Six Days With the Dead (25 page)

‘
Get it out of me, get it out!’ she screamed, as another wave of blood splatted onto the bed.

Liz looked at the blood horrified. Prying Emma
’s fingers off one by one, Liz managed to free her hand and move to the foot of the bed. Sitting in the pool of clotting blood, Liz forced apart Emma knees to see what was happening. As she looked at Emma, the baby’s head fully crowned, she knew something was wrong. What she saw wasn’t so much as Emma giving birth to the baby but more like the baby was forcing its way out of Emma’s womb. Liz could see tiny fingers being pushed either side of the head, tearing at the edges of Emma’s vagina in their desperation to get out. Emma’s skin ripped and her screaming became uncontrollable and horrific. Forcing her wider, the fingers soon became hands and then a wrist and then an arm. The little arm, covered in blood and bits of torn flesh, reached forward and grabbed the blood soaked blanket. Using its hold as leverage, the baby began to pull itself out of Emma. Liz instinctively backed away from the emerging infant, knowing whatever was coming out of Emma was not the rosy cheeked baby Emma had hoped for. Emma had stopped screaming, with her vocal chords now ripped and bloody, she could only manage horse grunts of pain. Convulsions spasmed through her, forcing her back to arch high off the bed. Even then the thing pulling itself out of her would not let go its hold on the blanket. The baby wriggled its shoulders and soon its other arm was now gripping tightly to the blanket, pulling the rest of itself out of Emma’s ruined body. With a stomach churning rip, the baby pulled itself free of its mother. Then with unnatural strength the new born child wrapped its tiny pudgy fingers around its own umbilical cord and yanked.  With a ‘splat’ the placenta was ripped from Emma to land beside her demonic infant. Emma let out one final grunt and as Liz flicked her eyes up to her face, she could see Emma had died. And then suddenly all was still in the small bedroom. Slowly she lowered her gaze, scared at what she may see lying small and bloody between Emma’s legs. Horrified, Liz looked down at the thing that had ripped its way into existence, only for her breath to catch in her throat at what she saw. With its eyes closed, it hungrily licked blood and bits of Emma off its lips and fingers. Then with a look on its face could only be described as a smirk, it opened its eyes to look at Liz with the milky white eyes of the Dead.

‘
No!’ Liz screamed.

Screaming herself awake, Liz sat up with a jolt, her heart pounding in h
er chest.

‘
Hey, hey, it’s alright you were just dreaming,’ Imran said sitting up to pull her into his arms.

‘
Shit! Imran. That was a bad one,’ Liz said, her voice shaky, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you’

Imran held her close, rubbi
ng her back to calm her down until he could feel her heartbeat returning to normal.

‘
Hey, that’s ok. Though lucky for you Charlie’s just gone out to scout around. Don’t think he’d appreciate your cheery wake-up call quite so much,’ Imran said smiling at her.

Rubbing her face to clear the last vestiges of the dream from her mind, Liz swung her legs over the side of the bed.

‘Oh, he shouldn’t have gone on his own. Come on, we should go after him, just in case,’ Liz said, standing up and reaching for her sword. ‘And I could do with something to eat. I’m starved.’

With a groan, Imran pulled himself up from the bed and began folding up their blankets.

‘I could do with a wee first,’ he said following Liz out of the room with the blankets under his arm.

As they wa
lked down the small corridor back to the front office, they could see that Charlie had already taken many of the O’Brien’s supplies. Though, where he had managed to stash them in the already cramped cart, Liz had no idea. Stepping over the large sticky patch of drying blood in the front office, Liz and Imran made their way outside to find Charlie. As they stood on the threshold of the Police station, a small flock of seagulls flew past the peninsular calling to each other through the clear icy blue sky and flew off out to sea. The clean sea air had a chill to it this morning but Liz still found it refreshing as the last cobwebs of her dream were blown away. Charlie had already brought Delilah around and harnessed her to the cart, which Liz could now see had the addition of a small two wheeled trailer attached to the back. Charlie had packed the trailer high with much of the rescued O’Brien supplies.

‘
Back in a sec,’ Imran said, jogging to the side of the building to relieve his bladder.

With a flurry of clu
cking and ruffled feathers, a brown hen suddenly ran past Liz.

‘
Shit,’ Charlie said, coming round the corner chasing the hen, a crate full of chickens in his arms. ‘Oh, hi, you’re up. Give me a hand to catch that last one, she’s a bit feisty. It’s hard enough for me to catch them as it is without stabbing them, but she’s a real runner.’

So for the next few minutes Liz and Charlie laughed together as they tried in vain to catch the speedy hen. Each time they thought she was cornered, off she would dash
, wings flapping.

‘
Oh, just leave her,’ Liz said, puffing as she rested her hands on her hips, ‘she obviously doesn’t want to be caught.’

‘
OK,’ Charlie replied, hoisting the crate up onto the cart roof to begin securing it for the journey ‘a dozen new hens, Sister Claire will be pleased’. With a pat to the crate, Charlie jumped back down  to join Liz. 

In the meantime, Imran went to feed the two piglets. Opening one of the side hatches, he backed away, wav
ing a hand in front of his face.

‘
Wow, I think the alcohol sedative they were given has had an unpleasant side effect,’ Imran said, pulling out the small crate containing the piglets and a lot of runny pig manure. ‘God, it stinks.’

Charlie realising the trip home would be bad enough witho
ut having to put up with the smell, went over to the bucket of water he had given Delilah.

‘
Right, now take them out the cage and replace the bedding’ Charlie said emptying the water over the two squealing piglets.

Ratbag was particularly vocal in her di
spleasure at being drenched, while Stinky seemed to take it all in his stride.

‘
So what’s the plan?’ Imran asked, when he had finally replaced the cleaner piglet crate in the cart.

‘
Well I’ve checked all over the Police Station and there’s no sign of Emma, so that just leaves the village,’ Charlie replied.

Normally Liz would argue they should stay until they found her alive or one of the Dead, but after her dream she had a feeling they were already too late to save Emma and her baby.

‘Look,’ she said with a sigh, ‘I want to get back home as soon as we can, and as we have to go through the village anyway, how about we just take it slowly and hope that she sees us.’

‘
If she can,’ Imran added under his breath.

They all knew they were just going through the m
otions, trying to satisfy their own conscience. None of them wanted to admit that Emma was probably already one of the Dead but they had to be realistic. It would take more time than they could spare to check each cottage in the village, room by room. Only to come up with either nothing or just another one of the walking Dead.

‘
So that’s the plan then,’ Charlie said. ‘We might as well get going.’

‘
Hang on…’ Liz said jogging back into the Police station. Returning moments later with the crocheted blanket Emma had made in her hands. Charlie looked at the small folded blanket and raised an eyebrow in question.

‘
Seems a shame to leave it, and well, you never know,’ she said gently stoking the soft wool between her fingers. Emma had made this blanket for the unborn baby she carried, each stitch invested with the love she felt for this little person yet to come into the world. To leave it behind to simply rot would be an insult to that love. Perhaps she would give it to Helen when her baby came, it seemed right somehow. Placing the folded blanket in one of the already over stuffed storage boxes, Liz joined Imran in the cart.

Charlie pulled the Police S
tation door shut, sealing the tomb of the happy life Emma and Daniel had shared. Liz watched Emma and Daniel’s home disappear behind them as Charlie moved Delilah down the side road and back onto the cliff-side lane. Before the house was out of sight, Liz noticed Charlie had put a sign in one of the upstairs windows. In large letters it simply said ‘Safe’. Perhaps one day someone else would make use of this building and make it their home. She hoped so.

Delilah slowly pulled them along the lane that followed the small cliff down to the harbour village. Looking down onto the pebble beach, Liz could see that Daniel
’s body had gone, swept away by the dawn tide as if he had never been there. Charlie pulled Delilah to a stop just as they began to reach the village proper. It was sad to see the abandoned cottages, their exteriors painted in various pastel shades, now faded and weatherworn. The little shops and tea rooms that must have attracted the happy holiday makers, now burnt out or with smashed windows, their interiors exposed to the sky. Pulled up onto the beach were a few dilapidated fishing boats. Obviously brought to shore seven years ago for repairs that would now never be made, they sat like sad beached whales on the pebbles, decaying carcasses never to be returned to their natural environment.

‘
Right Imran, can you pop the top hatch. If Emma is alive she’ll see that we’re from Lanherne,’ Charlie said as Delilah began moving again, ‘and if she’s not alive, well…’ he let the sentence hang between them unfinished, they all knew how it would end.

Doing as he was asked, Imran placed one of his precious arrows onto
his bow ready to end Emma’s non-life. Charlie took them along the seafront road, hoping Emma would appear waving to them from her hiding place. Unlike many places they had been through, here cars sat neatly parked along the curb, instead of the smashed wrecks that they usually saw. It seemed as if the residence of Cawsands Bay had fled to the sea on mass, taking their boats filled with those they loved, they left behind their land existence frozen in time. Liz wandered what had happened to the families in the flotilla of boats. Had they found an island somewhere where they could start anew or been forced to return to shore when their water ran out. Of course she would never know but she liked the idea of a whole village just upping sticks and relocating out in the sea, far away and safe from the death that stalked the mainland.

‘
You know, it might be a good idea when we get back to the convent to find out if any of us know how to sail a boat,’ Charlie said thinking about Daniels boat tied up and bobbing on the waves, by the jetty.  ‘We could send a party out here to fish. We could smoke it, then bring it back. It’d be a good addition to our stores come winter.’

****

They had travelled more than half way through Cawsands Bay now and apart from the gulls overhead or the odd mangy looking cat darting across the road, the place was a ghost town. Liz would have liked to catch one of the cats, to help keep the rats away at Lanherne but knew they couldn’t afford the time chasing after an animal that didn’t want to be caught. Just then Imran banged on the top of the cart, signalling Charlie to stop.

‘
What is it?’ Liz asked. ‘Have you seen Emma?’

‘
No, sorry Liz… Charlie look,’ Imran replied pointing out to sea.

Following his raised arm, Liz and Charlie saw in the dista
nce a sailing boat. It was so far out it was difficult to gauge the actual size of the boat but its four large sails caught the offshore winds to speed it along through the waves.

‘
Do you think it’s adrift?’ Liz asked, as Charlie reached for the pair of binoculars.

‘
Doubt it Liz,’ he replied. ‘If it was I think the sails would be in tatters by now.’

Lifting the binoculars he tried to focus on the boat far out at sea.

‘Damn! They’re too far out to see if any living one’s on deck,’ he said, lowering the binoculars. Just then the boat changed direction and began to sail farther away from the coast.

‘
Well, I guess that settles it. Boats don’t often change course on their own,’ Imran said. ‘Wonder where they’re from?’

The three of them watched in silence
, as the boat sailed further off to the horizon, giving them hope that somewhere perhaps people were living without the constant fear of the Dead around them. Once the boat had finally gone from view, they continued their slow journey along Cawsands Bay, the clip clop of Delilah’s hooves the only sound echoing off the empty buildings.

She could remember when she was little, her parents bringing her to a seaside town, much like this one. Holding tight to her mother
’s hand, she remembered the older children running and calling to each other along the sand, as they tried to fly their kite. Laughter and life filled the air, while all about her families enjoyed their day away from their normal busy routine. She could still see herself watching in awe while she stood with her parents waiting for a stick of pink sugary candyfloss, the man twirling the stick around the drum smiling at her. It was sad to see Cawsands Bay so abandoned by life and she wondered if children would ever laugh here again. Would they ever be free to run and play, to chase the waves along the sand or explore the hidden delights in the rock pools. Would they ever be free of the Dead? She hoped so, one day.