Six Days With the Dead (47 page)

‘
Right, I want it to be clean kill shots in there, we don’t want the Dead to have to deal with too,’ Charlie said, as Liz began to edge forward away from the cart.

Behind them, something with
in Marcello’s brain was taking control of his oxygen starved body and had already begun to pull him back from the black oblivion into an unnatural existence. First with a fist clenched, then milky eyes began to move back and forth rapidly behind eyelids that should never open again, until finally a new Marcello was brought forth, a Marcello whose sole purpose was to quench the burning need that raged at his very core. Sitting up, the Dead thing that had once been Marcello turned his head, drawn to the sound of the living near to him.

‘
Look out!’ ‘Charlie!’ Liz and Alice screamed in unison at the Dead figure rose behind him.

‘
Jesus!’ Charlie said, as the Dead Marcello pounced onto his back, his mouth wide, intent on tearing into the flesh presented to him.

Grappling with the man on his back, Charlie threw himself backwards to the floor and rolled.  Wil
d Dead hands clawed at his skin as Charlie managed to finally get on top of the struggling Dead man. With his hand under the snapping jaw, Charlie drew back his knife wrist, preparing to ram the blade into the side of twisting and moaning Dead man’s head. Out of the blue a metal bat swung just in front of Charlie’s eyes and collided with the Dead man’s temple. With a sickening crunch, the front of the animated cadaver’s temple collapsed, as skin tore and bone shattered. Not intent with one hit, Alice pulled her bat back swiftly and swung again with all the force she had in her. When the bat hit the Dead Marcello’s head this time, there was no question that he had finally been put to rest. With his head little more than a broken and bloody mess, Marcello’s brief unnatural after-life had come to an end.

‘
Fuck!’ Charlie said, his hand going up to his neck to rub the muscles that had been pulled when the Dead man leapt on him, ‘I’m ok, I’m ok.’

‘
You sure?’ Liz said, concern and fear in her eyes.

‘
Yeah,’ he replied a soft smile on his lips, ‘and thanks Alice, I owe you.’

‘
No problem,’ she said, giving him a quick wink. ‘Well, with all this noise we’d better get on with it before we alert the whole lot of them we’re here.’

‘
Yep, let’s get going,’ Charlie said, urging them onward.

Pulling his hand discreetly away from his neck, Charlie looked down at the blood on his fingers, his blood.  It may have only been the smallest of nips from the Dead man but already he could feel the burning pain blooming across his shoulders. Cursing his
own body for accepting the change so quickly, Charlie knew he wouldn’t be given the luxury of three hours before he died and came back. Knowing his time left with those he loved was going to be so cruelly snatched from him, he was determined to make what he had left count. Wiping his hand on his trouser leg, he looked up into the eyes of Imran. From his horrified look, it was clear to Charlie that Imran knew. Charlie gave him the smallest shakes of his head.

‘
Not now, son,’ Charlie whispered, as he moved past the stunned Imran. ‘We get Anne back first, then I’ll deal with this. Ok? Please not a word, I’ve got to do this.’

For the briefest of moments Imran looked into Charlie
’s eyes and saw his resolve to see this through. Although Imran’s own heart felt like a fist was tightening about it, as he realised the man who had become a father to him was shortly to die, he knew Charlie needed to make things right and who was he to deny him. Giving the slightest of nods back, Imran decided to put his trust in Charlie. The man had never let him down before and knew he wouldn’t now.

Jogging to the mouth of the cave the four of them paused by the iron gates that been cemented into the opening. Holding a finger to his lips for quiet, they listened for
any sound coming from those inside. They could hear soft rhythmic chanting coming from somewhere deep inside and taking the lead, Charlie pushed open the iron gates as quietly as he could. Despite the gate creaking loudly on its rusting hinges, the chanting continued without missing a beat and the four of them crept inside, one by one. Using practiced hand signals, Charlie told them to make a low dash for the horses stall on the right of the cave. The dilapidated horse gave them the briefest of snorts when the four intruders knelt alongside it, but then went back to eating its desperately needed meal.

Looking out past the horse and into the smoky gloom of the cave, Liz could see a clear lake
ahead of them, greasy looking torches burning along its shore. There, kneeling down with their backs to them, were six small children and three adults, one man and two women. The chanting they could hear was clearly coming from the adults, who seemed to Liz to be lost in some sort of prayer induced trance. Liz’s eyes flicked from one child’s head to another, looking for the familiar blond curls of Anne.

‘
She’s not there,’ she whispered to Imran, her heart twisting with fear and worry that they had come too late.

Squeezing her shoulder, Imran knew Liz
’s world was to be torn apart soon enough and it broke his heart to know what she would be going through. He knew dealing with Charlie would be devastating for Liz. But as Charlie had said, they just had to find Anne first and then perhaps together, as a family they could get through the loss of this man who had selflessly taken them all under his care. Charlie took a sharp intake of breath as a spasm of pain shot down his arm to sit burning at his fingertips. Imran looked at him, realising Charlie was one of the unfortunate ones, his time left would be measured in minutes rather than hours. Catching Imran’s concerned look, Charlie brushed it off, he didn’t have time for pain or fear, he had a job to do.

With a wa
ve of his hand and stiffening fingers, Charlie silently told Imran they should creep as close as they could and then he was to take out the tall man kneeling by the lake. With the man taken out of action the two remaining women should be easy to deal with. Crouching, they slowly moved forward, until they got within ten metres. Charlie then gave Imran the signal. Standing upright, Imran took aim and with a silent prayer to Allah for forgiveness, he released the arrow. One voice instantly died from the chorus of chanting never to be heard again, as the arrow plunged deep into the back of the man’s skull, killing him permanently. It wasn’t until he fell face first into the lake with a loud splash, that the two women either side of him realised something was wrong. Both of them stared in disbelief at the corpse now floating in the lake, a pool of deep red blooming from its head. As one, they both snapped their heads round to see who dared intrude upon their holy work. It was not so much that one of their fellow acolytes was dead, rather that someone had dared to challenge their holy mission, that outraged them so.

‘
Sergeant Charlie!’ one of the little children cried, as he quickly darted forward beyond the reach of the short woman next to him.

Little Alex Penhal
igan clung tightly to Charlie’s leg, with a grip born of desperate relief.

‘
They killed my mum and dad Sergeant Charlie!’ Alex managed to say before heavy tears spilled from his large, weary eyes. ‘and Naomi too. They killed them for no reason.’

With an an
imal like scream and her fingers hooked like claws, the short woman ran at Charlie at full speed. The black woman next to her, in her panic, grabbed the arm of a small terrified girl and began wading out into the lake as fast as she could towards a small row boat. Her long skirt, now heavy with cold water, slowed her escape, weighing her down and wrapping round her legs as she splashed through the water. What she had hoped to achieve, they would never know because at that moment Imran let fly another arrow, hitting her squarely in the side of the head. Immediately she too collapsed into the water, her blood mixing with that of the male acolyte already staining the clear water a shade of pink. In those few seconds, the banshee like woman had almost reached Charlie and Alex, but as Charlie turned his body to shield the small boy clinging to his leg, he lifted his amputated wrist to greet her. With a strangled cry of shock, the large knife on his wrist skidded across her ribs, tearing skin and muscle as it went. Falling to the floor, the woman looked up, hate burning in her eyes.

‘
You’re all damned!’ she spat angrily, blood flecking her lips, as a painful cough racked through her body. ‘I put my soul in the Lords hands and He found me worthy. Me!’

Ignoring the ra
nt of the insane woman at Charlie’s feet, Alice rushed forward to help the wet little girl trying to climb out of the lake.

‘
It’s alright, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,’ Alice repeated in a soothing tone, as she gathered up the sobbing girl out of the cold water and into her arms.

The woman at Charlie
’s feet was bleeding heavily now, her breath was ragged and it sounded as if one of her lungs may be slowly filling with blood.
Alex edged fearfully away from her as far as he could while still holding fast on to the soldier’s leg.

‘
You are nothing, do you hear me! Nothing! The Lord has damned you and you don’t even know it, you fools!’ the woman managed to say, though the cost of each word was plain to see on her pain etched face.

‘
Clean and simple,’ he said calmly to Imran, who had come to stand with one leg either side of the woman’s shoulders. Looking down at the pathetically insane woman beneath him, Imran tried to muster up some of the hate he had felt only hours before when he had thought of the revenge he would take for his brother’s death. But all he saw was a deranged woman dying before him.

‘
You’re nothing! No..th..ing!’ she continued, though her pain now broke the word into its syllables.

‘
Imran?’ Charlie said, dealing with his own pain that threatened to bring him to his knees.

At the sound of his name, Imran let go of the bow string. The resulting force shot the arrow through the woman
’s skull, pinning it to the hard packed earth floor of the cave.

‘
You need to save Anne!’ Alex said, managing to choke back his sobs long enough to speak, though his words caught in his breath, ‘Th...They’re going to judge her at the pi...pit, you’ve got to sa...save her.’

At the mention of her sisters name Liz, ran forward and knelt down to look into Alex
’s tear streaked face.

‘
Please Alex, where is she? Where is Anne?’ she said, a lump rising in her throat. She didn’t like the sound of a pit where people were judged.

Without saying a word, Alex turned and pointed across the lake to a cave entrance on the opp
osite shore.

‘
Th...There’ he replied, his fear of what was in the cave turning the word to nothing more than a whisper of breath.

****

Anne waited alone in darkness with only the Dead children in the pit to keep her company. Despite the pitch blackness in the cave, they still somehow knew she was there, sitting scared but still in the darkness. Their pitiful moaning was constant throughout the day that seemed to stretch on for ever. Occasionally she would hear the sound of their broken and ruined hands slapping against the side of the pit and it terrified her. Every second that passed, she imagined they had somehow been able to climb out of the pit, their Dead faces now centimetres from her own, ready to bite into her. For the first hour or so, Anne had quietly pulled and twisted her hands back and forth in the manacles, hoping to be free. Unfortunately all she achieved were the raw open wounds that now encircled her wrists. Perversely if she survived her judging, she too would bare the wrist scars that the acolytes possessed, but for her they would be nothing but a reminder of pure terror rather than a testament to a faith or rite of passage. When her blood began to flow down her arms, she knew she had only made it worse for herself. With the smell of fresh blood now in the air, the Dead children began their frenzy to get to her with a renewed sense of purpose. She tried to wrap her bleeding wrists in the dead baby’s blanket to cover the smell, but it soon began to seep through. 

She had no idea how long she
had sat there but it had seemed like forever. As desperate as she was to leave this place of pointless death, she also dreaded the approach of Ruth and her husband and the possibility of her own death that they brought with them. So when she heard the sound of the row boat being pulled ashore echoing through the tunnel, her stomach twisted with fear and a cold sweat, born of a basic animal panic, broke out over her small and bloody body. She could hear Ruth talking sharply to the Reverend. The words harsh and unforgiving bouncing around in the dark chamber did little to give her hope. If Ruth was in a bad mood over something her husband had done, who knew how her mind would react when he read to her the random Bible verse. Anne did not hold out much hope that Ruth would look kindly on her plight, so with all her heart she prayed Liz would find her in time. The fact that Liz and Charlie would be out there somewhere right now looking for her, she did not doubt in the slightest, but she was so small and the countryside so vast. Hiding in the back of her mind was the growing worry that they would never find her, let alone within the next ten minutes.