Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead (19 page)

‘Four?’ asked Charlie, craning his head forward trying to find the unaccounted corpse. ‘Where?’

‘Looks like a suicide,’ Cam whispered, glancing from the hole back to Charlie, ‘he’s hung from an upstairs window over the enclosure.’

‘So it’s possible no one’s home then,’ suggested Michael, images of roasted meat once again coming to mind.

‘Hmm…’ Charlie reluctantly agreed, knowing it was unlikely anyone would still be living in the house with a corpse hanging out the window.

‘OK then,’ he continued, turning to look at those behind him. ‘Cam, Michael I want you get Tom and check out the house…. and for fuck’s sake watch your step.’

‘Will do,’ nodded Michael, already quietly opening the hatch on the side of the cart facing away from the Dead.

Cam was about to jump down to follow Michael when he felt Fran’s small hand on his arm.

‘Be careful…’ she said, her urgent words barely a whisper.

With a reassuring smile on his face, Cam nodded and lowered himself out of the cart.

‘Liz?’ whispered Charlie, making sure she was ready to join him in taking down the two Dead men and the Dead woman pawing desperately to get to the penned sheep.

‘Shut the hatch as soon as we’re out,’ Liz said in a hushed voice to Fran as she followed Cam and Michael out of the cart.

Nodding her understanding, Fran moved aside to make room for Charlie to pass by.

‘Go!’ said Charlie, tapping Michael on the back once they were all poised and ready.

Almost immediately, Cam and Michael darted out from their hiding place and in a low crouch ran back to Snow and the second cart. With all their unholy attention on the terrified livestock just beyond their reach, the three Dead figures failed to notice the living flesh silently running behind them or the two creeping up to them, blades drawn and ready to send them into their perpetual overdue oblivion.

‘Hey!’ shouted Liz, her blade slicing through the air towards the first of the Dead men in front of her.

As a face covered in rotting gore began to turn to look at her, its film covered eyes already registering the sudden appearance of her living flesh, the blade hit home; separating the head from its decaying shoulders. Before the decapitated head of the Dead man had even touched the ground Charlie had stepped forward and his own weapon was tearing into the back of the Dead woman’s skull. Ripping through her skin, bone and brain tissue he brought a swift end to her unnatural existence. Then with a sharp tug his ice pick, he began to pull her backwards, drawing the now truly Dead woman’s body back away from the breach in the fence. He had barely moved her lifeless corpse half a metre before the force of his pulling tore free a large section of her skull, exposing the putrid mush of her decaying brain.

‘Fuck!’ said Charlie, instinctively using the crook of his elbow to shield his nose from the overpowering stench.

‘I know!’ agreed Liz, stabbing her blade forcefully through the eye socket of the last remaining Dead man, putting him to rest. ‘I don’t know what smells worse, these bags of shit or the poor rotting beast they’ve torn to pieces.’

With a smooth practiced motion, Liz pulled free the tip of her sword from the Dead man’s head and flicked away any of the remaining gore smeared along its blade.

‘Close call,’ replied Charlie, stamping down hard on the head Liz had freed from its body, ‘they’re all pretty rank…’

‘But worth it,’ said Liz, looking through the break in the fence to the enclosure within.

Beyond the ramshackle mishmash of hastily attached wood and chain-link fencing Liz could see a small barren area of trampled down mud, some six by five metres square. Apart from a water trough full of rainwater there was very little else to sustain the animals and in fact every scrap of vegetation had already been gnawed down to its roots by the penned-in sheep, most of whom had not survived their ordeal. Apart from the beast that had been torn apart by the Dead, another four had simply succumbed to starvation, their bloated rotting corpses still littering the enclosure. Only two sheep inside were still alive and it didn’t take a farmer to see they were both in a very sorry state. Their fleeces, presumably once a creamy white, were now little more than a matted mess clogged with wet mud and their own faeces and Liz could only imagine what infections the animals may have caught from the rotting carcases that shared their sorry home.

‘I don’t know how long they’ve been left in there,’ said Liz, turning to look back at Charlie, ‘but they look like they’re on their last legs to me…’

‘Well, let’s get them out so they can graze,’ Charlie replied, stooping down to look through the hole in the fence. ‘If we’re lucky they might pull through?’

‘Hmm…’ pondered Liz, thinking it would take more than a quick munch of grass to help these poor beasts survive.

‘And I think we should get them out before dealing with our friend up there,’ Charlie continued, stepping back to nod to the Dead man hanging from the window overlooking the pen.

Looking up at their un-living host, Liz could tell the man had taken his own life sometime probably in the last three weeks. His stomach, distended with bacterial gas, swelled against a pair of filthy dungarees but from what little of his sagging grey weather-worn skin she could see he hadn’t committed suicide to spare himself the searing pain of turning from a bite. Just what had tipped the man over the edge after nearly five years of survival, Liz could only guess but she hoped the envelope sealed in the clear zip-lock bag hanging around his neck held the answers to this tragic mystery. With movement in the open window above the straining cadaver catching her eye, Liz saw Tom had already made his way through the house and was waving down the ‘all clear’ to them.

‘We’re getting the sheep out first!’ she shouted up to him. ‘Don’t release the corpse yet.’

Nodding, Tom peered down over to the top of the dangling Dead man’s head and the two sheep below him.

‘Right, you ready to get covered in sheep shit?’ Charlie asked Liz, a smile on his lips.

‘What? Aren’t you going to help?’ she said, not looking forward to trying to catch the two sheep, no matter how emaciated they looked.

As a reply, Charlie simply held up the knife on his wrist.

‘Hmm… fair enough, I‘ll give you that one,’ she continued, her hands on her hips as she warily eyed the two sheep again. ‘Perhaps Phil could help me… I know he was used to handling dead sheep as a butcher but you never know…’

‘Good idea,’ said Charlie, turning to jog over to the second cart. ‘I’ll get him…’

Returning moments later with Phil in tow carrying two lengths of rope, Charlie left the two of them to it and instead went into the farmhouse to see if he could find something specific among the Dead man’s possessions.

‘I hear you need a hand with some sheep wrangling…’ said Phil, his eyes still red from the previous evening as he looked through the fencing.

‘Well, two sheep, two of us… we should be OK?’ said Liz hopefully.

‘And we’re sure those sorry arsed creatures are actually sheep,’ he said looking back at Liz, his eyebrows raised comically.

‘Yes…’ she laughed, allowing a kernel of hope that Phil would be alright to take root. ‘So do you know how to catch them without hurting them or not?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ he replied, finding a sturdy section of the fence before reaching up to pull himself over. ‘You coming?’

Flipping the hold of her sword in her hand, Liz reached behind her and slid the blade back into its protective sheath before beginning to climb one of the chain-link sections.

‘Here,’ said Phil, tossing her one of the lengths of rope once they were both inside the enclosure.

‘Thanks,’ she replied, almost losing her footing on the slippery mud as she caught the rope. ‘So how do we do this?’

‘Well…’ Phil began but suddenly halting in his words as one of the ewes slowly walked over to Liz, bleating pathetically.

‘Oh,’ said Liz, gingerly reaching forward to scratch the beast’s ear while slipping the loop of the rope over the sheep’s head, ‘easier than I thought.’

‘I guess sheep aren’t as stupid as I thought,’ Phil began, walking over to remaining ewe. ‘They must somehow be able to tell you’re not one of the Dead…’

But to almost prove him wrong the second ewe used what little energy she had left to bolt away from Phil’s outstretched arms.

‘Fuck!’ he snapped, darting to one side to catch the fleeing animal keen to escape him.

‘You need a woman’s touch,’ laughed Liz, watching as Phil made a grab for the escaping ewe only for her to change direction at the last moment and elude him again.

‘Come here, you little fucker,’ he growled, only just stopping himself at the last moment from falling face first into the putrid mire by grabbing hold of a part of the fence.

‘Oh, why not just leave her, Phil,’ Liz said, covering her smiling mouth with her hand. ‘She’s obviously spooked… Perhaps once we get this one out, she’ll just follow?’

‘Hmm… I guess so,’ he replied, eyeing the disobedient sheep that had made a fool of him. ‘Just one thing though… where’s the door?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Liz, her gaze following the perimeter of the enclosure all the way round without seeing an obvious doorway. ‘I guess our friend up there built it from the inside and then climbed over to get himself out again.’

‘Sounds to me, he knew he wouldn’t be taking them out again,’ mused Phil, walking over to a section of the fence.

‘Yeah,’ Liz replied, glancing back to the set of hungry milky eyes looking down at her.

With the sound of splintering wood, Liz tore her gaze away from the hanging cadaver to watch Phil kicking repeatedly at a section of the fence, determined to break his way through. Already the lower section of what looked to have once been a kitchen door had been kicked out and Phil was well on his way to smashing his way through to make a big enough exit for Liz and the sheep.

‘Almost there,’ he grunted, kicking free a central cross panel from the door.

‘That should be OK,’ she said, leading the friendly ewe over to Phil. ‘There’s plenty of room for the sheep to get through and I can just duck down a bit.’

With relief Liz noticed the second, less trusting animal, had also tentatively taken a few steps in her direction as she had moved over to Phil.

‘Whatever you say, Beau Peep,’ replied Phil, wiping the sheen of sweat from his bald head on the crook of his sleeve. ‘Go ahead, knock yourself out…’

Doing her best to avoid the splintered wood of the broken door, Liz eased herself through the hole Phil had made.

‘Come on,’ she encouraged, giving the rope a gentle tug once she was on the other side of the fence. ‘There’s lots of lovely green grass out here to munch on…’

Whether the ewe remembered what had happened the last time one of her sisters had wondered too close to the fence Liz could only guess but with her hooves lodged firmly in the muddy mire the sheep refused to budge.

‘Come on,’ she repeated, ripping up a handful of thick lush grass to wave at the reluctant animal. ‘Nothing to worry about now… come on.’

‘Oh, just move it!’ said Phil, giving the sheep a hefty shove on her rump.

With a startled bleat the ewe darted forward through the break in the fence and was finally free.

‘There you go,’ cooed Liz, scratching the beast’s ears as the ewe almost immediately began to rip up mouthfuls of the fresh green grass. ‘And now what about your friend… hey?’

Liz needn’t have worried. For after seeing her sister happily grazing just beyond the break in the fence the second ewe trotted through of her own accord to join her.

‘Oh good, you’ve got them both already,’ said Charlie, walking over to them with a box under his arm.

‘What did you find?’ asked Phil, jumping to the ground after he climbed over the fence.

‘Not much,’ Charlie replied, ‘a few jars of preserves, some weapons, a couple of ‘guess what it is’ tins…’

‘God, I hope it’s not leek and potato soup again,’ interrupted Phil, reaching for one of the cans that had lost its label to give it a shake. ‘I can’t stand leek and potato soup…’

‘Go without then,’ said Liz, taking the mystery can from Phil to put it back in Charlie’s box.

‘And these…’ continued Charlie, ignoring Phil’s interruption to nod to a large pair of strange looking scissors.

‘What are they?’ asked Liz, taking the utensils from the box.

‘Old fashioned shears,’ he replied, ‘and unless you want to travel all day with those sheep covered in mud and shit, we’re going to have to get rid of their coats.’

‘I don’t suppose…’ Liz began, looking at Phil.

‘No, no way.’ He hurriedly said, holding up his hands. ‘I only butchered the things, I didn’t give them haircuts…’

‘Look, it doesn’t have to be pretty,’ said Charlie, ‘just hack of the worst of it, that’s all.’

‘Fine,’ sighed Phil, knowing of all of them he was probably the only one to have ever handled a sheep in his life, even if it had been dead at the time.

‘Thanks,’ Charlie smiled, passing the twin blades to Phil, handle first. ‘Now let’s get our host down and we’ll be done here.’

‘I’ll deal with him,’ said Liz, handing Phil back the rope tied around the ewe’s neck. ‘It shouldn’t be a problem. Tom can cut the rope holding him up and when he falls I’ll finish him off before he can get to his feet again.’