Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead (37 page)

‘No!’ he screamed, frantically clambering over a counter to grab the back of the woman’s matted head.

But even as his fingers brushed against the back of her skull the Dead woman began to pull away from Paul, his flesh still in her teeth.

‘No!’ Tyrone begged, locking eyes with his terrified brother as the skin on Paul’s neck began to tear.

‘Dear God… please, no!’ he sobbed, shaking his head in denial.

Yet even as he said the words he knew the damage had already been done. The woman had claimed her prize and in doing so she had taken the last remaining part of Tyrone’s life away from him.

‘Aarrghhh!’ Paul finally screamed, the jar of fruit suddenly slipping from his grasp as his hands automatically went to his ravaged neck in shock.

But the Dead woman had not finished with Paul. His warm and now bloody flesh still called out to her, demanding to be consumed, demanding to be feasted upon. Only this time as she moved forward, her mouth still chewing on a piece of stolen flesh, Tyrone now stood in her way and his rage erupted over her like a torrent of fire. Grabbing hold of the cadaver’s neck, he threw her pitiful corpse against the counter, smashing her head down again and again on its hard surface. Within seconds the woman’s face was reduced to dark bloody pulp as grey skin ripped and withered muscles tore under his onslaught; yet still she struggled in his grasp.

‘You fucking bitch!’ Tyrone screamed over and over again, his voice horse and cracking. ‘You fucking Dead bitch!’

‘Tyrone!’ Liz cried, kneeling down next to Paul as his life blood pumped from the wound on his neck. ‘For fuck’s sake, Tyrone… Paul… Paul needs you!’

At the mention of his brother’s name, something cleared in Tyrone’s grief stricken mind. He looked at the writhing cadaver in his grasp, her ruined face looking up at him with nothing but a pure burning hunger and slowly reaching across the counter, he picked up a large pointed fragment of shattered glass. Ignoring the pain as it sliced into his palm, Tyrone thrust the point through one of the Dead woman’s eyes and then as the thick jelly like mucus from the punctured eye splashed across his hand he lifted her head one last time and slammed it down on the counter. With a ‘crack’ the shard tore through the back of her eye socket and into her brain.

‘Tyrone,’ said Liz, knowing if the man wanted to say goodbye to his brother he needed to do it now.

Dismissing the now lifeless cadaver, Tyrone turned to look at Paul. What Liz saw in Tyrone’s face brought tears to her eyes, he was a devastated and broken man.  Dropping to his knees he took Paul’s head in his lap and through his sobs, with his fingers covered in blood, he began to sign. Just what he said to his brother and what words of comfort Tyrone managed to find for Paul, Liz did not know but as she watched the two young men, her own tears falling freely, she knew the worst was yet to come.

Suddenly with a loud ‘bang’ the back door to the kitchen was thrown open. Turning to look back, Liz instinctively rose to one knee in readiness but what she saw made her stomach plummet and her heart race. No matter how bad she thought dealing with Paul was going to be, what she saw pushing their way through the open doorway had just made it ten times worse.

‘Tyrone, we need to go!’ she cried, looking at the Dead horde spilling into the room. ‘And we need to go now…’

‘I’m not leaving him,’ Tyrone replied blankly, pulling Paul tight against his chest.

Looking down, Liz noticed Paul’s hand hanging limply by his side. If the poor boy hadn’t already died he was certainly close to it.

‘Tyrone, I’m sorry but… but we’ve got to go… the Dead,’ she continued, rising to her feet.

‘Just… just go, Liz,’ he whispered, his bloody fingers stroking Paul’s hair.

‘Tyrone, you can’t…’ she began to say but then he looked up at her.

‘Go, Liz… keep Anne safe… don’t… don’t ever let her go,’ he said, his words barely audible over the hellish cacophony of the approaching Dead.

‘Please,’ she replied, holding her hand out beseechingly; desperate to save the man from his own grief.

But Tyrone simply looked down at his now lifeless brother and weeping, began to sign again to unseeing eyes.

‘Tyrone…’ Liz begged, slowly backing up to the door she knew led to the dining hall. ‘Please…’ she whispered, knowing the man was lost to his own despair.

The Dead horde were almost upon him now and as Liz saw the first of many Dead hands reaching for Tyrone all she could do was wish him a quick death before she turned and fled.

***

‘Shit!’ spat Charlie, pulling Star to a halt. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

He didn’t need to explain to the two men behind him just what the problem was, the fact that the gate was wide open and the Dead were happily traipsing through it said enough.

‘Christ!’ said Phil, as one of the young men of Saint Xavier’s suddenly tried to make his desperate escape though the ambling Dead crowd only to be pulled to the ground by the faster and recently deceased cadaver of one of his classmates.

‘Right,’ Tom began, reaching behind him to pull his two sickles from the channels on his back, ‘let’s…’

‘No!’ interrupted Charlie, turning to look at Tom.

‘But…’ Tom continued, confusion in his eyes.

‘Look at them, Tom,’ Charlie began, nodding to the Dead that even now where tearing into the body of the young man who had tried to flee. ‘There’s too many of them. We go in there we’ll hardly be out of the cart before they’ll be on us.’

‘But what about Liz and the others?’ said Phil, nervously scratching his beard as he gave Tom a wary sideways glance.

‘She’ll know to get our group in the other cart with Snow,’ Charlie replied, noticing Tom seemed to be having a conversation of his own under his breath. ‘They may already be there…’

‘So what’s the plan then?’ Phil asked, catching Charlie’s look at Tom.

‘Well, I think the Dead will be more spread out and easier to handle from inside the grounds, so I say go over the wall here,’ he replied. ‘We check our people are safe in the cart and then all get the hell out of there…’

‘And if they’re not in the cart?’ asked Tom, his focus apparently back with them.

‘We search the school,’ Charlie replied, matter-of-factly. ‘Hopefully just because the gate’s been breached it doesn’t mean the building’s been compromised as well.’

‘That’s a lot to hope for,’ added Phil, already reaching for his spiked club.

‘Well it’s about all we’ve got at the moment,’ sighed Charlie, flicking Star’s reins to get her moving again.

Star had barely taken four steps when Charlie brought her to a stop again. With the cart as close to the high wall as the overgrown verge would allow, he just prayed Liz had been able to get Anne and the others to the cart in time.

‘Right, everybody out through the roof hatch,’ said Charlie, tying off Star’s reins.

It was no surprise to him that Tom was first through the open hatchway, his hands itching to feel his bloody sickles in his grasp once again.

‘Charlie,’ Phil whispered, nodding to Tom who had resumed his mumbled conversation and was already jumping from the roof of the cart to the top of the wall.

‘I know,’ was all Charlie could say, concern bringing his eyebrows together.

‘He sure fucking picks his moments,’ Phil grumbled under his breath, pulling himself up through the open hatch to follow Tom over the wall.

Landing on the other side of the wall amid a patch of tall runner bean frames, Phil was surprised to find Tom had waited for them. Perhaps they would be lucky and Tom wouldn’t lose himself this time to his unsettling bloodlust; although the way his eyes darted back and forth with an almost gleeful excitement did little to give him reason to justify this hope.

With a ‘thump’ Charlie dropped from the wall above to come down next to Phil.

‘Star should be OK on her own for a while… we’ll come back and get her once we’re out of here.’ he whispered, his gaze scanning the ensuing carnage for his friends.

With a sense of relief he realised he couldn’t find a single face he recognised amongst the figures moving about the gardens, alive or Dead. Yet this relief was tinged with a resigned sadness, for of all those now in the gardens only two were living and it didn’t look as though they would stay that way for much longer. Already it was clear that the young woman, her back to the wall, had but seconds of life left before she felt the unholy and terrifying touch of Dead hands and teeth upon her skin. Even though she valiantly swung her meagre weapon back and forth, desperate to keep the Dead at bay, it was a battle she was destined to lose and knowing she was too far away from them to launch any sort of rescue, Charlie turned his gaze away from her; not wanting to witness the poor woman’s inevitable and bloody demise.

‘Shit!’ he hissed, looking across the cadaverous horde slowly making their way through the vegetable beds in search of their own form of sustenance. ‘How the fuck did it all fall apart so quickly?’

‘Hey, the cart’s been turned around,’ whispered Phil, pointing to Snow who was now facing towards the open gate, ‘and she’s already harnessed… looks like someone’s got ready to leave at least…’

‘Hmm,’ mused Charlie, scratching his chin with the blade on his wrist, ‘but who?’

‘Come on,’ he continued, edging out from behind the tall plants, ‘and keep low…’

Moving slowly from one tiny piece of cover to the next the three men managed to get as far as the rear of the small outside toilet block before they were noticed by any of the Dead but then two rancid cadavers, one male and the other so old and savaged that its gender was anyone’s guess, suddenly shambled round the corner; almost bumping into them.

‘Fuck!’ barked Phil, pushing the Dead man away from him.

‘Mine!’ Tom said under his breath, almost pulling Phil out of the way to get to the two cadavers.

‘Tom!’ hissed Charlie, reaching for the man.

But Tom had already lost himself to the ghostly pleas of his deceased wife and children. They begged him, they goaded him, they beseeched him and they ultimately praised him as a good husband and father who would reap their demanded vengeance for their deaths. His sickles whistled through the air, removing one decaying limb after another; reducing the two hungry cadavers to little more than a pile of stinking flesh within seconds. But it was then that the young woman by the wall finally lost her battle to survive and as her tortured screams echoed across the gardens Tom let his need for vengeance consume him.

‘You Fucking Bastards!’ he screamed, breaking cover to charge into the Dead horde, hopeful to save the only other living thing before him, a young man with ginger hair fighting for his life.

‘Shit!’ snapped Charlie, knowing it was too late to stop him.

‘Come on,’ he continued, grabbing Phil’s sleeve. ‘Now’s our chance to check out the cart while Tom’s got their attention…’

Keeping low, Charlie edged around the corner of the toilet block.

‘That crazy bastard’s going to get himself killed,’ he muttered, watching Tom running from one hungry cadaver to another, cleaving heads from shoulders at every turn.

Running in a crouch, Charlie and Phil darted from the side of the small building, scattering three bedraggled looking chickens in their wake, to duck down by the cart’s large wooden wheels.

‘Who’s in there?’ he whispered, tapping against one of the side hatches with one of his ice picks as he scanned left and right for any of the Dead.

‘Charlie?’ came Sally’s relieved gasp quickly followed by the sound of an internal bolt being drawn across. ‘Oh my God, Charlie, thank God you’ve come back… they’re everywhere, the Dead, they’re everywhere…’

With the slightest of ‘creaks’ the hatch was pushed open from the inside revealing to him that only Sally and Anne had managed to find sanctuary there.

‘Where’s everybody else?’ he asked, reaching in to give Anne a comforting stroke of her cheek as his relief that she was safe flooded through him.

‘Liz got us here first and then went looking for the rest,’ Sally replied, fiddling nervously with her hair. ‘We’d seen Tyrone fighting with the Dead, I think she went to help him and then it looked like they both ran off to the kitchens… Other than that, God only knows where the others are…’

‘Fran went to get Carmella and her baby,’ added Anne, trying to fill her little voice with as much bravery as she could muster

‘Oh yeah, she’s right,’ Sally continued, transferring her nervous outlet from fiddling with her hair to biting her finger nails, ‘Fran went to find Carmella.’

‘So Fran, Liz, Tyrone and probably Paul are all inside the building… well at least that’s something,’ said Charlie, ‘but we’ve no idea where Cam and Michael are…’

‘Charlie, the Dead are inside already,’ said Sally, pausing with her thumb nail between her front teeth. ‘If Liz and the others are still inside they need to get out of there pretty quick… we only just escaped them the first time…’ 

‘Great!’ Charlie growled. ‘How the fuck did they get in so quick?’

‘They’ve been there the whole time,’ she replied, lowering her hands. ‘It’s a long story but let’s put it this way, some of the boys of Saint Xavier’s… enjoy… the company of Dead woman.’

Charlie and Phil just looked at her, letting this last titbit of unsavoury information sink in.