by TW Brown
She would not stay there, but perhaps she could lose any pursuit by ducking in and maybe breaking into one of the buildings. Surely there would be plenty of places to hide.
She tripped once as she was crossing the tracks and felt a sharp pain shoot up from her ankle. Cursing, she shook off the pain and pushed on. At last she reached her target destination and sort of limped through the entry and the large, open freight loading area.
Two figures across the way turned her direction and began their slow shamble. She considered taking them down, but decided that she could reach the building and hopefully be inside before they got to her. If she could leave them be, then they would be the problem of whoever was chasing her. One of the roll-up freight doors was open and she veered towards it, doing her best to push away the pain that had turned white hot and promised to be a problem for days to come.
At last she reached the blue roll-up and laid flat on her belly after giving the approaching zombies one more look to ensure they were still far enough away. She looked into the consuming darkness. It was quiet enough even with whoever was chasing after her shouting her name on occasion for her to listen for the sounds of anything moving inside the freight bay. There did not seem to be anything, and Shadiyah sort of scooted and rolled under the door.
Getting to her feet, she was not able to see much more than a short distance from where she stood. She cursed as she realized that she had not made allowances for going into anyplace dark. She had no flashlight or anything at all to illuminate the cavernous area.
After a few deep breaths to calm herself, she gave the air a good sniff. Nothing indicated that any walking dead were inside with her. That was a small relief, but a relief none the less. Making her way to the wall on her left, she began to feel her way along in search for any sort of door.
She was surprised when her hands felt a pane of glass. She felt a little further and discovered the door. Unfortunately, it was locked and so she made her way back to the window. She shed her jacket and wrapped it around her sword wielding hand and gave the window a good backhand, smashing through it with the pommel of her weapon.
After clearing any glass so that she would not cut herself, she climbed through. As soon as she did, she froze. Mixing with the musty air was the distinct smell of death and the acrid addition of undeath.
Could zombies see in the dark? she wondered. She certainly hoped not as she pressed against a wall and began to feel her way deeper into the building.
***
“The woman was mad!” one of the two women that had been part of Cedric’s hunting patrol managed through gasps as she struggled to catch her breath.
“She killed your mate as well as Miles Wilson,” the surviving man added. There was a splatter of blood that had sprayed across his face and was dripping down the man’s left cheek. It took Simon looking closer to realize that the man was not actually injured.
“My mate?” Simon was confused.
“Cedric,” the other woman sobbed.
Simon did not need to ask the question. He looked at the stranger that had accompanied the three surviving members of Cedric’s crew. Obviously it was not this woman who had committed these acts. More likely, she had been travelling with the culprit. Still, he needed to hear it for himself for some reason.
“Who did this?” Simon locked eyes with the stranger.
“Her name is Shadiyah,” the woman replied. “She was coming here with a message for you.”
Simon felt his stomach tighten. Could she be harboring a grudge for all of them? Was she going to try and kill him? Mrs. Raye? Surely not little Annie.
“What was the message?’ Simon forced himself to sound calm and as confident as possible.
“Your sister Miranda has been taken care of.”
That single sentence caused a rather broad variety of reactions. For the two women who had seen Shadiyah kill Cedric as well as one of their own, they assumed that meant this terrible woman had likely killed Simon’s sister. Mrs. Raye actually gave a rather stern look to Simon. Nelson raised an eyebrow that could have been concern or confusion. However, for Simon, it was an amazing sense of relief. He had not realized how much leaving Miranda behind as one of those things had weighed on his soul.
“I am going after her,” Simon finally announced.
“You aren’t going out there alone,” Mrs. Raye insisted. “Like it or not, you have a responsibility to this town. You can’t just go putting yourself in harm’s way”
“She’s correct,” Nelson agreed. “I will come along.”
By the time all the debates over who was and who was not going, it ended up being Simon, Nelson, Bruce Bates—the man who was only male to survive the recent encounter with Shadiyah—and Dawn; her being brought along was Mrs. Raye’s one condition that this be allowed at all. (Simon would discuss that little notion with her later as far as her putting forth edicts when it came to what he could and could not do.)
“You need to have a woman with you,” Mrs. Raye had insisted. The stranger had spoken up in agreement, insisting that Shadiyah held some sort of firm prejudice against men. If they were going to have any chance of bringing her back alive as Simon had insisted they would be doing, then a woman needed to be part of the team.
The group took off in the direction that Shadiyah had been seen to flee. Fortunately, the woman had run across a field that was verdant with knee-high shoots of whatever had been planted. Her trail would be simple to follow.
As they left behind the streets of Micklefield for the nearby farmland, the undead became part of the problem. Simon called the group to a halt for just a moment to try and make sense of what he was seeing.
Perhaps twenty or so zombies were visible. They had all turned and were walking away from Micklefield. If he could draw a line from the zombies on either side of the trail, he could almost follow Shadiyah’s path using them like homing devices. That would be something to keep in mind.
It did not take long to discern where it was that she looked to be headed. Simon gave the word to the group and had them all spread out to deal with the walkers. It was a quick and almost boring exercise as they dispatched them. At least in Simon’s case; not one of his targets even paid him any heed until he was almost upon it. Then, as the noise he made during that final approach was enough to be heard, the zombie would lurch to a halt and begin to turn. Not one of them had even completed that action before he caved in the back or side of the skull.
At last they reached the train tracks. This was initially where the trail went cold until Simon heard a distant pounding noise. The sound came from some sort of shipping facility with multiple cargo bays along the front of the building. That is where two zombies now stood. A blue roll-up cargo door was open just a bit at the bottom. It looked like barely enough room for a person to squeeze through. The zombies were both pawing and pounding on that single door.
“Okay, it looks like she went in there.” Simon turned to face his companions. “We can go about this one of two ways. The first is that we could split up and try to find her. The second is that we obviously stay together.”
“You want her brought back alive, yeah?” Nelson confirmed.
“That’s correct.” Simon gave a curt nod.
“Then I vote we stay together. If we split, then we lose the entire reason for bringing Dawn. This woman is unhinged according to what we were told. If we happen upon her without our Dawn, this could go bad in a hurry. I won’t allow some woman to kill me or anybody else just so we can bring her back alive,” Nelson proclaimed.
“Aye,” Bruce agreed. “You didn’t see the way her face almost seemed to take pleasure in the death of Cedric and Miles. I’ve known Miles since primary school. He was always the bloke who helped people. He joined the hunters because he was afraid that we might not treat those survivors we may encounter with kindness. And now he is dead. All he was trying to do was bring this girl to you so that she could make things clear about Cedric.”
“What do you mean?”
Simon asked.
“She says that Cedric was involved in the rape and murder of her sister. She says that you knew.”
Bruce had moved away from Simon just a bit. The hand holding onto his weapon had also moved just enough to bring the blade, still dripping with gore from having just killed a handful of zombies, around in front of him as if he believed he might need to use it shortly.
“Cedric was not involved,” Simon replied calmly.
He knew that the situation could escalate quickly and in a very bad way for him. He explained the entire ordeal that happened back at the Clyde Court Towers. He did omit the part about it being Cedric that bonked him on the head and kept the story restricted to what had happened to Assi. He also told about Cedric’s revelation in regards to him being a detective.
“Why didn’t he let everybody else know?” Nelson asked with a shake of his head. “It would have been nice to know who we had helping us. Bloody hell, he might have been nominated to be the town leader if we would have known that.”
“That is why he kept his mouth shut. I think he liked the idea of remaining undercover in a manner of speaking.” Simon allowed himself a sigh of relief when he saw Bruce’s weapon arm ease down to his side. “Now…if there is nothing else, I believe that we should resume our chase. If we continue to delay, she could be to bloody Bradford by the time we get moving.”
That earned some chuckles and they headed as a group for the two zombies clawing and slapping at the blue roll-up door. Nelson and Simon each took one and made short work of them. As Dawn and Bruce dragged the bodies out of the way, it took the effort of both men and then the others joining in to get the door up more than the foot or so it was already raised.
The discussion had been brief when it came to them simply dropping down and scooting underneath. It was Nelson’s comment that made everybody stop and then, after a few seconds of silence, burst into raucous laughter.
“I am still a good three or four months of being enrolled in the Zombie Apocalypse diet before my gut scoots through a space that slim.”
The light poured into the open cargo bay revealing stacks of crates and boxes strapped down to loading pallets. A quick glance revealed that most of what was in this particular bay to be a hodge-podge of spare parts for a plumbing contractor.
“Business storage units,” Simon announced. “These aren’t shipping bays…this place is a storage facility for various businesses. There may be things here worth looking into once we finish with Shadiyah.” He pointed to the broken window. “Now, let’s go find her before we lose her for good.”
The group headed for the window, but Nelson paused at the door and gave it a tug to no avail. He joined the group with an unapologetic shrug. “Never know if you don’t try.”
Dawn went first and opened the door for the group. “We need to be ready. Smell that?” She waved with her arm down the long corridor. “We got zoms close.”
Bruce pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on. He handed it to Simon with what was very close to reverence “We are only supposed to use these in emergency, I say this qualifies.”
“Yeah, not likely to be able to pop in to the market to grab batteries any time soon,” Simon said with a wistful sigh.
He resumed his position in the lead of the pack and pulled up at the first corner where the smell was becoming much stronger. Peeking around, he saw a body that had been torn apart several days ago by the looks of things. Flies buzzed around the long since coagulated and dried pools of blood speckled with chunks of what had probably fallen out of a zombie’s mouth while it tore away bits and chewed with little regard for manners.
Sitting just a few feet away from the main stain on the floor was a head. Its eyes flicked slightly at the movement when Simon and his group stepped into this new corridor. A small flight of stairs going up to a walkway, where a row of windows that revealed sunlight waited along with an open door, was the only obvious exit from this area. On the stairs were three zombies that looked to have been killed very recently as each had dark fluid dripping from their assorted head wounds.
“I definitely want this woman on our side,” Nelson mumbled as he walked past one zombie that was missing the top third of its skull.
The group stepped outside once again. Each of them began searching for any signs of Shadiyah. Dawn tugged his arm and pointed. She was jogging across a marshy field and headed directly for what looked to have been some sort of quarry.
“Well?” Simon turned to the others. “What do we do? We can give chase or we can simply let this go and return home. She has the jump on us and there is no sense in chasing one person all across the bloody countryside.”
“She killed Miles,” Bruce said with grim determination. “I can’t speak for Cedric, but Miles was a good bloke and didn’t deserve what happened.”
“And I agree. But should we continue this at the risk of all our lives?” Simon pressed. “Running around like this exposes us to zombies and who knows what else. I doubt that she is the worst thing prowling the country these days.”
“I say we return home,” Nelson finally spoke up, raising his hand in a sort of informal vote.
“Agreed,” Dawn said.
Bruce looked out across the marshy field at the figure that was becoming little more than a dot as the woman continued to move away. At last he dropped his head.
“Agreed.”
14
Bait
Shadiyah slid down the sand embankment and came up with a swift swing of her blade that took the closest zombie in the side of the head. Unfortunately, she did not have enough momentum behind her swing to cut through, and her weapon became stuck in the head of her target.
Yanking one of her shorter bladed weapons free, she dropped to her knees to avoid the sweeping arms of the next zombie. She came up and drove the weapon through the underside of the chin and into the brain pan. She jerked back hard and fast to avoid having the weapon wrenched from her hands as the large man, who looked like he had worked in the quarry, fell sideways.
Twice she had glanced back the way that she’d come to see if Simon and the others were still on her tail. She had risked one look just before she jumped clear of the fence that had bordered the side of the place where she had approached. Four small figures were still back at that storage facility and showed no sign of pursuit. That had prompted mixed feelings. There was a part of her that was relieved to not be chased. The other aspect of her emotional whirlpool was a profound sadness.
What had happened between her and Cedric might have been something that she could have worked past with Simon and the other survivors that he looked to have entrenched himself with in Micklefield. However, she was no idiot. Killing that stranger had put her on the outside. She was a murderer. There was no way to make the truth easier to digest. This was not a simple misunderstanding like back at that pool area of that inn.
She had spent less than ten seconds trying to rationalize her recent actions. There was no way to convince herself that what she had just done to that man was in any way justifiable. So, since that was the case and her new reality, then perhaps she should stop trying to hold herself back.
By the time she had put down the dozen or so zombies in the area, she had allowed that veil of blackness that she so desired to cover her mind to take hold. She crossed the quarry and made her way to the road that ran along the front of this massive gouge in the earth, making no effort to alter her path and avoid any of the walking dead along the way.
The more I kill, the easier it will become, she thought as she used the belt knife on her hip to take down a large woman with a hideous bowl cut and large, sagging breasts that had been savaged by the undead attackers that had added her to their ranks. After all, her train of thought continued as she walked up to a tall, lanky man who was wearing the tattered remains of a button-up shirt with a red and blue striped tie, if I am going to start taking down the evil that remains in this world…I am still just substituting one monster for another.
By the time Shadiyah reached the road, she had managed to banish anything that remained of her conscience to the darkest corner of her mind. She had lined up one justification after another in order to give herself permission to become a new incarnation.
She would roam the country for as long as whatever god might exist deemed that she was worthy to do so. Her mission would be to hunt the hunters…prey on the predators. She let that thought marinate in her soul, and that was what occupied her mind when she came upon a small van that had been smashed into by a rickety old flatbed truck. Her reflection was thrown back at her in the windshield and it made her pause. She ignored the undead creature in the driver’s seat as she pulled the side mirror out to get a better look at herself.
“This won’t do at all,” she groused as she took in the reflection looking back at her.
She was splattered with dark blood that left black speckles all over her face which, even without the blood, was in dire need of a wash. Her hair was a tangled mess that hung clumped in some places by who-knew what. The clothing she wore was probably able to stand up if she took it off and leaned it in a corner.
She shuddered and then actually laughed at the idea of what she might attract looking like this. However, this was not going to work at all. She needed to clean up and make herself more appealing.
She considered the possibilities and decided that, while it would not be wise to stay in the house that she had shared with Caron since the woman would undoubtedly lead Simon and his people there in order to capture her, she could make a quick trip there and gather some supplies as well as get cleaned up. From the house, she would then venture into Garforth. That would be the most likely location to find monsters.
Feeling surprisingly happy, Shadiyah made her way to the place she once thought she might be able to call home. She tapped on the glass as she climbed up and over the Mercedes with its securely belted-in eternal occupant reaching impotently for her. She was almost to the door when she heard the sounds of glass breaking inside the house.