by Ian Woodhead
Patrick suppressed a yawn, wondering if this dullard was going to launch into another one of his good old days speech.
The man glared at the dead thing before turning back to Patrick. “I’ve got to say, though, they were some pretty nifty moves, you didn’t do too bad there, kid.” He pulled the club out of the dead thing. “Now, you have been summoned, Patrick.” He pointed at Allison. “They want to see you as well.”
His heart sank, not liking the sound of this. “Who wants to see us?”
Trevor gazed out across the black water. “Why are you even asking me that question? You know exactly who wants to see you.”
Patrick’s breath quickened, he did know. Why would the council want to see them? He glanced over at the girl; judging from her shocked expression Allison was as baffled as he was. No, this wasn’t good. “Is this a joke, Trevor? We’re just a pair of kids, why do they want to see us? We’ve done nothing wrong.”
The man turned back around and started his ascent up the concrete steps that led back to the town. “Why are you asking me, kid? I’m just a glorified messenger boy.” Trevor chuckled. “If it helps, the council did ask me to ready a boat before I brought you over to see them. So, I reckon that the pair of you are going on a little journey.”
Oh fuck, he so hoped that the dullard was having him on. He shivered as a gust of cold wind passed over him. Patrick sighed when he felt the girl pushing his hair away from his face.
“Don’t worry about it, Patrick. We’ll be okay, no matter what happens.”
He smiled back at her then took hold of her soft hand, it felt like the natural thing to do. Patrick had passed their test and that meant that he was part of the group now. He’d won his prize. This girl was now his now. He turned around and watched the others bowing their heads before melting back into the darkness. No doubt getting away from them as quickly as possible before the messenger decided to grab a few more of them.
Even without seeing them leave, Patrick knew where they’d be going. His new comrades would be running along the beach towards the bus, and he silently wished that he could join them. Patrick had survived the test, but he certainly wasn’t brave enough to refuse a council summons.
Allison gently squeezed his hand. “Don’t you worry about it, Patrick.” She glared at the back of Trevor’s head. “He’s just trying to wind you up. Nobody goes over to the mainland anymore. The man is just trying to make you nervous. He’s just a dullard, it’s what they do.”
Her reassurance felt so false. He did not believe her words and neither did she. Her art of lying needed a touch more work. Were her bed skills more advanced then her ability to tell a lie? Patrick just hoped that he’d have the opportunity to find that out
He slowly pulled his way up the concrete steps and winced at the ache in his foot. The pain had gone and he knew his body was busy repairing the damage, but the last thing his body needed right now was to climb up over one hundred steps.
Patrick paused, ignoring Trevor’s impatient sighing. He looked out across the calm waves, trying to see the mainland. Of course it would be impossible for the other man to see anything. He was only a dullard, like most of the people on the island. If some dead thing bit that poor bastard and there were no healers about, he would be dead in an hour. Once turned, no healer would be able to sort him out.
His night sensitive eyes caught sight of the distant shore a few miles out. After three years his old life had begun to fade away, only the intense memories of the event immediately following the outbreak stubbornly stayed fresh. The past did not concern him anymore; unlike the dullards, he saw little point in trying to hold onto their old existence. It was all that they seemed to talk about, their tales were full of what the world was like in the good times. They seemed to forget that they lived through those times as well.
“We haven’t got all night, Patrick. They are waiting for you.”
He nodded, turned back around, and followed him up the rest of the steps. His brief pause had helped to dampen the ache, and it wouldn’t take long before the pain was as distant as his memories before the dead rose up.
Allison smiled at him. “You were brilliant just then on the beach, Patrick. I had complete faith in you.” She sighed. “Even if you had failed, I would have defied the rules and still gone to you.”
He returned her smile knowing that this time she was telling the truth. Patrick so wanted to brush his fingers through her long blonde hair and kiss her soft lips. They were nearly at the top. “What would happen to us if we ran back down these stairs?” he whispered, grinning.
She gasped. “That’s an insane idea. You have no idea how much I want you too, Patrick, but it can wait until we see what the council want.”
She did want him, Patrick felt the longing in her words. Allison couldn’t wait to rip off his clothes; that alone should have made his brain melt. His desire for her, just for that split second, vanished. The girl had sounded just like his mother. Patrick looked down at his foot, realising that he couldn’t even remember what the woman looked like.
“How does your ankle feel now?” asked Trevor.
“A lot better, thanks”
“That’s good to hear,” he said. The man reached the top step and stood back to allow them to pass. “Right, you two had better get a move on, they’re waiting for you.”
“Are you not coming?”
The man shook his head. “My orders were just to get you off the beach and bring you into town. This is a private audience.” He looked at their feet. You might want to clean off the sand first.”
Patrick looked at the girl and felt her hands tighten around his fingers. She was now as scared as he was. A private audience was very bad news. “Whatever happens, Allison, I’ll be here for you.” Patrick wanted to rip out his own tongue. That sounded so lame. She had spoken the same words to him a few moments ago. He hurried across the empty road and towards a large white hotel between two amusement arcades. The converted three-story building now served as the private residence for all four council members. He turned around and saw Trevor watching them. The man was smiling. He knew exactly the reason why the council wanted to see them. Patrick just knew it.
“What do you think they want with us?”
Patrick stopped at the large white ornate door, wondering if he was supposed to knock. He grabbed the handle and pulled it down. He said they were expecting them, it must mean they wanted them to go straight in. Patrick pulled her through the bright hallway and headed towards the large room at the back which served as the main chambers. As he approached, Patrick heard the low voices of each council member; each voice was as distinct as the other ones.
“Come on in, the pair of you.”
That voice belonged to the only hunter on the island; there was no way either of them could refuse that command. Patrick paused by the doorway and peered around the corner. Five pairs of eyes looked back at him. The hunter, Zara, walked up to them; she smiled, then shut the door. Come on, Patrick. Don’t be scared. You’ve just killed your first Zombie. You’re a man now.”
“How did you know that?”
An old woman sat at the other end of the table smiled at Patrick. “She knows because I told her it would happen last week.”
Patrick felt the colour rise to his cheek. “Of course, Our Lady, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”
“Well I’m going to speak out of turn, Our Lady,” muttered the man sitting next to her. “I still think this scheme will not work.”
The middle-aged man shook his head and looked at Patrick. If he was a special, he’d be trying to blank his mind about now to stop him for reading him. There was no need, though. Ernest, like the other man sat next to him, were both Dullards. His thoughts were safe.
“I’m sorry, Our Lady, it just doesn’t seem to fit.”
“Ernest, I understand, truly I do, but I can only repeat what is shown to me.”
“I have faith, Our Lady,” said the other man.
Patri
ck wanted to leave. He didn’t have a clue what they wanted from him, but it didn’t sound good. He looked at the girl in the middle. She had yet to speak. He knew that they would all listen when she chose to speak. She was the youngest of them all. Diane looked closer to his age. He still found it hard to believe that the girl was only four years old.
Diane stood up and the others fell silent. “Thank you, Allison and Patrick, for coming.” She smiled. “I know that you obviously had other plans and we’re sorry for spoiling them.” She looked over at the old woman and nodded.
“You already have some idea of what we want you to do, because Trevor would have let it slip that we asked him to prepare a boat. We want you both to return to the mainland.” She held up her hand. “Before you ask, I’m sorry, but we can’t disclose the reason why. All we can say is that we want you, Patrick, to return to where you used to live.
He caught his breath and found his mind slipping out of his body, hammering away at their mental shields. He found his way into one of the dullard’s minds and saw Dominic running through sewer tunnels, screaming and shouting out. The man then smiled and the next image he saw was of Dominic kissing Patrick while slowly unbuttoning his shirt. Patrick shivered and hurriedly left the man’s mind.
“You will both leave tonight,” said Our Lady. “We will send a single guide to help you to reach your destination.”
The man who brought them up appeared at the door.
“Don’t worry, you don’t need to leave right now. We’ll give you and Allison a few hours to get to know each other.”
Patrick saw Dominic wink. He felt his cheeks redden.
“Trevor will show you to your room.”
Patrick looked at Allison. He didn’t need to read her thoughts to know that she now regretted her decision not to run back towards the beach.
Diane smiled at them. “Allison, can you stay here for a few moments? Before you leave us, Patrick, I don’t wish to sound too melodramatic, but your actions when you arrive at your destination will determine the fate of not just us on our island. This is for the future of our species.”
Patrick hurriedly followed the guide out of the room, looking back at Allison and trying to allow the woman’s words to sink in. He had no idea what they meant by that, all he wanted right now was to hold the girl tight and not let her go.
Chapter Four
He reached out with his upper left hand set and brushed the tips of his fingers down the rough leathered hide. His almost intimate touch made Raphael feel so alone, unwanted, and depressed. He then growled in sudden anger; there was no place for these irritating emotions in his new life, he had learnt so much these past few days, and there was so much more to discover as well, of that fact he was totally sure.
Raphael picked up the dead thing’s limp body and threw it over the edge, watching it gracefully turn while plummeting towards the massed crowd of shambling corpses fighting over the helicopter’s pilot’s foot that he had so generously thrown to them a few moments ago.
He felt their sludgy mental craving for fresh meat decrease as the corpse crashed into the mob, crushing three skulls. Raphael leaned over the edge and watched some of the corpses start to shuffle away from the front of the building. They knew he was observing them. For the first time since their reanimation, a new emotion had crept into their sluggish brains. They now knew they were no longer the top predator. Raphael should have been pleased at their reaction; overall, his activities today had shown him that his new playground had so many wonderful surprises in store for him.
The foul masses of shuffling dead bodies in this city feared him. Raphael had found a magnificent new nest that made the one that he shared with his siblings look like a small wooden box. Best of all, though, he had now dined on his first live human. His flesh had tasted so fine, and most surprising of all, the pilot’s brain had been exquisite. He found it hard to believe that he had almost discarded the muscle without even tasting it. The consistency was more like soft jelly. His initial reaction hadn’t made sense. Raphael had known what to expect, he had eaten enough rodent, cat, and dog brains to understand that the muscle should not be as solid as the meat inside a dead skull.
“I’m so glad I did, though,” he murmured, watching the last of the corpses shamble away; they had even left a couple of bones behind. Raphael grabbed his lower left hand set with both his right sets and gave the numb limb an experimental wiggle. He felt no pain, no sensation of any kind. That did worry Raphael, he wasn’t too sure what to do.
He would not be completely happy until he had re-captured that man. It would take some more time for him to bury the feeling of rage and frustration over the shock that his next meal had escaped. The shock doubled by the fact that the meal was able to damage Raphael.
He retreated from the edge, not trusting his body and balance. His wall climbing activities would have to wait until the arm began to work again. It shouldn’t take too long. Raphael clambered across to the metal machine and climbed inside, the decaying mental scent from those other humans helped him to relax just a little. It didn’t really matter that they had all gotten away. This was his new playground and he had already explored most of it before this metal bird bearing gifts landed on this roof.
There wasn’t even a remote possibility that they would be able to hide from Raphael. All he needed to do was close his eyes, zone out, and allow his mind-eye to leave his body. Their soft, warm minds were like shining white pebbles cast onto a black pebbled beach. His only concern was those black pebbles would find his meals before he got to them.
Raphael’s eyes suddenly snapped open. Why was that image of a beach so strong? He’d never seen a beach and had only received distorted impressions of the coast from his mother. He sighed and pushed the worrying thought away. It was of no concern. He leaned across and placed his nose against the cracked leather seat opposite him. This was where the female had spent most of her time. She was, like the others, just food, another meal that would help him grow stronger and yet, Raphael felt something a little different for this one.
Thinking of the woman brought up the image of his brother and mother copulating again. He giggled. If he so desired, as soon as he caught that female Raphael could do the same, only he’d be the one to eat her after he had finished. The pleasing thought did help him to calm down. “You don’t need that arm now,” he muttered, looking at his own barbed phallus growing and thickening. “There’s your extra limb.”
Raphael picked up the remaining piece of the pilot and began to strip the skin from the severed leg. The three other humans hiding from him would soon be his. He also knew that more of them were on the way. He’d be able to pick that piece of information out of the other human’s thoughts before he’d surprised Raphael by plunging that shard of splintered wood into his upper left arm set. There was no way that the human should have been able to break out of Raphael’s mental lock. He would not make that mistake again. The next time he caught one, Raphael would kill them first and not wait. Their minds were too unpredictable.
He thought back to when he had seen the helicopter heading towards the roof. Raphael did have prior knowledge of what it was. He had seen similar looking machines in his mother’s thoughts. Before the old world had died, the sky had been full of them. Even armed with this knowledge, just watching the huge metal machine hover in thin air still sent a cold shiver down his backbone. These humans reminded him of giant snails. Their hard shells were difficult to break open, but Raphael believed the effort would be so worth it.
He had creeped out from behind his hiding place to observe the clothed humans emerge from their metal cage. As soon as the first human was clear, Raphael sent out a tentative mental probe; it shocked Raphael to discover that he could easily slip into the man’s thoughts. The human’s over confidence and reliance on their intimidating machines made Raphael want to laugh out loud. These humans were so soft, just like the inside of his imagined giant snail. He had almost leapt out from his hiding place there and then
and launched himself at this arrogant bag of food.
“Maybe you should have just done that,” he said, sighing. Raphael bit out a chunk of ankle flesh and chewed, thinking about how best to tackle his current dilemma. The food did help to clear his troubled thoughts away. Raphael had found, the hard way, not to over face himself. He suspected that eating too much of the pilot earlier was the main reason why he had made so many mistakes.
He took another bite and reluctantly put the leg back on the floor. Raphael climbed out of the machine and scurried over to the open door. The other two were closer to his location but he wasn’t interested in eating them just yet. The human that had escaped needed dealing with first. Raphael looked down the middle of the stairwell and listened to the sound of quiet moaning. It seemed that his disappearance from the edge of the roof had given the corpses an excuse to come back into the building. Raphael slowly made his way down the concrete steps, wondering if it was worth his time to kill a couple more of them.
“Oh!” he gasped, feeling a sudden twinge in his damaged limb. “That is good news.” He grabbed the limb with his other three hands, then pushed it against the black railing; he laughed in delight when his previously unresponsive fingers wrapped themselves around the cold metal. He nodded, knowing that he would be back up to full strength in no time.
“I think it is time to find out where you are now,” he said, pushing the thoughts of the corpses entering his territory away. Raphael allowed his mine-eye to detach and sent it out, as he had already tasted the human’s mental signature. It took just moments for Raphael to locate his trail. He pushed, feeling his mind-eye fly through the deserted city. His prey had managed to cover an incredible amount of ground, and that was an astonishing feat considering he was restricted to just the surface, and he had to avoid the walking corpses. Raphael caught up with the human as he reached the bank of a large river. He heard the man cry out in frustration when he discovered that every bridge had been destroyed. The man’s fevered thoughts filled up with trying to find some other way over the river.