Six Days With the Dead (6 page)

With the chickens being fed on meagre scraps and any bits they
could peck from the yard, they certainly wouldn’t win any beauty contest. But they produced a good amount of eggs and once a month the group had meat, so they couldn’t complain.

‘
Well, you go wash up, it’ll be meal time soon.’ Said Liz, ruffling Anne’s hair.

The late afternoon meal was
the one time that most of the Convent refugees would come together. Of course there would always be two people missing at any gathering, they still had to keep a vigilant eye out for the Dead over the wall.

As Anne ran off to
wash, Liz went looking for Charlie. She was curious about their new arrival and the tale he had to tell. The afternoon sun had done little to relieve the chill from the convent corridors, its warmth unable to penetrate the thick stone walls. She eventually found Charlie with Sister Josephine and William, their new guest in the refectory. Sister Josephine sat patiently with her hands clasped together in her lap, a kind look on her face, as William tucked into a bowl of thick soup like the starving man that he was. Charlie, his muscular frame making William seem even more emaciated, sat on the table edge waiting for him to finish. As always when he was in the convent he had put the protective sheath over the serrated blade permanently strapped to his left wrist. While he waited he polished one of the four ice picks that usually sat crossed on his chest and back. Charlie liked to get close and personal when he put down the Dead. When he wasn’t using the blade on his wrist, the ice picks would happily puncture skulls, destroying rotten brains within. He rarely had to remove a second pick from its webbing but it was better to have three spare, than to be in need of one and not have it to hand. As Liz walked into the room, William froze, the spoon hovering half way to his mouth.

‘
William, this is Liz, one of the people sharing our home.’ Sister Josephine said, putting him at ease. Slowly the spoon went to his mouth, his hunger outweighing his apprehension. He nodded a greeting at her and carried on eating.

While Liz
and Alice had been doing their watch duty, Charlie had taken William to see Nadine. She was the closest thing they had to anyone medical at the convent. William had been stripped and checked for bite marks. Hospitality being only for the living, they didn’t want a man sized cuckcoo in the nest, biting the proverbial hand that fed them. He had then bathed and been told to shave his head and body. Lice were as prevalent as the Dead were outside the Convent walls, so all new guests had to go through this to prevent spreading their infestations to others. William had not done a very good job at shaving his head, nicks and bloody patches dotting his scalp and as he sat there in a clean oversized T-shirt and trousers, he certainly looked a sorry sight.

Liz c
ame and stood behind Sister Josephine as William tipped the last dregs of soup from the bowl. Laying the bowl gently down on the table, he looked at the three figures stood around him. The solider, the nun and the young woman, odd bedfellows indeed.

‘
Thank you,’ he said. His voice had a dry whispery quality to it, like he hadn’t spoken to another living soul in some time.

‘
You’re welcome… Charlie here, tells me he found you tied in a tree with just that poor excuse for a horse below. Travelling without a covered wagon seems very foolhardy.’ Sister Josephine said, concern knitting together her brows.

‘
I had a wagon to start with.’ He coughed, his voice box protesting at its use.

‘
I had been travelling with my brother Robert and his six year old son, Frankie. We had made camp in a decrepit old barn. There were no Dead around so we should have been ok. I was on first watch up in the rafters while they slept below and I swear I must’ve only fallen asleep for a few minutes but when I woke up…’ Tears fell from his tired eyes as he covered his face with his hands.

William coughed
, forcing down the emotion in an attempt to compose himself, ‘but when I woke up, I knew something was wrong. I could smell the blood straight away even from where I was sitting. I called to Robert but as he turned to look up at me I could see it was over. Those Dead eyes looked back at me and my brother was gone forever. He was covered in blood with a big slash across his neck. For a while I hoped Frankie had hidden himself somewhere but there was no sign of him, alive or Dead… When Robert had become slower I dealt with him and then went looking for Frankie. There didn’t seem to be any other Dead about so I left the wagon and just took the horse for speed. That was two months ago and I’ve been searching ever since. I haven’t found him yet but he was so small you see. He can’t have walked that far. He needs to be with his Daddy, that’s all I want, just to put him with his Daddy.’ William choked out the last words as tears fell freely from his eyes.

‘
Hey you never know, he may have made it to one of the Outposter’s homes and still be safe.’ Liz said, trying to sound reassuring but not believing her own words.

‘
Tell you what, I’ll take a few people out tomorrow to the closest Outposter holdings and ask them if they’ve seen Frankie, OK?’ Charlie said, resting his hand on William’s shoulder.

‘
Thank you… even if he’s one of the Dead, I just need to know,’ William said, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Charlie gave a sad smile and got up t
o leave the room. Catching Liz’s eye he nodded towards the door, wanting her to follow.

‘
We’ll have to warn the Outposters that there’s some bandit activity in the area at the moment.’ Charlie said.

‘
Sorry, what do you mean, bandits?’ Liz asked, confusion stopping her in her tracks.

Charlie turned to Liz and said
, ‘Since when have the Dead slit someone’s throat? And he said himself there were no signs of the Dead before, or after his brother died. So unless we’ve got a six year old psycho on our hands who killed his own father, then my guess is it’s bandits.’

‘
But what did they kill Robert for? They even left his horse’ Liz couldn’t understand some people in this Dead world. 

The Living had enough odds stacked against them as it was, they really could do without ba
nds of outlaws thinking life was so cheap, especially now that it was in such short supply.

‘
Who knows, Lizzy,’ Charlie said, as they continued walking down the corridor ‘some people are just looking out for number one, some people are scared and some people are just plain angry.’

‘
Angry at who?’ Liz asked.

‘
Angry at those who survived, I guess. They think, why did this person deserve to die and this person deserve to live. And I guess it’s just all got a bit mixed up in their heads. We’ve all lost somebody, if not everybody, and it hurts. Deep pain like that affects different people different ways. Some let it out and deal with it, while for others it turns inwards and consumes them like a cancer until all that is left is the pain.’

They continued
down the hall in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Friends and loved ones long gone, suddenly remembered. Ghostly memories, appearing to tease their healing wounds. Not looking where they were going, they both walked right into Nadine as she came round the corner. As usual she had her nose in a book.

Nadine had an amazing memory. Anything she read would be squirrel
led away in her brain and could be called on when needed. When the world had changed Nadine had hidden away in her bookshop. With the shutters down and reading by candle light, she escaped the horror of the world outside. Leaving behind the death, that only metres away tore the world to pieces, she found comfort between the pages of book after book. After two weeks the screams outside her closed world became less and less frequent, until she rarely heard anything at all. With all her food now gone and the water no longer working, she knew she would need to leave her sanctuary sooner rather than later. Looking out of the small back window, trying to build up the courage to leave, she noticed, across the roof tops, the back of the small supermarket, one of its skylight hatches was ajar. Thinking it was as good an opportunity as any, she grabbed her holdall and the hammer from a tool box. She didn’t know if she would be able to use the hammer on anyone but the satisfying weight in her hand gave her some comfort as she crept along the roof to the hatch. She spent forever straining her ears, listening for any movement within. Once she was convinced it was safe, she lowered her slim body through the hatch to the shop below. Miraculously, she found herself in the stock room. Holdall by holdall, slowly over the next three weeks, she emptied the stock room of everything she might need. She lasted in her world of books for another eight months reading and committing to memory everything she thought would be useful in this new world. Books on survival, books on herb law, books on farming and animal husbandry, they were all consumed by her thirst for knowledge. But when one day she heard the lorry coming down the street, she knew it was time to leave her haven and venture into this new Dead world. She stayed with various small communities over the next few years, hoping to help them build something new but each time fleeing with a few other survivors as the Dead overran them.  She was one of the few inhabitants at the convent that hadn’t arrived with Charlie and his caravan of survivors. She had been travelling from village to village through Devon and Cornwall with Bryon, a fellow survivor from a community that had fallen to the Dead. They had come upon the Lanherne Convent quite by chance and the Sisters had taken them in. Behind the high walls she felt safe, hidden away from the Death outside. Finally she had found her new bookshop, her new home.

Once Charlie had found out her talent for retaining information, he had made it his mission to find some medical books for her. When the Dead had first attacked, the bitten were taken to hospitals only in turn to
come back Dead themselves. Hospitals became blood baths, wiping out most of those with any medical knowledge overnight. Nadine was the survivor’s last chance to have some of that knowledge back. It had been decided, her only job at the convent was to absorb as much as she could from the medical texts Charlie brought her. She was to be their doctor and she was doing her damnedest not to let them down.

‘
Oh Christ, sorry,’ Nadine said as she bent down to pick up the book, ‘not looking where I’m going, again.’

In her late thirties, Nadine had an appearance that Charlie thought of as bland. There was nothing in her face to bring her either merit or scorn.  Short dull brown hair, over a perfectly average set of brown eyes, small straight nose and adequately shape
d mouth. But it was her mind that was truly beautiful. He was glad she had Bryon to talk to. At least he could hold a conversation with her without feeling like an idiot. Charlie didn’t know if they were romantically involved but having been through so much together for so long, it was hard not find comfort in someone you had trusted with your life.

‘
Just refreshing some details,’ Nadine said as she showed Liz the cover of the book she had been engrossed in. It was a book on midwifery. ‘It’s all very well knowing what to do, but doing it is going to be a lot different from reading about it.’ she continued.

One of the O
utposter’s had a wife who was due to give birth within a few weeks and Nadine was expecting them to arrive at the convent any day.

‘
Oh yes, for Emma O’Brien, she was huge the last time I saw her,’ Charlie said, ‘she’ll pop at any moment.’

Liz had met Emma on a few occasions
, despite the couple deciding not to live within the Convent walls. She had been a nice enough woman if a little harsh.

T
here were half a dozen outposts dotted within a forty mile radius of the Convent. People had chosen all sorts of defendable strongholds and the type of stronghold varied as much as the people who lived in them. There was a salvage yard, another lived in a castle ruin and another a police station. Anything that could keep out the Dead, worked. Some people just thought they could only put their trust in themselves, when it came to protecting their family and Mr O’Brien was certainly one of those. Liz thought that if he hadn’t been worried about the labour, then she doubted Mr O’Brien would be bringing his wife to see Nadine at all.

‘
Well I promised our new guest, Mr Parker, that I’d have a bit of a look around for his nephew when I do the rounds and I might as well go get Emma and Daniel at the same time. It’ll take a few days, to get there and back. We’ll pass at least two of the outposts on the way there so I can check on those too, warn them there may be raiding parties in the area.’ Charlie said, picturing the circular route in his mind’s eye.

‘
Raiders?’ Nadine asked, looking slightly nervous.

‘
Charlie thinks it may it may have been some raiders who killed Mr Parker’s brother,’ Liz said, ‘but don’t worry they’ll have a hard job getting in here.’ 

‘
Well I hope so.’ Nadine said as she opened her book, still looking a little worried.

Like all survivors she had had to kill the slow Dead to save herself more times than she cared to remember, but going up against someone armed and alive, she doubted she would co
me out on top there.

‘
Anyway,’ she continued ‘I’m going to finish up with this and I’ll see you at dinner.’ She began walking off, already lost in the pages of the book.