Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) (25 page)

‘Caught this one trying to desert with the woman and children, Sir
,’ the soldier replied, giving Steve one last kick in the ribs.

Sergeant Blackmore walked over to the man on the ground and using his boot, roughly rolled him over onto his back. Seeing it was his son, Steven, he was neither surprised nor disappointed. The boy, just like his worthless mother
, had always been weak and he had come to expect nothing better from him. When he thought of all the good men or rather good soldiers that had died at the hands of the infected, Sergeant Blackmore was disgusted at the actions of his own son.

‘Take this man to Dr Morris
. I want him conscious and aware at his court marshal,’ he said to the SAS Commando who had mercilessly beaten his son, ‘and get these civilians back to the holding truck.’

‘Sir!’ the soldier replied with a swift salute.

Without a second glance at his son’s unconscious body, Sergeant Blackmore turned and walked past the silent soldiers of his squadron who had come out of their tents to see what was happening. Some of them exchanged discrete looks of concern but all knew better than to voice an opinion on what had happened to Private Blackmore. ‘Better him than me,’ was a thought that came to most of them and already many had turned away from the sight of the Private’s beaten body.

‘Start breaking down your tents,’ Sergeant Blackmore said coldly, his tone challenging any of his men to question his actions
. ‘We bug out in twenty minutes, but thanks to Private Blackmore, we’ll have to deal with some business first.’

All of the men knew what that meant. Private Steven Blackmore’s torment had only just begun. 

***

In the Med
lab, Alice fought her way back to consciousness. Through the heavy fog that threatened to drag her back to oblivion, she grasped the sound of spoken voices around her, and like a tether, she pulled herself back to reality.

‘Well, they certainly gave you a good working over
,’ Dr Morris’s unconcerned voice came, as Alice’s eyes fluttered open.

Afraid that the doctors would drug her again, Alice
laid still with only her eyes moving to take in the scene. Dr Morris was wiping the blood from the chin of the solider who had known Penny and Lars. The man had been beaten severely and as he sat at a desk, clutching his ribs obviously in pain, Dr Morris administered what could only be called half-hearted care.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if
you’ve broken a few of your ribs and your split lip could really use a few stitches,’ Dr Morris said to the soldier, as he dropped his latex gloves down onto the tray of surgical equipment. ‘But I think you’ll agree it would be a little pointless really to fix them… Look, I could give you some pain killers, but we both know your what Sergeant Blackmore has in mind for you.’

‘Anything you can give
me, Doc, would be great,’ Steve said, wincing from the pain.

Doctor Morris looked at the beaten man before him, knowing he really shouldn’t waste their valuable medication on a condemned
man, but something inside him shouted to be heard, shouted for him to act. Some long forgotten need to help his fellow man in practice rather than just in theory and formulae called out to him, reminding him to treat this man with compassion in what would likely be his last few hours.

‘
Okay,’ Dr Morris said with a sigh, turning to retrieve some medication from a cupboard.

As the doctor rummaged through the cupboard looking for a specific medication that was less likely to be missed, Steve looked down at the stack of papers piled next to him on the desk. Skimming over the printout to take his mind off the waves of pain that rippled through him with each breath, one phrase suddenly stood out and horrified him. Looking
up, he caught the gaze of the pregnant woman strapped to the bed. He knew he had but a few seconds to act while the doctor still had his back to him, so silently, he reached forward to the tray of surgical implements. With one last quick glance back to Dr Morris, Steve grabbed one of the small paper wrapped scalpel blades and tossed it to the woman. As the wrapped blade landed by her hip, she looked back at him, her confusion obvious. Steve made an obvious glance down to the printout and then nodded back to her, silently trying to tell her what he had read. Whether she understood or not, Steve had no idea, but as she stretched her fingers to manoeuvre the blade into her palm slowly, he knew at least he had done what he could for her. He had given her a chance to save herself and her baby, and perhaps, if luck was on her side, the line he had read saying, ‘terminate inoculated foetus to record anti-virus viability’ might never be put into practice.

***

‘Fuck! Where are they all coming from?’ whispered Leon, turning to face Imran.

‘From what Sister Josephine said, the idiots aren’t shy about using their guns to put down the Dead,’ Imran replied, his whisper mirroring Leon’s
, ‘and looks like they’re thundering through the countryside like bulls in a china shop, riling up all the Dead as they go. Of course, as far as they’re concerned, they’ve got what they want from this area now, so what do they care if all the Dead that are able to, suddenly take to the roads to follow?’

When the group had set out from Lanherne early that morning, the first rays of sun had only just begun their struggle to break into the icy darkness of the winter
night’s sky. The weak rays had done little to dispel the stillness that seemed to have settled over the convent and to Imran, with the children and more importantly Liz now gone, the life of the building itself had been taken with them leaving it as cold and empty as the snow covered countryside about it. He knew he was not the only one to feel this way. In the faces of all those who had braved the chill of the dawn light to see them off, the ache of loss was obvious. Lars, who had taken care of Penny since those first days, was plainly feeling her absence deeply. He had silently struggled through the pain of his arthritic hands to prepare Delilah for the trip and even when Gabe had offered to help, he had refused, preferring to work though his pain. He was determined to prove wrong the Sergeant who had written him off as a nothing burden.

‘He would be of use, he would not be a burden
,’ he had told himself over and over again to blot out the pain.

If this
was all he could do to help those given the task of rescuing the stolen members of his extended family, then so be it, he would do it gladly. For that is how he felt about this group of people who found refuge and built a life behind the high walls of Lanherne. They become a family and just like any family, they would fight any way they could for each other.

‘Bring them back to us and may God go with you
,’ Sister Josephine said to the four men clambering into the cart about to set off.

‘We will
,’ Imran said, turning back to look at the woman who had opened her Convent doors to them and made had for them all a life worth living.

As Sister Josephine’s hand rose to encircle the Rosary beads about her neck, she gave Imran a simple nod.  She could see it clearly in his expression that these words were not merely empty reassurances
. He meant it as a statement of fact. His mind was unable to contemplate any other option. He would return with Liz, Anne and the others and woe betide any who stood in his way.

Just as Sister Josephine had said, Liz had left for them a trail to follow. For
hours, they had been met at each turning or crossroads, by a rag fluttering mournfully in the chill wind, guiding their way. Even without Liz’s tell-tale markers, they could clearly see the route she had taken in pursuit of the convoy. Everywhere, the broken and downed Dead littered the roads, a testament to the passing of Liz’s blade and Samson’s thundering hooves. From the spacing of the fallen Dead, Imran could tell she had thankfully only encountered the walking corpses in their ones and twos as they had pushed their way through hedgerows and onto the road to follow the noisy convoy of vehicles. However, the longer they were on the road following the trail, the more worried Imran became. More than once, a group of dozen shattered Dead, their now finally still bodies dusted with a thick layer of snow, had shown just how close to being overpowered Liz had been.

‘More Dead up ahead, quite a lot of them,’ Phil said, looking through the front view slit at the road ahead
. ‘From the looks of it they must’ve got onto the road after Liz had already past.’

‘
Any way we can just get past them?’ Patrick asked, knowing every second counted if they wanted to catch up with Liz, let alone the convoy.

‘There’s about forty of them blocking the lane
,’ Phil replied, scratching at his stubbly chin ‘I don’t want to risk barrelling through them, not in this snow. We could break a wheel and then we’d really be up shit creek.’

‘Well, we can’t afford to stop and deal with them all, we haven’t got time
,’ Imran added, his frustration making him snap at his friends.

Phil turned to look at Imran. He could see the worry consuming the young man. The woman he loved and his unborn child were out there somewhere, alone and unprotected. He needed to get to them.

‘Look, if we just clear a path through them, they’ll be following us up behind,’ Phil began.

‘But we can outpace them,’ Imran interrupted
. ‘We might lose them at a turning.’

‘And we might not
,’ Phil added calmly.

‘We’ve got to try
. We’ve got to take that chance, please,’ said Imran, looking from Phil to Patrick to Leon.

‘Hey, I’m cool with whatever
,’ Leon said to Imran, holding his hands up.

‘That ‘whatever’ can get you killed, Leon
,’ Phil remarked under his breath, turning back to follow the movement of the Dead crowd in front of them.

‘Leon and I would already be dead by now if it you hadn’t taken a chance when you didn’t have to,’ Patrick added
. ‘I say we chance it now. We just can’t afford to fall too far behind. If that convoy gets to the coast…’

Turning his attention back to his three travelling companions, Phil knew he was beaten. As much as he didn’t like leaving behind a large group of the Dead to follow them in their wake, he understood Imran’s
urgency. Patrick had been right, if the soldiers did manage to get to the coast, their rescue would be over before it began.

‘Well, looks like you’re up then,’ Phil said to Imran, turning back to concentrate on the Dead that shambled along the snow covered road ahead of them
. ‘Just take out as many as you can that are walking close together. With a bit of luck, you’ll only need to get about a dozen of them to clear a space wide enough for us to pass.’

‘I suggest you take them out in pairs and then duck back down out of sight. The longer you’re visible, the more chance one of them will notice you and start the dinner call,’ Patrick added, grabbing Imran’s arm as he was about to flip open the roof hatch
, ‘if that happens and they swamp us, we’ll have a real fight on our hands. I doubt the cart or Delilah could cope with such an onslaught.’

‘Right
, good thinking,’ Imran said after a pause, silently kicking himself for almost endangering them all with his reckless haste.

‘Right, we’re clear sides and back, so unless any of them turn round, this should be like
shooting dead fish in a barrel,’ Leon said, once he had checked through some of the cart’s spy holes.

‘Here goes
,’ Imran whispered, silently opening the roof hatch.

Holding onto the hatch’s internal bolt, Imran left it to the last second before releasing his grasp, allowing the hatch to be lowered soundlessly onto the outside of the cart’s roof. With a sharp intake of breath to steady himself, Imran slowly stood up through the gap to take his targets. With his feet resting on the wooden benches that ran
on either side inside of the cart, Imran’s upper torso, arms and head were now exposed for all the Dead to see. With only the barest of creaks from his bow to compete with the soundless shuffling Dead, Imran pulled back the string. Sighting down the arrow, he marked his first target. Whatever it had once been, the creature had much of the flesh torn from its back by the Dead when it was alive and one of its arms ended abruptly mid-bicep among a tattering of moulding skin and bone. What hair it had left on its head, hanging thin and lank, was matted to the pallid and cracking skin that stretched across its skull.   

With a barely audible thud
, Imran’s arrow lodged itself deeply in the back of the Dead thing’s head, knocking the creature forward to fall face down in the trampled down snow. Without a second thought, Imran sighted his aim smoothly to the next walking corpse. This time it had been a woman, her once curvaceous half-naked figure was now tinged a sickly grey and traced with a dark spider web of long dead veins. Imran could see a large chunk of flesh that at some point had been ripped from her thigh. Whether by the attacking Dead or by a pack of wild hungry dogs, he would never know, but the wound was deep enough to expose the yellowing bone beneath as it disappeared into the dark rotting flesh of her leg. Again, an unnatural existence was abruptly ended with Imran’s arrow perfectly hitting its mark. Following Patrick’s advice, Imran quickly ducked back down below the lip of the hatch.