Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead (31 page)

‘Wrists,’ he simply said, nodding towards Sally’s hand still hovering over her stinging cheek.

Slowly lowering her hand from her face, Sally allowed Parker to bind her wrists together, wincing slightly as the sharp plastic dug into her skin. With one more sadistic tug at the tie, Parker then dropped down on one knee to repeat the process with her ankles. As tempted as she was to knee the man in the face, Sally resisted, knowing she would only gain a beating for her trouble.

‘Now what have we here?’ said Parker, looking up at her.

With a sinking feeling, Sally couldn’t help but glance at Liz.

‘Looks like someone’s been a naughty…,’ he continued, pulling the knife by its handle from Sally’s sock.

‘Parker!’ sighed Kyle, stepping over to snatch the knife from him. ‘Just get on with it!’

‘Is it really necessary to tie up a five year old?’ asked Liz, watching Parker move onto a tearful Anne.

‘Oh, I think so,’ Kyle replied, standing over Liz brandishing the found knife. ‘After all she has hands hasn’t she and as small as they are I’m sure even she could use this to cut you all free…’

‘Now,’ he continued, squatting down to look at Abby while tapping the handle of the knife against his chin, ‘just what am I going to do with you young lady?’

‘Please…’ she began, heavy tears already flowing.

‘Oh, don’t start that again,’ he snapped. ‘Honestly, you’re as bad as your sister. Do you really think weeping is going to help you here?’

Liz could see a cold detachment in his gaze as he looked at Abby and in the pit of her stomach she feared she knew what was coming.

‘Done,’ said Parker, finally placing Anne next to Liz.

Glancing along the line of bound woman, Kyle smiled.

‘There were five in the bed and the little one said roll over, roll over,’ Kyle slowly sang, the verse of the nursery rhyme sparking long forgotten memories in Liz. ‘So they all rolled over and one fell… out.’

With the last word the smile dropped from his lips and he turned to look at Abby.

‘You know, I did promise your sister you would be released,’ he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, ‘and a promise is a promise…’

‘Kyle don’t!’ begged Liz, knowing it was already too late.

With a sickening smile twitching the side of his mouth, Kyle lunged forward, plunging the knife deep into Abby’s ribcage.

With a choking scream, Abby stared in wide eyed horror at the knife sticking out of her chest. Already a blossom of blood had begun to seep across her clothing and as the terror overwhelmed her, she began to gasp deep panic ridden breaths. Shaking her head back and forth, Abby tried desperately to deny what her own eyes were seeing but with a tearing cough suddenly flecking her lips with blood, at last the reality of what was happening to her hit home.

‘You bastard!’ cried Liz, looking from the dying girl to Kyle, an almost disinterested look on his face.

‘The law is the law,’ he said, pushing himself upright, ‘and you‘ll be wise to remember that…’

‘You’re a fucking monster!’ whispered Liz, shaking her head in disbelief while beside her Anne wept.

‘Bag the corpse,’ Kyle said, ignoring Liz’s comment to talk to Baxter, ‘We don’t want her taking a bite out of our new guests…’

‘You can’t,’ Liz continued, watching Baxter remove a bundle of sacking from a shelf, ‘Please… don’t do this… you can’t let her go, not like that… not in the dark!’

But her words fell on deaf ears and even as Abby locked her terrified gaze briefly with Liz’s she was consigned to the darkness by the cloth bag pulled over her head.

‘P…P…Please…’ Abby managed to feebly pant through the hood.

With a single jerk of his head, Parker and Baxter followed Kyle’s unspoken command and silently headed for the door.

‘Remember what I said Elizabeth,’ said Kyle, turning to look at her, his hand hovering over the light switch. ‘Little things can get broken so easily…’

Liz glanced down at Anne, hating the fear she saw dancing in her sister’s large blue eyes.

‘Oh, and when she comes back I’d try to keep quiet if I were you,’ said Kyle from the open doorway, ‘she won’t be very happy about her new state and I’m guessing she’ll be very hungry…’

‘You’re fucking crazy!’ sneered Sally. ‘This is all some sort of game to you…’

‘And it’s my rules… don’t you forget it!’ he replied, before flipping the light switch, plunging the women into total darkness.

***

Freya paused outside the bedroom door, the lit candle shaking slightly in her hand. Inside her the guilt and shame twisted about her heart, almost bringing her to the point of tears. To save her own sister she had just confined these women to the nightmare prison that was Saint Xavier’s and it sickened her. She could only pray that in time they could come to understand her actions and maybe even forgive her. Perhaps of all of them, Liz would sympathise with her predicament. It was clear that the young woman would do anything to protect her own sister, surely she could not condemn her for doing the same.

Freya ran her free hand over her swollen belly and not for the first time she felt a mix of both love and resentment for the child within her. If only she hadn’t been pregnant perhaps she could have joined Abby in her bid for freedom and who knows, together they may have made it. As it was, with her baby due so soon she had resigned herself to her fate, she simply could not and probably would never leave the Academy. For as bad as it was at Saint Xavier’s she would suffer it all to keep her child safe behind the high walls and away from the Dead hands that would be so eager to rip into its flesh. 

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Freya searched for the words to say to the woman just beyond the door in front of her, surely Carmella, as a mother, would understand her predicament. Hopefully she would see that Freya had been left with no option but to do anything Zak and his guards demanded of her. She had to do whatever was necessary to keep her unborn baby safe, she simply had no choice. But as the words eluded her Freya knew she could stand facing the door all night and the right words to excuse or justify her actions may never come to her. So bracing herself for an angry reception she so rightly deserved, she twisted the door knob and entered the room.        

Stepping through the doorway Freya suddenly froze, horrified at what greeted her. Bathed in the warm glow of the dancing candlelight the room had been transformed in her absence to a scene of pure horror and bloodshed. Across the floor, barely a few footsteps from the doorway, a swathe of thick congealing blood pooled. Even as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing, her mind darted frantically from one minute bloody detail to the next. A smudged hand print here, a spray of crimson there, all fought to be true testament to what had happened here. Yet it was only when she heard a soft ‘groan’ from the corner of the room that Freya managed to tear her eyes away from the horrors before her. But if she sought to find relief from this nightmare elsewhere in the room, she was to be sorely disappointed. For, as time seemed to slow, her gaze drifted across a gore covered nightgown and up to a slack and lifeless face. With her eyes widening in horror Freya impotently open and closed her mouth, desperate to release the scream that burned in her throat. For the nightmare was real, Carmella was dead and right now her corpse was staring back at her with film covered eyes, eyes that could no longer see Freya as anything other than something to bite and tear into.

The thing that had up until recently been Carmella slowly opened its blood smeared mouth, allowing a chunk of partly chewed flesh to drop to floor. Shaking her head back and forth in blind terror, Freya instinctively knew Carmella’s corpse had feasted upon the body of her own new born child. In the space of less than a few hours Carmella had brought new life to the world through the pain and blood of childbirth only to then cruelly snatch it back again with Dead snapping teeth and rending claw. The two women, one very much Dead and one very likely soon to be, stood motionless looking at each other; seemingly locked in time. But then with the slightest twitch of a Dead muscle in her neck, Carmella’s compulsion to feed upon the flesh of the living demanded to be heard and with a guttural growl she threw herself at Freya. With a strangled cry finally escaping her lips, time suddenly slipped back into its natural flow for Freya but as Carmella’s corpse barrelled into her, mouth agape and dripping drool still tinged with the blood of her baby, she knew it was already too late. For as the cadaver collided with her she was thrown violently back against the door, slamming it shut and sealing her to a terrifying and bloody fate.

***

Chapter 6

Tom’s eyelids flickered open. Once again his sleep had been haunted by his lost family, their tear streaked faces begging him in urgent whispers for retribution, for justice and for revenge. Even now as he looked over and watched Charlie tightening the last of the straps on his vest, the hushed voices called out to him, demanding their pound of Dead flesh.

‘You’d better get a move on,’ said Charlie, noticing Tom was finally awake. ‘The sooner we get this bloody plough thing for them the sooner we can get out of this place.’

‘What?’ Tom replied, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from his face as the ghostly voices drifted away like smoke on the wind. ‘Oh, yeah… sorry.’

‘So have you found somewhere for us…’ he continued, pausing briefly to yawn while he slipped his legs out from under the blankets, ‘to go?’

‘Yep,’ Charlie replied, slipping on his Velcro strapped boots, ‘a couple of options really and they’re both far enough away from this place that we won’t be competing for resources.’

‘What are they?’ Tom asked, reaching for his trousers. ‘I mean what did these places used to be?’

‘Well we’ve got a large Manor house, a convent and the closest, an actual Norman castle near the coast.’ he replied, going through the options he had found.

Beyond the room’s small window the drumming of water against glass briefly caught Tom’s attention. Even though the sun had risen well over an hour ago, the dark clouds overhead and the light rain they released did little to offer any promise of joyous sunshine for the day ahead.

‘Hmm…,’ mused Tom, threading his belt through its buckle as he watched the raindrops running down the slightly warped glass, ‘I like the idea of the castle… what sort of state would it be in though?’

‘Well we won’t know until we get there,’ Charlie began, ‘but it was under National Trust tourist attractions in the Yellow pages, so I’m guessing it can’t be a complete ruin. Worth checking it out though don’t you think?’

‘And if it proves to be useless,’ he continued, ‘we’ll just move on to the next one.’

‘Travelling anywhere with a baby in one of the carts,’ said Tom, his brow creasing in concern, ‘it’s not going to be easy to keep it quiet.’

‘So let’s just hope our first stop is suitable,’ Charlie replied, hearing the key to the room suddenly turning in its lock.

‘Ah, you’re both up already, good,’ said Kyle, looking at the two men. ‘It’s a bit of a crappy day out there I’m afraid but…’

‘Don’t worry we’re not put off by a bit of rain,’ Tom replied, slipping the harness that held his two sickles over his shoulders.

‘No… no I’m sure you aren’t,’ said Kyle, slowly taking off his glasses to polish some unseen grime from one of the lenses.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, replacing his now cleaned glasses, ‘we just need to get the other man…’

‘Phil,’ said Charlie, giving Kyle the name was searching for.

‘Yes, Phil,’ said Kyle with the briefest of nods. ‘We’ll just collect Phil and then I’ll take you down to your cart.’

‘What no breakfast first?’ asked Tom.

‘Zak has made sure some supplies have been put in the cart for you,’ Kyle replied, forcing a smile to his lips. ‘More than enough for your short trip I assure you… and anyway the sooner you go…’

‘Yeah, I get it,’ interrupted Tom, giving a final tug to his tied bootlaces before standing. ‘Come on then, let’s get this show on the road.’

With the forced smile slowly fading from his face, Kyle stepped aside and gestured for the two men to pass him through the open doorway and into the hall.

‘Which room?’ asked Kyle, nodding to the row of closed doors.

‘This one,’ Charlie replied, rapping against the wood with the sheathed knife at his wrist as he noticed the guard sitting at the end of the hallway with an arrow already held in his bow.

‘Ah,’ said Kyle, searching a large key ring for the correct key.

‘Hey, where are the girls?’ asked Tom, noticing the door to the room where Sally and Liz had slept was already open.

‘What?’ said Kyle, glancing at the empty room as he put the key in the lock. ‘Oh, they’ve already been escorted down to help in the kitchens.’

With a ‘click’ from the lock, the door opened to show a gruff looking Phil, already fully dressed and stepping anxiously from foot to foot.

‘About time,’ he said, pushing past Kyle, ‘I’m dying for a piss…’

‘Hey!’ growled Kyle, as he was knocked against the door.

‘Kyle?’ said the guard questioningly, rising from his stool.

‘It’s alright, Reynolds,’ Kyle answered, holding up his hand to tell the guard everything was OK, ‘just the urgency of a full bladder, that’s all.’

With a nod, Reynolds lowered himself back to his seat and resumed his silent watch.

While Phil went to relieve himself Kyle moved from lock to lock freeing the others from the rooms that had effectively been their prisons for the night. By the time he had returned with a far more relaxed look on his face, Kyle had been joined by the tall man with the stammer Charlie had met the previous day.

‘Ah, Kai,’ said Kyle, noticing the young man silently waiting, ‘I want you to supervise these two on the roof today… they’ll be working the pumps again.’

‘Oh, great, lucky us,’ grumbled Michael, nudging Cam.

For the briefest of moments Kyle’s eyes flicked in Michael’s direction before continuing to speak.

‘And the other two, Zak wants them to work in the gardens,’ he said, gesturing towards Tyrone and his brother,. ‘Get Corey to watch them, with his arm in that sling he might as well make himself useful somehow…’

‘Y... Y… Yes K… Kyle,’ Kai stammered in reply.

Rolling his eyes at Kai’s inability to say two words without his stammer dragging it needlessly out, Kyle stepped past the gathered group of men and began walking to the end of the corridor; simply expecting everyone else to follow in his wake without question.

‘Looks like they’re not getting any breakfast either,’ mumbled Tom to Charlie, pushing himself away from the door frame to follow the others after Kyle.

As the last of the group passed the end of the hallway, Charlie noticed the guard had risen to his feet and was following them a few paces behind.

‘Trusting bunch aren’t they,’ said Phil, noticing where Charlie was looking.

‘Hmm…’ Charlie replied, as a worrying thought began to niggle at the back of his mind.

‘I just hope it’s a case of them being over cautious,’ he continued, his voice dropping to a discrete whisper, ‘and not something more…’

‘Like what?’ said Phil, making a point not to look at Charlie as he spoke.

‘Like, they’re hiding something,’ he simply replied, risking a brief but concerned glance at his friend.

***

‘Do you have to do that?’ asked Kyle impatiently, as he watched Phil methodically check each of Star’s fetlocks for any swellings that may indicate trouble for the trusty mare.

‘If we want to get there and back without having our arses eaten off... then yes,’ he replied, moving on to check each of Star’s hooves for damage or lodged in stones.

While Phil continued to give Star the once over, Charlie did his best to ignore Tom’s mumbled and rather disconcerting conversation with himself and let his gaze wander across the vast expanse of cultivated vegetable plots. To his right he could see one of the members of Saint Xavier’s giving instructions to Tyrone, who in turn was then translating what they were to do through sign language to his brother, Paul. Even as he watched, Tyrone pulled his jacket tighter about himself and gestured to the water proof poncho the young man from Saint Xavier’s was wearing. Receiving only an apologetic shrug in reply, it was clear they were expected to work in the gardens regardless of the rain and as Tyrone reluctantly forced his spade into the wet soil Charlie’s gaze moved on.

Passing over a few bedraggled looking chickens unfortunate enough to be caught out in the rain, Charlie almost missed the figure of the older man standing against the wall, alone, dripping wet and staring back at him. Recognising him as the sole surviving member of the teaching staff, Charlie gave the man a friendly nod ‘hello’. If the old man saw Charlie’s gesture he made no move to reply but simply continued his motionless vigil. For a few seconds more Charlie held the gaze of the teacher and wondered just what had happened to him to lock the poor man within such a sad and broken shell.

‘Right, we’re good to go,’ said Phil, snapping Charlie’s attention back to the task at hand.

‘Good,’ he muttered in reply, walking over to the cart.

Pulling open one of the side hatches, Charlie couldn’t help but steal a final glance back at the forlorn old man but to his surprise the space by the wall was empty; he had already left.

‘So here’s the map. Zak’s already marked the farm on it and the best route to get you there,’ said Kyle, pulling a folded map from under his jacket, ‘The archers have cleared the Dead from the walls so we can open the gate… but apparently they can see are about thirty of them further down the road… so…’

‘Thanks,’ said Charlie, taking the map. ‘Oh… is there any news about Carmella? Is the baby OK?’

‘Carmella?’ Kyle replied, taken aback by the sudden change of topic and that Charlie hadn’t taken the hint it was time to leave.

‘Oh… yes, it’s a boy,’ he finally added, realising he had to give the man some morsel of information to send him on his way.

Charlie waited for more details but when it became apparent none were to follow, he sighed at Kyle’s blank expression, turned and clambered into the cart.

‘That bloke’s one Grade ‘A’ arsehole,’ he muttered to himself, gathering up Star’s reins.

‘No arguments here,’ chuckled Tom, hearing Charlie’s judgement on Kyle. ‘Right, pass me the map,’ he continued, nodding to the folded paper Charlie had wedged beside him, ‘and I’ll give you directions.’

‘All yours,’ he replied, relieved Tom’s mind had turned away from the ghostly voices of his dead family to be with them in the here and now.

Passing the map behind him, Charlie clicked his tongue and gave Star’s reins a sharp flick to get her moving.

‘How long is this going to take again?’ asked Phil, closing some of the spyholes to cut down the cold drafts whistling through the interior of the car. ‘It doesn’t feel right leaving the others like this… even for just a while.’

‘Liz can take care of herself, as can Fran,’ Charlie said over his shoulder while doing his best to avoid clipping three water barrels with the side of the cart, ‘and Michael, Cam and Tyrone are here too…’

‘Yeah, but still,’ continued Phil, using the crook of his elbow to wipe the rainwater from his face.

‘I know…,’ Charlie interrupted, ‘but what choice do we have? Until Carmella is fit to travel we’re sort of stuck with doing whatever Zak asks.’

‘And that’s another thing,’ said Phil, ‘for someone in charge he’s barely said ten words to us… don’t you find that a bit odd?’

‘So he’s not very ‘hands on’… doesn’t make him a bad person,’ offered Tom, looking up from the map.

‘No, but it makes him a bad leader,’ muttered Charlie, pulling Star to a halt in front of the gate.             

Looking through the viewing slit, Charlie watched one of the bowmen slowly removing the secured padlock. Then as the young man began to swing open first one side of the gate and then the other Charlie noticed a figure standing in lone vigil under the raised platform. It was the old teacher, he had returned. Hidden partly in the shadows, un-noticed by the guards, he stood watching the cart’s departure with a look Charlie could only describe as pure hopelessness etched over his drawn features.

‘Charlie,’ said Tom, nudging him in the back.

‘What? Oh, sorry,’ he said, realising the bowman had stepped beyond the gate and was now waving him forward. ‘I was miles away.’

‘You alright?’ asked Phil, concerned by Charlie’s out of character lapse in concentration.

‘Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine,’ he replied, glancing back at the two men behind him.

‘It’s nothing,’ he continued, turning back to give a flick of Star’s reins.

But even as Star pulled the cart through the fortified gate, Charlie couldn’t help but watch the old man still following their passing; their eyes seemingly locked, right up to the moment until he was finally lost from sight and Charlie hoped it really was ‘nothing’ after all.

***

Adrian Porrow silently watched the young man who had once been his pupil slowly close the gates behind the departing cart holding the three men; the three men he knew would never see their friends again. For what seemed like the hundredth time that morning his mind was consumed with a swirling mix of fear, shame and an all-encompassing darkness.

When the other members of the faculty had abandoned the boys at the school to their fate, it was he who had stood by them. It was he who had promised to protect and nurture them; and it was he who had helped them build a new way of life in this world of the Dead. Just how something that had started out so full of hope and promise had turned into such a vile and abusive regime, he could not understand. He had thought that Zak, and what was left of the rugby team, had been the obvious choice to lead the rest of the boys. They had been popular, well respected and more importantly were physically able to protect those less capable. Yet he had soon come to realise that he had helped Zak turn Saint Xavier’s into little more than a gilded cage; a cage of high walls, vegetable plots and rationed electricity, but a cage none the less. Trapped behind its invisible bars of fear with nowhere else to go but out among the Dead, something dark blossomed within Zak and his guards, changing them until what little of the good natured boys Adrian Porrow had known was left. Something twisted and terrifying had descended upon Saint Xavier’s and to his shame they had all accepted it with fearful open arms.