Remains of the Dead

by Iain McKinnon

  Ali recalled people’s distain towards pigeons. ‘Rats with wings’ he’d heard on numerous occasions. Sure they were opportunists, but so was he now.

  His mind wandered back to a forlorn-looking bird that had been brought into the animal shelter where he’d worked. The underweight bird had hobbled, unable to stand, its right claw tangled in a mess of fishing line. He’d gently snipped the line free, but the claw had been too badly injured to be saved. It was a stark equation for an animal charity. Treat the wound and then release the bird knowing its chances of survival were low, or put it down and spend the money on a creature with a better chance. The cash-strapped centre had made the economical choice.

  The sad fact is, Ali thought, there are now more pigeons than people.

  As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, the small chinks of light breaking in through the gap between the roof and the building fabric were just enough to work by. He could open the hatch and let light in from the hallway below, but he preferred the psychological comfort of the closed hatch.

  A barrier between him and his dead friend.

  Crouching down in this tomb of rock, wool, and plaster sheeting, Ali got to work. He prized the insulating boards down from the eaves and then started smashing through to the tiles. It wasn’t long before the first beam of daylight streamed through the punctured roof.

  Spurred on by the daylight, Ali hacked at the roof with renewed strength. Within minutes there was a hole big enough for him to climb through. He stuck his head out of the fissure like a bizarre parody of a prairie dog. He looked around and got his bearings.

  The pitch of the roof was quite steep and he didn’t fancy his chances if he had to scramble up it. Across the street the fire had finally leapt to the adjacent buildings and pillars of smoke billowed skyward. Ali was thankful the wind was blowing the clouds away from him. But that same wind was foreboding. A sharp gust or misplaced foot and Ali feared he would slip from the roof and fall into the mob of zombies filling the street.

  No, he would not simply sit astride the roof waiting for his rescue, he decided.

  Ali picked up the metal rod again and started remodelling.

  Within a few hours Ali had dislodged a good portion of the roof, producing a rubble-hewn veranda. He pitched the tent he’d retrieved from the zombie backpacker and set up the camp stove. He brewed himself another coffee, and half in the sleeping back sat back sipping the beverage, waiting for his rescue.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Trigger

  “Hold your fire!” Cahz cried. “Hold fire!” he called again, this time forcing Ryan’s arm down. “Cease fire!”

  The railway line fell silent.

  Ryan’s daughter was screaming, shocked by the crescendo of gunfire.

  “Calm down,” Cahz said. “We don’t have much ammo left.”

  “I shat myself,” Ryan protested, his gun still aimed at the undergrowth.

  “It was just a fucking rabbit.”

  “Yeah.” Ryan waved the gun in the general direction. “Well, when it came crashing through that bush, I didn’t know that, did I?”

  “You shouldn’t have shot at it, let alone blast away like Yosemite Sam!” Cahz barked. “How many shots did you waste?”

  “You didn’t even hit the fucking thing,” Cannon chipped in.

  “Look, don’t come down on me like that,” Ryan protested. “It fuckin’ jumped out at me. Okay, I bricked myself, but can you blame me?”

  “All right,” Cahz said in a more conciliatory tone. “All right, point taken. It’s done now, anyway. We’re running low on ammo, so in future you back off and let me or Cannon handle it.”

  “Look, I just reacted, man.”

  Cannon snorted, “You’re reactions are shit.”

  “You’re not helping, Cannon.” Cahz shot his subordinate an angry look. He turned back to Ryan. “You use that as a last resort. I don’t want any more fuck ups.” He looked at both men. “From anyone. Now let’s keep moving.”

  Ryan nodded and turned his attention to his daughter. He slipped a pinkie into her mouth and the child instantly started sucking.

  Cahz turned to start walking when he saw Cannon scoop something up from the track.

  “Spotted something?” Cahz asked.

  Cannon flicked a small grey object across the track. “It’s nothing, boss.”

  With that Cannon marched on.

  Curiosity tugged at Cahz. He stepped a little way off the track to see what had caught his friend’s attention. Almost lost among the gravel there lay a small hunk of grey plastic. Cahz picked it up and examined it as he walked. At first it looked cracked but when he took a closer look he could see what looked like crazy paving etched on it. He turned it over to see the familiar web of struts that formed the female part where the building bricks connected together.

  Cahz held in his hand the patio to some child’s diorama. Some time ago, before all the madness and carnage, this lump of moulded and coloured toy would have been lovingly assembled in to a house or garage or some other plastic-bricked representation of the world.

  A smile came across Cahz’s face as he considered how many children had played with this innocuous construction toy; how many hours of simple pleasure it had provided? Then, just as suddenly, he wondered how it had ended up on a railway track and where those little children were now.

  As the smile fell from his lips, Cahz tossed the rubbish aside.

  Ryan trotted up to him. “I only fired five shots,” he said. He had the magazine in one hand the gun in the other and he was trying to show Cahz the remaining bullets. “We’ve still got plenty of ammo left. Right?”

  “There isn’t enough ammo left in the world,” Cahz said in a dry voice and picked up his pace.

  Up ahead Cannon was negotiating a tree that had fallen across the line. He could see the big soldier scanning left and right for any hidden danger. Satisfied there were no surprises he hopped over the trunk to the other side.

  Cahz hopped over the obstruction, leaving Ryan a good distance behind.

  “How you doing?” Cahz asked as he caught up with Cannon.

  “Saw a horse once,” Cannon said, looking back at Ryan negotiating the fallen tree. “Didn’t try to shoot it though.”

  “When was that?” Cahz asked.

  “A few years back now. We were on a tagging run. Remember them?”

  “Sure do. Fucking waste of time, those,” Cahz huffed.

  He turned back to Ryan as he jumped down from the obstruction.

  “You wouldn’t believe the shit we’ve had to do,” Cahz boasted. “At one point we were capturing W.D.s and collaring them with GPS trackers. They wanted to see where the fuckers went, how far they travelled what behaviour they would exhibit.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ryan asked. “Do any good?”

  Cahz shrugged. “What do you think?” He turned back to Cannon. “You saw a horse?”

  “Yeah, big brown thing with a white patch down its nose. We were flying over it in the chopper. I didn’t see it until the noise of the engine spooked it. It threw its head up and ran away across a field.”

  “You never mentioned that,” Cahz said.

  “No point. It was gone before I could say anything.” Cannon took a deep breath. “For a while I took it as a sign. I mean if a horse could survive on its own, then there was still hope.”

  “I suppose,” Cahz said, not really sure where this was going.

  There was a long pause before he realised Cannon had finished.

  Cahz marched along the railway line, the gravel crunching under foot. A rotund black bird looked up at the party from its spot on the rusting track. Its black beady eyes focused on the trio and it cocked its head in the same way the zombies sometimes did. As they drew closer it opened its beak and cawed at them, angry at being disturbed. It hopped off its low perch, and too lazy or too cocky to fly away, it skipped off to the side of the track.

  “I miss the birds,” Cahz suddenly said.

  “The bir
ds?” Ryan asked.

  “On ship you get the odd seagull, but they just bray at you.” Cahz pulled a face as he recalled the distasteful sound. “Normally we’ve got the chopper thundering away but…”

  He stopped speaking and looked up at the sky. Tall green trees overarched the track, their branches encroaching on the abandoned line. Every now and then, silhouetted against the grey sky, Cahz could make out the isolated shape of a nest.

  “But out here now you can hear them twittering away.” Cahz looked back at the path ahead. “I’ve missed that.”

  “There’s a lot to miss,” Cannon said in a cold voice.

  “Yeah,” Ryan added. “What do you miss?”

  Cannon didn’t answer. He kept marching ahead of everyone. “Ammunition,” he said eventually. “Right now I miss having a full belt.”

  Cahz ripped open the Velcro tab over his ammo pouch. He knew exactly how much ammunition he had left, but he felt the need to check. With each pouch he opened he willed there to be a forgotten full magazine.

  He said, “I’ve got one mag left since we refreshed them back at the office.”

  As his hand fell by his side it brushed against something hard and square edged. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a magazine.

  “What’s that?” Ryan asked, scampering over the gravel to get a closer look.

  “It’s Angel’s spare clip.” When he saw Ryan’s blank expression he elaborated, “The sniper—the woman with the busted arm.”

  “Oh, her,” Ryan said with a flash of recognition.

  “I have no idea why I took it,” Cahz said, examining the magazine. “Guess in the rush when she handed me the pistol clips I didn’t think.”

  “Why? Are they no use then?” Ryan asked.

  “Wrong calibre,” Cannon said.

  Cahz explained, “The pistol clips were fine. She uses the same pistol as us, but the rifle rounds are for the Drangunov. It takes seven point six twos.”

  “Oh,” Ryan said, plainly lost.

  “Cannon’s SAW or my M4 both take the standard NATO five point five six,” Cahz elaborated. “It means we can use each other’s ammo.”

  “So what are you going to do with those then?” Ryan asked, looking at the magazine. “Just toss it?”

  “Oh no,” Cahz chuckled. “Last thing I want is to make it back alive only to piss off Angel.”

  Cannon laughed as he walked up ahead, “Sour-faced Commie.”

  “Why’s she touchy about the ammo?” Ryan asked.

  “She spends a lot of effort on these things.”

  Cahz held the magazine out in front of him and twisted it, examining it like an ancient relic.

  In a sense it was an ancient relic. Since Eastern Europe had been overrun, nowhere made magazines like these any more.

  “Every one of these bullets was made by her,” he told Ryan. “She’s anal about the grains.”

  “The what now?” Ryan asked.

  “The amount of propellant that goes into each of these,” Cahz said, still focused on the magazine.

  “Gun powder,” Cannon simplified. “If we need to, we can always decant the powder to start a fire or use as an accelerant.”

  “I once saw a special forces boy rip open half a dozen casings and pour the powder into an infected bite. He lit it with a match and his whole arm crackled like so much bacon in a frying pan. The guy screamed his tits off.”

  “Did it work?” Ryan asked.

  “Fuck knows,” Cahz admitted. “I got pulled into a mixed unit and set about filling sandbags. Twenty minutes after that we got overrun and the whole compound was napalmed. Never saw the guy again. Filling sandbags…” Cahz gave a huff. “I’m still mad at myself for following orders from that stupid weekend warrior. Should have been bugging out or at the least cracking the ammo boxes open.”

  He still held Angel’s magazine in his hand. Around the lugs and the facing edges, the black anodising had become scuffed and worn, allowing the bare metal to poke through. This magazine had been used and reused time and time again. It suddenly struck Cahz that the magazine wasn’t meant to help aid their escape, it was Angel’s way of assuring his safe return. He was expected to return the magazine intact; it was a motivational reminder.

  A round splash of water plopped into the dull metal clip.

  Cahz looked up. The sky was choked with rolling dark grey clouds.

  “Looks like rain,” Cannon said sardonically.

  Ryan looked up at the heavens and let the first drops of rain splash onto his face. “I never used to like the rain,” he said, gazing at the clouds. “All those years surrounded by those rotting pus bags changed my mind, though. On the days it poured down it drowned out their moans and washed the air clean of their stench. On days like that you could almost pretend the world was normal.”

  “Take a look around. World’s far from normal.” Cannon kicked at a long shard of plastic cover from a florescent light strip and sent it flying. The brittle edges sheared off and went bouncing across the gravel.

  “How far have we come?” Ryan asked.

  Cahz slipped Angel’s ammo back into his pocket. “Difficult to say for sure,” he admitted. “The map’s just a general one, covers a hundred square miles.” He looked out past the fencing that bordered the railroad track. “Those houses are suburban. I’ve not seen an office block or an industrial unit for over a mile now. We’re well out of the city.”

  Ryan was looking hopeful. “So we’re almost there then?”

  “I guess we’ve come a fourth of the way,” Cahz estimated.

  “What?! A fourth?! But we’ve been walking for hours.”

  Cahz held out his hand and watched as spits of rain found the palm of his glove. The brown leather instantly turned darker where the spots landed.

  “Yeah, we’ve done maybe ten, twelve miles,” he said.

  “We’re never going to make the coast by dark,” Ryan said.

  “I’m guessing you’re right.”

  “We can make the coast easy,” Cannon said. “Even doing four miles an hour we can make it no sweat.”

  “I don’t share your optimism, Cannon.” Cahz looked up at the rain-filled sky, letting the cold droplets refresh him. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk walking through infected territory in the dark with a civilian and baby in tow. It would be fine if all we had to do was follow this line, but we’re going to have to come off. It runs at least ten miles inland.”

  “Then we’ve missed our ride out of here,” Ryan said.

  “No, it’s not that dire. I want to get as far from the city as possible. The place was heaving with W.D.s.” Cahz looked at Ryan. “You did an outstanding job of calling them in.”

  “Yeah, well, what were we supposed to do? Each spring thousands would find us and surround the place,” Ryan argued. “We used to try and thin them out. Molotov cocktails in the summer, baseball bats when they were frozen solid in the winter. Made no difference; they just kept pouring in.”

  “I wasn’t trying to put you down, Ryan,” Cahz said. “World’s been dead a long time. You and your friends were the only entertainment that remained for the dead. I’m not implying you could have done anything about it.”

  “You must have been drawing them in from hundreds of miles,” Cannon said.

  “One winter we totally wiped them out around the fence,” Ryan said. “Wasn’t a pus fuck for miles. Couple of weeks after the thaw they’d surrounded us again. How’s that possible? I mean, they’re not texting their buddies.” Ryan pretended to hold a mobile phone between his hands and punched the imagery buttons with his thumbs as he spoke, “‘jst 8 hmn c u soon.’” Shrugging, he asked, “I mean, how do they know?”

  “It’s the moan,” Cahz explained. “It’s like tom-tom drums in the jungle. One pus bag moans and his mate a hundred yards away hears it and he moans right back. Urbanised area like this, you could get an unbroken chain for miles.”

  “Hence setting fire to the train back there. Using it
as a decoy,” Ryan said.

  “It seems to have worked.”

  Cahz looked over his shoulder. For a long time they could see the smoke from the fire they’d set reaching up into the sky. Now the distance and the rain-laden air had obliterated any sign of it.

  “Looks like the rain’s getting heavy and the kid could do with something to eat. Let’s break off from the tracks and find a house to shelter in while we get our shit together. We can check our ammo reserves and do a radio check. Maybe scoff down that veggie pasta?”

  The approval was obvious to see on Ryan’s weary face. but Cannon wasn’t as keen.

  They came off the embankment and down to a dark wooden fence. The branches of unkempt bushes poked between the slats of wood.

  “It’s going to be impossible to get in there,” Ryan said.

  “That’s a good thing,” Cahz said as he gripped hold at the top of the fence. “If it’s tricky for us to get in it’ll be just as hard for W.D.s to follow.” He pushed a toe hold between the slats and scrambled up. He threw a leg over and straddled the fence. “Looks good,” he said. “Garden’s overgrown but the house looks like its weathered well.”

  He offered a hand down for Ryan.

  Within moments the three men were stalking through the gangly weeds that had invaded this once pristine lawn. They made their way past the rusted swing set and up to the back of the house.

  Cahz drew his pistol. “Cannon, you check those windows. I’ll check these.”

  “What do I do?” Ryan asked.

  Cannon glared at him. “Stand still and shut the fuck up.”

  “Whatever you say, Cannon,” Ryan said with a scoff. “Have you even got a real name?”

  “What?” Cannon snapped.

  “I mean Cannon,” Ryan said. “It’s a bit fucking macho for a big man with a big gun.”

  “It is Cannon,” Cahz said.