Six Days With the Dead (14 page)

‘
My bow’s not suited for close combat, so I’ll stay here keeping an eye on Delilah,’ Imran said, when Liz told him what had happened to Mrs Penhaligan.

Climbing up the ladder hanging down the side of the house, Liz gave Imran a nervous smile. Not knowing what she would find inside
, she realised this could be the last time she saw him. But she had to put these thoughts out of her mind so she could concentrate on the task before her. If she stopped to think about what she was doing, going into an unfamiliar area to deal with an unknown situation, she certainly wouldn’t be climbing up this ladder so keenly. But then there was little Alex and Naomi to think of. If Anne was in a similar situation, she hoped someone would be climbing this ladder to help her. As she reached the step just below the windowsill she looked down at Charlie coming up behind her.

‘
I’ll just take a quick peek through the window first before I go any further,’ she whispered.

With his knife arm locked over one of the rungs, Charlie was having some difficulty climbing with only one hand. Taking a breath to calm herself, she came eyelevel with the si
ll. Looking through to the panelled room within, she could see there had been some sort of struggle here too. Boxes of supplies and broken jars of preserved fruit littered the once expensive parquet flooring. Worryingly, she could see a lot of blood sprayed along the wall and floor by the doorway, and as Mrs Penhaligan had clearly been killed outside, that meant the blood either belonged to James or his children.

‘
There’s blood in here. A lot,’ she said, quietly to Charlie below her.

‘
Well, be quick and quiet getting in, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves until we’re ready. Best get your sword out as soon as you’re in,’ he replied.

Nodding, Liz soundlessly pulled herself level with the window. Hooking one leg over the sill she drew her sword with o
ne smooth motion. With the sound of her heartbeat thumping in her ears, she placed her booted foot down onto the floor. Transferring her weight to that leg, she pulled herself through. Trying not to crunch on the broken glass littering the floor, she slowly made her way into the room. The sweet smell from the broken jars of fruit battled with the deep coppery smell of spilled blood. Pausing in her movement, she stilled herself listening for any sounds of movement within the house. A quick glance over her shoulder and she saw Charlie pulling himself through the open window. Once he was fully in the room he removed the sheath from the knife attached to his wrist and pulled one of the small ice picks free from his back, ready for attack. Nodding towards the door, the two watched their footing as they noiselessly made their way deeper in the house. Once through the doorway they found themselves standing on an internal landing with six other doors opening to rooms on this level. The walkway went all the way around the inside of the house and led to a large central staircase. The grand staircase flowed both down, to the entrance hall, and upwards to further rooms. Even though tall leaded windows flooded the internal space with light, the lower level was still shrouded in gloom. With all the windows on the ground floor bricked up, light could no longer penetrate the ominous shadows there. Looking at Charlie questioningly, Liz indicated ‘up or down?’ with her sword. Shrugging his shoulders in reply, he finally indicated with a flick of his wrist knife they should try this level and then upstairs first. As they reached the first door on the walkway, Liz stood with her feet apart, her sword held high ready for any Dead adversary that may be within. Catching her eye, Charlie slowly pushed the door open with the tip of his wrist knife. The door swung open with a creak, revealing a room similar to one they had just left. Here boxes and jars sat undisturbed and with no sign of conflict in the room, they moved on closing the door behind them. Opening two other doors leading to similarly undisturbed rooms, they had made their way round the walkway to the landing at the top of the staircase. From where they now stood they could clearly see the large pool of sticky blood drying on the landing.  Liz was just about to continue their route checking the other two rooms on this level, when Charlie tapped her shoulder. Turning to face him, she noticed he was looking down the staircase. There, three steps down, the blood trail continued, with another smear of blood, and then another. Whoever was bleeding had gone down into the shadowy ground floor. Liz thought the spacing between the smears of blood was a bit odd, until she realised that whoever was bleeding had not walked but fallen down the stairs. Blood congealed on the cracked banister and pooled on the wide wooden stair treads, meters apart. At the bottom of the stairs they could see another large pool of spilled blood, with bloody handprints and a set of uneasy footprints leading off into the darkness. There was now no doubt in her mind, whoever had fallen or been pushed down the long staircase was definitely no longer one of the living. She was just about to step off into the darkness when Charlie pulled her back. Shaking his head, he backed her up seven of the stairs until, once again, they stood in a pool of soft light. There was no point meeting the Dead where they had the advantage. Even the small amount of light that managed to reach them here would now be enough for them to see any attacker clearly. Then with a loud booming voice he shouted,

‘
Hey! Come and get it! Dinner time!’

As the last word echoed through the darkness below them, a crash sounded far to their right. Straining their ears to listen, they could make a distant rust
ling and thudding sound as Dead feet dragged a lifeless body towards them. As it came closer to them, drawn uncontrollably to the sound of the living, the silence that had descended on the shadowy ground floor was broken by a raspy moan. Then, two bloody bare feet appeared at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a body dressed in dark blood covered overalls. As the corpse shuffled into the light, its pale skin almost luminescent in the gloom, Liz could see why the Dead man’s call had sounded strange. His throat had been cut neatly but deeply, his head now tipped back, gaping the wound further. Severed flesh, tendons and blood vessels were all exposed, as the thing that had been Mr Penhaligan, stared at them with the milky sight of the Dead.  Liz realised James Penhaligan must have been killed in the first room they’d entered and then quickly carried to the staircase landing, where he had been thrown down before his corpse could reanimate. Putting his knife arm in front of Liz, Charlie stepped forward. With one swift powerful motion he plunged his ice-pick in James’ skull. Instantly his blood covered arms that had been reaching for them, fell to his sides, now lifeless. With a thud James collapsed to the floor like a puppet with his strings severed. Charlie called again into the darkness in case Alex or Naomi were also there. After ten minutes of waiting for the small corpses to attack, Charlie stepped forward to the body that had once been James Penhaligan. With a sucking sound, Charlie pulled the ice pick free.

‘
Right, we can only hope now that Alex and Naomi are hiding some-where in the house,’ he said, bending down and wiping the ice-pick on a clean part of James’ overalls.

They made their way back up the blood streaked staircase to the first f
loor to check the remaining two rooms on that level. Hoping they would find the children alive hiding in a cupboard or bolt hole. Finding nothing but empty rooms, they continued up to the second floor. When they reached the small room that Alex had been using for a bedroom, Liz’s heart sank. Although there was no sign of any blood, there had obviously been a struggle here too. Broken toys and the little boy’s things lay scattered about the room. A small wooden chair that had clearly been pushed against the door, now lay in pieces. Liz could imagine little Alex, cowering terrified in a corner, as death and destruction visited their home. Closing the door behind them they continued searching the other rooms, hopeful they may still find the Penhaligan children alive.  

‘
I don’t think they’re here,’ Charlie said, with a sigh, after half an hour of calling for Alex and Naomi in the empty house. They were about to go back down stairs when Liz noticed the attic trap door in the ceiling.

‘
Well, that looks like our last option,’ she said, pulling a hall chair over to stand on.

Reaching up she grabbed hold of the cord hanging down
.

‘
Ready?’ she said, pulling on the cord, the trap door falling open and the ladder smoothly following it.

As Liz readied herself to ascend
into the dark attic, a small pair of blood spattered shoes appeared just over the edge of the hatch.

‘
Charlie…’ she whispered, nodding to the small toes just in view.

Alerted by the sound of Liz
’s voice, the Dead child stepped forward, falling into the space where the trapdoor had been. Suddenly Liz was knocked to the floor, as the collection of bloody clothes and small dead limbs fell on top her. With a cry Liz struggled with the small wriggling corpse on top of her. The Dead child strained to bite into her living flesh but Liz managed to work her arms out from under herself to grab the Dead child under its chin. Forcing the small head with its snapping jaws back so Charlie could get a clear shot, Liz realised it was Naomi. Charlie seeing his shot stepped forward, plunging his wrist knife deep into her dead skull. The small corpse that had once been Naomi became still as her undead existence ended.

‘
You alright?’ Charlie said, as he pulled the small body off of Liz. ‘Did she bite you?’

‘
No, I’m fine don’t worry,’ she replied, pulling back her T-shirt to reveal her buckled neck protector underneath.

‘
Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ Charlie said, turning the small eight year old body over to look at her.

Like her father, little Naomi
’s throat had been cut.

‘
Those bastards. What possible threat could a little girl pose?’

‘
Who knows what goes through the minds of people who could do this,’ Liz replied, looking at the small ruined body, that could so easily be Anne.

After carefully checking the dusty attic Li
z and Charlie realised Alex was nowhere in the house.

‘
Well, as Mrs Penhaligan is outside, perhaps she had made a run for it with Alex and he managed to get away, as whoever did all this caught up with her?’ Liz said, hopefully.

‘
Then he’s probably one of the Dead now anyway,’ Charlie said, washing away Liz’s false hope, ‘I don’t like this. This whole scenario doesn’t seem like Raiders to me. Why would they leave all this food here if it were simply a raiding party?’

‘
Well who else could it be?’ she replied.

‘
Don’t know, but I’m damn sure going to find out. We’ve got some bastards out here who like slitting throats and I don’t intend to let it happen to anyone else,’ Charlie said, looking out of one of the windows at Imran on guard below ‘Anyway, with no perimeter walls we can’t spend the night here. We’ll have to try and make it to the Substation before nightfall, they need to be warned.’

After collecting a few jars of the preserved fruit as a gift for the survivors they would be staying overnight with, Liz
and Charlie joined Imran back in the cart. The deserted Penhaligan home was too far away from Lanherne to come and collect all the food left here, they would let those at their next stop know about the supplies. It would place the Lanherne Convent in the good books with those who had made the Electrical Substation their home. In a world of the Dead you didn’t know when you may need a friendly neighbour.

Delilah resumed her plodding journey through the small winding roads,
while above her the warm afternoon sky began to darken. Heavy angry looking clouds had turned the sky to the north a muddy slate grey, promising rain for the evening. Trying to increase Delilah’s pace, Charlie wanted to reach the Substation before the storm reached them. Travelling would be arduous through the heavy rain. Not only would the rain decrease visibility but also the roads they were using could flood, turning already muddy and cracked lanes treacherous and difficult to pass. It would take another four hours to reach the Substation and Charlie doubted the rain would hold off that long.

The group of
around twenty people at the Substation had organised themselves into a working collective, much like those at Lanherne. Everybody doing their bit, using any skills they possessed to make life better for all. Duncan had spent some time with them before he had come to the Convent. Using his mechanical mind, he had devised retractable ramps, walkways and a cable car type device, that could be used for escape should they ever became over-run by the Dead. The compound sat in an area the size of small field, behind a high razor wire topped, chain-link fencing. Once used to keep the living away from the deadly electricity, its high fence now kept the living safe from the horrors that walked freely in the outside world. The space inside the fence had three small cinder block buildings. These had once contained monitoring equipment but had now been converted to house the community’s livestock. Like Lanherne, every available area within the compound had been put over to food production. The gravel, that had once covered the ground, had been removed to plant crops, as had some of the surrounding fields. But it was the actual area the survivors lived in, that always made Liz’s jaw drop in wonder. Within the compound stood two high steel pylons. Once used to transport electricity across the countryside, they had been converted into homes, high in the sky. Liz thought they looked like a simplified versions of the Eiffel Tower. The decorative beams replaced here by large platforms and walkways, upon which the survivors had built small shack type homes. The first level, some fifteen metres above the ground was now almost a completely solid platform, only the centre still an open space through which drop down ramps could be lowered for access. Duncan had devised a system of cogs and wheels, so it would take only two men to raise or lower the ramps by turning the crank handles. Above the first level were a further two levels, each smaller than the one that preceded it, until they came to the huge cross bar that carried the thick electrical cables from one pylon to the next. Duncan had come up with a similar system to that which operated the ramp on the first level, to make a small usable cable car. Utilizing the electricity cables that stretched from one pylon to the next, it was a handy escape route. Liz didn’t envy anyone who had to sit in the small wooden row boats that hung from the wires, slowly winching themselves to safety over to the next pylon. Even though this community had been here for years, Liz thought their homes still had a transient quality to them. With only the wooden walls of their homes to keep out the freezing winds, they must be bitterly cold here during the winter. Looking at them, she was surprised they managed to survive the gale force winds that must batter the little homes so high above the ground. But as with everywhere else, safety had to take preference over comfort now.