by Ian Woodhead
Chapter Eleven
He shook himself awake, trying not to gasp aloud. Hot sweat dripped in rivulets from his forehead onto the dusty floorboards. Lee blinked away the torrent of confusing imagery still flowing like a movie through his anxious mind. He slammed his head back against the wall and took a deep breath. Sunlight streaming through the bedroom window now turned the previously dull looking room into a kaleidoscope of autumnal colours. It also meant that he had been asleep for too many hours, and it was now time to get the fuck out of here.
His two companions sleeping on the other side of the room had not budged when Lee had jerked awake. That did surprise him. Both were very light sleepers. Waking them while he attempted to make a run for it had worried the fuck out of him. That was very odd. He picked up one of the soft toys that he had been using as a pillow and threw it in their general direction. The bright pink fluffy hippo landed on Geoff’s face, but he did not even budge.
The obvious course of action was to get out of here, taking full advantage of his good luck. The problem was that his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Lee needed to know why they were so deep in sleep. He closed his eyes, directed his thoughts towards the pair of them, and found they were both sharing the same dream. Lee could even see and smell their joint meal.
He stood barefoot on wet grass gazing up at the huge mountain of fresh human meat. The sheer size of it just blew his mind. Lee blinked and stepped back, trying to take in the size. As he moved, several translucent figures rushed past his dream-self, each one shouting orders in a strange language. The figures crowded together and all grasped a thick rope that appeared across the flesh mountain.
They pulled the rope tight and wrapped the end around a large metal stake pushed into the ground. Once they were satisfied that the rope was secure, the ghostly people rushed further down, heading towards the next rope.
Lee walked over to the rope, wrapped both his hands around it, and clambered up. As he reached the top, he discovered that this mountain was actually an impossibly huge human. The man’s face seemed like a mile from where he stood. He slowly turned around and discovered that he was standing on the giant’s ankle.
Lee was not alone. The fabric beneath his feet started to shift and he found warm blood splashing on his bare feet. The fabric ripped open and James’s head pushed through the hole. He waved and smiled a cartoonish grin.
“Geoff is chomping on the neck. I’m going to eat my way to him. Do you want to join me?”
Lee’s eyes snapped open. “Fuck me!” he gasped.
Pale moonlight shone through the bedroom window; oh, that was so not funny. He thought he had only closed his eyes a couple of seconds ago.
“Come on, Lee,” he whispered. “Shake yourself out of it, man.” That was so unreal. He could not believe that he had just wasted the past few hours indulging in the stupid dream of two complete fools.
Lee climbed out of his sleeping bag and looked across at them. They were still unconscious, no doubt continuing to eat their way through the giant human, playing out their own perverted version of Gulliver’s Travels. With luck, the fuckers will stay in there, at least until they were both buried under a pile of huge bones.
“It’s time to get this over with.”
The rucksack was still clasped against James’ chest. He didn’t know why he bothered; there was fuck all in it now. They had all dined on the last few pieces before settling down to sleep. He got to his knees, pulled out the lower white drawer close to his body and rummaged through the t-shirts. He grinned when his fingers fastened around a small piece of cold meat. He looked at the other two, making sure they were still sleeping before he pushed the tiny lump of thigh into his mouth.
He had saved that bit from the time when they still had a large amount of food left. Lee was so glad that he had used a bit of foresight. Those two just had not understood. If he were denied food, his mind would degenerate beyond salvation. There was no way to pull him back, not again. It was simply too late.
Lee needed tainted meat, and a lot of it. The disease was slowly creeping through his body. He had not told them that his right foot was already beginning to turn.
“I have a dead foot,” he whispered as he wandered over to the window.
Lee had already noticed that the filthy shambling corpses were paying more attention to his colleagues than to him. Not that he was all that surprised. Those things must know that he would be joining their gang very soon.
No, not if he had anything to do with it. Lee had a plan. He believed that not only could he halt the spread, he would be able to reverse it, too.
Months before the fall of the hunters and before he was reunited with his two old workmates, Lee had run with two female hunters. He had never encountered a female member of his kind before, so it came as a shock to find out that they both scared the crap out of him. They were strong and fast and without any form of conscience whatsoever.
He did not stay with them long. Both the women only wanted him for his body and the carnal indecencies that he could perform. At first, it seemed like he had died and gone to Heaven. One day though, he came to the horrifying comprehension that one of the pair would end up slaughtering him.
They fought daily over which one would lay claim to him that night. Their heightened emotions frightened him silly, and considering both were ten times stronger than he was, Lee just knew that he was playing with fire.
While the decision to sneak away was still just a seedling in his mind, he witnessed one event that absolutely shook him to the core.
All three of them were stalking a small group of young teenage humans through a card factory. They had worked very well together as a pack. That, combined with their skills ensured that the kills were easy and plentiful. Working like this, they could pretty much guarantee at least one kill per day.
As Lee crept between a corridor of steel machinery, he knew that he would miss the easy food and the thrill of the hunt if he did in fact decide to leave his two psychotic lovers.
Both women were in front of his position and deliberately making as much noise as they could, trying to drive their prey out into the open.
His job was to kill as many humans as he could as they raced past him in a panic. There were at least seven humans trapped in this building. In his mind, Lee planned to kill at least five of them and keep one body hidden away in case he did decided to leave.
The two female hunters would not suspect a thing. Lee had become quite a master at hiding his thoughts, not that hiding his intent was that difficult. Their mental power was not half as keen as his.
Lee heard a chorus of screaming and grinned, assuming that they were trying out a different tactic. The grin slipped when he felt the mind of one of the women in pain and crying out for help.
Lee jumped over the machinery, scrambled onto the gantry above his head, and raced along the narrow ledge that ran just a few feet below the factory ceiling. He saw the teenage girls silently scurrying along the corridor towards the exit. He figured that he could have taken out at least four of them if he dropped down. The loyalty to his species would not allow him to not respond to the painful cries of his partner. He carried on running towards the source of the mental anguish.
He found both women on the second floor. It looked to Lee that one of them had pushed her foot through a section of rotten floorboard and the other woman was trying to free her. Lee's desire to help his companions severely diminished when he felt the presence of dead minds. There were a dozen of them, and they were very close.
The woman snapped her head around, her face in a grimace of worry and anger, and ordered Lee to help. As he carefully walked along the wooden boards, he saw the things through the multiple holes in the wood milling about in the room directly below them.
Lee helped her lift the woman up and saw that the things below had managed to chew at least half a dozen chunks of flesh off her foot.
He broke from his recollections, lifted his own affected foot up, and rest
ed it on the window ledge. It had only taken her a couple of days for her bitten foot to heal. She, though, was the strongest hunter he had ever met. Back then, food was abundant. Even so, she had still had to consume two full bodies for her flesh to repair.
The pungent aroma from his decaying flesh made his eyes water. Lee certainly was not that strong, but he could just sense all that fresh meat almost within arms reach. The settlement was so close. He abruptly turned and crept over to the door. It was time to leave his dreaming friends, possibly forever.
Neither of them was prepared to explain their reasons for waiting for a few hours before raiding the settlement. The bastards were taking advantage of his weakened state and following their own agenda. It was so obvious. It was so annoying to him that they were not even treating Lee as an equal anymore.
He left the bedroom and silently descended to the ground floor. Back at the monastery he had power and respect. Amongst these two, he had nothing; they just treated him like some kind of child with learning difficulties.
“I don’t need their charity,” he muttered. “I don’t need anything from those two anymore.”
Lee hurried out of the house, bolting the door after him. He suddenly noticed just how many of the shambling corpses were hanging around. The presence of three hunters must have made the local monsters very agitated. Since they had entered this dwelling the dead population must have tripled.
He double-checked the door before moving off. The last thing he wanted was for his companions to open their eyes and find the room full of dead things desperate to feed on their flesh. The two may have treated him like a fucking retard, but he would never wish that upon anyone. Not even them.
Lee saw that three dead things had sensed him. They were sniffing the air in his direction like mutts sensing roast meat. He quickly leapt over the side fence, ignoring the pain in his damaged foot, and ran across the waist high lawn towards the open gate. The damn things packed out the area, but he was not too concerned. He figured that they would start to thin out once he was past this cluster of houses. He did not think they would be that much of a threat.
“Shit,” he hissed.
In his hurry to leave he had left his cricket bat leaning against the wall. There was no way in hell that he was going back to get it. He ran out of the garden and jogged along the middle of the road, keeping a wary eye on the dead things. It bothered him slightly that the bastard was not really interested in his movement.
“I should count my blessings, it’ll make my journey a lot easier.”
Lee did not want to count his fucking blessings. Those fuckers just ignoring him, acting as if he was not there, as if he was already one of them, made him furious.
“Oi, you dirty shitheads,” he shouted. “Look, I’m right here, fresh meat. Come on, get over here and eat your dinner!”
Two of them turned their heads, gazed at him for a moment before turning away as if he were nothing more than an annoying fly.
Lee bit down his fear, realising that he had just shouted out in the middle of the road like a pissed up chav. He looked over at the bedroom, almost expecting the two faces of his fellow hunters to be peering down at him.
“Get your shit together,” he said. “Enough of the pity party.”
He continued to ignore the fact that the numbness in his foot had now crept up to his ankles as he carried on jogging down the street. This community was only a mile from where they had chosen to settle down. Not that he had any say in the matter; they had not listened to a word he had said.
“Forget about them for fuck sake you whiny bitch,” he muttered, picking up the pace. It just meant that he would have first pick of the meat.
The three of them had scouted the area earlier. Geoff had pointed out the guards patrolling the perimeter and warned them not to get too close. They were expert shots with those crossbows and always aimed for the head.
Lee stopped on the corner of a street and clambered onto the roof of a yellow van. The boundary to the human settlement lay about half a mile past the next row of stone terraced houses. Before he carried on, he thought it might be a wise idea to check for any activity between here and the fences. Geoff had also mentioned that the colonists also ventured beyond the fences frequently.
He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. Like iron filings close to a strong magnet, his mind was drawn to that large collection of human minds.
Lee gasped, his eyes snapped open, and he fell back. Once more, he slammed his head. The sudden pain helped to disengage his swamped mind from that bubbling cauldron of raw intense emotions that threatened to drown him.
“What the hell has happened in there?” Lee jumped off the van, stumbling as he landed on his infected leg. The numbness had now spread to his knee. He hobbled across the road, trying his hardest to get to grips with his runaway feelings. He felt as though he had just plunged his fingers into a wall socket.
Some serious shit had gone on in the human enclave.
“There are a lot of unhappy bunnies in there, that’s for fucking sure.”
As he neared the compound, Lee saw that every corpse close to the fence was motionless. They just stood there like showroom dummies. The numbers thickened closer to the fence. He duck behind a wall and looked out. He saw absolutely no human activity. It was tempting to open up his mind one more time, just to see if he could find out what had happened.
“Here there be dragons,” he murmured, shivering. Such intensity of thought had really disturbed him. He had come to see the humans as weak-minded food, of no threat to him at all. How the fuck had their combined thoughts nearly managed to short circuit his fucking head?
He brought his hand to the front of his face and formed his fingers into a claw. As long as he kept his mind shit, the bastards were just food. Lee stood up and raced towards the fence, heading to where just a couple of the dead things were holding onto the wire.
Lee jumped onto their backs, grimacing as his fingers sank into their spongy flesh. He scaled the fence and dropped down onto the other side. He still saw nobody about. “There’s no stopping me now,” he whispered, grinning. As he darted towards the closest building, Lee detected the presence of another mind close by.
Lee did not open up to reach out, fearing that whirlwind would capture him and he would be unable to escape it this time. Not that it was necessary; he would recognise the familiar feel of a dull normal human mind anywhere. His body had yet to understand that normal human meat would kill him. He honestly believed he would drown in his own drool.
His remaining senses kicked in and he smelled the man’s hot sweat and the faint scent of female blood on his hands. He heard the measured and regular bootsteps upon the tarmac. Lee placed his arm against the building; he waited until he could see the man's shadow before he coughed loudly.
It took considerable effort to suppress a giggle at the man’s reaction to the unexpected noise. The figure stumbled around the side of the building. Judging from the ill-fitting uniform and his crossbow, this pathetic young man must be had been part of their security. He was only a kid, nineteen at the most. Lee waited for him to regain his composure before he smiled at the boy.
“Hello there. I think I’m a little lost.”
The boy aimed his weapon at Lee’s head. He did not need to be a mind reader to work out that this lad was nervous, his shaking hands gave that away.
“Tell me who you are, and no funny stuff or so help me, I’ll put this bolt through your brain.”
He wondered if he should just kill this fucker here and now and find out for himself what had happened in this compound. Lee decided to be patient for a little while longer and see how this played out.
“My name is Moses. Until recently, I was an Abbot at a nearby monastery.”
“Is that like a priest?”
“Something like that. Now, would you mind telling me what is going on?”
“Are you missing your marbles or are you just fucking with me? Are you just having a go? You're one
of the tainted, I can tell. How the fuck did you get out of the cage?”
“What cage?” The pieces started to fit together. It seemed that the normal humans had found out about the special ones. This turd called them tainted. Lee had stumbled into an uprising. No wonder the mental airwaves were as volatile as a hurricane.
“Come on, don’t play dumb; admit it.”
Lee had noticed that the boy’s eyes had changed when he said the word tainted. This blood thirsty little bastard intended to kill him. He had already killed tonight and craved for more. This was fucking priceless.
The hunter slowly lifted his arms and wiggled his fingers. As soon as the boy’s eyes shifted, Lee dived forward, wrapping his arms around the young man's body. The boy fell to the ground with a thud. Lee grabbed his hair and lifted the boy’s head before slamming it down on the ground.
It took a huge amount of self-control for Lee to stop himself from scooping up the grey slush that was leaking from the back of the boy’s shattered skull and thrusting it into his mouth.
“You’re the ones that are fucking tainted,” he snarled, getting back to his feet. Lee fought back the panic when he discovered the numbness had now reached all the way past his knee.
Lee snatched up the boy’s crossbow, placed the bolt back in the notch and walked slowly towards the corner of the building. It frustrated the fuck out of him not to be able to mentally reach out to see if there were anymore uniformed idiots close by.
He looked around the building. He dropped the weapon in shock when he saw they had built a cage with sections of steel fencing and stuffed it with bodies.
“Oh my,” he sighed. Lee could not stop grinning when he saw that there was no other security in sight—not that they would have stopped him. He felt like a fox who had just found an unguarded chicken coop.
Lee emerged from behind the building and hobbled towards the cage, desperately trying not to get too excited at the sight of all that fresh and tasty food that was just waiting for him to sample.