The Undead Day Nineteen (9 page)

Pea follows suit. Once again triggered by Sam. She heaves, turning her head to yack and a split second later Lilly takes her turn. All three women yacking, heaving, retching but refusing to drop the body.

‘Think…’ Lilly gasps between heaves, ‘think he…oh gosh…think he urgh,’ she heaves and draws quick shallow breaths, ‘think he fancies me now?’

Sam blinks through misted eyes to the sight of Lilly’s bright red face and her chin covered in stands of puke. She snorts a laugh that blows a snot bubble from her nose that sets Pea off. The snot bubble bursts. Pea laughs harder. Her cheeks wet from tears. Lilly starts giggling with an action as involuntary as the vomiting. The sheer barbarity of it. The degradation of her mind at handling the ruined corpse of someone she actually knew. Zayden still heaving and still too dumb to move away.

Near hysteria grips with all three desperately avoiding looking at each other for each time they do so they snort and laugh harder. Guffawing braying that hurts their stomachs as the tension finds a way out.

‘Stop it,’ Pea pushes the words out with a cackle of laughter that just makes the other two laugh harder but that tension nears breaking point with real sobs starting to sound between the laughs. Genuine noises of abject grief in response to the staggering heat built so high and trapped within the high walls. Pure misery created by man, made by man and continued by children armed with assault rifles.

Trapped in the micro-bubble and they don’t notice the skies darken. They don’t take in the clouds rushing overhead that hang so heavy and low.

As Howie and Marcy run hand in hand through the fields in a village so far away, so the first drop of rain falls to land heavy on Lani’s burnt face and it rolls like a tear released from her cindered eye. Another falls. Another and more follows with a pattering that draws the attention of the others working to clear the mess and the old man who stops to ease the ache in his bent back from shifting bodies after a decade of retirement.

The skies open. A literal thing of almost prophetic scale and suddenly the air distorts with a haze of grey from sheet rain hammering down.

The three stop. They stop and turn their faces to the heavens and let the corpse slide from wet fingers and they don’t hear the slump as the body comes to rest for such is the incessant drumming now filling their ears.

Blessed relief is given instantly and they stand with mouths held open as the purest of rain cleans the sick from their chins. The dust, fibres and chemicals hanging in the air are pushed back down by seemingly infinite tiny droplets of water that combine to form an army that gives grace back to the air they inhale.

It comes harder. Drumming with the beats of a marching band. Rain that builds with intensity. Sheet rain. Driving rain. A solid wall of water that seems to hang in the air. Every soul in the fort stops and looks up. Old men and women blink and let the water slide between their thin lips. Men and women just stand to feel something other than misery. Children stare in wonder for never before has such a thing been seen or felt. Rain but more of it than any of them thought possible.

Every other sound is blotted out. Every other sense dulled until each person becomes the centre of their own universe. Held in stasis in a river coming from the sky.

Lilly exhales slowly with a long release of air that escapes from her now clean lips and she lets the water pour over her. Not a thought given to anyone else. Not a flicker of memory of anything other than being right here.

Yet the rain comes harder with an intensity that seems angry. Like someone up there is offended by the mess made by the mortals scrabbling about amidst the blood and shit.

Still she remains static, rock-like and unmoving. So they all do. Every inch of skin is cleansed. Mouths held open to drink and gulp with the delight of innocence at something so wonderful given so freely.

Pea’s frizzy hair becomes slick against her scalp and neck. Her eyes closed and she, like Lilly, feels nothing other than the splendour of this second.

Sam is the same. Lost in the moment. Drawn to another place in reality but harder it comes. The rain lashing down with a sensation close to stinging exposed skin.

Lilly reaches up with a slow lazy motion to push her hands through her hair. Feeling the filth wash away and as the pelting rain comes harder so she starts to think. She lowers her head. Looking round to see Zayden doing the same as everyone else and staring up with his eyes closed. She turns, slow and casual. Liam the same and every armed youth within sight copying everyone else.

She can’t see the back of the fort for the greyness of the squall blots her view. She can’t see the far side either for the same reason and if she can’t see them, they can’t see her. Go. Move now. Don’t hesitate like you did before. Take the gun from Sam. Ram the point into Zayden’s mouth. Take his rifle. Give the pistol to Sam or Pea. Disarm Liam and move like a demon. Move like Nick would move.

She grunts. Hardened and ready as the explosive retort of a single shot fired from an assault rifle robs that urgency and she turns to see Sierra striding from the police office with her girls ranged out behind her. Sierra fires again. Pointing the rifle into the sky and it recoils with the single pull of the trigger, thudding into her shoulder.

‘YOU’S WORK,’ she screams with a ferocious animation pulsing through her that belies the inert girl that stared slack at the wall only a moment ago. A third shot and someone screams as the world comes back to the harsh reality of the now.

‘WORK,’ Sierra screams. She aims for Lilly with unseeing eyes and slams the girl aside. ‘WORK,’ a hand lashes out slapping Pea hard in the face. Lilly is hit again. Skyla shouldering through her with a snarling scowl of scraped back hair and a mouth chewing a piece of gum.

‘Work, posh bitch.’

Through the rain Lilly sees Sierra heading malevolent and furious towards the vehicle ramp and the direction of the children. Lilly goes to move after her, her mind filled with images of her brother but Skyla looms snarling with the butt of the rifle slamming out into her stomach, making her bend double with an explosion of pain. A second blow to the back of her head sends her crumpling to the ground.

‘Ain’t so posh now, bitch…you’s down in the mud like…’

‘Skyla…’

‘What?’ Skyla shouts at being interrupted by Zayden.

‘Leave her yeah,’ Zayden says petulantly.

Pea rushes towards Lilly only to get hit from behind by another girl ramming the butt of her rifle into the bottom of Pea’s spine. A yell and she slumps down beside Lilly in the deep puddles already formed from a ground too hard to soak the water.

Another scream and Sam goes down twisting as she falls to lands on her back to protect the sight of the pistol.

Lilly sucks air. Forcing her stomach to relax and let the pain ease away. Through the noise of the rain she hears angry shouts coming from the direction of the vehicle ramp. Terrified screams of pain as more brutal hits are given out. She looks up to see Skyla glaring at Zayden then back down at Lilly as her scowl slowly morphs into a smirk. Her eyebrows twitch and the corners of her mouth flick up in delight at reading Zayden so easily.

‘You’s fancy her,’ Skyla makes the connections and bursts out laughing. A soft almost gentle noise that would be sweet at any other time, ‘you’s hear that?’ Skyla calls to the other girl that hit Pea, ‘Zay wants to fuck the posh bitch!’

‘No…no that ain’t it,’ Zayden flusters angrily, his face flushing a deep red that sends Skyla cackling louder.

‘Zay, you dumb cunt,’ Skyla shakes her head at him, a young girl trying to appear full of wisdom and maturity, ‘She ain’t ever gonna let you shag her…’

‘I said that ain’t it…’

‘She’s posh as fuck, Zay…she ain’t gonna let no pimply boy be her baby daddy and anyway, you’s ugly as fuck, bruv, you get me?’

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Skyla stands tall. The water pouring down her face and dripping from the assault rifle held in her hands. Three women cowering in fear at her feet. Two of them older, like the social workers, pigs and teachers that used to tell her what to do and the other like someone from the movies. Refined, polite, cultured, educated and intelligent. The polar opposite to everything Skyla is. A reminder of the roots of her life. She’d never heard anyone like Lilly in real life. Bitches only spoke and acted like that in films.

She smiles. Teeth white but uneven and chipped. Her hair scraped back from her face showing the blackheads on her forehead and in her own mind she looks beautiful and full of glory as she stands over the nasty bitches and makes them cower in the water.

Power corrupts and she twists the events to justify her own actions. Lani killed Darius and made Howie escape. Lilly helped her. Lilly is one of them. One of the fuckers that made her go to counselling. One of the cunts that made her get kicked out from school. One of the fucking witnesses that made statements that led to her being convicted at court and sent on a youth offending programme where she learnt to be harder and tougher.

She is right. They are wrong. People like these three had all the power before but not now. Skyla has the gun. Skyla has right on her side. Skyla is number two.

Power corrupts and she revels in the feeling. Holding still to drag it out longer but something else lurks in the back of her mind. A feeling of discomfort. Of grief. Her friends being killed. Seeing their bodies blown apart. Watching them being dragged from the hospital to be dumped like trash. The upheaval of leaving the compound and coming here. The change in Maddox as he slowly stopped using their language and started becoming more like one of these fuckers crying in the rain at her feet. Emotions she can’t understand and is too young to deal with. Like Sierra she masks it, swallows it, ignores it and lets it channel into behaviour that she knows.

Power corrupts and her eyes see pimply stupid Zayden. Big for his age. Broad shouldered but dumb as shit. Too stupid to do anything other than follow orders. Poor Zayden. Fancying someone way above his league. That thought makes her flinch. That Lilly thinks she is too good for Zay. Zay’s thick but he’s alright. Who does she think she is?

‘You’s not ugly, Zay,’ she adds in a voice made softer by the conflicting emotions raging through her heart and mind, ‘this bitch thinks she’s too good for…’

‘Get ‘em up,’ Sierra strides back into view, seething with rage that shows in the twisted features of her face. ‘Where’s that posh bitch?’

‘Bitch is here,’ Skyla calls out.

‘Lilly?’ Sierra hisses the name, powering towards them with a hand already held out ready to grasp Lilly’s soaking wet hair. Her fingers clamp on, scrunching and twisting the strands. Lilly screams in pain at feeling chunks of hair being ripped from her scalp. Her own hands shoot up, clamping on Sierra’s as she’s wrenched up to her feet to be sent flying by a hard kick to the back of her legs. She goes down again. Yelping as her knees hit the ground first, jarring her body. Another kick to her ribs and she rolls away, sliding through puddles of filthy grime. Sierra seethes with an anger she has never felt before. A tangible real thing driving her on. Heedless of the rain, heedless of the cries of the girl scrabbling to get away and holding the assault rifle one handed she kicks again and again at Lilly.

‘Sam no!’ Lilly catches sight of Sam reaching behind her back but the words get muffled as her face slams down into the muddy waters.

‘Stop…please stop,’ Pea runs at Sierra, ‘Sierra, stop…please…’

‘Fuck off me,’ Sierra twists away from Pea trying to grab her wrist.

‘Stop, please…Sierra, look at me…look at me…’

Sierra does look. She turns snarling with eyes blazing and her fist clenching ready to punch and hit until blood flows and people die. What she sees is a woman old enough to be her mother. A woman of mixed race with darker skin and hair frizzy and wild. She sees brown eyes pleading with tears that stream to mix with the rain sliding down Pea’s cheeks. In an instant the rage is quelled and abates but to back down fully will make her look weak. She glares, refusing to show emotion but wanting only to sink down and weep and curl up and cry forever.

Her nostrils flare. Her eyes glower as the veins in her neck bulge. She looks down at Lilly and inclines her head with a grunt.

‘Work,’ she speaks low but the words carry. ‘Or you’s don’t eat. No one eats till it all gets done.’

She walks off into the grey sheet rain that hides the tears now coursing down her own cheeks.

Eight

Work or you don’t eat.

Sierra meant what she said. They work. They do not eat.

The rain is relentless. Driving incessantly forever towards the ground where it gathers and forms deep pools.

There is no shelter and no place to gain a reprieve. Doorways are used by the kids armed with assault rifles that smoke and swig sugary drinks. They eat crisps, chocolate bars and stay dry.

Those in the middle work. They do not eat.

They drag the burnt and broken remains of the tents and structures to the front to be stacked in the middle section between the inner and outer walls. A place already filled with burnt cars and vehicles that were stacked before the sea made the fort an island of misery and death.

The children become quiet and withdrawn. Those too tired to work are left to huddle at the sides under rainfall that makes them shiver with cold from the lack of movement to keep them warm. Empty bellies rumble so they drink the water coming down simply to fill the void.

‘Stay together, huddle up close,’ Lilly tells them, pushing Billy and Milly into the middle with Pea, Sam and the others all working like sheepdogs to herd them together. ‘Cuddle up, stay warm.’

‘Hungry.’

‘Starving.’

‘Will we eat now?’

Pitiful voices that pull at heartstrings. They’ve been through so much. Seen too many things and now to sit hungry in the rain is too much. Children rescued from the stately home where Billy was taken. Orphans already. Murmurs ripples through the people. Muttered comments. Angry glances. Fists that clench and mouths that purse but the fear is too great to do anything.

The broken jaw of an old woman hit by the butt of a rifle swung by Sierra is testament to that. The fractured arm of a boy too slow to move when shouted at by one of girls. Black eyes. Hand prints across cheeks. People kicked to the ground who then had the barrels of assault rifles pointed at them and those girls with the scraped back hair came back. They strode through with scowling faces and mouths chewing gum. They glared at everyone and made sure the crews were doing their jobs.

‘Work or you’s don’t eat.’

Those words are said time and again. So they work but they do not eat.

Cold hands grab at broken poles of tents to drag them out from the mess. Canvas made heavy by the water gathering in every crease and dip. Bodies made slick that are dropped with muttered curses.

Lilly stands holding the wrist of a dead boy and waits for Sam to grab his legs while Pea takes the other wrist. They share a glance but no words are spoken. Sam nods and they lift, heaving the literal dead weight up from the sucking water and on they go, trudging, wading and splashing through deep puddles.

They breathe heavy. Grunting from the effort. Hair plastered down over scalps. Clothes clinging to their frames. Lilly’s head hurts from being hit by Skyla. Her ribs hurt from being kicked. Her stomach hurts too. Everything hurts but inside is calm. Deadly calm. Blue eyes that flicker back and forth. Watching. Scanning. Always watching, always scanning. Waiting for an opportunity and the next time she will not hesitate. No matter what it means she has to do. A coldness settles inside. An act of preparation to do a thing that must be done.

Pea and Sam watch her closely. Both sensing and seeing the change as the girl got up after the beating given by Sierra. A coldness now projected that is only masked when she stops to check on Billy and Milly.

Zayden stays close. His eyes hardly ever leaving Lilly’s body. Watching her backside and the way she moves. The swing of her hips and the outline of her breasts straining against the sodden material of her top. Her bare arms so golden and slender. Her hair wet and slicked back.

Sam nudges Pea, nodding at the slack jawed idiot. Pea nods back but there is nothing they can do. He speaks softly to Lilly but everyone else is treated like shit. The fool doesn’t even have the intelligence to think to be nice to her little brother or the other children shivering in the rain.

They go through the gate into the middle section and dump the body with the others that were meant to be taken out and buried at sea but Sierra banned anyone from using the boats and put another small team in there to make sure no one went near the outer gate.

The sun starts to wane. Evening approaches. The hours of darkness lie ahead and in the space of one day everything has changed. The outside world doesn’t exist now. Just here in this place. Just the misery of being soaked with fingers that become wrinkly and puckered from the water.

Sierra sits in the police office. Back in the chair at the head of the table with her assault rifle across her legs. Her crew remain close. Talking, boasting, eating and drinking. They smoke non-stop until the air is thick and disgusting with the stench of cigarettes. The table top and floor is strewn with empty cans, bottles and the wrappers from the junk food that has been gorged until they felt sick.

The same office where Sergeant Debbie Hopewell drew lists of survivors and their skills ready to be used. The same office where Ted gave comfort with his experience and calmness. The same office that saw Sarah rushing about with Terri as they struggled to bring order and peace to the lives of the few that made it to the safety of the high walls. Now the chairs are occupied by girls who sense something is very, very wrong with Sierra but are too inept to deal with it.

She stares vacant for hours at a time. Her mind stuck in a loop of Darius’s brains being blown out and the aftermath of his death. The hatred she feels for Lani twists and grows to become a thing that mutates everything else. She pays no heed or thought to Maddox or Lenski but by the minute she is increasingly consumed with a need for a revenge that cannot be taken. Lani killed herself, and there the loop stops to replay from the beginning. Over and over.

In life there would be grief counsellors and adults ready to draw that pain out. With words of comfort, hugs and gentle touches they would encourage the emotional reactions to unwind and follow their natural course. She would be able to cry, weep, shout, rage, bellow and collapse until exhaustion took over. Then she would be allowed to sleep and rest and let the slow healing to begin.

People are mortal. Death is certain. Everyone dies. Everyone grieves. Everyone feels pain but the mark of a civilised society is how that grief is handled, but this grief is left to fester in the mind of an already warped teenager armed with an assault rifle and a gang of sycophantic followers who wouldn’t dare challenge her. Monsters are rarely born but are shaped and made by their environment.

Her breathing comes faster as the replaying loop builds the pain to a point that she cannot simply remain still and inert. So she explodes up. Sudden and full of purpose as she snaps back to the now and with a flinch she realises the sky outside has grown dark. How long has she sat there?

‘They’s working?’

‘Yeah,’ Skyla stands with her, nodding in reply, ‘they’s clearing the shit from the middle.’

‘What about the hole?’ Sierra demands.

Skyla pauses, casting a glance to the other girls, ‘we ain’t done it yet. Like…you never said nuffin bout the hole.’

Lani blew that wall out. Lani killed herself after killing Darius. Lani went in with Howie and Howie ran out with his pants round his ankles. Lani probably fucked him then blew the wall out.

‘Sierra?’ Skyla asks, watching the new number one standing by the table staring into space again.

‘What?’ Sierra snaps.

‘You’s okay yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ Sierra scoffs and grins with a distinct lack of humour in her eyes but the simple action of twitching her lips makes the other girls grin back. Picking her rifle up she walks purposefully from the office into the pouring rain with an involuntary shiver rippling through her body at the cold water hitting her exposed skin. For a second she stands still with her face turned up. It feels nice. Cleansing somehow. She feels tired. Drained even. The long hours of introspective fretting have worn her mind down to the point she now feels numb. She was raging a few seconds ago but that’s gone now. Now she is numb.

Lilly watches her. Hidden further away towards the edge of the wall and she watches Sierra bathed in light from the offices behind her and how that light spills out metres into the fort. Sierra steps out, further away from the doorway and Lilly counts the girls that come behind her. Four girls plus Sierra. Five of them. Zayden still close with his two. Liam further up by the old armoury with his four. Three behind her by the gate. Too many. Wait.

‘Zayden,’ she turns to the youth, ‘I’ve got a headache, can I get some pills from the doctors please?’

Pea flinches, watching the girl closely and the sudden way she turns to Zayden with the softness of her tone.

‘We’ve worked all day,’ Lilly says, stepping closer to Zayden. ‘I am very tired,’ she says, staring up into his eyes with her own eyelids fluttering heavily. Sierra has four. Zayden has two. Liam has four. Three by the gate. More outside the gate. Thirty. Nick isn’t coming back. Howie isn’t coming back.

‘Yeah,’ Zayden nods eagerly, ‘you’s get some pills yeah.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘I am so cold and wet…will we get food tonight? What about the children, Zayden? They need to go inside somewhere and get dry. They need food too.’

Sam stares hard, her heart beating harder as Pea shuffles a step closer to Lilly talking in a weird tone to Zayden. Like flirting but with an edge to her voice.

‘Zayden?’ Lilly says again when he doesn’t respond, ‘the children need food and somewhere dry. We all need food and somewhere dry.’

‘Lilly,’ Pea says in a low warning voice, ‘we should get back.’

‘Zayden?’ Lilly says, her voice firmer, ‘I asked you a question.’

Sam swallows. Her hand inching round her hip towards the gun wedged down her waistband under the sodden and filthy shirt. She blinks the rain from her eyes.

Zayden shrugs and offers a hard glare to Sam and Pea before trying to smile at Lilly, ‘you’s can come to my room tonight yeah? You’ll dry up and have food.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Lilly, we should go,’ Pea says again, flicking her eyes over to Sierra standing outside the offices with her crew.

‘I will ask Sierra myself then,’ Lilly says, walking off with Zayden running to catch her up.

‘Lilly,’ Sam hisses, moving after the girl. ‘Lilly, come back right now.’

‘Sierra,’ Lilly calls out, snapping the girl’s head over to her. Skyla moves out to intercept her with her rifle already moving ready to lash out. ‘We have worked all day. We are wet and tired. The children are…’

‘Shut the fuck up, posh bitch,’ Skyla stalks at her with a snarl.

‘The children are freezing, Sierra. They will die if they don’t get dry and have food.’

Lilly stops a few metres away, pulling her arm free from Zayden trying to pull her back. Skyla stops in front of her. Scowling and ready to slam the butt into her gut again. The other girls move round Sierra, all of them glaring balefully at Lilly.

‘We have worked,’ Lilly says in a voice loud and clear enough to carry through the fort. ‘You said work or we don’t eat. We have worked.’

‘Lilly, come back here,’ Pea hisses, trying to get round Zayden who pushes her back.

‘The children will die. The old people will die. There are weak people who have worked all day in this rain and they will die if they do not get shelter and food.’

‘Hole,’ Sierra says, staring expressionless at Lilly.

Lilly breathes out slow and steady. ‘I was trying to fix the hole when you beat me into the ground…’

‘Lilly, shut the fuck up,’ Sam whispers frantically.

‘You told us to work. We cleared the bodies. We cleared the mess. We cannot do anymore tonight. There are no torches. No lights. It is pitch dark and raining.’

‘Hole,’ Sierra says again, her eyes locked on Lilly.

‘I am sorry, Sierra. We cannot fix the hole tonight. Will you give the children food and shelter? If not us then you must feed and protect the children.’

‘Fix the hole and you eat.’

‘We cannot fix the hole tonight. Will you give the children food and shelter? They will…’

‘Who you talkin’ to bitch?’ Sierra snaps, animating back to life with her head cocked to one side, ‘you talking to me?’

Lilly nods, her eyes clear and unblinking and the rain pouring down her face, ‘yes I am talking to you, Sierra.’

Sierra pulls her head back and looks round at the other girls, ‘she talking to me?’

‘She is,’ Skyla says, pulling her own head back disdainfully.

‘Will you feed the children and give them shelter?’

‘Someone tell this bitch to fuck off before I hurt her.’

‘You’s can go now,’ Skyla says, gripping her rifle harder.

‘Lilly, for God’s sake,’ Pea calls out, ‘enough…we’ll fix the wall.’

‘We cannot fix the wall tonight,’ Lilly calls out, ‘some of those people will die if you leave them out in this without food.’

Sierra explodes out. Striding past Skyla with her rifle swinging back. Lilly sees it coming and lets it happen. It has to happen. It must happen. It will hurt but pain is just pain.

‘Cunt,’ Sierra slams the rifle into Lilly’s chest, forcing her back into Zayden. Lilly hisses with the pain but keeps to her feet. She gasps and blinks fast before standing upright.