Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (8 page)

‘Look,’ whispered Kai, suddenly thrusting the folded map in front of Tom and Fran, his finger silently tracing a line up and over onto the next folded section.

‘The river!’ sighed Fran, realising it should have been obvious.

Not only did it lead to the coast and out into the English Channel but within four or so miles east it was crossed by a motorway leading north towards the larger towns beyond.

‘So we might be looking at what’s left of some type of fall back positon,’ whispered Tom, dropping his voice even lower as the Dead soldiers shuffled closer. ‘Perhaps a stop-off point before survivors tried to make a break for the coast or even an ad-hoc military base for supply runs back up the motorway to somewhere bigger.’

‘Hmm…’ agreed Fran, chewing on her lip as a thought formed in her head.

‘
What?
’ gestured Tom, not speaking aloud, now that the Dead were almost upon them.

Pressing her lips close to his ear and cupping it with her hand to keep the sound escaping to a minimum Fran whispered her reply.

‘So why are their corpses still here after all this time,’ she began, pausing as the first Dead man ambled past Star and the front of their cart. ‘And if there was some sort of camp set up…’ she at last continued, watching the soldier’s cadaver pass them by, ‘where are the rest of them?’

***

It wasn’t until they had made their way past the village sports field, the high chain-link fence still enclosing the flapping remains of a sea of weather-worn tents, that they began to get an idea of what had happened.

‘Oh, Christ!’ spat Tom, shaking his head as he looked at the row upon row of torn tents barely clinging to their metal framework. ‘A refugee camp.’

‘Why’s that a bad thing?’ asked Kai in a whisper, unsure why it would fill Tom with such dread.

‘They were death traps,’ Fran flatly replied, fighting the images of bloody carnage that played across her memory. ‘You were safe behind the stone walls of your school, you wouldn’t know,’ she continued, looking over at Kai as she shook herself from her dark thoughts. ‘People were sent to these places, sent by people they trusted and they went willingly. They took their children, the people they loved, their families, they grabbed this meagre offer of hope to escape the horror spreading about them.’

‘And it always went to hell,’ Tom mumbled, watching the corpse of woman shuffle past.

‘They had no idea what they were up against… not in the beginning,’ sighed Fran, ‘or how to stop it spreading.’

‘Oh,’ said Kai, instinctively reaching out to take Fran’s hand to comfort her. ‘But w…why are they still here then?’

‘Hmm,’ agreed Tom, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out this deadly puzzle, ‘he’s got a point. From the looks of it, the gate to the camp is open,’ he continued, his whisper barely heard over the creaking of the moving cart as it rolled onward, ‘so there’s no reason they’d still be here… not after all this time.’

‘Oh, fuck!’ gasped Fran, her mouth agape as she looked at the large building only just coming into view; a large building with an equally large tree crashed though one of its walls. ‘That’s because they were in the Village hall... or were until recently.’

Even as the whispered words fell from her lips they saw the emaciated corpse of what had once been a young woman claw her way through the rubble and wreckage to at last free herself of her unintentional prison.

‘Must have come down during last night’s storm,’ mused Tom, with a nod to the great fallen oak that had been violently uprooted; smashing though a side wall of the hall and part of the roof.

‘How l…long do you think they’ve b…been there?’ asked Kai, watching as the Dead woman finally stumbled beyond the broken bricks and smashed tiles to follow the channel of already trampled down grass down to the roadside and her Dead comrades that had gone before her.

‘Who knows,’ Tom replied, with a shrug, ‘but at a guess I’d say the Dead overran the refugee camp at some point and those that manage to escape, shut themselves in the Village Hall hoping to wait them out.’

‘Clearly not knowing that they’d brought death inside with them,’ added Fran, shaking her head at the needless waste of life; her fingers subconsciously tightening about Kai’s hand.

‘Looks like it,’ continued Tom, giving Star’s reins a brief tug to one side to guide her round two rusting cars and the wrecked remains of an army transport vehicle, ‘and… yes,’ he went on to say, craning his neck to get a look at the front of the recently damaged building, ‘yes, it looks like the front doors are still secure, probably still barricaded from the inside too. Those poor bastards simply couldn’t get out in time… they were doomed by their own fucking defences.’

As Star pulled them level with the driveway leading up to the Village Hall, the Dead woman suddenly tripped and momentarily disappeared from view behind an overgrown bush. But as she shakily got to her feet again she gave testament to the full horror of what those trapped inside the hall had endured; for covering the grey rotting flesh of her arms, neck and face were multiple bite marks. It was clear more than one of these wounds had ripped vital veins or arteries from her body, causing her to rapidly bleed to death and then reanimate before her corpse could be consumed by her attackers.

‘Jesus,’ Fran whispered, imagining the horror that the trapped woman had gone through as the Dead had pounced upon her like a pack of starving hounds, their jaws tearing at her flesh and all the while her knowing there was no escape.

Fran shook her head. She knew not dwell on the last horrific moments of these walking corpses she came across, no matter how exposed and blatant their tales were to see. For just when she thought she had conceived each possible nightmare in this world of the Dead, seen it present itself bloody and raw for inspection, she was proven wrong. Even after all this time there was always one more nightmare to be played out, one more horror that lurked unseen and unacknowledged until evidence of its passing was standing before her; torn, brutalized and hungry for her flesh.

‘Let’s just get out of here,’ she whispered, looking away from the Dead woman’s shuffling corpse.

‘No argument here,’ mumbled Tom, giving the woman’s cadaver one last glance before returning his attention back to the road ahead of them and the half a dozen other hungry corpses milling in their path. ‘Let’s g…’

And then Tom suddenly paused, somehow transfixed by the tortuous movements of a Dead child he had spotted on the opposite side of the street, its chest cavity nothing more than a dark gaping hole. Then, with a slight shake of his head, he mumbled something more. But whatever he said it was not meant for Fran or Kai to hear. His words were something to placate, something meant to appease and something to reassure the angry whispers that only he could hear.

‘Soon!’ he finally hissed, like an exasperated man at the end of his tether.

‘Tom,’ whispered Fran, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder.

Yet no sooner had her fingers brushed the fabric of his jacket than his head snapped back to glare at her.

‘I said…’ he started to snap until he stopped himself, blinking as he shamefully realised the touch was in fact Fran’s and not the tormenting caress of less corporal spectres.

‘Just straight along this road and then bear left,’ whispered Fran, the neutral expression on her face hiding the worry and concern bubbling within her. ‘We should see the river in just under a mile or so.’

‘Bear left,’ Tom quietly repeated, sheepishly turning to look back to the road, ‘got it… left it is.’

Fran looked at the back of Tom’s head and wondered what self-imposed torments raged within his mind. He was a man broken, she had known this from the moment they met but she had hoped that over time he may find a way to fix himself, somehow putting himself and his shattered mind back together piece by piece; unfortunately it looked as if her hopes were going to go unrealised.

Glancing at Kai, she could see the question in his dark eyes. She could read in his expression what he wanted to say; what worries and concerns danced upon his lips, waiting to be voiced. But Fran knew now was not the time to speak them, so using the side of the rocking cart to steady herself, she let his fingers slip from hers and slowly returned to her seat on the crowded bench. Sighing as she avoided his probing gaze, she reached down and gave the dog by her feet a friendly pat.

‘Guess we should give you a name,’ she muttered, all the while thinking to herself. ‘
How much longer have we got left with you, Tom?
’

***

Thanks to the roads being littered with the detritus of a way of life that no longer existed, the rest of their journey through Chacewater was slow, doggedly hampered by the Dead but uneventful. They soon found themselves leaving behind the once picturesque cottages, now little more than sad reminders of the fate that had befallen man. Overgrown and reclaimed by nature, the small red brick buildings with their shattered windows and broken down doors sat nestled amid gardens gone to seed. Shrubs and bushes, at one time lovingly tendered and pruned to keep them in order, now run riot; spilling over from their borders to battle with lawns choked with tall grasses, wildflowers, weeds and in some places even young determined tree saplings.

‘Oh, what the…’grumbled Tom, slowly pulling Star to a halt just as they were about to take their turning.

‘What’s up?’ asked Fran, pushing aside Bob, their newly named canine addition.

‘Some sort of checkpoint or something across the road,’ he replied, glancing back at Fran and Kai.

‘Can we get p…past it?’ asked Kai, moving over to see what was a completely useless collection of bollards, scaffolding poles, tents and a long counterweight lever arm that had been broken midway across the road. ‘Oh,’ he continued, once he realized how it was going to be more of an irritation than a hindrance.

‘Christ, you’ve got to wonder what sort of bollock-brained moron thought that was going to keep anyone out,’ sighed Tom, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘Please form an orderly cue and would those at the back please try not to get their arse eaten by the Dead coming up behind them,’ tutted Fran, exasperated by the stupidity of those supposedly in charge; stupidity and bureaucracy that had ultimately sentenced many to a bloody and horrific death.

‘Exactly,’ muttered Tom, remembering that he himself had used his black cab to ram one such checkpoint when he had fled from London all those years ago.

It was strange considering the sights he had seen over the five years but it was that one moment or rather that one soldier’s face that had always stayed with him. Young, scared and ill-equipped to deal with the panicking public that forced their way through his checkpoint, it was his face that Tom remembered; this one overwhelmed young man that caused a knot of guilt to twist in his stomach whenever he thought of him. Tom tried not to remember the scene he had witnessed in his rear-view mirror as his cab smashed through the barrier and sped away. The way the soldiers were instantly set upon by the mob venting their fear and anger at an establishment that had seemingly failed them; and then the brief gunfire and screams as they were torn apart by people that up until a few days ago had been decent, law-abiding citizens.

‘Well, it’s not going to move itself,’ huffed Fran, jarring Tom’s thoughts back to the present as she moved from one spyhole to the next checking for the Dead. ‘Kai, any on your side?’ she continued, once she had determined her side was clear.

‘Clear,’ he replied, letting the spyhole cover fall back into place. ‘Do you w…want me to come with you?’

For a moment Fran paused, glancing briefly at Tom before speaking.

‘Yeah, okay,’ she replied, reaching for her trusty crowbar, ‘you can do the lifting, I’ll do the watching.’

‘Hardly s…seems fair?’ said Kai, with a smile on lips.

Fran was about to speak when she noticed the look on Tom’s face as he turned back to look at the roadblock ahead of them. Fearing he thought she hadn’t asked him because of what had happened earlier she put her foot up on the bench and made a point of checking the knife from the sheath strapped to her calf.

‘How are your ribs?’ she asked as nonchalantly as she could while she wiped the blade on a piece of cloth. ‘If sitting in one position gets painful just let me know and we’ll swap, okay.’

‘Yeah… okay,’ Tom replied without looking back at her, his tone flat.

‘
Oh great,
’ thought Fran, slipping the knife back into its sheath, ‘
a grown man sulking like a baby… just what I need.’

‘Well the offer’s there,’ she sighed, ignoring his bruised ego. ‘I’ll go out first,’ she continued, turning her attention back to Kai. ‘There’s none of the Dead around at the moment but they can come out of nowhere so follow me and keep close, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he replied, with a sharp nod as Fran slowly opened the side hatch.

‘No… no, you stay here, Bob,’ she whispered, having to push the small dog back to stop it from following her.

Jumping down, the loose gravel scraping beneath her boots, Fran instinctively dropped to a crouch by the side of the cart and scanned her surroundings. The abandoned cars, the thick bushes and high hedgerows, the shadows beneath the hastily erected scaffolding, even the flimsy remains of a nearby tent flapping on its metal frame in the breeze, all of these places could hide the Dead and without moving she checked them all. Only once she was satisfied that the only other things moving in the immediate area were a small flock of curious magpies darting and swooping about the scaffolding framework, did she then signal for Kai to join her.