Zombie-dem

by James J. Stubbs

  Chapter 8

  The night before

  His wife used to snore. Not heavily but enough to keep him awake when they first got together. But more than that, as she got a little older and considering of course that they were childless, she also insisted that the dog sleep in the bed with them. At least at the foot of the bed if ever Logan just needed the space after a long day or week at work.

  She said the dog just used to make her feel safe whenever he was away. That slowly turned into them sharing everything together. And on top of that, the dog snored too. And dreamt. Who knows what of.

  How Logan missed that dog. A beautiful Labrador and Pointer cross. Thick. That's what he would call her. Never could train the damn thing but it wove its way into their lives and hearts just as dogs do. But all of this simply meant that he couldn't sleep without it all. As much as it bugged him at first, having to buy a bigger bed, just to have the dog spread its paws some more, having to put up with constant noise when he just liked to sleep as quiet as possible.

  But now that it was all gone, he just couldn't sleep without it. He stopped trying around midnight. At least he guessed it was around midnight. The moon was high in the summer's night sky and the stars were out in abundance too. He could see them shine even through the tarp he had made out of the parachute. Lizzie was cozy next to him. Her arm draped around his neck and using his shoulder for a pillow.

  He slipped out without even budging her. He always thought he wanted a daughter. A son would grow to clash with him. Any son of James Logan would be an alpha male bull just like him. A daughter he thought he would be able to spoil and get on with from start to deathbed. Shame it never happened.

  Sometimes he thought of Lizzie as his daughter. At times his friend and at others his cop-partner. Someone he would die for in any case. Logan never did tell her what his field of expertise was, in the military that was. He wasn't always head of the WDC (Weaponised Disease Control).

  He was a spy at best. Or just simply gathered Intel at worst. He lay on his ass in the dirt in any godforsaken part of the globe to which he was sent and spied on people. That often led to an infiltration mission of some kind and that sometimes, but rarely, turned nasty and he would have to fight his way out.

  There was something about this night. Something boiling in his blood to just be on his own again. Like he was back in those days. Before he was a General and before he was a Doctor on top of that. When he was just a grunt doing dumb grunt work.

  He felt the darkness calling to him. He felt it wrapped around him like a blanket. Where others were afraid of it, he embraced it. That's what the barking drill sergeants' used to say when he had been training. "People fear the darkness because they don't know what's coming at them. Well you're what's coming at them." Dumb as it was, it stuck with him.

  They had been here for what felt like an age and had seen no one. No sign of Jack, no other people around the place as far as he had explored so far anyway. They were going to have to decide whether to move on, and if they did, where they should go. But all that meant for this one night was that Logan could quite safely leave Lizzie to sleep out her troubles and take a look around. Just like the old days. Alone.

  He got dressed quickly and made for the track that led out of the valley. Dark didn't quite cover how dark it was in that valley. If it weren't for the light of the moon, then he wouldn't be able to see so much as a foot in front of him. The old farming track closely followed one side of the valley, so close in fact that the odd boulder size piece had been drilled out in some parts, presumably to allow vehicles past.

  The rocks crunched beneath his feet but he made no particular effort to shield the noise. He had been as far as this before. He had taken a walk one day to find out where they were and had come across a farmhouse come bed and breakfast. He had picked up a few maps from there. The door wasn't open last time he came though.

  He immediately stopped and crouched. Training was a hard thing to let go of after so long. Forced entry by the look of it. By the large splinters of wood he could see at such a distance it was obvious. The large wooden door creaked slowly and disturbingly in the wind. It was held on only by the top hinge.

  It was worth a look. Logan, by the sheer force of habit, took each gun in turn to pull back the catch to see if there was a bullet in each chamber. Ammo was running very short. He would avoid firing it at all if he could. But it was the best safety net anyone could ask for just to have them.

  He stayed as low as he could get and darted to a nearby broken wall, the kind you only ever see in the English countryside. No cement, just bricks or stones of varying sizes placed on top of one another in a rather sturdy patchwork quilt.

  He made sure to put no weight on it in case it came down on top of him. He examined all of the windows on the side of the two story white washed cottage. There was a sign of movement on the third window. The last one on the top floor. Just a twitch of the curtain and nothing more. But a trained eye like his could see it a mile away. No way Logan had been spotted though. He was totally encased in the darkness he loved so much.

  He waited for the curtain to close and made a sudden dash for the door. Immediately to his right was a long drinks bar. He had been there before but had made his way in via the, at that time but no longer, open window. He dived behind the counter as fast as he could when he heard steps coming from above. Someone was moving around without a care to how much noise they made. No evidence of a fight just yet though.

  Logan sighed heavily. He hadn't had the heart to check upstairs the last time he was here. He had called out and no one had answered. That had been enough for him. The last thing he wanted to see was more suicide cases. No groans had followed his call so no zombies either. So he figured anyway. Maybe he should have checked after all.

  While crouching in wait a glistening of pale orange light caught his eye atop the counter. Clarke's Kentucky Whisky. How could he resist? The world had gone to hell, and who knows if this was going to be the only bottle he was ever going to see from now on. He unzipped the front of his jacket and stuffed it firmly into his belt. No time for a drink now though.

  A single man slowly stomped down the stairs to the left of where he had been hiding. He strolled lightly into the bar and pulled himself a pint from across the divide without seeing Logan. He started to guzzle it rather quickly but slowly turned around and leaned all of his weight onto the bar. Logan slowly stood, opened his arms wide and sprang them across the man's neck. He tucked the man's head in behind the bend in his elbow so he could neither move nor talk.

  'There's blood on your shoes.' Logan whispered lightly in his ears. He released his grip a fraction so he could reply. He made no effort to scream. Did that mean he was probably alone? It was a good test but not the best in the textbook. Logan had been wrong about it before and things had become heated.

  'I was hunting.' He replied far too simplistically. It took Logan just a moment to key into the man's West Country accent but it wasn't hard to pick up. Try being in a bar with seven drunken Russian mercenaries if you want a lesson in the English language. He slowly thought to himself.

  'I don't believe you.' Logan tightened his grip again just to scare him. Usually it worked. Today wasn't his day.

  'Makes no difference.' He declared free of any emotion. 'I raped and killed the mother. She's currently being dragged back to our place for the others to carve up and eat in a little while. The daughter. Just a mini thing at maybe seven years old. Well, she's off back to our place for some fattening you see. No point wasting time on the little ones. And you. Strong arms like yours? I'm going to enjoy when we come after you.' The man started to laugh but Logan very quickly choked it from his breath.

  'I hope you're lying.'

  'I don't even wish I was.' Part from shock and part from being a little rusty in his technique and control, Logan had loosened his grip just a touch too much. The man let a out a scream but only got as far as the "H" of "help" before Logan had dragged him a
cross the bar and slammed his skull into the bare concrete floor. He watched as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he started to pass out. A little blood trickled from his wound but not enough to kill him from the loss of it.

  Two men came running back into the bar from outside the building but there was nothing to suggest anything had been amiss. Logan was thorough and deadly like that. Only the half drunk pint of English bitter on the top of the bar might give him away.

  'Ass hole's been drinking again. Must have stumbled out the back and slipped on a banana peel or something.' One of them finished the drink and didn't care to look behind the bar. Why would he? The other man just laughed and stuck his head around the bar to pull some beer from the tap and right into his mount. He still hadn't seen either Logan or the unconscious man hidden in the dark shadow on the floor of the bar.

  'Torch the place. Let's go.' The first man ordered and the second laughed with giddy excitement. He started shooting the drinks behind the bar with a very loud and powerful double barreled shotgun. Logan hit the deck and rolled the man he had knocked unconscious on top of him to use him as a shield. The bottles all poured open and fine flakes of glass went everywhere.

  Logan couldn't move. If he did, he would be killed for sure. He just had to take it and hope he could get out in time. The first man, he had a heavier step so was easy to track just by ear, had already moved outside.

  Logan was just about to make a move when the ear splitting gunshots stopped. Logan assumed the mad man would be re-loading, but instead a lit match sailed across the bar and immediately caught a flame on the spilled drinks. Logan threw the now burning unconscious man off him, but not in enough time to avoid the fire from catching around his combat trousers.

  He threw himself to his feet, found just enough time to grab the shotgun from the amazed and slightly drunk man and use its weight to knock him to his feet. A swift kick to the head ensured he wasn't getting back up. Logan should have saved him, a part of him even wanted to. But better that he left this potential cannibal here to die than die himself of either burning or smoke affixation.

  He hurled himself out of the window with a single crack of glass and rolled on the ground until the fire stopped. It was a little muddy on the ground after a lucky morning downpour the previous day. His legs were warm but not burned. The bar started to burn more and more intensely and all he could hear were the heart rendering screams of the men he had left behind.

  Logan rolled as fast as he could, staying low, down the field he had found himself in and came to a stop on his back in a natural but noticeable dip in the landscape. He could catch his breath and avoid being spotted if he stayed there a while.

  'Are you still inside?' He could just about hear the first man screaming. There was fear and dread in his voice. His words were fast and choked by the beating of his own heart and the heaving of his own chest. 'You idiot! What have you done?' He could still hear the man's woeful cries on the night breeze.

  By the size of the fire now raging, no one could possibly have gone back inside. Logan was safe for the time being and was confident that no one left alive knew he had been there at all. His heart wanted him to trace the last of the stream back to where Lizzie was probably still sleeping. But she was as hard as nails and could look after herself. That child the first captive man had talked about. Assuming it was true, she needed him a whole lot more than Lizzie did.

  As soon as his legs stopped throbbing, he rolled out of the thin ditch he had found himself in and crawled his way back towards the blazing heat of the burning building. He got as close as he dared and followed its outside wall all the way around to the other side. It led to a tarmac road. A thin one that wound its way around the cresting valley and out of sight. Just like any hunter, Logan crouched and looked for any tell tale sign that anyone or anything had been this way. Sometimes it could be as little as a broken blade of grass. Not so subtle this time though.

  The same blood was printed across the road but in the shape of another man's foot. He had to follow it before it dried or the light failed him. It wasn't hard. Even by the smell he could track them down, that pungent hint of warm iron that hung in the air and no breeze could lift it. The time to sneak had come and gone. Logan needed to hurry to catch the man, and hopefully the little girl with him.