Last Days With the Dead (16 page)

‘Time to go
,’ she mumbled, hearing the sound of splintering wood coming from behind the closed kitchen door.    

Running the bike along the heavily weeded garden path and out through a broken gate, Karen found herself at last on the lane. She was disappointed not only
to find the road was in an even worse state than the garden path, but it was also dotted for the next thirty or so metres with at least a dozen of the Dead, a few of them already starting to turn in her direction.

‘Crap!’ she said, placing her feet on the mountain bike’s pedals.

For a second, she watched them slowly shambling along the lane, one by one, each becoming alerted to the presence of her living flesh. In her mind, she was already darting a path in and around the walking corpses, too fast for them to grab hold of her.

‘Oh well, here goes
,’ she called out, pushing down hard on the pedal.

***

‘If you can’t shut that brat up, I’m going to have Dr Lambert sedate him,’ snapped Sergeant Ridge, glaring at Lucy Donaldson, as she struggled to keep her sick son comfortable.

At the mention of his name, Dr Lambert briefly looked up from the data he was studying on his small laptop.

‘The child has a viral infection, Ridge,’ said Dr Lambert disinterestedly, his attention already drifting back to spiralling data on his laptop, ‘the fever’s making him irritable, that’s all.’ 

Lucy pulled her son close to her chest and desperately tried to calm him down. As her hand moved in a circular motion across his tiny back, her eyes couldn’t help but drift to the motionless body of the infant she had helped kidnap from the convent. Seeing the poor child in the clear box with tubes and needles going into his small body
filled her with shame.

Her mother had promised her everything would be alright. Follow the Sergeant’s plan and they would all be back
on their island at Silver Lake Wood soon, she had told her. All they had to do was get the child and they would be allowed to go. But even Lucy could tell the Sergeant wasn’t a man that could be trusted. She had seen it in his eyes; his words had been empty promises from the very beginning. So it had been no surprise to her when they had arrived back at the school that Sergeant Ridge had changed his end of the bargain in their absence. She did not know what had happened to the rest of her family, but as she and her mother were bundled into the back of the large armoured vehicle, she knew she would never see her father, brother, uncles, cousin, or aunt again.

Ridge looked at the young girl fussing with the child in her arms. If it had been up to him, he would have left her and her mother with the rest of her worthless family
, but orders were orders, they needed women back at the base for repopulation. Admittedly, the girl was a bit too young, but she would grow up and the child in her arms was proof enough that she was already fertile. The fact that she had a child at all, spoke volumes about the men he had left strung up outside the school. Men like that had no place in the new world they would have to build, once the Death-walker plague was finally eradicated. 

Once
again, Ridge could feel the refitted armoured troupe carrier they were travelling in slow down almost to a stop.

‘What now, Private Grimes?’ he said, pressing the com button his earpiece.

‘It’s the wrecked bus, Sir,’ replied the soldier’s voice in his earpiece, ‘there’s not much room to pass.’

‘
Tutting’, Sergeant Ridge looked at his watch and then swivelling in his chair, he pressed the ‘on’ button on a small monitor built into the wall of the carrier. Instantly, a black and white image appeared showing the drivers view of the road ahead.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake
,’ Ridge mumbled to himself, watching as the driver slowly manoeuvred through the tight gap.

On the
monitor, Sergeant Ridge saw that a half a dozen of the animated corpses had caught sight of the driver through the protective grill over the windscreen and were pointlessly launching an attack to get to the man’s flesh. Ridge smiled to himself as one by one they fell and were pulled under the heavy wheels of the carrier. Ahead, he could see the back of one of their remaining armoured Jackals.

It galled him that the late Staff Sergeant Blackmore’s ill-fated previous mission to the mainland had cost them so dearly. Not only in manpower, which was bad enough when he thought of their limited supply of skilled men and woman back on the base, but it was the loss of the weaponry and technical equipment that really riled him. The man had been an arrogant fool to think he could traipse a
bout the countryside collecting survivors against their will, and not come across a group that wouldn’t find the means to fight back. With only their resourcefulness to fall back on, these people at the convent had lived for eight years among the walking corpses without proper weapons or training, and had not only survived, but thrived too. That Blackmore had thought it would be so easy simply to take what he wanted from those at Lanherne, had shown just how much he had been blinded by his own over confidence, but more importantly, how much he under estimated their spirit.

When Captain Cardin had informed him they would be using something a little more subtle to get the child back, Ridge had agreed wholeheartedly.
The group of survivors at the convent had already proven they were a formidable adversary; the direct approach was definitely not what was called for here. Then, when Ridge had found the strange Donaldson family, it seemed he had found just what he was looking for. Not only did the Donaldson’s already have a grudge against those at the convent, which he could initially use to his advantage, but they also had among them an irresistible lure to get them inside the walls, a sick infant. It had been perfect and the plan had been executed without a hitch. Mary Donaldson and her daughter had played their roles perfectly, and as he glanced past the four other soldiers in the carrier to the silent woman glaring at him with hate burning in her eyes, he knew she was one to keep an eye on. She had already proven she had no qualms about killing to get what she wanted, so he knew given the chance, she would happily feed him to the corpses for going back on their deal.

‘Sir, we’ve got a situation,’ came Grime’s voice through his earpiece, breaking Ridge from his thoughts.

‘What now, Private?’ Ridge replied, checking the monitor again.

But Private Grimes had no need to reply, Ridge could clearly see what the problem was. Ahead of them, the smaller Jackal was completely blocked in by the infected. This normally wouldn’t have been a problem
, but the sheer number of corpses surrounding the vehicle on the narrow road was making it impossible for them to move on. Even as Ridge formulated a plan, the Jackal became buried beneath a wave of the Dead. They clambered over the vehicle; desperate to get to the three men they could see just beyond their grasp, their hands pushing through even the smallest of breaks in the Jackal’s armour. Despite the Jackal having extra plates of metal welded to its frame, there were still necessary gaps to allow the top and rear mounted machine guns movement.

‘Word from the Jackal, Sir. They’re requesting assistance
,’ continued Grimes, as the sound of small arms fire reached those in the carrier.

Ridge could see a few of the corpses being thrown back as the men inside the Jackal shot them
, but for each corpse that fell, another clawed its way over its fallen brother to take its place.

‘Damn’ said Ridge under his breath.

He knew they should have taken a different route back to the pick-up point on the coast, but Cardin had insisted time was of the essence, and they were to retrace their own steps. What Cardin hadn’t taken into consideration, was that a vast number of the Dead would still be following this path from their previous passing, and now it looked as if Ridge and his men may pay the price for this oversight.

‘Right, Pelling, Glass
, and Mallon, up top,’ said Ridge, looking from one soldier to the next, ‘clear those pus-bags off the Jackal, before they find a way in, we haven’t got all day.’

‘Sir!’ the young woman and two men replied in unison, moving to the small ladder that led to a secured hatchway set in the
armoured carrier’s roof.

‘And you, Private Anders,’ Ridge continued, pointing to
the remaining soldier and gesturing to Mary Donaldson, ‘keep an eye on her.’       

‘I want controlled fire bursts up there,’ Sergeant Ridge said, pressing the mic button on his earpiece, ‘head shots only people, mark your targets
, we don’t want anyone in the Jackal hit by friendly fire.’

‘Roger that.’ Came the reply from each of the soldiers taking up their positions on the Carrier’s roof.

Moments later, the shooting began and as he watched on the monitor, Sergeant Ridge saw the mound of corpses that had been attacking the Jackal soon begin to thin out. One by one, they fell lifeless to the ground under a hail of well-aimed shots from the three soldiers above him.

‘You three, try to conserve your ammo,’ Ridge commanded, knowing their supply wasn’t so extensive
that they could afford to wipe out all of the moving cadavers they came across. ‘Just clear enough to give the Jackal a chance to move forward. Hopefully, they can shake off the rest themselves and we’ll ride over whatever falls off.’

‘Yes, Sir
,’ replied Private Mallon. ‘Sir, I can see there’s a break in the crowd a few metres ahead of the Jackal, once they get moving they should be able to get some speed up.’

‘Did you get that Private Grimes
,’ asked Ridge, making sure the driver of the carrier was also listening in, ‘relay that to the Jackal. As soon as they can, they’re to make a break for it.’

‘Sir,’ r
eplied Grimes.

‘And Grimes, how’s our own situation looking
,’ Ridge continued, ‘is the shooting attracting many of these dead bastards?’

‘Yes, Sergeant,’ Grimes began, trying hard to keep his nerves out of his report
, ‘we’re completely surrounded now. The noise from the gunfire has attracted a substantial group of Death-walkers from the adjacent fields, as well as a number from ahead of the Jackal itself.’

‘Anything we can’t handle?’ Ridge said, his hand subconsciously reaching for his side arm.

‘No, Sir,’ replied Private Grimes, ‘we’ve the weight to crush any in our path, and our sides are too high for any of them to scale.’

Private Samue
l Grimes tried his best to force a confidence he wasn’t feeling into his words, but the sight of the decayed woman’s corpse as she threw herself violently at the cab door, her dead hands slapping pointlessly along the bottom of the grilled covered window, did little to add conviction to his tone.

Sam had only been halfway through the second term at university when the Death-Walker virus had first let its presence be known. In a matter of
days, his life had been stolen away from him and his childhood dreams of becoming a journalist dashed. If it hadn’t been for his father being one of the top researchers in the field of applied genetics, he knew he too would be among the horde of ravenous cadavers that ceaselessly stalked the living. But his father’s skill at manipulating the smallest building blocks of life had saved him from such a fate.

Sam could still remember the day the soldiers had come for him at university. In their army uniforms, the emotionless soldiers had made no pretence of hiding their assault rifles as they strode into the lecture hall, ignoring the protests of the staff and students alike. At
first, he had thought it was some sort of elaborate practical joke when they had called out his name and ordered him to go with them, but then his mobile phone had rung. Hearing his father beg him to go with the soldiers before it was too late, and saying that he’d explain later, Sam knew something terrible was about to happen and he had been right. And so within hours, he had found himself aboard a chartered aircraft by his father’s side, surrounded by other eminent scientists and their families, heading toward an island military base that officially had never been built.

Sam was suddenly snapped from his memories by
the sound of a hand from an exceptionally tall dead man banging loudly against the grill on his window, making him jump.

‘Jesus!’ he whispered under his breath, pushing his glasses back into place.

Not for the first time, Sam cursed his bad eyesight. Not of course that it was so bad that he couldn’t function, but even with his glasses on, it was just off enough to rule him out of a sniper role, which explained why he was stuck in the Carriers cab with Sinclair, driving the real soldiers instead of being one.

‘Whoa! Did you see that bitch!’ said Private Chris Sinclair, excitedly slapping his fist on the cabin roof as he watched the slaughter of those who had fallen victim to the Death-walker plague
. ‘That bitch must’ve been knocked back six metres, I bet that was one of Pelling’s shots, he’s one bad fucker!’

Sam gave Sinclair his best fake smile. With his nerves on edge, Sam hoped the
nineteen-year-old giant next to him would soon get bored with the show and give him some peace. Like Sam, Chris Sinclair was only alive today down to the fact that one or more of his parents was a genius in some specific biological field that would bring humanity back from the brink, but that was definitely where the similarities ended. At six-two and built like a pro-rugby player, Sinclair was a little on the slow side, and because of it, Sam assumed, a slight embarrassment to his eminent parents. They say an apple doesn’t fall far from its tree, unfortunately for Chris Sinclair’s parents, their apple seemed to have landed in another orchard altogether.