Remains of the Dead

by Iain McKinnon

  The main lights were on and Ali knew that was significant. The trickle of power the survivors got from their rooftop solar cells wasn’t enough to feed the lights. Power must be getting drawn from the batteries. He knew that electricity was precious. To use it for the lights meant there’d be no power left for the microwave oven or the hot plate or any of the other atavistic appliances they relied upon.

  He unzipped his sleeping bag and tussled with its embrace to get his feet free. As he kicked it loose he glanced around. His fellow inmates were bounding to their feet. They shouted and clamoured but Ali couldn’t hear the tell-tale moans or see any shambling figures.

  “Where?!” Ali barked out, pulling himself upright.

  “On the roof!” Ryan, dressed in just his underwear, called back as he disappeared towards the stairwell.

  Ali was standing now, alert and solid. Straight backed, adrenaline coursing through him, scanning the room for danger. Ali was a big man but he wasn’t a youth like Ryan. His body wasn’t as taut as the younger man’s but he was still powerful. He knew that even after months of emaciation he could still put up a fight against the ghouls.

  Ali looked at the stair door as it swung shut and mumbled to himself, “How could they be on the roof?”

  If the zombies outside ever broke through he’d anticipated one of the fire doors or the main entrance would be the source. The roof didn’t make sense. How could zombies get up there?

  With a flicker of insight Ali surmised the roof must be where his fellow survivors were retreating. Glancing round, there was no immediate threat. He looked down at his bare feet. He had been sleeping in a vest and threadbare underpants. He knew his long black beard would be wild and unruly, his hair just as untamed. He knew he looked a sight. Hastily, Ali pulled his jeans on and slipped his feet into his shoes.

  “Where are they coming from?” George asked no one in particular as he bumbled through the door.

  “Don’t know,” Elspeth admitted, scurrying after him, cradling a baby in her arms.

  The warehouse was strangely still. He was the last of the group to leave for the roof and now he stood alone in the threatening silence. As he pulled his thick and well worn shirt on, Ali listened for the moans of the zombies drawing closer. All he could hear were the footfalls in the stairwell and beyond that...

  Ail focused carefully and tuned in. There it was like an unending incantation. The incessant droning of a thousand coarse voices conveyed in the air as background noise.

  The whole situation confused him. There were no hordes of undead pressing into the warehouse, yet his companions had run off to the roof.

  Still no less confused, Ali left his bedside and made his way up. He was perplexed by what was going on but no longer fearful of imminent attack.

  His head pounded. He wasn’t sure if it was the startled wakening or the lack of coffee. His knees creaked almost as loudly as the heavy fire door he barged open to access the stairs. His big frame, greatly reduced by the starvation rations, had taken its toll on his joints. There had been a pallet of cod liver oil tablets in the warehouse and for years he’d taken a capsule every day. One day he’d opened a tub to find the gelatine had spoiled, leaving the contents to ooze to the bottom of the container. That marked the end of his self-medication and his joints had started aching ever the more.

  With each step his joints eased off. It was always hard for Ali to get going in the morning these days. He would shuffle around much like the undead outside until his ligaments and muscles had eased off.

  Only in his mid-forties and Ali felt that every morning he awoke he was on the steep slope to old age. The cold metal handrail made his stiff fingers tingle unpleasantly. He let out a shallow cough that echoed off the rough brick walls in the empty stairwell.

  If I feel so bad just waking up, he thought, how must those dead fucks outside feel?

  Ali spoke to the empty walls as he hauled himself onto the last step, “Maybe that’s why you moan.”

  At the top of the stairs he swung the door open, flooding the stairwell with natural light. It took a few seconds to adjust to the brightness and when he did he saw the whole group there.

  Sarah, her light brown hair whipping in the wind, stood shoulder to shoulder with Ryan at the edge of the roof. Ryan looked cold. He stood there bare footed, wearing only his flimsy boxer shorts. Slightly behind them was Nathan, arms folded close to his chest and appearing as cold as Ryan despite wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Behind them Ray stood with the elf-like eight year old Jennifer, now the second youngest of the group since Samantha’s baby had been born. At the back George and Elspeth stood not far from the door.

  Elspeth cradled her granddaughter in her arms. Her dull grey hair and the weathered lines around her eyes and lips seemed to disappear when she held the girl. She held her tight to her chest the way she’d held the infant’s dying mother not so long ago. No doubt these past few months had been the hardest she’d faced since settling here, the newborn girl a constant link with the daughter she had lost.

  It struck Ali that the sweet infant in her arms must stir a conflicting bundle of emotions for her—the joy of a granddaughter and a reminder of the cost of her birth.

  Elspeth’s daughter, Samantha, had hooked up with Ryan. Ali had never used any romantic terms to define their relationship. Ryan, Samantha, Sarah and Nathan were all a similar age. It was inevitable than in such close proximity, with youthful hormones brewing, that there would be a pairing. Nathan had hit on Sarah, unsuccessfully as far as Ali could tell, but Ryan and Samantha had come together. He had heard them in the echoing warehouse even when they’d tried to conceal their trysts. The warehouse was big but there were few private spots.

  “What’s going on, George?” Ali asked the old man next to him.

  “Sarah’s seen a helicopter.” George flashed a smile that showed he’d taken the time to put in his false teeth.

  “There’s music playing,” Elspeth helpfully added.

  Ali was taken aback. “A helicopter?”

  He cocked his head slightly and listened. He took a few paces further onto the roof and stopped by the water butts. His long black beard bobbed in the gusts of wind. With his thick hands he stroked the hair tame. As he stood there holding the point of his beard he picked up the music drifting on the wind.

  The army of corpses below also heard it. From their besieging positions around the warehouse, some of the undead had started wandering towards the noise.

  Nathan stood slightly hunched against the cold. He asked, “So what do we do? Light a signal fire or something?”

  “They might think it was just an accidental fire,” Ryan pointed out.

  Nathan turned round, running his gaze over the rest of the roof. “Maybe we could use the solar panels like signal mirrors?”

  “They’re not looking for us—they’re not looking for anyone,” Sarah said, her voice carrying a note of dismay. “They’re not expecting anyone left alive.”

  “So what are they here for?” Ray asked, speaking up for the first time.

  Ray was a logical man. Happier working out problems on paper than engaging in the practicalities. Ali remembered when they’d first arrived here Ray had spent the best part of a week cataloguing the pallets of supplies within.

  With his index finger Ray shoved his glasses further up his nose, as much a habit as a necessity. “If they’re scavengers they’re shit out of luck,” he said. “There’s nothing left. We’ve picked this place clean.”

  “Wasn’t much to pick,” Nathan complained.

  Ryan shrugged his heavyset shoulders. “So how do we signal them?”

  Sarah was stolid. “We don’t. We go to them.”

  “Go to them, girl?” George’s overly loud interjection startled Ali. The power behind that old voice was stronger than Ali had heard in some time. George shook his head, nodding in the direction of the music. “We don’t even know who they are.”

  “He’s got a point,” Ryan agreed. “They could be wo
rse than those things.”

  “They might shoot us as soon as help us,” Elspeth added.

  Sarah turned her attention away from the ruined city to look at her comrades. “It’s been years since we’ve seen any marauders and none of them were in helicopters. Anyway, they’re advertising their presence with the music. It’s like they want to cause a commotion to shake the place up.” Sarah paused and pressed her tongue to her bottom lip in contemplation. Finally she said, “No. This has been our only chance of escape in years and it may be our last.”

  “Sarah, think about it,” George said, taking a half step forward, “We’re safe in here.” With an arm carpeted in grey hair he gestured back at the warehouse door. “The moment we open the shutters there’ll be no turning back. They’ll be in here and there won’t be no way of stoppin’ ‘em.”

  Sarah shook her head slightly. “How much longer will we be safe in here?”

  No one answered. No one wanted to confront the truth.

  Ali wasn’t the smartest of men but he’d picked up on whispered conversations over the past couple of months. He’d watched as the gaunt bespectacled man had scurried around the warehouse with his clipboard in hand.

  “Tell them straight, Ray,” Sarah demanded, breaking the silence.

  Ray muttered into his chest like a chastised school boy, “I don’t know.”

  “Ray!” Sarah barked.

  “Maybe four or five weeks worth of food,” Ray admitted, “and that’s rationing out even thinner than now.”

  Elspeth’s face dropped, shocked by the revelation.

  The predicament wasn’t a shock to Ali. Like most of the survivors he had been complicit in his ignorance, preferring to ignore the inevitable for as long as possible. Ali had pushed aside the thoughts of how perilous their existence was. He knew the food would run out but he knew there was nothing they could do about it. Each winter he had foraged among the decaying buildings trying to find supplies of food. As the years dragged on they had to forage further afield. The incident with the cod liver oil capsules had brought things into sharp focus. Knowing their plight last winter he’d gone out further than ever before. He and the younger ones had fashioned a sledge and set up a series of waypoints. It was the longest any of them had spent away from the warehouse since they’d arrived. Day after day they picked through the frozen dead and frost shattered rubble in a vain attempt to bolster their dwindling supplies. But the town had already been gutted.

  When the first thaws of spring released the dead from their icy prisons it was time to retreat. And as the snow of winter had melted away, a steady trickle of undead had found them, like migrating birds finding the same nesting site year after year. In previous years even the most concerted winter cull had proven futile. Come spring the undead would return. Slowly at first, a handful at a time, but before long there were thousands crushed up against the fences. Summer was still at least a month away but already the warehouse was swamped.

  Ali tuned back in to the conversation to hear Nathan complain, “Ryan’s guzzled the last of the Jack.”

  “Nathan!” Elspeth chided from next to him.

  Ryan faced the group from the lip of the roof and asked, “What do we do?”

  He stood there, his skin numbed from the cold, casting his gaze across everyone. Ryan was hoping that someone could come up with a better plan, but as he looked at his emaciated friends no one did.

  “Fuck it,” Nathan said, breaking the awkwardness. “Sarah’s right. We have to go to them.”

  Ali stroked his rowdy beard flat and took a deep swallow to lubricate his voice and said against the wind, “Hold on.”

  It seemed that even the baby in Elspeth’s arms went quiet as everyone turned to look at him.

  “You’re seriously suggesting we go out there?” Ali looked over the heads of his audience into the distance where the chopper had been spotted.

  Sarah’s voice was acidic, “What else would you suggest?”

  Sarah had been quite cold towards him in the early days. Ali was used to it; he’d always been an outsider and maybe that suited him. Now looking out at the people he’d been thrown in with—incarcerated with—people he would never have chosen to be with, he realised these were the closest friends he’d ever had. Always quiet, always reserved, Ali had kept himself to himself but in the close confinement of their sanctuary the time had worn down many barriers. After those first fearful months they’d started to grow together. Week on week, month on month, year on year the barriers had melted away. Every one of these people were his friends and Ali knew they would all die if they didn’t make the right decision.

  He asked the crowd, “You’re thinking things are so bad that it justifies going out there?”

  Sarah caught Ray’s eye before speaking. “They will be in a month.”

  Ali could see what Sarah was trying to do. She was trying to force the group to the same conclusion she had. But he knew that the older people, George and Elspeth, wouldn’t budge if they felt pressured.

  “There are thousands of those pus bags between here and there. One bite, one scratch and that’s all it takes to turn you.” Looking around, Ali checked that the gravity of what he had just said had sunk in. He continued highlighting the unknowns to his companions. “You plan on dodging those things long enough to get to a helicopter full of people who are mystery to you?”

  Ray shuffled nervously but other than that the group was silent.

  “As Elspeth said, they may not be friendly, they may want to shoot us, they may refuse to take us. What then?” Ali paused for a response.

  “We don’t have time to argue this,” Ryan said. “Who knows how long they’ll be there.”

  “Is it truly worth the risk?” Ali asked. “Do you want to wait here and starve to death or take the chance?”

  The congregation on the rooftop started looking at each other. Ali could see people were starting to seriously weigh up the two options, the slow death through starvation or the risk of trying to get help.

  “I only say that because everyone has to be sure what choice there is.”

  Ali leant back against a water tank and waited for the group to decide. He already knew the only option. Starving to death would drive everyone mad. They’d end up fighting each other for crumbs. He remembered his grandmother telling him of a famine when she was a girl. He remembered her arthritis gnarled fingers jabbing out at him as she told of how she’d eaten the rats that were gnawing on her brother’s corpse. Ali never knew how true her stories were, but the fear he had as a boy sitting on the floor looking up at the ancient matriarch was with him again.

  Even if their bid for safety failed at least they would die trying. And that was one thing his grandmother had instilled in him: keep fighting because in the end all you have is what you fight for.

  Slowly the group started to look more solemn as one by one they came round to Sarah’s side.

  Sensing the change in mood, Sarah said, “Okay, leave everything. Only carry a weapon. It’s not far to the square but there’s a lot of them and we’ll have to run the whole way. Nathan, Ryan, get all the Molotov cocktails we have left. Let’s try to thin them out.”

  Ali smiled as he watched Sarah pull the group together. She had a knack for taking charge, a natural leadership. She was smart and pretty even with the trendy lip piercing.

  Ali took a moment to survey his friends. Ryan and Nathan were already rushing to the floor access to get the petrol bombs. They were young men, strong with youth. Ryan was physically bigger than all the rest of the survivors but Ali worried more about him than anyone else. The past few months he’d hardly spent a day sober as he’d tried to drown out the pain of his loss. Elspeth, he knew, had suffered Samantha’s death more deeply than the rest. The other survivors had lost a friend but Elspeth had lost a daughter. But there, clutched in her arms, swaddled in a cream shawl, was her reason to push past the pain.

  Looking at their faces it was obvious that Ray, George and Elspeth were lost, fr
ozen by the enormity of the group’s decision. Ali knew he would have to ease them into action.

  “Jennifer,” Ali called out to the small girl, “let’s go downstairs and get dressed properly before we go out.”

  Stretching out an arm, Ali offered the eight year old a hand. He guessed she was about eight, no one could be sure. The orphan knew she was four when they’d found her but she couldn’t say when her birthday was so her age was an ongoing estimation.

  “Come on,” Ali called to the rest of the group. “Best we hurry.”

  Chapter Two

  Head Count

  A jump of static on his radio pulled Cahz away from scanning the terrain.

  “Don’t know what make worst noise—you or the dead,” Angel announced.

  Cahz cast a look around, puzzled by the Russian sniper’s comment.

  “You come down here and say that, Angel!” came Bates’ angry response.

  Cahz craned his neck to see Bates down on the ground. The young soldier was standing in the middle of the car park where he’d been dropped off, the capture net beneath his feet. Cahz grinned as he heard Angel let loose some Russian obscenity. Bates, agitated, stood with one foot atop his battered ghetto blaster, gesturing at a nearby office block, his weapon slack by his side. It was a good natured exchange of insults, but it was just that kind of lapse of concentration that got people killed.

  “Stay on station, Bates,” Cahz said, breaking into the exchange.

  “Angel, speak English!” Bates replied, ignoring Cahz.

  “Burak!” Angel cursed.

  “Oh, that’s it!” Bates voice hissed over the radio. “I know what that one means! I’m coming up there to kick your ass—”

  “Bates!” Cahz snapped. “Stay on station.”

  “Roger that, boss,” came back Bates’ cowed response.

  “Those two are like my parents,” Idris offered.

  Cannon laughed, remembering the end of the gag.

  “They argue a lot and don’t have sex?” Idris offered.