Deadweight | Book 2 | The Last Bite

by Forster, Paul

  Several people stood around the giant, trying to come up with a plan to remove it.

  “We could cut it up, drag the chunks over to the other bastards,” a young woman offered.

  “We’d need a bloody chainsaw to get through that thing. We could burn it here,” a middle-aged man countered.

  “Not so close to the house, it’d reek,” the young woman said, she preferred her idea.

  “Grab a tarp, one of the damaged ones. Use the cars to drag it onto the tarp, then drag the whole thing to the pile. As long as it’s legs don’t fall off, it should save the mess on our front doorstep,” Babs stated, calm and confident.

  There were nods of agreement, and people started putting the plan into action. Two elderly survivors were examining the destroyed crops, hoping they could salvage something. Babs approached. “How’s it looking.”

  “Awful. The ground is swollen with their grey fluids. Even if it wasn’t all flattened to buggery, I wouldn’t eat anything grown here. We’re going to have to start again in a clean area,” he fumed. The elderly man was furious.

  “Let’s see what suitable seeds we have, and we can all start preparing the plot on the other side of the house. I’m sure with your green fingers we can get something growing,” Babs was reassuring, even though she knew without the crops they wouldn’t make it through the coming winter. Her words were taken onboard, and the couple went to examine their new vegetable patch.

  They had come so close, worked so hard, and for what? They’d lost over half of their friends and family. Their idyllic home ruined, and they were right back where they started. Battered, beaten and robbed of hope. Babs rested against the wall for a moment and decided that was more than enough time spent feeling sorry for herself.

  Babs heard the engines and assumed they had started to move the giant. It was only when she heard panicked shouts she took notice.

  “They’re back, they’re back!” a young man ran forward carrying an empty, blood stained shotgun. They could do little more than show they’d fight.

  Babs walked closer to the approaching vehicles. It was the soldiers, back to claim the little they had left. Blades and empty firearms took up positions, ready for a fight they could never win.

  “Stop, stop!” Amy screamed as she jumped out of a large truck, a pump-action shotgun in her hands.

  Babs breathed a deep sigh of relief as a tear rolled down her cheek. The sight of Amy was nearly as much a relief as when Bo had been found. “It’s okay everyone, our Amy’s back.”

  Amy rushed over to Babs and hugged her. “We’ve got soldiers, we have civilians and we have supplies. Lots of them.”

  “It’ll be okay?” Babs wanted to explode as the weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “It’ll be okay,” Amy confirmed. It was good to be back.

  The soldiers exited their vehicles and looked on at their new home. It wasn’t as plush as Charles’ house, but it was honest and it was their future. The women who had been kept by Charles jumped out of the back of a truck and looked around. They didn’t care the farm was basic, stank of the dead and had been a scene of a fierce battle. They were free.

  Chapter 64

  Natasha had been jogging for nearly 20 minutes. Crossing fields and running across dirt tracks, fleeing from her pursuers. She had been sick once already, but barely had time to compose herself. Now half a dozen feeders gave chase, able to keep up with their injured and tired prey. The blood trickling down her legs from the birdshot wounds spurring on the creatures to get their meal.

  She had no idea where she was going to go, or what she was going to do. Her only thought was to get away from the monsters, she knew how cruel they could be. The lands she once roamed in complete safety now she was just like any survivor, desperate and scared. On the horizon, she saw something that gave her hope. A house. If she could get there and close lock herself inside, she could recover. Maybe there would be some food and a weapon. All she needed was a knife or hatchet, anything that she could defend herself with and take the monsters on individually.

  Every step made her feel more human, feeble. She detested the feeling; she had been a magnificent creature, the top of the food chain. Strong, fast, intelligent and beautiful. Now she was just like every other sack of meat she’d ever hunted.

  The house drew closer, now only 200 metres away. She dared to look back, eight of the creatures now ready to devour her.

  She tried a little harder and moved a little faster. A terrifying cry rang out. She knew exactly what it was. Even when she was at the top of her game, an alpha feeder, these fat bastards didn’t play nice. She saw it at the corner of her eye, slowly moving to intercept her. She was confident even in her current state she could out manoeuvre it.

  Only 100 metres away. The mob was still behind her and the big one was too slow to get in front of her. Natasha looked at the house and prayed to herself the door would be open. Another two creatures appeared between her and the house. They were in poor condition, little more than the ripped mouldy rags on their bodies holding their bony frames together.

  Still she ran. She could see the old stone house clearly now. It was small and had been well looked after. She easily overtook the big bastard before it could get near, likewise the two scrawny feeders were in no shape to get close enough to lunge at her.

  Nearly there. A stumble over an unseen mound sent Natasha flying towards the floor. Her lungs were on fire, her legs began cramping up as she crawled to get back on her feet before stumbling again. The second attempt was successful, but now they were a few metres behind her. Inside she screamed, outside she struggled for breath.

  She ran through the damaged low wooden gate into the small front garden of the formerly picturesque cottage. She reached the front door, and it was locked. Tears streamed down her face. She had been at the top, and her descent had been rapid, the only thing she had left, her existence, was about to be ripped from her. She had no time to reflect on her life. The good person she had been before she became the monster she wished she still was.

  The first teeth clamped down on her flailing arms. The second, third and fourth sets of hungry mouths quickly followed, taking large chunks of her flesh as she screamed in pain. The big bastard grabbed her arm and pulled it free with little effort. It wasted no time in stripping the flesh off with its teeth.

  The pain was gone and her sight and hearing had gone fuzzy. Random thoughts hit her brain that she could not make sense of, then nothing.

  The creatures all had their fill of her corpse. They didn’t know what she used to be, or what she had become. All they cared for was her flesh filling their stomachs. If their simple, instinctive minds had realised what they had just done, they may have been worried. They didn’t know they had just been cured. They didn’t know in a few hours’ time they would be human again. As human as their deformed, injured and incomplete bodies would allow. All would be too far gone to have any mental capacity. If they didn’t fall to the floor in a heap, they’d barely be able to move. Once turned, they would be easy pickings for other feeders, too greedy to pass up a free meal and involuntarily curing and condemning themselves to the same fate.

  Natasha had suffered the same death she had inflicted upon many others. Nobody would mourn her passing. The creatures she had cured would cure many others, but it would never be enough to forgive her sins.

  Chapter 65

  They had transformed number 10 from the office of a lone dictator, to the meeting place of the council. The ship’s briefing room was a larger and more appropriate space, compared to squeezing everyone in to the room that had been used by one person to order others. The first decision the council took was that they needed to own her legacy. Number 10 was the seat of power. It could barely fit in the six council members, their assistants and the table big enough to accommodate them all. The prime minister didn’t care if her audience were crammed in like sardines, she was in charge so they were secondary. The members of the council were all equals, none ou
tranked another or were deemed more important. It comprised a medical doctor, a scientist, two civilians, a representative of the navy and the general. He demanded his position be temporary to aid the transition, and that he too should face trial alongside the prime minister. Begrudgingly, his request was granted.

  They had assumed power two days ago, and this was just the second meeting. The shift in power had been announced and a message broadcast to all the ships. The official story was that she had stepped down because of ill health. For the average civilian surviving onboard a rickety old ship, with minimal food and fresh water, news of a regime change didn’t make a lot of difference. Today, the news would improve their lives.

  “As you are aware, the onshore teams have recovered one of the original scientists who worked on FatBGone. William Johnson was himself a feeder, but an intelligent one. He developed a cure. I’m advised this wasn’t an altruistic act he didn’t want to save us all, he didn’t want to starve once we were all dead,” the scientist said. It excited the scientist to deliver the news. It was still fresh, and she had been receiving updates from her colleagues on the mainland every hour since the previous evening. “In short, it works. It works fantastically well. If we cure an old feeder, it will be little more than a quivering human body. It won’t think, walk and breathing is touch and go. It has severe damage to many parts of the brain, they’re human, but in a vegetative state. Fresher creatures may be a little more able, but loved ones too far gone won’t ever return. That’s the bad news. The good news is their flesh and blood is teeming with the cure. The cured feeders will become easy prey to others who will do what they do and devour them. They will then have the cure, and within hours, they will be ready to pass it on to whatever feeder feeds on them.”

  “Does it work as a vaccine then?” one civilian asked, eager to make the most of this miracle and get their people back on land.

  “We’re exploring that possibility. However, being bitten will no longer be a death sentence. With the cure quickly administered, little to no damage from the microbe will have taken place. This is the game changer we have been praying for,” the scientist proudly beamed.

  “Can it be weaponised?” the general asked. He liked the idea of the creatures taking care of each other.

  “Actually, it requires very little of the solution to be effective. Adapting a tranquilliser dart should give you a little range and would be suitable to administer the cure, not that it would be instant. It takes several hours for the cure to take full hold. Not as impressive to look at as your machine guns or attack helicopters, but far more effective in the long run.”

  “How far away are we from utilising it?” the general asked. He already had ideas buzzing around his head of how they could start a true fight back and reclaim their world from the dead.

  “It depends on how desperate we are?” the scientist asked. Until now, only the closest of the PM’s advisors had known the true situation. The scientist didn’t know that supplies of food were nearly down to zero. Why would she? It wasn’t her area.

  “Very,” the general answered drily.

  “We can begin producing the cure on the Reckoning, and the secure facility on the mainland. That would give us a healthy stock within two months,” the scientist suggested. They hadn’t read the room. She thought two months was impressive.

  “We don’t need a healthy stock. We need a few doses for some of those fiends and see how effective it is at travelling through them. We tried to take the Isle of Wight by force and lost time, resources and lots of good people. Give me half a dozen doses and we’ll see how quickly we can make a dent in them,” the general asserted, he felt the fight returning in him.

  “We’re expecting a sample of the solution here within the hour, along with Johnson. If all goes well, I believe I can give you what you need by the end of play tomorrow.”

  “Good. I can’t speak for the others, but I promise I’ll try to give your people the time to get this right. Now the other matter,” he added. The general already had a few ideas to get the cure into the wild, so he was more than content with the timelines.

  “The former prime minister?” the doctor piped up. The others around the table nodded. “We’ve performed as full a medical and psychological evaluation as it’s possible to do out here. She’s fine, blood pressure a little high, maybe, she’s exhausted, but she is fit for trial. Admiral Hollis, bar his facial injury, is also in good health.”

  The older civilian council member was first to have his say, “We need to vote on the trial. Personally, I believe it’s a mistake. Trust is at an all-time low, but a trial won’t improve that. If we find them guilty, we confirm to every survivor out there that they are at the mercy of the authorities. It will be more chaotic than it was when the cities fell.”

  “We can’t let her go, and if we hold her without trial, what will we say? What would we tell the people?” she asked. The younger female civilian, despite the fall of the world and how bad society had become, still believed in justice.

  “She was cold-blooded, ordered the murder of hundreds and sent many more to their deaths. I suggest we execute her,” she said. The suggestion may have seemed more likely to have come from the lips of the naval officer or the general, not the civilian.

  “I agree that her actions reflect badly upon even the idea of a government. But so does an execution. We abolished the death penalty in the sixties, I don’t think this council should be known for bringing it back. And what of the admiral?” the general asked. He knew a public execution wasn’t the solution. He didn’t care his fate was tied to that of the admiral and former prime minister, but their future couldn’t impact that of the survivors.

  “As far as the public knows, she’s ill. It wouldn’t be unexpected for her to fail to recover,” the naval officer replied. He saw her execution as a far more private affair. “And as for the admiral, I don’t think we need to worry that his death will be overly scrutinised.”

  There was silence at the table. Each member of the council weighing up the pros and cons of ordering these deaths.

  “There is another option,” the scientist offered. She seemed embarrassed. “We have a cure, it needs testing and we have little in the way of willing subjects amongst our healthy population. Nobody wants to survive the apocalypse to die from an allergic reaction to a new medication. I could administer it to them and we can see what happens and gain some understanding of whether it would be sufficient as a vaccine.”

  “Human testing? Is that any better than reintroducing the death penalty?” the general questioned.

  “She’s taken a lot, it’s time she gave something back. Testing on the pair of them now could advance our understanding of the cure. It could save countless lives and begin the slow process or repaying their debts,” she explained. As a woman of science, she’d never tested on a fellow human being, but it would be the fastest path to progress.

  “I agree. Debts need to be repaid, and I was complicit in their crimes, so I should face the same punishment. That is what we agreed. However, I believe testing for a vaccine isn’t ambitious enough, and doesn’t solve the problem of what to actually do with us long term. You can administer the cure to us, then you have 24 hours for all of your tests. After that, we will be taken to the Isle of Wight, to where we lost so many of our own. Then we’ll really see what this cure is capable of when those things get a taste. Two birds, one stone,” he finished. The general knew it wouldn’t be pleasant, but it would benefit the people they had betrayed.

  None of the council members could look the general in the eye. They didn’t want to admit they liked the idea of that bitch being ripped apart, suffering, whilst at the same time kicking off a chain reaction that may cure the entire island.

  “General, you don’t have to face their fate,” the doctor said it, but perhaps didn’t believe it.

  “Nonsense. It was my condition of joining this council. If I can make right a few of my wrongs, you won’t take that away from me,” the
general stated. He was tired of this life, his soul tainted by what he had been involved with. This would be a perfect redemption.

  With that, the second brief meeting of the council was over. The new council had taken just two meetings to agree to murder, human experimentation, and to lie to the remaining human population. They believed it was for the good of the many. Much like an over promoted, newly installed prime minister had done not so long ago. The first time was always the hardest, but the trick was making sure there wouldn’t be a second time.

  Chapter 66

  The new arrivals had been at the farm for a few days and had made themselves useful. The soldiers had helped repair the damage and prepare new defences. Their presence grew on the survivors, their firearms and willingness to train and arm others gave everyone a sense of protection. The new women stuck together, at first struggling to trust the men who used to keep them under lock and key or worse, but without Charles, things had changed. They had started to recover from their ordeal, now believing a better future was possible, more than they had been allowed to dream of for some time. They helped the older members of the community, many of whom still could not recover from the trauma of the attack. The new blood, supplies and weapons made everyone feel better.

  One soldier, being a trained medic, could tend to Bo. He pointed out he hadn’t needed to treat too many pensioners with heart conditions in Iraq but was happy to help. Bo didn’t make the lad’s life easy and was reminded constantly by Babs to behave.