Stop and hope that
for some reason the wave of infected decided to turn around and go home? That
didn’t seem likely. I was the only one willing to push us through this. I was
keeping us alive.

“We can rest
a couple of hours, and then we’re moving,” I said.

Alice opened
her mouth.

“No
arguments,” I said. “Two hours.”

Alice
stormed away. Lou turned to leave, but she looked me in the face before she
did.

“Dick,” she
said.

I felt bad
about Ben. Travelling was harder on him than it was the rest of us, because he
wasn’t old enough to handle it. And I knew that tempers were starting to wear,
and most of them were pissed off at me. I just had to swallow it. If I gave in,
and we stopped, the wave would catch up to us and we would all get eaten. Maybe
I was going to have to play the bad guy.

I couldn’t
answer Alice’s questions. I didn’t know what we were aiming for or where we
were going. I didn’t know what the point was anymore. The only thing I thought
about were half a million infected who followed us.

2

We walked
through cycles of cold days and black nights, the lack of street lighting
giving the darkness free reign. Ben clung onto my back, his knees around my
waist. I lead from the front while the glares of the other six bore into my
back. Ben rested his forehead on my shoulder, and soon my t-shirt was damp from
the sweat that dripped off him and seeped through. We stopped every thirty
minutes. Ben felt sick. Alice needed to stop for a pee but she couldn’t go.
Sana’s boy fell over, cut his knee and cried.

Our steps
crunched on grass that had hardened from the cold. Clouds gathered overhead,
mean-looking and full of hate, ready to rain down on us. The chill in the air
spoke of winter, and the odd snowflake that fell down promised there was more
to come.

“I don’t
feel too good,” said a voice in my ear.

I shifted
Ben’s weight on my back.

“Can you
hold on another couple of miles, buddy?”

“I think
so,” he groaned.

A deep ache
of guilt sat in my stomach and spread into my chest. I didn’t like driving them
so hard. The boy was sick, and I was only making him worse. Did this make me a
bad person? Would it be better if I let them have a rest, but then the wave of
infected caught up to us? Would it be any consolation for my conscience to be
clear but for us all to die?

The couple
of miles didn’t happen. Ben wheezed and then sprayed sick over my shoulder. I
stopped and put him down. His head was burning, but his skin was chalk. Alice
rushed over. She glared at me, and then knelt beside Ben. 

Melissa
walked up next to me. “We can stop in there,” she said.

There was a
farmhouse. White paint covered the walls but patches had fallen away and
revealed the stone underneath. A mold-encrusted gutter hung off the side and
looked like one gust of wind could send it crashing down. Gaps dotted the roof
from where the slates were missing. It looked like the kind of house that the
moors murderers would rent.

“Sure,” I
said.

It was pointless
to argue. Right now, they all hated me, and I couldn’t blame them. The evidence
against me was on the ground, in the form of a sick little boy. Maybe Lou’s
summary of me had been right. Perhaps I was a dick.

That was one
thing I liked about Lou. Blunt as she was, she never hid what she thought of
you, and that meant I could trust her. There were some things that she kept
buried, but we all had secrets in our past that we didn’t want to drag into the
present.

“Finally, a
door that isn’t locked,” said Lou.

I watched
her open the door. Some of the pain left my shoulder, as if my muscles were
thankful that I wasn't going to barge it open.

Alice
carried Ben in. The first room was the living room. There was a couch, a
log-burner fireplace, a coat stand, and a bookshelf filled with a mixture of
books, most of them classics. Alice put Ben down on the couch. A film of dust
kicked up into the air, and she wafted it away.

“Doesn’t
look like anyone’s been here in a while,” I said.

Lou walked
through the living room and into the open-plan kitchen. I heard cupboard doors
opening, pots clanging.

“Don’t know
about that,” she called. “There’s some veg here that’s just the right side of
poisonous.”

I walked
through into the kitchen. My stomach ached at the thought of fresh vegetables.
I realised that for the past few days a knot of hunger had been in it, and now
it had loosened. Spit pooled in my mouth.

Lou turned
tossed a carrot in my direction.

“Where the
hell are they from?” I asked. I’d learned to be wary of anything good.

“There’s a
patch growing at the side of the house. Whoever lived here was growing them.
Now shut up and eat.”

I savoured
the moment. I let my mouth water, my stomach cry out. Then I put the carrot to
my lips and took a bite. Wow. It was sweet, crunchy, fulfilling. I had never
tasted anything like it, and it took all my restraint not to devour it. But I
was aware of where we were. A strange house with signs of recent occupancy. I
couldn’t let my guard slip until we were sure we were alone.

“Stay here
Lou. Keep an eye on everyone.” I looked at the living room. Justin stood at the
bookcase. Melissa sat next to Ben and stroked his forehead.

“Justin, you
got a sec?”

He walked
over to me. “You okay Kyle?”

I nodded.
“Need to check upstairs. Can you give me a hand?”

He shrugged
his shoulders.

The stairs
creaked. Every time the wood moaned I had to stop myself from grabbing my
knife. The hairs on my arms rose. It didn’t matter how many times I had seen
them, the idea of infected lurking in strange rooms always put me on edge.
You
can handle it Kyle. What’s the worst they can do? One short stab to the brain
is all it takes.

We stopped
outside the first room. The door was made of dark brown wood with patterns
carved into the panels.

“Where’s
your knife?” I said to Justin.

He shrugged.

“Do you just
not give a shit anymore?”

Another
shrug. I bit my lip.

“You open
the door, I’ll be ready.”

I held my
knife tight in my hand, had my arm ready to strike. Justin reached forward and
twisted the door handle. It creaked. My hairs stood on end. He turned it all
the way and pushed it open. As the door moved, I held my breath and waited for
an infected to launch itself at me. Nothing happened.

We walked
inside and looked round the room. It was a master bedroom with a queen-sized
bed. The sheets were tucked into the mattress and cushions were on top of the
duvet. There was a walk-in wardrobe full of clothes, and a full length mirror
leant against a wall. I avoided looking at it. I didn’t want to see the thin,
bearded man who I knew would stare back. I turned to Justin.

“What’s
going on kid?”

He held my
stare. A beard lined his jaw and hid some of the youth of his face, but patches
of skin still poked out. Red flecks swam in the white of his eyes. The infected
had the exact same red worm-like flecks in their eyes. A scientist named
Whittaker had injected Justin with something in his efforts to find the cure,
and Justin had fallen into a coma. I didn’t know what he’d done, but Justin was
different now.

Justin
scratched his neck. “What’dya mean?”

“Come off
it. You’ve been acting weird for weeks. Moping around, dragging your feet. Not
saying a damn word.”

He sat on
the bed, and the mattress sunk underneath him despite how light he was. Justin
didn’t weigh much before, but the last few weeks had taken it out of him. It
was like part of him had been sucked away.

He looked at
the ground. “Guess I just haven’t felt the same since…you know. I don’t know
what he did to me, but I don’t feel the same. It’s like I’m me, but there’s
something else in here with me, watching.”

A sour smell
in the room made my nostrils twinge. I walked over to the window, twisted the
lever and opened it. The winter chill sprang on my face, but it didn’t clear
the smell. Outside the grey clouds had multiplied and smothered the sky, and
the grass swayed in the wind. I had my back to Justin.

“Listen,” I
said. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want. But just try and keep it
together. Even if you have to act. It’s killing Melissa.”

“I know.”

“Good,” I
said.

I glanced in
the full-length mirror on the wall. Justin sat on the bed looking down at the
floor. A figure moved behind him. My heart felt like it was going to leap
through my chest and up my throat. For a second I couldn’t move, but then my
instincts fired. I span round.

An infected
was behind Justin. Its eyes burned with hate. Hair hung in clumps from the side
of its head, but rotten skin lined the top. It staggered toward Justin, the
hunger in its eyes stronger than any desire a normal person could feel. It was
too close to him. Only a foot separated them, and I could never get there in
time. I strode across the room but a shock of panic flooded my chest because I
knew I was going to watch my friend die and I couldn’t stop it.

But then the
infected walked straight past Justin. It ignored an easy target and focused on
me, its black eyes staring at my face, the red flecks swimming in the whites.
It staggered across the bedroom.

I held my
knife, counted my breaths. When it was close enough to lurch at me I
sidestepped and let it go straight past.  Then I span round and stabbed my
knife into the back of its head, breaking through the bone and piercing the
brain. It fell to the floor with a thud.

Justin sat
on the end of the bed. His chest rose up and down as he struggled for breath.
His face was paler than usual.

“Okay?” I
asked.

He nodded. I
didn’t know why I’d even asked, of course he was okay. Justin wasn’t the one in
danger. For some reason it had completely ignored him and had chosen me. I bent
over and caught my breath. My heart thudded in my chest and my fingers shook,
so I squeezed them around the knife.

3

The day
slipped and the black of night closed on the sky like a casket lid. The
darkness folded on the fields and made them a featureless black plain. The
stalkers would be out soon, but the saving grace of this farmhouse was its
complete isolation. The wind rattled at the single-pane windows, tapping like a
visitor asking to come in.

I found
Alice in the third bedroom. Ben lay in the bed, his eyes shut, and Alice tucked
him in. The bed sagged underneath her weight. I felt a pang in my stomach when
I saw the boy. His pale skin and sweaty forehead, his chest rising up and down
with irregular breaths. I’d pushed them to this. I’d made the kid walk much
longer than his little body could carry him, and now he was paying for it.

The
floorboards creaked underneath me, and Alice span round. Her face creased into
a frown.

“I’m sorry,”
I said.

She looked
past me as though she didn’t hear me. Then she shook her head, snapped out of
it. “What?”

I took a
step forward, felt the floorboards bend under my boots. “I didn’t mean to push
him so hard. I just can’t shake this feeling that the wave is going to catch up
to us.”

Alice
nodded. “Come here,” she said, and patted the bed next to her.

I walked
over, sat down. I looked at her and felt awkward. She grabbed my hand and put
it on Ben’s forehead. His skin felt like ice.

“He’s
freezing.”

“Yep.
Doesn’t stop him sweating though.”

I swallowed.
“What’s actually wrong with him?”

“His immune
system’s shot from exhaustion, and he’s caught a bug. Kids aren’t meant to hike
hundreds of miles through rain and snow.”

I looked
down at the floor. The timber of the floor was scuffed, and splinters stuck out
from it. This wasn’t a welcoming home.

I turned to
Alice. “Would you rather we take our chances with the wave?”

Alice pulled
the covers over Ben’s neck and up to his cheeks. “I’d rather leave you guys
than put him in danger again. You’re driving us too hard. When Ben’s better, we're
going.”

***

Lou was
taking inventory in the kitchen. There was a dining table in the centre of the
room, and Lou had laid out anything she thought would be useful. Various knives
used for cooking, a few pans for boiling water. Lighters. Water bottles. Plenty
of utensils. It was handy stuff, but not what we needed.

“No food?” I
asked.

She picked
up a knife, held the blade close to her face.

“Blunt as
hell,” she said, and dropped it to the table. She turned to me. “No food, aside
from the vegetables from earlier. We could make a stew if we had spare water,
but I think we’re better just eating them raw.”

“Sure. I’ll
leave that to you.”

I pulled a
chair from underneath the table and sank into it. The faint whispers of Justin
and Melissa drifted in from the living room. Outside, the wind moaned. On
ground level, the darkness of the fields outside looked even more foreboding. I
expected a stalker to be slinking through the grass, sniffing out another
victim.

“Where’s
Sana?” I asked.

Lou put both
hands on the table and leant against it. She shook her head. “Out in the shed,”
she said. “Stupid cow won’t stay in here with us.”

I ran my
fingers through my hair. “Let me guess. Because of me.”

“Yup.”

Sana blamed
me for the death of her husband, Faizel. He was a good guy and an excellent
scout. When we first heard the rumour of a wave of half a million infected
marching together, I set out to see if it was true. Faizel came with me, but he
didn’t come back. An infected bit him, and Lou had put him out of his misery
with a machete.

“I’ve been
thinking,” I said.

“Let me call
a press conference,” said Lou.

I smirked.
“Have you had a look at Whittaker’s notes lately?”

Lou shook
her head.

“I have,” I
said. “Most of it might as well be Dutch. But I can pick out the odd thing. I
think there’s something true in what he said about the cure. I think he was
close to finding one.”

Lou pulled
out a chair. She sat in a slouch and propped one boot up on the table. “He was
full of shit. Guy was crazy.”

“He might
have been, but being crazy doesn’t mean you’re always wrong. Look, something
happened upstairs when Justin and I cleared out the bedrooms. An infected
surprised us, and it was close enough to Justin to bite him. I couldn’t do a
damn thing. But it didn’t go for him. It ignored him and came straight for me.”

“Maybe he’s
a picky eater,” said Lou.

“Be
serious,” I said.

Lou leant
forward. The smile dropped from her face.

“I don’t
know about a cure. I think Whittaker was a crackpot, I don’t care how good a
scientist he was. But I’m worried about the kid. That weird shit in his eyes.
It makes me uneasy.”

I sighed.
Something was going on with Justin, but it was beyond me to figure it out. What
was happening to our group? Sana preferred an outdoor shed to sharing the same
room with me. Alice was upstairs, taking care of her son who I’d made ill.
Where was I leading them? Was there any point to this?

I gritted my
teeth. There had to be a point. As long as we stayed ahead of the infected, we
were winning. Every second we spent alive was a small victory. The only thing
that would be pointless would be to give in.

I stood up
and inspected the tools on the table. The knives were dull and the pans rusty,
but they were better than nothing.

“We need a
plan,” I said.

Lou put her
arms behind her head and rested on them. “Glad you’re finally thinking my way,”
she said.

“Don’t get
me wrong, staying ahead of the wave is still the priority. They’re not going to
stop just because we’re sick of running. But we need somewhere to run to.”

Lou sucked
her cheek into her mouth, screwed up her eyes in thought. She spoke. “There are
loads of remote places in Scotland. Villages with nothing but countryside for
miles around, and in the winter they get clogged with snow. There aren't many
safer places than that.”

I picked up
a knife and scraped the blade on the edge of the table. Ginger flecks of rust
fell to the floor. I put the knife on the other side of my belt, opposite to
the blade I already had. Better to have two knives than one.

“There are
two things I care about, Lou. Staying ahead of the wave, and sticking one of
these in Moe’s throat if we ever see him.”

When we’d
gone out to check out the wave, Moe had stayed behind in Vasey. He had promised
to wait for us to come back, but instead he left soon after we were gone. He
took half the village with him, and left the other half with nothing. Stalkers
climbed the walls and massacred them, and Vasey was destroyed.

My chest hurt
just thinking about the bastard. His barrel-chested body, his greasy hair, long
at the sides but bald on top. Bile rose to my throat. I took a deep breath and
tried to let it settle.

“Oh my god,”
said Melissa from the living room.

I turned and
ran out of the kitchen. I expected the worst; infected smashing through the
windows, stalkers crawling on the ceiling. Instead, the pair of them stared at
a large sheet of paper spread on the coffee table in front of them. Justin bent
his head forward and scanned every inch of it. Mellissa looked up.

“You have to
check this out, Kyle,” she said.

I looked
over their shoulders at the paper. It was a map. Most of it displayed the green
of the countryside around us and showed how remote the place was. Every so often
an A-road twisted out and spiralled through the countryside like a worm. I
followed the map up the north of England, over the border into Scotland. Then I
saw it.

Someone had
drawn a red lipstick circle around a town in Scotland, with arrows pointing to
it. Next to it, they had written a message.

‘Darling,
if you come back, come to Bleakholt. I couldn’t wait any more. It’s salvation.’