Dead Beat

by Remy Porter

  They retraced their steps before it got too dark. Summer was starting to hear things rustling further into the woods, and she wanted to go back on to the beach.

  ‘It’s just deer, I’m sure,’ Johnny said.

  Sliding and walking down the steep incline of the path, Summer thought she saw something move. ‘Did you see that?’ she said, pointing at a distant garden.

  ‘See what?’

  ‘I thought I saw somebody crouch down quick. A body maybe?’

  ‘Wait here,’ Johnny said and walked up the garden path to the house next to the ice cream hut.

  There was a garden feature, a wishing well she guessed, big enough for a person to hide behind. ‘Be careful,’ she shouted. Her heart was in her mouth as she watched Johnny get closer. For a second it looked like there was nothing there, then Johnny stepped back, rigid, scared of something, she thought. Maybe there was a body after all? A man stood up from behind the well, the bulky, round-faced man from the farm. Bob Sack had a gun in his hand.

  ‘Run,’ Johnny shouted, but was cut off when the fat man hit him on the side of the head. Johnny collapsed, and Sack looked her dead in the eyes. Instinct took over. Summer turned and ran for the beach. Rounding the corner onto the causeway, she saw more figures coming towards her. Turning round, Summer jumped down to the beach, sprinting. Above, a figure emerged from the ruin of the boat yard.

  ‘You can run if you like, Summer,’ Jefferson said. ‘Won’t do you no good though.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Tied like a hog, Summer bounced on the metal floor of the transit van. The binds locking her wrists behind her back dug in, painfully cutting off the circulation to her hands. The fat man Sack sat to one side of her, still rubbing his cheek where she’d raked her fingernails down. A small revenge for what he’d done to Johnny. Was he still alive? She wondered. The men had chased her down the beach and tackled her onto the sand. Summer had fought like a wild animal until Jefferson had hit her. Not a slap, but a full-blooded punch that had loosed two of her teeth and sent her down in a dazed heap.

  ‘You know where you’re going don’t you, Summer,’ Jefferson sneered from the driver’s seat. ‘The farm is where you belong now. No call for police anymore. We police our own way.’

  ‘I hope the government roll up tomorrow. I’d love to see you hung from the nearest tree, you fucking psychopath.’

  ‘Anyone gets hung around here, it’s you and your boyfriend. I’d be on your best behaviour if I was you,’ Bob Sack carped back.

  That was all the information she wanted. Johnny must still be alive. If he wasn’t in this van he might be in the van behind. If not there, then he had been left nursing a head injury. She swore if Johnny died Bob Sack would pay a heavy price. Summer tried to relax and take some of the pain out of her wrists as they trundled out of the village.

  ‘Last stop,’ shouted Bob Sack, and the double doors at the back of the van flew open. She felt calloused hands on her arms pulling her out. For a split second, the sunlight hurt her eyes, and then her senses clicked in all at once. The stench and the mess, the place she hated more than anywhere left in the world. She wanted to see this farm burn one day.

  ‘Let me show you to your quarters,’ Griffin said appearing at the van’s back doors. ‘Not the most luxurious, but it will have to do. Until you are more ... domesticated.’

  Summer was on her feet now, and Griffin had one hand tight on the crook of her elbow. She felt helpless with her hands still behind her back. ‘So did you bring me her boyfriend as well, that gutless cop Silverman?’

  ‘He got a clout, could be dead. We just brought the girl,’ Bob Sack said.

  ‘You are a sack of shit, Sack,’ Griffin replied.

  ‘Griffin, these binds are too tight. They’re cutting off the circulation to my hands. You’re going to have to take them off,’ Summer said as Griffin pushed her not towards the farmhouse, but the decrepit old barn off to one side.

  ‘Let’s see if you want to behave first. Might just let those pretty hands go black and fall off. How would you like that?’

  Summer watched Griffin bring a key up to the heavy padlock and click it open. She took one last look back at the farm courtyard. So, Johnny was still out there somewhere, she thought, deciding she wouldn’t bring him up in conversation. Act like she didn’t care as much as she did. Summer saw all the villagers running around doing their farm chores. All drones now, worker ants without an independent thought in their heads. They were the real zombies.

  The barn door opened, and the dank, rotten smell hit her. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said.

  ‘Not the Ritz, but it doesn’t have to always be like this,’ Griffin said marching her inside. ‘Show me you can behave and we’ll see about moving you into the big house.’

  Summer looked around. The barn had a series of wooden stalls, like horses stables. Dull light filtered down from the breaks in the roof. The ground was a mixture of hard packed soil and broken wooden boards. The place creaked and groaned like it was alive itself.

  ‘What’s with all these tents, Griffin? What are you trying to hide under them?’ Summer said. She was sure she heard movement. Distracted, she didn’t even notice Griffin snapping the iron bracelet on her ankle. Five feet of chain lead to a metal supporting pillar. Griffin cut her binds off, her hands completely numb.

  ‘Can’t have you running away, can we?’ Griffin said. ‘And as for what’s under the sheets, well let’s take a look.’

  Griffin walked along the stalls pulling the tarpaulins away. The zombies beneath stirred from their stupor. Summer counted five women strapped and nailed to wooded boards, almost as if they had been crucified, some upright, others horizontal. All naked, all mutilated in some way or other. At least two had their breasts cut away, leaving bloodied open wounds.

  ‘You are sick, Griffin!’ Summer shouted.

  ‘Not so loud, you’ll offend my brother,’ he said pulling off the final sheet. There was what was left of a young man, green-black with the rot in his limbs. The skin in his face had mostly gone. All that seemed left was an ugly grin of teeth, and dry sunken eyes that seemed somehow lost. ‘My younger brother, Dexter. Got to look after family, don’t we? He was always the sensitive one.’

  ‘I wonder what the villagers would make of all this sickness,’ Summer said.

  ‘I do what I want, Summer,’ Griffin said and walked away. ‘I’ll be back later. Might even feed you if you play your cards right.’

  She watched him leave and heard the padlock locked back on. She turned back towards the bodies. Every one of them straining to get to her. If even one of them broke free, she would be torn to pieces. She tried not to make eye contact.

  An hour went by. Summer heard muffled voices from time to time, and the sounds of construction nearby. Eventually she had enough of standing and moved to sit down and lean against the side of the barn. She figured she might be able to kick the boards out of the wall, but that would still leave her attached to the chain. Summer scrabbled around the earth looking for an implement to work on the padlocked manacle around her ankle. All the time the bodies thrashed and moaned, and she tried to ignore them. Eventually, she gave it up and lay down. There was no way out.

  Summer thought about her family. She hated remembering. Every time the black void of depression and despair would open up to claim her whole. Random Christmas memories, the sense of family togetherness and presents, she couldn’t stop them flooding her mind. It hurt that those times would never be repeated, not after hacking whatever life remained out of her mother and father. It made her feel unclean and dirty. Is this how murderers feel, she wondered? All she had now was Johnny. She wanted to believe he was still alive and coming to save her. If he was dead she would make these people pay a dear price for their sadism.

  ‘Are you asleep?’ she heard a woman’s voice say. Summer’s eyes came back into focus. It was darker now inside the barn. She felt a terrible crick in her neck from sleeping on the cold ground.

&nb
sp; ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Alison, Jack’s partner. I came to bring you something to eat,’ the plump woman said. ‘I told Griffin he shouldn’t do this, that you should be in the house. But he won’t listen to me tonight. A stubborn man.’

  ‘Have you got the key, Alison? You know they have kidnapped me. Attacked the policeman and hurt him.’

  ‘I just came to bring you this,’ Alison said laying down some steaming stew to the side.

  Summer instinctively reacted and grabbed at Alison’s jumper tripping her off-balance. She rolled herself on top of Alison and pinned her arms back on the earth. ‘Where is that fucking ankle key bitch?’

  ‘Get off me, you’re hurting.’

  ‘I’ll hurt you a hell of a lot more if you don’t produce that key to unlock me. Now which pocket?’ Summer hissed, driving one of her knees into the side of Alison’s ribs.

  ‘Griffin has it. He’s got the only one.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Summer watched as Alison reached into her trouser pocket and rooted out a solitary key. Summer took it and ran her hands over the pockets to make sure there wasn’t another one hiding. Pulling away slightly from Alison she tried the key in the lock of the bracelet. It didn’t even fit half-way in. Summer stood up and walked a chain’s length away in disgust.

  ‘I need to get the hell away from here,’ she said at last.

  ‘You need to survive, we all do,’ Alison said brushing the dirt off her clothes. ‘Help me get clean, or they won’t trust me enough to let me in here again. It could be bad for you too.’

  Summer did as she was asked. ‘So how did you end up with Jack? Johnny told me you were new here at the farm, that you weren’t here before the outbreak.’

  ‘I wasn’t, I was walking with my husband at the tower when those things came and took him from me. Griffin found me cowering at the top, half-dead from the cold. They took me in and Jack took a shine to me. As long as I do what I’m told, I survive. I don’t always like it but what can I do? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to end up one of those monsters.’

  ‘I guess kidnap and murder are just par for the course these days, hey?’ Summer said.

  ‘I can’t change the way things are these days. I know it’s wrong, but I have to live here too. I have to live with Jack and Griffin however misguided they get. Look, I have to get back; they’ll be wondering why I took so long. I’ll make sure you get breakfast. Just try and rest some more.’

  ‘Look at these things here Alison. Don’t you know what Griffin does with them?’ Summer spat.

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ Alison said and walked out of the barn.

  Restless and frustrated she knelt down and ate the stew Alison had brought. It was the first food she hadn’t eaten out of a tin or a foil packet in months, and it tasted delicious. Whatever that woman had degraded into, she could certainly cook a good meal, Summer thought. Finally, the last of the light through the gaps in the roof faded and she was left with the darkness. The constant shifting and rustling of the tethered dead unnerved her. The smell didn’t go away either. The rot in the air was tangible, almost as if she could taste the dead skin cells in the air. She lay down again and shivered. It would be a long, cold night.

  Woken, there were twin bulbs of light blinding and burning her retinas. Low rumbling voices. She blinked and rubbed at her eyes.

  ‘Can’t you people just leave me alone!’ she shouted. The torches waved in the air, as if floating. She caught a flash of pink skin, a distended belly like a hairy brown boulder.

  ‘Who are you?’ she shouted into the darkness.

  ‘Don’t you recognise us without our clothes?’ A deep growl. Not Griffin, older.

  ‘My Da always goes first,’ another voice said. Now Summer knew, and she screamed.

  CHAPTER 30

  My head felt like something was trying to drill its way out. I’d thought the phrase seeing stars was just a saying, but the haze of rainbow colours dancing in my peripheral vision told me different. Bob Sack had knocked me cold. I kicked myself for not seeing it coming, basically for not ducking. Picking myself up off the dirt path, my fingers went to touch around the pain area. There was an Emu sized egg growing out the back of my skull. Touching tentatively around the edges, I felt the dry, clotted blood, lots of it. Dizzy, I retched, a watery mix on my trouser leg and shoes. How long I had been unconscious? The moonlit sky gave no clue.

  Wobbling back down the path to the causeway path like a 3am drunk, there was no sign of Summer or Bob Sack or anybody else. Nothing there but squawking white gulls on the shoreline, picking the meat off another dead dog. Dead pets were common in the village. No room for sentiment.

  The walk back to the station was a long one. More often than not I found myself bent over, dry heaving what was left of my stomach contents. It was likely concussion. My police Freelander had been defiled, tyres gouged and unintelligible graffiti etched onto the liveried paintwork. I walked round it and punched in the door code for the station’s front door. If anybody waited for me inside I knew I was in no condition to fight, but blundered in anyway.

  ‘Lester, are you in here? I shouted into the dark. ‘LESTER!’

  In the downstairs hallway, I caught a glimpse of a shadow moving in the photocopying room. I charged it, pure bubbling rage that suddenly needed an outlet. The shadow could have been a body or somebody with a gun. This would be how I would go out.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing hiding in here?’ I ranted, shaking the man like a rag doll.

  ‘Take those big paws of me for a second and I’ll tell ya,’ Lester said. ‘God-damn scared me half to death.’

  We lit a candle and I told him what had happened to Summer and me. He was halfway sympathetic when I showed him the state of the back of my head.

  ‘They came here for me too, kicked the back door clean off its hinges. I was a step ahead though, heard those diesels coming a mile off. They never thought to look in the loft, stupid idiots. They stole quite a few bits, weapons and the like. Don’t think we’ve got much to fight those sheep shaggers with now ‘cept the skin off our knuckles.’

  ‘They got it coming now Lester. I’m going straight there and I’m going to get her back,’ I said.

  ‘You do that son, and I might as well stoke a fire up in the back car park right now. A frontal assault isn’t going to do anything other than get you killed before you even set eyes on Summer. Shouldn’t take an old vagrant like me to tell a smart officer like yourself this will need some brain work.’

  ‘Alright, Lester, we do it smart.’

  ‘And speaking of smart, they might have realised by now it wasn’t very intelligent to leave you still sucking on air. Could be they’re going to come back looking for an easy kill. Much as we love this place, we need to haul somewhere unexpected like. Any ideas?’

  ‘Yeah I got one,’ I answered.

  I kicked at the door, and then brought my shoulder hard against the wood. It bulged but didn’t give.

  ‘Try these,’ Lester shrugged, waving a set of keys in front of my nose. ‘Plant pot.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ I said and snatched them out of his hand. My idea for somewhere safe was the village train station. It wasn’t directly on the road, and only accessible by walking down a hundred metres of track from the train station. With no buildings or trees close for cover, we’d be able to see anybody approaching, and hopefully be ready for them. As all the trains were long gone, this was probably one of the last places the farmers would think to look for us.

  Inside the room was an array of antiquated levers and switches that controlled the track and the signals. The body of the signalman was lying on the floor, still in his starchy tweed uniform. He looked like he’d gone through the change at some point, the rictus anger still visible in his face. When a zombie died, they kept that evil biting look.

  We’d been lucky though, as it appeared the undead signalman had cracked open his skull on one of the heavy metal levers that dominated the ro
om.

  ‘So you ever been down there before,’ Lester said pointing at the door to downstairs.

  ‘No, but I’m pretty sure there will be living quarters. The council kept the signal box for heritage reasons. This guy here was a widower I believe, John or James; I forget. I used to see the lights on late doing my patrol, long after the last trains had gone. I’m pretty sure he must have lived here too.’

  ‘Best make sure we black out those windows, or we’ll end up with company,’ Lester said, going down.

  We were short on weapons now the farmers had cleared us out. Lester had a heavy wooden club and I had dug out an old rusted machete from the ransacked weapons store at the police station. Pitch black in the bedsit style apartment below, I washed the light from my torch around the kitchen diner, and then over into the single bedroom. There was nobody else home. The decor reminded me of the late 1950’s, nasty brown wallpaper and framed pictures of steam engines. There were pictures of the village eighty or a hundred years earlier. Pictures of everyday people long since turned to dust. The place was a wreck, broken crockery strewn all over the cramped lounge kitchen. It occurred to me that the change had taken the signalman down here, perhaps after staggering back, bitten by a passing commuter.

  ‘This will do in the short-term,’ I said. ‘We just take turns on the look out, and keep the lights down or out at night. I don’t plan on being here long.’

  I didn’t have a watch but I estimated it was around four hours to dawn. The plan was to take hourly turns on lookout, but in the end, neither of us could sleep. We both found ourselves staring out of the small window in the bedroom. It gave a reasonable view of the road below the seven foot drop on the other side of the track and railway fencing. It was an hour before we saw movement, a farm truck moving slowly past. We saw it three more times as it circled the village.