“Do it, you shitty little coward.”
My arms trembled and I was about to yell for Eliza to get out of the way when Cato suddenly threw his small hands around my mouth, clamping my lips tight. All I had was my eyes, wild and staring as I tried to convey some sort of message for Eliza to leave me, move behind a bush, or even attack me, to end my pathetic parody of a life. She didn't seem to understand, simply standing frozen in place.
These bullets were not meant for her. She had just saved my life. If I let this happen I was less than nothing. What could I do? (Try, just try.)
I bit down hard. Blood spurted into my mouth from Cato's hand as his frail squeal echoed around the back walls of the buildings. I heard an answering moan from the horde at the quayside and inside the shop but they were the least of my worries now. His hands slipped behind me, half the battle won.
My only chance was a sharp movement. I managed to pull my finger off the trigger before throwing my bodyweight to my right, rolling on top of Marcus. His grasp weakened and I managed to throw the gun further up the path, before grabbing hold of Marcus with one hand and raising the other to bring it down onto his face. He spat at me with such venom that I let out a shriek of anger as I threw my fist towards him. He dissolved into the ground and my knuckles slammed onto the slate. I felt my hand flood with pain but it was a small price to pay for saving Eliza. Maybe I didn't really need them, maybe I could protect Perdita by myself, or not even by myself; with Eliza. It would be just Eliza and me and Perdita, forever and ever.
As I cradled my hand, spitting blood which I realised was from my own bitten tongue, I looked back to see if Eliza shared my elation at the victory. The path was empty, save for the sprawled corpse still slowly leaking fluid into the earth. I was left alone in the dark, as the rain once again began to fall and the moans of the dead echoed closer.
I seem to remember checking the neighbouring gardens for signs of Eliza, or maybe I didn't, maybe it was just an intention that played out in my imagination. Either way, I didn’t find her, and the increasing sounds of the pursuing corpses forced me to flee up the path towards the shadowy tree line. The night had become a blur of increasing rain, running over my head and down my neck, soaking me through as I scrambled through mud and stone, branches cutting my face and leaves underfoot making my feet slip. Each time I fell it took a little longer for me to get up again, the rucksack weighing so much more than it should. I was weighed down with what Eliza had given me, her generosity, her will to survive. Except... was it a gift or merely ballast, intended to slow me to a crawl to make me easier for the horde to catch so that she could escape? Maybe Marcus had been right, maybe this was what she had wanted all along.
I had searched a little for the revolver but had been unable to find it before the dead had started lumbering through the archway towards me, so now it lay abandoned in the thick grass outside Eliza’s garden. It was probably a good idea not to take it anyway, if I ever wanted to talk to Eliza again... but then, I wasn't sure if I did want to speak to her again. To simply abandon someone, when they were being ganged up on, it was cowardice. Why hadn’t she defended me?
I started to slow as the light started to filter down through the trees, bringing small patches of colour out of the leaves. There hadn't been many trees on the island, so as the daylight increased I slowed to a halt, looking out at the world under the canopy, a land of broken, rotting wood and discarded bark. The howls of the dead had long ago faded away and I was left with the occasional bird call and the sound of branches shifting in the breeze.
I swung the rucksack off my back, throwing it onto the ground in disgust, before sitting down heavily with my back against a large oak. The rain had chilled me to the bone but everything around me was too wet to make a fire. My clothes were soaked through and clung to my limbs. My hand pulsed with both sharp and throbbing pain from my injured knuckles. Despite all this, I felt my eyelids starting to close. I had no need to fight them any more, my adrenalin had long since run out. The last thing I saw was in the distance from over a ridge, picking her way through the leaves, Perdita, her little blue dress immaculate as ever. She had been following me all the way.
I awoke some time later, a loud cracking noise causing me to stir. I lurched upwards instinctively, though I was in no fit state to defend myself if anything was attacking. It was an unnecessary action though, as it was simply a dead branching tearing itself free in the low wind that was whipping around me. My muscles were painfully stiff after sleeping in my wet clothes but at least they had dried out a little as I had lain in them. The sun was still shining fitfully through the trees so I guessed it was early afternoon. I rolled over, lying on my front for a few moments in the leaves as I tried to take stock of my situation. I was lost in an unfamiliar countryside and alone. I lifted my head up a little and looked around but couldn’t see my three usual companions. Despite of, or maybe because of my absolute lack of connection to this place, I felt at peace. Eliza was gone but there may be others. In this dark new world there had to be others.
I pushed myself up, driving myself to action, before pulling the rucksack over and opening it, gently shaking the contents onto the ground to see exactly what I had to work with.
There was a small two man tent, a waterproofed sleeping bag, a camping stove with four cannisters of gas, a folding camping pan, two bags of pasta, a bag of dried fruit, a tiny salt shaker (Eliza’s idea to add a bit of flavour to anything we have to scavenge), six tins – holding various fruits, vegetables, and beans – four bottles of water, a versatile camping tool with a tin opener, fork, knife and some other adornments and finally a heavy duty torch with two packs of batteries. It was enough to get by, certainly. My heart sank when I found the letters, notes and photographs from Isaac's, all wadded together, ruined by the rainfall that had soaked me through for hours. After they had rested all those years safe in the house I had managed to destroy them in just over a day. There was only one that had partially survived, the top most photograph, which I managed to peel away from the others with only a little damage. It showed Isaac standing proudly in his uniform, the same uniform that he felt he had defiled when he had executed the creature that used to be his precious Jane. I slipped it into my pocket before letting the rest of the ruined documents drop to the ground, ready to fall apart and decompose, mirroring the poor man's body.
There was also a ball of string in a side pocket, so I awkwardly cut a length off using the knife Marcus had given me and tied my right ring finger to my middle finger to help it to heal. It didn't seem to be broken due to the range of movement I still had, so the support would probably only be necessary for a day or two. I packed it all away as neatly as I could manage and grunted involuntarily as I pulled the rucksack back on to my shoulder. I was ready to continue, though I had no idea where to. The forest was on a slight incline, so I decided to keep going up, with the hope of finding some sort of vantage point to work out where I was and find a new destination.
As I picked my way through the wood, staying alert for any sound that may have indicated a walking corpse, I noticed that the trees were starting to become more sparse. Soon I was able to push my way painfully through a bank of ferns and brambles and reach a peak of sorts. It was a flat area populated in patches with thin windswept grass, dotted with a few stones and granite blocks. Maybe it had been a site of worship centuries ago, or maybe they were just rocks left behind after natural erosion of the surrounding earth. Either way I was able to get a good view of my surroundings by clambering on top of the biggest stone which was a good fifteen feet high and dotted with clumps of desiccated moss, gratefully leaving the dead weight of my rucksack on the ground below.
From my vantage point I could see a large body of water to my left, either a lake or more of the coast, lying beyond a few miles of fields. There were one or two patches of trees punctuating the landscape but they were nowhere near as large as the one I had emerged from, which ran behind me all the way to another cluster of hills in the dis
tance. I could just about see the town that Eliza had mentioned off to my right, maybe ten miles away past a belt of farmland. I thought I could see one or two plumes of smoke rising from the distant structures, making me hope that maybe, just maybe...
“I bet they’re all dead,” said Cato, scrabbling his way up the rock like a spider. My heart sank as I watched his jerky movements, slipping quietly towards me, his face intent but his eyes flitting about as if to take in all details at once. A cold breeze whipped around me and I sunk a little deeper into my jacket. I knew without looking, they were all here. Even at the top of the highest peak, they had found me.
I spotted Perdita sitting on a rock a hundred metres away, bobbing her head to a tune only she could hear. She turned towards me as if feeling my eyes upon her but I was too far away to make out her expression. It was not her I was worried about though.
I looked around hurriedly as Cato slunk beside me. He was peering out across the landscape with his eyes narrowing almost to slits, as if he was trying to find a hair on a blanket.
“Where is he?” I asked the thin man, who’s hair was fluttering in the breeze, thin greasy strands undulating around his shrivelled features.
“Oh, him? He doesn’t want to see you right now,” said Cato, looking down at his fingernails, selecting a particularly yellow one and biting it with relish. The answer gave me mixed feelings. I certainly had no wish to see Marcus again so soon, although when he was around I knew I was safer from the dead, at the very least. As much as he seemed to despise me, he needed me for some reason.
“When will he come back?”
“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him... but you can’t because you drove him away,” said Cato. The tone was matter-of-fact rather than accusatory.
“I had to,” I hissed as I leaned towards him, momentarily overcome with rage at this little wretch who just kept prodding and poking with his barbed words. Cato looked taken aback, almost toppling off the rock as he scrabbled away, coming to rest in a tiny crouch some feet away.
“You didn’t have to, Marcus would have taken the responsibility. He always does.”
“It was my finger on the trigger,” I said, grinding my teeth, “and there was no reason to kill her. She wasn’t going to harm us, why would she? You are always – you and him – so bloody paranoid.”
“She was thinking about it though,” said Cato quietly, his mouth barely moving as if afraid of the potential of the words for inflaming the argument.
“How do you know that? Can you read minds now?”
“No, but I can read faces. The way she looked at you, she never trusted you. Didn’t you see the way she stared? She thought you were dangerous and that one day you’d flip and go for her, just like Marcus went for the brigadier.”
“That’s not me, that’s not what I would do,” I said, getting to my feet on top of the wide rock. I towered over the shrivelled little man.
“That’s not how she sees it,” he replied, trying to move but having nowhere to go.
I spat on Cato.
“Maybe I should kill you, for your part in all this,” I said quietly. It was a hollow threat, I would never take the life of another person, no matter what the provocation, although he wasn’t to know that. I just wanted him scared; it would be some kind of small payback.
“Don’t... I didn’t tell Marcus to do it, I didn’t do anything! I didn’t harm y...”
“You did, you put your slimy little hands all over my mouth, I can still taste your blood, you pathetic little shit,” I said. The words were harsh and unfamiliar but I meant them with every fibre of my being.
“I didn’t!” screamed Cato, throwing his palms up to show me. They were unmarked, except for some strange wrinkles that he had developed, probably as a result of his constant fluctuations in size. Something about that theory sat awkwardly in my mind, as if built on shifting foundations, but this wasn’t the time to dwell on it.
I turned away from Cato and looked across the ground towards Perdita. The breeze was ruffling her dress a little as she stood staring at me. She was still too far away to see but I could tell in my bones that she was smiling.
I moved carefully but purposefully, climbing down the rock onto the ground while making sure I wasn’t putting too much strain on my injured hand. When I reached the bottom I picked up my rucksack and pulled it on, keeping my eyes on the ground. I didn’t want to see Cato or Perdita, their presence feeling like a weight on my shoulders every time I caught a glimpse of them. Maybe Eliza had been right, this protection and help they afforded was looking more and more like imprisonment. I stood a moment while trying to decide which course of action to take next but it was ominously clear how small my options were. The harbour behind me was a nest of the dead, the water to the left could have held some civilisation but also could have held nothing more than a nice view, so my only viable course was towards the town, as dangerous as that may turn out to be.
I walked towards the lip of the ridge and looked down. It was quite a steep slope, most of it obscured with trees, their leaves on the turn into reds and browns. There was a small trail leading down from further along, maybe an animal track. As I scrambled down onto it, my feet skidding over loose rocks and dirt, I wondered if animals were also prey to the living dead or if it was only humans that interested them. That would certainly add a strange new perspective to the plague if it was confined solely to our species even as far as their appetites were concerned.
It was ponderous but relatively easy going and the sun was starting to become lower in the sky as I reached the bottom of the ridge. The animal track joined up to a rough mud drive riddled with tractor tread marks, which was still sludgy after the previous few days rainfall. A large field of yellowing wheat descending into rot lay on the opposite side of the track, harvesting obviously being low on the list of priorities for anyone who was left. Beyond it I could see some hedgerows, a few trees and maybe a mile away there lay a farmhouse, dark against the horizon. It was directly in my path, so rather than skirt around it at the cost of an hour or so I decided to at least get close enough to see if it was deserted or not.
I looked back up the slope out of a habit formed in my days on the island, trying to spot one or other of them. Of course in those days it was out of loneliness, today it was only out of nervousness. There may have been the suggestion of blue through the trees, or maybe it was a patch of sky momentarily glimpsed through the thickening cloud cover. I shivered involuntarily and moved on, pushing my way through the wheat.
It was a strange and pleasant sensation to feel the stalks against my hands as I moved through the field and I was taken off guard as the gnarled dead fingers grabbed my ankle, fingernails digging into my flesh. I screamed and kicked out involuntarily, losing my footing and falling backwards, pulling the corpse with me. The sight of it filled me with nausea. It must have been feasted upon by others for a long period of time as there was little left of it except it’s shoulders, most of it’s head and a tattered spinal chord dangling forlornly out of its ravaged torso. I couldn’t tell whether it had been a man or a woman due to the level of decay, as it had obviously been languishing within the wheat for at least three or four weeks. Most of the skin was gone from it’s body, leaving fly and maggot infested muscle on show. Half of it’s jaw was missing and the little bit that remained was working furiously, twitching back and forth under a head more skull than flesh. The eyes were long gone, so somehow it had sensed my presence through another means...
I tried to kick it but it held my ankle at such an angle that I couldn’t get my whole boot to make contact, only scuffing the corpse with my heel. It swung its other arm towards me, though the limb ended in a sticky black stump instead of a hand so it couldn’t get a purchase on my trousers, merely spreading rotten matter on the cloth. The other arm was freakishly strong though, despite it’s lack of flesh. It was pulling its whole torso towards me as I tried desperately to twists its fingers. I could feel a little blood starting to leak from
the wounds caused by it’s fingernails as I scrabbled and kicked my way backwards over the wheat, dragging the corpse every inch of the way. Eventually I managed to snap the thing’s thumb with a sickening pop and slipped out of it’s grasp, kicking myself away quickly and standing up. I still only had a few feet between me and the thing, as it carried on crawling inexorably towards me, it’s clicking jaw the only sound except for a vague hiss that was coming from somewhere in it’s throat.
I fumbled in the pocket of the jacket that had become twisted around me and wrestled the knife out but it was clear that it would be no use in this instance. There was so little flesh left on the thing that I had virtually nothing to attack, and at any rate the dead felt no pain and would not stop in their relentless pursuit save through incapacitation. I shoved the weapon back into my pocket in disgust. There was nothing else for it. I tried to steel myself for what was to come and strode forward as purposefully as I could manage so that I would be within the corpse’s range before it had a chance to grab me. I threw my right foot down as hard as I could, trying to fill the movement with all the anger and pain I felt towards this plague that had destroyed a society I never knew... but I was not Marcus and there was no extra power in my leg, so when I hit the skull and there was only a small crunch as I caused a fracture. The corpse’s head twisted upwards, attempting to bite me as it’s arm swung around to try and grab hold of my boot. I brought my heel down a second time, this time fuelled by fear. That did it. The head came apart with a wet snapping sound, scattering the skull’s contents over the trampled wheat stalks.
I stood panting for a few minutes, staring at the multi-hued spray that had fanned out from the corpse like the plumage of a particularly grisly peacock. The sun was setting, darkness starting to creep in at the periphery of the horizon. Eventually I felt ready to brave the rest of the field but as soon as I began walking a dull pain in my ankle reminded me of the tight grip of the dead. I looked down, pulling my trouser leg up and my sock away from the damaged area. The fingernails had been long, cutting me deeply. The wounds were only bleeding a little and the pain was barely a nuisance but it was the infection I was more worried about. I had no idea how this disease was spread but blood was always an able vehicle for bacteria. I had no medicinal alcohol with me, so I now had to get into the farmhouse, sooner rather than later.
Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead Page 8