The Secret Dead (London Bones Book 1)

by SW Fairbrother

‘Like that works,’ I said, thinking of the harpies.

  ‘You just need to be more authoritative.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Easier said than done.

  The boat stopped outside the ZDC, and reality shimmered to allow it into the too-small parking lot. I climbed down the ladder at the side then jumped onto the dry pavement, and the death ship continued without me.

  I looked around. There was no one to be seen anywhere: no boats moving on the Thames, no swooping fliers above me. The death world was completely deserted. But the Power Station looked exactly the same as it did in real life. It didn’t even flicker.

  The reception area was the same—no flickering, or soft edges. Everything looked hard and real.

  A copy of the Evening Standard was stuffed between two of the metal chairs. Something on it caught my eye. I pulled it out and straightened the crumpled front page. It was the same blurry picture of Ben in flight that the BBC had gone with, but it wasn’t quite right. It was definitely him, soaring above the rooftops, but there were no wings. There was some serious mojo going down in the place to make it as solid as it was, and somewhere in that mojo, the photo had updated to Ben as he likely was now. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

  I tore the front sheet off the paper, folded it, and stuffed it under the plastic on my forearm. It helped a little with the chafing, but not much. Then I clumped over to the reception window and pressed the buzzer. I wasn’t sure who was going to answer. No one did. The steel door slid upward.

  A single fluorescent light flickered overhead, but the others were all out; the door beyond to the inner carpeted reception area was wide open, but it was a perfect rectangle of darkness. ‘How many zombies does it take to change a light bulb?’ I whispered.

  This wasn’t right. It wasn’t too late to turn back. I shut my eyes tight and breathed deeply.

  Don’t be a wuss, Vivia. Go slow, and if there are any loose zombies, turn and run like hell.

  I stepped through. The door to the outside shut behind me with a clang.

  Somewhere beyond in the darkness, something shifted, and over the sound of my own breathing, I became aware of a slithery, scrapy sort of sound.

  And turn and run like hell. Stupid idea.

  I twirled awkwardly in the white plastic and reached for a door handle or exit button or anything that could get me out. I felt nothing but smooth, cold steel.

  I tugged at the key around my neck, but nothing changed. The door stayed closed, stayed steel, stayed smooth and handleless.

  I turned back to the murk. Through the door, the darkness lengthened and became a long skeletal creature pulling itself along on withered forearms, jaw snapping. Its sex would have been unidentifiable except for a pristine pair of pink high-heeled shoes at the end of its shrivelled legs. Or, I corrected myself, it could have been a male who had a preference for such things. Whatever it was, the thing slowly pulling itself towards me was beyond worrying about its footwear.

  And it was not where it was supposed to be. This was the safe zone. A horrible realisation came to me. This was the ZDC without anyone to maintain it. No one who hadn’t zombified would ever come here after death. This was a ZDC where the living dead were in charge.

  I took a deep breath. You just need to be more authoritative. I’ve seen hags tell worse things than ghost zombies to bugger off.

  I put my best school teacher face on and said as authoritatively as I knew how, ‘Go away!’

  The creature, not in the least discouraged, kept coming. I poked at it with the flat of the sword. ‘Shoo!’

  It ignored that too. I pointed my sword at it and waited for it to come closer, trying to figure out the best way to dispatch it. Head first and then limbs seemed like the best bet, but this wasn’t a real zombie. It was a soul that thought it was a zombie. The thought crossed my mind that it might just slither back together again.

  But I couldn’t think of anything worse than being trapped, confused and hungry, in a decomposing body until there was no scrap of flesh left for the soul to cling to. Some of the spirits in the building had likely been trapped in their bodies for decades before true death had claimed them. If I chopped it up and left it here, some poor sod’s soul might be stuck here in rotting pieces forever. It felt like a mean thing to do.

  So in the end, I did an undignified little hop over the thing on the floor and raced towards the door in my wellies.

  Glow strips along the walls provided just enough light to see a few paces ahead but no more than that. Both steel doors on either side of the reception window were open. Neither would fit the key around my neck. I needed to find another way out. The zombies arrived via a different door, one that opened up for the containment van. That was at the lowest and deepest part of the building. I peered into the darkness of the door to my left. It stayed steady, and the only noise was of the crawling creature behind me as it tried to about turn and that of my beating heart, which had taken on a drum-like tempo.

  I walked slowly but steadily, the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up. At the end of the corridor, I turned right again, following the path I had earlier towards the containment cells where I’d last seen Malcolm. The cells were black hollows against the wall, but the thick glass was still in place, and occasionally something shifted and groaned in the darkness. I walked quicker, unwilling to stop and investigate the thumps and lumps behind me as bodies threw themselves against the glass.

  All I needed was the right damn door. I wasn’t even going to start thinking how I could be daft enough to come here in the first place.

  I whispered over and over again, ‘Go away. Go away,’ but it had no effect.

  And then there was a cell with no glass. Something launched out of the darkness and enveloped me in its arms. Both my arms were pinned to my sides; I struggled to raise my sword, struggled to get any momentum to get a thrust in.

  The zombie kissed me, gently, on the cheek and stepped back. ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ it said.

  My heart stopped trying to run away all on its own and returned to a calmer rhythm in relief.

  ‘Hello, Sigrid.’ She’d blended in. Her blond hair hung in strings and clumps from her scalp, and my skin was slimy where she had kissed me. She grinned, showing brown teeth. ‘You look disturbing, Siggie,’ I said, but it was good to have her there, even if it wasn’t good to see her. She could be my watch zombie.

  She nodded, thoughtfully. The movement of her head made a glutinous sound. ‘It isn’t quite right being the dead living.’

  ‘It’s the other way round...’ I started to say but broke off. She was right. She wasn’t the living dead. She was the dead living. Her body was in the living world, but her soul was here. The living dead were the other way round, a dead and decomposing body with a soul firmly stuck within.

  ‘Can you take me to Rosa Brannick?’ I was very, very aware that the darkness was starting to shift at either end of the corridor. Something was coming closer. I turned and peered into the black.

  ‘You never come just to visit me,’ she said plaintively.

  ‘Siggie?’ I turned back, but she was gone. Blinked out as if she had never been there. It was just me and a dark building crammed with the living dead.

  54

  I advanced into the darkness, holding the pointy end of my sword straight out in front. There was no way left but straight ahead. The glow strips highlighted glass cells, bare walls, and finally a light switch, which I toggled on and off to no effect.

  The shifting darkness ahead began to take shape into two distinct shambling forms. Both were withered and skeletal, two souls stuck in a special and unfair form of hell. Both sniffed the air as they shuffled, although they had no noses with which to do so. I stood my ground, thinking. As they drew closer, I pulled back my sword in readiness and waited.

  A sharp kick to the left shoved the closest back down the corridor. It coasted into the dark, sliding on its back. The remaining creature shuffled towards me, slow enough that I could line up the swo
rd against its neck. I swung it hard. The sword snicker-snacked into its neck.

  Where it should have decapitated the creature. Instead the sword stuck halfway through. The zombie’s fingers scrabbled at my plastic-covered chest. Thank God for geeky ex-boyfriends. I tried to pull the sword out without pulling the undead thing closer to me.

  Finally, I pushed my foot against its groin and the sword pulled free. The zombie crumpled to the floor on its back, limbs waggling.

  I hacked at its neck and decapitated it with two strokes. The limbs didn’t stop scrabbling, and the jaw didn’t stop snapping, but it didn’t come after me, which was ultimately the real goal. I peered back towards the remaining creature, feeling a little smug about my swordmanship.

  Further away, the remaining creature was still struggling to turn itself around. Something glinted as it twisted—a gold necklace around its neck. Gunk covered the broken locket, any photographs within long since rotted away. The smugness faded. Who were you?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said aloud.

  I left them behind me in the darkness and carried on. The glow strips illuminated the metal of my sword, and I shuffled along with it in front of me as if I were playing some first person RPG.

  Even at my snail’s pace, it only took a few minutes for me to reach the end of the corridor and a fire door. I reached for my key just in case, but nothing changed. Damnit.

  I stood outside it for a minute first, listening. Nothing but silence from within.

  I turned the handle and stepped into the dark. I could only see a few feet ahead in the pale light: nothing but institutional floor tiles and darkness. I shuffled forward slowly. The door clicked shut behind me.

  And of course that’s when I heard it: a dry slithery sound that echoed in the darkness. No, not an echo. A duplication. A sound coming from all sides at once. I stepped back quickly and pulled at the door handle. Nothing gave. The door had locked behind me. I pulled at it again, but it was solidly shut, a thick steel security door made to withstand a ravening horde. I wouldn’t be able to just force it open.

  And then I saw it, high above: a single fluttering fluorescent light. I was in the pit.

  Cold fear washed over me. It wasn’t possible. You couldn’t just open a door and walk into the pit. You had to be lowered through one of the cells. There were no damn doors into the pit. At least in the living world. It wasn’t bloody possible.

  The darkness moved all around me. There was none of that telltale dead man’s moan. These creatures had been dead too long—even if they’d remembered what their voices were for, their throats and voice boxes had long since rotted away.

  Think, Vivia! There was a way in. There has to be a way out. But all I could think was damn Sigrid for running away and leaving me with just a Stormtrooper costume and a sword I didn’t know how to use properly.

  My eyes adjusted slowly to the murk, and the moving darkness became a wall of leathery skulls, all looking at me. How could they see me when their eyes were long rotted away? I shook the thought out my head. It wasn’t the best time for zombie philosophising. There were hundreds of them, all pushing against each other to get to me first. As I watched, the front row collapsed under the weight of the creatures behind, who simply crawled over their broken remains. To my advantage, it was slow going. None of them had the muscles left to run or walk. Each step was wobbly, each movement unsure and trembling, but they were still getting closer. The zombie wall shuffled in a decreasing semi-circle towards me.

  I did the only thing I could. I ran straight at them, shoving them down as I went. The things toppled backwards onto their fellows, who collapsed under them. My boots crunched as their bones, brittle with the years, broke under my feet.

  Hands like claws scrabbled at my ankles but didn’t find purchase on the smooth plastic. Every step, my feet faltered on some uneven surface of rib cage or skull or wriggling pelvis. There was no end to them. I waved my sword around in a circle and felt a satisfying thwack as I hit something. Behind me something grabbed hold of my foot, and I hopped on the other as I tried to pull away. I fell forward and just managed to stop myself from falling face first into a snapping maw.

  In the kerfuffle, the thing behind me managed to pull my boot off. I stood on one leg and held my socked foot off the floor away from hungry mouths. I couldn’t hop my way out. I was having enough trouble on two feet. I slammed my foot down and felt a stabbing pain as a sharp piece of bone spiked through it. A fresh shot of fear ran through me. Maybe the ancient, dry bone no longer carried the infection. Maybe.

  I shoved the thought away and waded faster, slamming down first with my right-booted foot as I went.

  There was an end. About six feet ahead, I could see a blank space not filled with pale nightmares. And beyond that was another door, a wooden door surrounded by a softly glowing nimbus.

  ‘That better bloody well not be locked,’ I muttered.

  I kicked a snapping skull in the face. It splintered backwards.

  I ran forward and put my socked foot right into a dead man’s jaw, which clamped down immediately. I screamed and pulled my foot away, but the skull simply snapped off the remainder of its neck and came with, firmly locked down on my foot. I could swear it was making happy little maw-maw noises even if I knew that was impossible.

  That’s it. Bitten. Might as well stay here. The thoughts were fleeting, but somewhere in the back of my mind part of me was screaming and didn’t know how to stop.

  Two percent. Rotting death deferred, if not evaded. It was a shred of hope to cling to. I swallowed my fear. I’d run free of the slithering masses, but the tide was turning slowly back towards me. There wasn’t time to stop and pry the head free. Instead, I made for the door, crunching the skull against the floor as I ran.

  I reached it and pushed down on the handle, praying that it would give. It did. I pushed it open, ran through and slammed it shut behind me, putting all my weight against it. I didn’t think the things in the pit had the strength or brainpower to open it from the other side, but the sheer weight of them might be enough to push it open.

  But that wasn’t what was occupying my mind. I’d been bitten.

  55

  Everything was burnt. The door out of the pit had deposited me into the charred remains of an apocalypse—an urban wasteland of blackened brick and soot. Neat black squares lined with rubble indicated the spaces where buildings had stood, with only the skeletons of dead trees to break up the monotony. Multiple human-like harpy faces watched me expressionlessly.

  I sat heavily and leaned against the door. Ash wafted up into my nose, and I sneezed. Pain washed over my foot in waves. The skull was still happily chewing.

  I pressed my foot and the skull with it against the ground and pushed at it with my boot until the teeth gave way and the disembodied head rolled off, jaws still grinding.

  Slowly, I peeled back my sock and winced. My foot looked like it had made it halfway through a meat grinder. All my toes were intact, but I could see a lot more of my own stringy sinew than I’d ever thought I would. On the whole I’d prefer it if all of my insides stayed, well, inside. Nausea bubbled up, and I swallowed heavily.

  The chattering skull on the dusty ground looked for all the world like some cheap wind-up toy, not something that might end my life.

  Two percent. I said it to myself silently over and over. It wasn’t much, but it was the only hope I had. Not enough.

  Anger began to build. I looked around for something to smash the thing with. Suitable material littered the ground. I picked up a blackened brick, hopped over, and raised it high. The skull chattered and snapped with excitement at my proximity. How did it even know I was there?

  Only the tiniest scraps of flesh clung to the ancient bone. Somewhere in those empty eye sockets was someone’s soul. It crunched its teeth at me, and I sighed. Trying to reason with the dead was pointless. I lowered the brick.

  ‘You’re dead, little soul,’ I said. ‘Dead. Dead. Dead. You don’t have to be a zombi
e anymore.’

  I hopped out of biting range and inspected my foot again. The damage wasn’t deep, but it was wide and broad. Most of the skin on the arch was, if not gone, then mangled beyond recognition. I gave a hollow laugh. On the upside, the likelihood of infection meant I wouldn’t be worrying about it in a couple of days.

  High above, the sun shone hot through clouds of smoke. A trickle of sweat rolled down my cheek. I looked around: there was no one in sight. Except for the harpies, the whole area appeared abandoned.

  I pulled off the Stormtrooper’s helmet, and the burning stink hit my nostrils. I pulled off the rest of it. I wasn’t sure why I was here or what here was, but there were no zombies to be seen under the smoky sky. I left the outfit in a pile. My jeans would be too tough to rip for a bandage, so I tried my shirt. I don’t think I have particularly weak fingers, but it, too, was rip-resistant. I pulled it over my head and used the whole thing to wrap my foot. Bright red blood seeped through the makeshift bandage within seconds.

  Behind me I heard my sister say, ‘Oh, there you are.’

  I turned around, ‘And where the... ack!’

  Sigrid was lucky she’d spoken first because if she hadn’t I would have cut her damn head off. How she spoke was another question. She’d dressed for the occasion in her best burnt-out skeleton suit, so she was nothing but blackened bones. Only her voice told me it was her and not some other random skeleton.

  ‘That is really creepy.’

  The skeleton nodded in agreement. ‘I can be the living dead if you like.’

  ‘No, that’s creepy too,’ I said. ‘And smelly. Can’t you just be you?’

  ‘Which one?’

  She had a point. Should she be the fourteen-year-old girl who’d died or the woman who wasn’t really there?

  ‘Be you as you should have been,’ I said, and she became, as if the skeleton had never existed, just a slim, bright-haired woman in a strappy sundress.

  ‘You’re a strange old bird,’ she said. ‘It’s always me.’