Remains of the Dead

by Iain McKinnon

  With his ears cocked to the crack Cahz had opened, he listened as he stared back at his reflected face. The rain was drumming down outside and the moan of the dead wafted in the moist air.

  With the crackle of the fire behind him, Ryan concentrated on the sounds outside.

  And then, just like this morning, the sound of an engine drifted across the sky.

  “Hell!” Ryan turned and ran to catch up with Cahz. He was out of the classroom when he remembered Rebecca asleep next to the fire. He paused for a moment debating whether or not he should wake her and take her with him or leave her there.

  “I’ll be back in minute,” he assured the sleeping child.

  With a quick about turn he was charging out of the school after Cahz. As he gingerly navigated past the broken glass at the door, Cahz launched the flare. The rocket streaked up into the black sky, a tail of flame trailing behind.

  “Will it light in this rain?” Ryan called out above the noise of the moaning. He stood in the rain stark naked except for the first aid blanket tied round his neck like a cape. He craned his neck up, watching as the flare burst into a ball of brilliant orange light. The underside of the rain clouds turned orange from the brilliance of the glow. The fizzling signal wafted to and fro as it slowly parachuted down.

  “They’ve got to see that, Cahz,” Ryan said, transfixed by the light.

  “Back inside,” Cahz said softly.

  Ryan was still watching the flare drift down. “What?”

  “Get inside now!” Cahz grabbed Ryan’s arm and pulled.

  “Why?” Ryan demanded, being pulled off balance. His gaze dropped and he saw why Cahz was so agitated.

  The playground was illuminated in the shimmering orange glow. But beyond the playground, pressed up against the school fence, were hundreds of zombies. Every square inch had an undead face staring back at him.

  The dozen or so zombies that had trailed them here had been reinforced by a legion of undead. But worse still, there were the handful of zombies trudging across the field towards the school.

  “Oh fuck,” Ryan whispered and he turned and fled.

  As he barreled back into the classroom Cahz slammed into him. The nude soldier had his gun in one hand his armoured vest in the other.

  “They’re in the field!” Ryan’s voice exploded.

  “I saw,” Cahz said. “Bring desks and chairs—anything you can. There must be a break in the fence.”

  “Can’t we just barricade ourselves in here?”

  “Hold this.” Cahz thrust his carbine at him. “Would love to,” he said as he squeezed into his body armour, “but we need space for the chopper to land.”

  “Right,” Ryan said, looking around. “Where are you going?”

  Cahz snatched the weapon back from Ryan and ran off down the corridor. “I’m going to stem the tide,” he called as he turned the corner.

  Ryan called after him, “Dressed like that? You’ll catch your death—”

  * * *

  Ignoring the broken glass, Cahz ran out into the playground. The flare was still casting the peculiar daybreak glow over everything.

  Looking around, the nearest zombie was a good ten metres away. The woman’s hair was matted and wild. The sequined vest top she wore was still clean enough to sparkle slightly under the light. The skin on her bare arms looked warmer, more alive under the artificial light, but the fingers missing from her outstretched hands and the gaping maw left Cahz in no doubt that she was walking dead.

  He aimed and fired.

  The dead partygoer was floored.

  There were a dozen or so zombies in the playground now making a beeline for Cahz, but none were dangerously close.

  There was the sound of breaking glass behind him. Cahz turned to see a desk half out the already shattered window and Ryan shoving at it from inside.

  Cahz looked up. The shamooli flare was halfway down. It wouldn’t be long before it landed, and although it would continue to burn on the ground for a time, it wouldn’t throw out as much light.

  With the carbine snug against his shoulder again, he marched off over the playing field to engage the shambling cadavers. Calmly and efficiently he walked up to within a few metres of the closest zombie and put a bullet between its eyes.

  It was now that he wished Ryan had confronted him earlier. On the march over here, Cahz had succumbed to his anger and foolishly shot all the zombies he’d encountered. He knew he could have clubbed them when he’d come across them individually. Now he didn’t have the time to waste; he had to dispatch these cadavers as efficiently as possible before they had a chance to push through in force. He wished he’d conserved his ammunition.

  Pressing in against the rusted fence, unperturbed by the rain, a thousand dead eyes watched the half-naked soldier executing their brethren. Already there were far too many to deal with. He had to find and plug that gap.

  In the gloom and the rain Cahz couldn’t see the break in the fence, but the stream of zombies were all coming from one direction, leading him back to the source. From behind him the angle of the light flattened and his shadow stretched out over the tall grass.

  “Fuck,” he cursed as the illumination from the flare dimmed.

  Ahead of him, zombies were squeezing between a pair of broken slats in the fence. It wasn’t a large gap, just enough for the zombies to exploit.

  Close enough to see the breach, Cahz stood his ground. The rain was bouncing off his skin; slick droplets trickled down his back. He held the M4 carbine in position and aimed at the approaching dead.

  “Come get some!” he shouted.

  Unaffected by the taunt, the undead marched on at their steady, lumbering pace, moving as fast as they could muster. Taunt or no taunt, all they knew was that warm, succulent flesh was only a few strides away and that was all the motivation they required.

  Cahz nuzzled into the sighting line and picked his first target.

  The machine gun barked. Quickly, effectively, Cahz dispatched the approaching cadavers until all the invading zombies lay motionless.

  From the gap in the fence, a fresh zombie pushed from the crowd behind onto the playing field. It stumbled from its ejection like a new born fawn getting used to its unsteady legs. Eventually finding its footing in the slippery mud, it scanned the terrain ahead, its mouth open in a gormless pose. When it saw nothing of interest it turned its head and caught sight of Cahz. With a gurgling cry, it stretched its arms out and threw its stiff legs forward.

  Cahz popped a round in its skull, ending the flicker of existence it had perversely maintained.

  The next zombie to poke through the fence had its head blown clean off. Its lifeless body collapsed and partially blocked the breach.

  “Ryan!” Cahz shouted.

  A distant voice cut through the moans, “Just… coming.”

  Another zombie forced its way through the slats. Cahz aimed, then it went dark. The last of the orange glow from the flare burned out.

  Cahz hastily pulled the trigger, the lightning flash from his muzzle burning the negative image of the balding zombie’s pate into his eyes.

  “Fuck.”

  He stood only feet away from the breach, not knowing whether he had gotten a clean shot off. In an instant he felt utterly vulnerable. In the dark he was deprived of his primary sense and the noise of the droning zombies made it impossible to hear from which direction he was being approached.

  He hesitated.

  Stay or retreat?

  He knew if he left he would have to clear the landing zone all over again. He unconsciously felt for the magazine in his pouch. Would he have enough ammo to clear the field a second time? But if he stayed and fought on in the dark, his chances of survival would be slim.

  Without thinking, he already had his hand on the last flare.

  He dropped his carbine into its sling and pulled the flare out. In the burst of ignition light, he saw the zombie lunge. Eyes wide open, Cahz reacted with military-trained reflexes. He leveled his weapon a
t the cadaver without registering what weapon he had.

  The flare rocketed forward, catching the bald zombie on the shoulder. The exhaust plume scorched Cahz across the arm, making him yelp in pain.

  Knocked off balance by the impact, the zombie slipped in the wet grass and fell at Cahz’s feet. The creature twisted and writhed in the mud, trying to crawl. The signal flare hurtled off and rattled against the fence, its chemical rocket illuminating the scene in golden flashes.

  Invigorated by the commotion, the lights, the sounds, and the movement, the undead spectators slapped the metal struts of the fence and hollered as best they could through their rigid throats. The whole fence reverberated with the sound of the pounding.

  Cahz leapt backwards and swept his carbine up into the firing position. Falling back on his pre-Z training, he put a double tap into the zombie’s head. The fear, surprise and sheer volume of adrenaline conspired to rob him of his aim. The first shot narrowly missed, but the second silenced the undead creature.

  As he looked up to check for more zombies, the signal flare lit up with a loud crack. The parachute deployed ineffectively, snagging the rocket on the fencing, but the bright radiance of the orange burn caught Cahz square on. He winced and turned away, screwing his eyes up as he did. His vision was filled with the bright green afterburn.

  “Ryan!” he shouted.

  “Cahz,” came Ryan’s reply from close at hand.

  Cahz pressed the balls of his palms to his eyes. “I can’t see! Shoot the pus bags!”

  “What with?”

  “Where’s your pistol?”

  Ryan’s reply was snappy: “With my clothes in the school! I’m carrying a friggin’ desk!”

  “Here!” Cahz held out the M4 in the direction of Ryan’s voice.

  There was a tug on the weapon.

  “How do I use this?”

  Cahz had his eyes screwed shut against the pain. “Safety’s on above the trigger. Flip it off then point and press!”

  “Okay.”

  Ryan took the weapon from Cahz’s grasp. There was the soft click of metal as he flipped the catch, then the scream of fire.

  “Shit!” Ryan cried as the chatter of bullets filled the air.

  “On semi!” Cahz screamed. “Put it on Semi!”

  “How?!”

  Cahz opened his eyes. The green blob of after burn still consumed his vision. Another chatter of machinegun fire ruptured the noise of moans.

  “Stop wasting bullets!”

  “They’re too close!” Ryan screamed.

  There was a third burst of shots and a click.

  “It’s stopped working!”

  “You’re out of ammo, goddamn it!” Cahz said. “Give it here!”

  The next moment he felt the hard body of the weapon being pushed into his open hand. He flipped the magazine free, took a fresh one from his body armour and slotted the new one into place, a drill Cahz was trained to do sighted or unsighted.

  He brought the carbine into firing position. The blur was starting to clear, but huge floating green blobs still obscured his vision. He blinked hard, trying to squeeze the internal lava lamp from his head.

  “Cahz, give me the gun—they’re getting close!” Ryan squealed.

  Cahz opened his eyes. The amorphous blobs skittered across his view, but behind them, bathed in the orange light of the flare, he could see three immobilized zombies and a fourth attempting to crawl towards them. Emerging from the breach came half a dozen more.

  Flipping the catch to semi-automatic, Cahz shot the crawling zombie in the head, then went straight back to clearing the breach.

  “Block that up. I’ll cover you,” he said.

  He fired repeatedly into the mass of bodies. Within moments he’d wiped out all the zombies who had made it through, but they were still squeezing their way in.

  “Ahhh!” came a cry from behind.

  “Ryan!” Cahz called without taking his eyes off the gap.

  “I’m okay,” Ryan panted.

  “Where’s our barricade?”

  Cahz started shooting at the crowd around the gap, hoping their immobile bodies would add to the impasse.

  “Coming.” Ryan backed up alongside, Cahz dragging the desk as he did. “Can you help with this?”

  “No,” Cahz snapped. “I’m shooting dead fucks!”

  With that, he popped another zombie through the skull as if to accentuate the point.

  “How am I going to do this then?” Ryan asked.

  Cahz took his eyes off the fence for a moment to examine the desk. Ryan had struggled with the large heavy teacher’s desk rather than the lighter flimsier classroom ones.

  “If you push it up to about half a metre you can tip it onto its end, then shove it up against the hole.”

  “There’s no way you can push this through the grass. We’ll have to pull it or lift it,” Ryan pointed out.

  “Then pull it!”

  “No way,” Ryan protested. “I’d have my ass up against the fence before I got it close enough.”

  “Okay, quit your whining and grab an end,” Cahz said. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Cahz fired a prolonged burst into the crowd, expending the mag.

  “Go!”

  The two men lifted the desk, one on either side, and ran at the fence like it was a battering ram against a portcullis.

  “Tip it!” Cahz shouted as they drew close.

  He dropped the leading edge and used the momentum of the charge to throw the desk on its end. The upright desk rattled against the fence as it clattered to a stop.

  Cahz and Ryan leapt back from the dozens of arms wedged through the railing trying to grasp them.

  “You okay?” Cahz asked, ejecting the spent magazine.

  “Yeah,” Ryan replied. “Do you think that’ll hold them?”

  “No idea. Go back to the school. Grab a pile of tables and chairs and try to shore this up.”

  “What will you be doing?” Ryan asked in an accusing tone.

  “I’m going to make a quick circuit of the fence while there’s still some light.”

  With that, Cahz jogged off.

  “What about the chopper?” Ryan called after him.

  Cahz called over his shoulder, “Do you hear it?”

  Ryan tried to pick up the sound of the engine, but it was lost to the rain and the tireless moaning.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dwelling

  Ali was bored and miserable. He sat in the tent, wrapped in a sleeping bag. It was pitch black and raining. The alcove he had wrecked out of the roof left him exposed to the lashing rain, with water running off the tiles into the gaping hole. It trickled down and dripped into the Rockwool insulation. No doubt it would have seeped down the plasterboard and started ruining the apartments below.

  Not that his alterations would affect the resale value, Ali mused.

  Even though the tent had a sewn-in waterproof groundsheet, he was still wet. He sat in the mummy-style sleeping bag like a caterpillar from some Lewis Carol nightmare, his face and bushy beard poking through. His thick eyebrows were furrowed, his eyes squinting against the rain, but he dared not zip up the tent.

  What if the chopper returned? Would he hear it above the noise of the driving rain? How long would he have to signal it? Ali couldn’t take the chance.

  So he sat, the rain dripping from the tip of his nose.

  The inside label of the sleeping bag had boasted a water resistant outer skin. But the amount of spray coming in the open tent flap was testing that reliance to the limit. Ali knew it wouldn’t be long before the fabric passed its saturation point and he’d be even colder and wetter and more miserable.

  There was a gas-powered lamp in the hiker’s pack, the type that took the same canister as the stove. He had toyed with the idea of bringing a book to read, something to occupy his mind and help the time pass. In the end none of Frank’s martial arts manuals or action adventure novels took his fancy. Besides, he might need the
lantern to signal with later and he had no idea how much gas was left.

  The small tower of Franks DVDs took the brunt of a gust of wind and toppled over. The plastic cases scattered among the eaves and insulation. Ali didn’t bother to try to retrieve them. They would never light in weather like this, and besides, they were intended to produce a column of smoke. In the pitch dark and rain they were pointless.

  There was a tremendous crash from across the street, like the rumble of dying thunder. Ali jerked his head up to look for the source of the noise. A veil of glowing embers wafted into the rain from a bank of shattered windows.

  The buildings across the street had all caught alight and with frightening speed devoured the abandoned properties. The fire’s furious consumption of the available fuel and the lack of any fire suppression had meant the buildings were gutted in a matter of hours. The steady rain had done little to quench the flames, but it had reduced the combustibility of the zombies in the street.

  Ali knew from personal experience how flammable the undead were. Countless concoctions of sugar, flour, washing liquid and gasoline were tried as the survivors tinkered to produce the ultimate petrol bomb. In the beginning, the newly resurrected had burnt for hours, the flames intense enough to ignite the fat. Those early blazing culls had been powerful enough to reduce the bone to ash. As the corpses had decayed and rotted, it seemed that they lost the fat around their bones, becoming more gaunt and skeletal. The older the cadaver, the less well they burnt. But they still burnt. With their dry rag clothing and wispy kindling hair, even the old sinewy ghouls had been ample fuel for the flames before their dowsing in the rain.

  In the street below, those zombies unfortunate enough to be next to buildings had perished in the blaze. As they fell others were pushed towards the pyre. Ali didn’t know if zombies had no fear of fire or whether their desire for food overrode what self-preservation they had, but since he’d been watching hundreds of undead had been cremated.

  But as the rain grew heavier only those undead crammed against the burning buildings took light. For a while, wrapped up warm in his tent, it had been like sitting before a massive campfire. He had watched the inferno, hypnotized by the light and movement as the flames danced. Even the crackling and pops as the buildings were consumed were comforting, the noise drowning out the clamour of the dead.