Six Days With the Dead (19 page)

With the three falling into a comforta
ble silence, soon the creaking of the cart and the rhythmic, almost hypnotic clip-clop of Delilah’s hooves, were the only sounds they could hear. The minutes soon turned to an hour, while Delilah walked away the morning with her steady gait. All the while Liz and Charlie watched through the eye holes for any dangers that could be lurking in the high hedgerows either side of them. At one point Delilah had to be steered around a Mini that had crashed into a ditch. The bonnet, crumpled and dented sat partly in dark ditch water, while the back wheels were lifted high off the road. The Mini may have been yellow at one time but now its paintwork was blistered and peeling, as rust bloomed over the surface. With its windshield smashed and one of the doors open, a riot of wild flowers, grasses and ivy had claimed the inside of the small car. Hanging half out through the open door, lay a sun bleached set of bones clothed in rags. The seat belt may have saved this person’s life during the accident but it had also trapped them whilst a less lucky passenger tore into them. The passenger must have crawled out through the broken windshield, leaving behind its new comrade in Death struggling, pinned by its seatbelt. Someone had eventually dealt with the trapped driver though, the skull with its large puncture hole evidence of their handiwork.     

Once in a while
, one of the piglets would let out a soft squeal as it slept, dreaming of what-ever pigs dreamt of. Liz watched them for a while, wondering how long it would take for the little sow in the crate to mature enough to have piglets of her own. It was only when she looked away from the piglets that she noticed some of the weapons hanging from the ceiling of the cart were now hanging at an angle. Realising Delilah must be pulling them up a hill, she gave Charlie, who had drifted off into a light doze a kick.

‘
We’re going uphill Charlie, perhaps it’s a good time to see what lies ahead?’ she asked, as Charlie rubbed his face to wake himself up properly.

‘
What? Sorry about that, must’ve dozed off. Yes, let’s see how the land lies,’ he replied, standing up.

Imran pulled Delilah to a stop once they had reached the crest of the small hill the
y were climbing and after a check through the spy holes that nothing was around, Charlie opened the hatch. Wanting to get a little fresh air, Liz poked her head through the hatchway too. At this height they could just see over the high hedgerows to the wild fields falling below them. The scene before them was of the usual patchwork of overgrown meadows bisected by the low grey stone walls that defined one field from the next. To their right was a small woodland that had started to bleed young saplings into the meadow it butted up against and beyond that she could see the winding silver reflections of the river they had passed earlier that morning.

‘
That’s where we’re headed,’ Charlie said, pointing far off to the left where an older and denser forest could be seen in the distance.

Just like she did when she was on watch duty at Lanherne, Liz let her eyes go slightly out of focus. Looking past the individual items that made up the scene, she watched for movement, just how Charlie had taught her to. Seeing noth
ing, she was about to go back inside the cart when something caught her eye in the meadow by the smaller woodland. Now focusing her vision on that area, she could see the lone figure that had emerged from the tree line.

‘
Look! Over there!’ Liz said, to Charlie pointing, ‘I think we’ve got a live one.’

Retrieving an old pair of binoculars from inside, Charlie looked to the spot Liz has indicated.  From this distance it was too far for Liz tell if it was a man or woman but it was clear, whoever it was that th
ey were alive.

‘
It’s a man and yep, he’s alive alright.’

They watched as the figure slowly made his way into the meadow and suddenly froze.

‘Uh, Oh…’ Charlie said under his breath.

The man spun round, looking back towards the trees he had just come from
and then seeing something he didn’t like, began to run as fast as he could through the high grass away from the tree line.

‘
What is it? The Dead?’ Liz asked Charlie, her voiced filled with concern for this stranger in trouble.

‘
Don’t know,’ Charlie replied, trying to see what had the running person so spooked. And then they heard the distant howls and barks of the pack, as they burst forth from the cover of the trees. ‘Shit, Dogs!’

The man, running for his life had already made it half way across the meadow
, but the dogs behind him were fast, hunger driving them onwards. Liz could see some of the larger dogs charging forward towards the man as he fled, but also there were smaller shapes fanning out to the left and right leaving trails of broken grass behind them. Liz had never seen such a well organised pack. The smaller dogs would cut the running figure off if he veered off course, while the larger dogs with more stamina would keep on his heels until exhaustion slowed him down.

‘
Oh my God,’ Liz said, her hand coming to her mouth in horror, as she watched the scene playing out in the field below, ‘Run faster, come on, run.’ she said to herself, willing the man to find some extra speed. She could not call out though, not only was he too far away to hear but also for fear of alerting the pack to their presence.

But Liz knew he was clearly not going to make it and there was nothing they could do. As the pack running through the grass closed the gap on the terrified human, she saw a large Alsatian shape launch itse
lf into the air and land on the man’s back. The man stumbled to the floor under the dog’s weight, and the rest of the pack instantly caught up with the doomed person, now fighting for his life. They could faintly hear his screams drifting up from the fields below, as the pack snapped and tore into the meal they had so cleverly hunted down. When the screaming finally stopped, Liz and Charlie closed the hatch hoping the pack’s hunger had been sated for now, they certainly couldn’t afford to lose Delilah in an attack so far from home.

They had seen so many people die over the years but this pointless death seemed to affect those in the cart deeply. They had been fighting the Dead for so long now,
it had almost become the norm of everyday life, but it was when ‘nature’ herself turned on them that it really hit home just how precarious the existence of the Human race had become. Perhaps their plight was ultimately hopeless after all, and humanity was doomed to become just another tally in the ranks of extinct species. If the time of Man had really run its course, should they just give up this pointless struggle and accept their fate?

The silence, that before had been a comfortable absence of noise be
tween friends, had now changed to a gloomy blanket of depression. At last Charlie broke the melancholy silence that had fallen over them.

‘
Poor Sod, he didn’t stand a chance,’ he said, hanging the binoculars back on their hook.

Liz, picking at one of her b
oot laces, looked up.

‘
There’s nothing we could have done was there?’ the reassurance she needed plain in her voice.

‘
Nothing.’ Imran and Charlie said in unison, both of them reaching for her.

Charlie with the touch of a father
calming a scared child, and Imran with that of a comforting lover. Looking at both of them in turn, seeing the concern and love on their faces, she knew she would never accept that the future was lost to Humanity. She would fight tooth and nail in this harsh world until the last breath left her body, if not for herself then for them and their love.

‘
Well come on then, this isn’t going to get us to the Donaldson place is it?’ she said, waving her hands for Imran to turn around and get Delilah moving again.

Imran was just about to s
ay something when a thud on the side of the cart stopped him. His mouth hanging open he looked at Charlie and Liz. Then another bang sounded on the opposite side. Soon more thuds and scraping sounds were vibrating through the cart, until the noise was a constant rumble. And then came a sound they all instantly knew, the dry moaning of the Dead. Looking through the spy holes on both sides Charlie could see they were surrounded.

‘
They must have spotted us when we were watching the field,’ he whispered ‘We can deal with them, yes?’ The other two nodded their reply.

They had been dealing with situations like this for what seemed like forever, this was just another day
’s work in their world of the Dead.

‘
Right, let’s see if we can get a little space between us, and them, before we put them down,’ Imran said, giving the reins a harsh flick.

Delilah knowing her usual slow pace wasn
’t called for, began to move forward with speed. The Dead may not have been interested in her but she didn’t like them pawing and bumping into her as they reached for the cart, so the command to move forward was well received. Those inside could hear the Dead hands desperately trying to find something to grasp onto, as the live flesh they had seen pulled away from them. The cart suddenly rose in the air a fraction, and then with a sickening crunch came back down again. A few of the Dead had obviously fallen under the carts wheels, their flesh torn, and bones smashed. Once Delilah had pulled them about thirty meters along the road, Liz and Charlie checked through the spy holes.

‘
Clear this side,’ Liz said.

‘
Clear.’ Charlie echoed.

‘
Now it’s my turn,’ Imran said, as he quickly moved from the front of the cart and flipped open the top hatch.

Liz repositioned herself to look through one of the
spy holes in the back wall. Down the road they had left a group of ten Dead men and women in various states of decay, each shambling towards them with arms outstretched and hunger in their eyes. Two of the Dead had been pulled under the cart when they had moved, one of which now pulled itself along by its hands after having one of its legs completely ripped off. The other was a woman trying to push herself up off of the cracked tarmac. Her rib cage had been crushed and black rotting organs spilled down her front and onto the ground. Slipping on her own internal fluids, the woman fell back to floor, all the while never taking her eyes from the cart she somehow knew contained everything she desired. The other eight Dead, three men, four women and one that was so badly burnt it was impossible to tell, all continued putting one shuffling foot after another. Liz heard the soft creak of Imran’s bow as he prepared to fire. As the bow string sprung back to its normal position with a twang, Liz saw an arrow appear in the skull of one of the Dead women. Before this woman had even fallen to the floor, Imran had taken aim on another of the Dead. This time it was the walking corpse of a young policeman. His black skin had turned sickly ashen grey and what was left of his uniform was covered in remnants of rotting gore. He took one more shambling step forward before an arrow appeared in his temple, ending his unnatural existence. One by one the Dead figures fell, each by one of Imran’s arrows. The creature that had been badly burnt, was one of the last to fall. Now only ten metres away, Imran took aim. With his usual accuracy the arrow flew and penetrated its skull with such force the tip protruded out the back. Collapsing, it fell in front of the last Dead woman that could walk, tripping her up. This dead woman, her face a mass of squirming maggots, looked up at Imran. Opening her mouth of broken blackened teeth to moan, Imran could see the maggots were also feasting on her tongue and the inside of cheeks.  As the woman’s now lifeless head fell back with an arrow in her forehead, maggots were scattered across the body strewn road.

This only left the two they had run over.

‘I’ll get the last two Imran,’ Liz said, as she jumped down through the back hatch.

It wasn
’t until her feet touched the road surface that she began to withdraw her blade.  But before her blade was fully free a hand snapped out from under the cart, attaching itself to her leg. Losing her balance she fell forward, dragging the Dead man from under the cart with her. They had obviously run over three of the Dead not just the two she had seen. As she fell to the road her sword slipped from her grasp and skittered away from her, just out of reach. Rolling over on her back and kicking hard with her free foot, she caught the Dead man directly in the face. What was left of his nose split and dark putrid liquid smeared across his face. The smell was appalling and made her gag but she carried on kicking, desperate to be free of its hold. Scrabbling backwards on her elbows, she pulled the corpse further out from beneath the cart. Glancing up at the open hatch she saw Charlie, one of his ice picks in his hand. The corpse was now pulling itself up her boot and would soon be within reach of accessible living flesh. Luckily he would not be given this chance, as the ice pick swung down and punctured the top of his skull.

‘
Fuck!’ Liz said, kicking the still body off her leg, ‘Thanks.’

Charlie jumped down from the cart and gave her his hand to pull her up. Once she wa
s upright again they each retrieved their weapons. Liz’s from the road, and Charlie from the skull of the man. Wiping some of the gore off his ice pick onto the Dead man’s jacket, Charlie looked at the two remaining Dead in the road.