‘Shit!’ he mumbled, breaking into a run with Liz close on his heels.
The only consolation Liz could take as she ran toward the gate, her heart hammering in her chest, was that the feet had been those of an adult. Anne was still safe. With the gravel of the driveway kicking up as they ran, Liz couldn’t help but go through the list of people in their group and even though she hated herself for doing it, she knew there were some on that list she would miss more than others.
Once they had reached the gate they made a quick check for any of the Dead wandering along the lane and seeing they were alone, Charlie and Liz skirted around the pool of congealing blood to look down on the unknown covered body.
‘It’s the Italian,’ came a voice from the first cart, followed by the sound of the bolt being drawn across. ‘The Dead somehow knew we were in here… he and Cam got out to deal with them,’ Fran continued, pushing open the side hatch.
‘And?’ prompted Charlie, irritated by Fran’s pause.
‘And what?’ she snapped back. ‘And he was unlucky, simple as that. He got bitten, he died…’
‘Who…’ Liz began, unable to pull her eyes from the human shape under the tarpaulin.
‘Me… I finished him,’ Fran interrupted a blank look on her face.
‘And is everyone else alright?’ continued Liz, stepping around Vincenzo’s body to finally look at the young woman only a few years older than herself. ‘Are you alright?’
At this, a look of confusion flitted across Fran’s face. This was the way of the world now. This was simply what you had to do to survive. People got bitten, people died, people you knew, people you had only just met, people you loved, it was just what was expected. You didn’t let them turn no matter what.
‘Yeah… everyone else is OK,’ she finally replied, ‘except Carmella of course…’
With the mention of Vincenzo’s wife Liz’s stomach twisted again.
‘Christ… Carmella…’ Liz groaned, looking over to Charlie.
‘Liz, can you lead Snow into the grounds,’ Charlie began, giving Vincenzo’s body one last glance. ‘I’ll see how she is and then we’ll think about what we’re going to do.’
Although she too wanted to comfort the obviously devastated young woman, Liz slowly nodded and walked over to take Snow by her bridle. There were no words she could say that would make an ounce of difference to Carmella and Liz knew it. Every survivor alive had lost someone they loved and no matter what words of comfort were spoken or acts of sincere remorse were made, they all knew this was a personal hell only Carmella could deal with in her own time.
‘And just how long has she been like this?’ Charlie whispered, looking at Carmella as she sat slumped inside the second cart, a glassy look in her eyes.
‘Since she came round,’ replied Tyrone, his brows knotted together in concern.
‘Came round?’ Charlie asked, reaching over to envelope her delicate hand in his and giving it a squeeze.
‘She wouldn’t let him go,’ said Cam, a hint of shame in his voice, ‘I had to stop her…’
‘You probably saved her life,’ added Phil, placing a reassuring hand on Cam’s shoulder, ‘he was turning real fast.’
‘Oh,’ was all Charlie could say.
If Cam had indeed been the cause of the bruise that even now was darkening on Carmella’s chin, then Phil had been right, he probably had saved her life.
‘Right, David can you drive Star back into the grounds,’ said Charlie, knowing that no matter how tragic the recent event had been he still had the safety of the living to think of. ‘We’re going to salvage what we can from the kitchen, grounds and sheds and then later we’ll say goodbye to Vincenzo properly.’
Given the opportunity they would always give those who had been taken by the Dead the respect their passing demanded. They would build a pyre for Vincenzo’s body and through fire, return his body to the earth.
***
‘So where are we going to go?’ asked David, passing a bowl of steaming stew along to Cam.
Cam took the bowl and placed it in front of Carmella. Sat between Sally and Tom, she silently allowed her grief to consume her, completely unaware of the nourishing food now in front of her.
‘Carmella, you must eat something…,’ said Cam, his voice full of concern for the pregnant woman as he lightly squeezed her shoulder, ‘Please… for the baby…’
Looking from the bowl to Carmella’s catatonic like expression, Sally surprisingly picked up the spoon and dipping it in the stew, lifted a spoonful to Carmella’s mouth.
‘Come on,’ she whispered, forcing the spoon between unmoving lips. ‘There you go… and now just a few more….’
Wiping a dribble of stew from Carmella’s bruised chin, Sally caught the others looking at her.
‘What?’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Anyone would think I’m a complete heartless bitch?’
‘Not a complete one…No,’ said Phil, giving Sally a wink.
They had spent the morning removing every edible item from the kitchen stores, filling old plastic bottles with pre-boiled water and digging up whatever vegetables had reached a harvestable size from the grounds. Tom had also found one of the Institute’s horses dead in the small side building that had been converted into a stable. The beast, tethered to its post while the fire raged, must have suffered a slow traumatic death but its passing would not go to waste. Phil, falling back on his old skills, had already butchered much of the meat from the carcass, some of which Michael and Paul were still cooking.
‘What about this?’ said Tyrone, his finger marking an advert in the open Yellow Pages in front of him.
‘Smithson & Sons’ salvage yard,’ he continued, spinning the directory round for Charlie to see. ‘It’ll have a good strong fence surrounding a large area…’
Charlie took note of the address in the advert and then checked it against one of the large battered maps spread out before him.
‘Sorry, too close to a town,’ he replied, shaking his head, ‘and too near the motorway. High concentration of the Dead aside, it’ll be hell trying to get the carts past all that mangled traffic…’
‘Shit,’ mumbled Tyrone, pulling the Yellow Pages back.
‘We need somewhere out of the way,’ said Liz, keeping an eye on Anne as she messily spooned chunks of the rabbit stew into her mouth, ‘somewhere with high walls and set far enough away from any major town that we won’t run the risk of being overrun by the Dead.’
‘Is there anything listed under ‘The National Trust’?’ suggested Cam. ‘Some of those big old houses usually have walled grounds like here.’
‘Erm…’ Tyrone mused, flipping the pages back and forth.
‘What about a school?’ said Fran, suddenly remembering something she had heard. ‘A private boarding school where there are already other survivors?’
‘That’d be perfect,’ said Charlie, ‘especially if there are other survivors. Where is it? What’s it called?’
Fran’s mouth fell open, suddenly realising she didn’t know. Chewing her lip in concentration she pushed up the sleeves of the large jacket she had claimed, along with a pair of jeans and some boots, from one of the Dead to clothe herself.
‘Shit!… I don’t remember… how can I not remember what it was called?’ she replied, frantically tapping her knuckles against her head as she desperately tried to recall any detail that would help her remember.
‘Well that’s useful!’ said Sally, sniffing her disapproval.
‘And there she is, the Sally we know and love,’ chuckled Phil, pushing himself away from the table to help Michael cut up more of the cooked meat for their journey.
‘No, there is a school,’ Fran continued, ignoring Sally’s comment, ‘I remember hearing Daniels talking about it with one of the returning scouting parties. They’d gone south-west and been gone ages, a lot longer than usual… in fact he’d written them off. Apparently they’d had to skirt round some raiders or something, that’s what held them up�
�� and then on the way back they came across this boarding school… I remember specifically because Daniels got very interested about there being archers on the walls…’
‘Archers?’ mused Charlie, the sound of Tyrone flicking frantically through the Yellow Pages barely registering.
‘Hmmm,’ confirmed Fran with a nod. ‘The scouting party warned whoever they were about the raiders but didn’t stick around… their nerves were fried after so long on the road among the Dead… probably just wanted to get back home I guess.’
‘South-west… south-west,’ Charlie repeated, looking from one creased map to the next, hoping something would jump out at him.
‘Here we are,’ said Tyrone triumphantly. ‘Schools and Universities.’
‘How many?’ asked Tom, lifting his bowl to tip the last of his stew into his mouth.
Liz saw Anne just about to mimic Tom’s action and reaching across, she placed a finger on the edge of the bowl stopping her.
‘No,’ she mouthed.
‘But…’ Anne began, looking at Tom, who noticing what was happening made a playful but exaggerated show of licking the bowl clean.
‘Tom,’ said Liz, trying not to smile. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘Well,’ puffed Tyrone after double checking the catchment area covered by the copy of the Yellow Pages they had, ‘if we say this covers approximately a thirty or forty mile radius, which is pushing it for a scouting party, we’re looking at fifty-eight places listed under education.’
‘Ignore anything that has primary school, nursery, playgroup or kindergarten in its name,’ said Fran. ‘From what I overheard I got the impression it was a big place…’
‘OK,’ mumbled Tyrone, fishing about in his pockets for a pencil.
‘Right… so that narrows it down to… seventeen.’ He said once he had finally removed the unlikely options.
One by one Tyrone read out the addresses for Charlie to find on the map. So far they had found only three possibilities, none of which had rang any bells with Fran, so they continued working their way through the list.
‘Erm… Saint Margaret’s High School for Girls?’ he suggested, reading the next on the list.
‘Saint Margaret’s?… No, it’s too far north of here,’ replied Charlie, after finding the group of buildings marked on the map, ‘and too close to a town.’
‘Well that just leaves Saint Xavier’s Academy, Truro High School for Boys and West Bideford College…’ continued Tyrone, looking up hopefully from the wrinkled directory in his hand.
‘Wait!’ cried Fran, ‘Xavier’s! That was it. I’m sure Saint Xavier’s was the school Daniels talked about.’
‘Saint Xavier’s?’ asked Tyrone, eagerly ripping free the page to pass to Charlie.
With those seated about him leaning forward in anticipation, Charlie cast aside one map in front of him to search for another.
‘Ah! Here it is… Saint Xavier’s Academy,’ he said, stabbing a finger at a point on the map.
‘It’s quite far out,’ he continued, looking over at Fran. ‘Further than I’d have expected a scouting party to travel… but you did say they were gone a long time.’
‘Yes, Daniels had been surprised when they finally made their way back,’ she nodded. ‘He thought the Dead had got them.’
‘Well this looks like the place then,’ continued Charlie, ‘Saint Xavier’s is about to receive some new guests… let’s hope they’re welcoming.’
‘How long?’ asked Liz, her worried eyes flicking from Anne to Carmella.
‘About two days if we’re lucky,’ replied Charlie, understanding her concern. ‘And if we stick to the country back roads hopefully we’ll bypass the gridlocked roads and any major built-up areas.’
‘That’s a lot of ‘luck’ and ‘hope’ for one sentence…,’ said Cam, his worried eyebrows crunching together in concern. ‘Particularly when you throw raiders into the mix as well.’
A journey out among the Dead was always fraught with danger from both the Dead and living alike. Any number of things could go wrong to put their lives at risk but since staying at the Institute was no longer an option, they had little choice but to try. The only consolation was that they could count themselves lucky to have a specific destination to aim towards. Many a traveller had aimlessly wandered the countryside, their supplies of food and water slowly dwindling, until they became trapped somewhere simply waiting for the Dead to find them.
‘Raiders don’t usually stay in one place for long,’ said Charlie, trying to calm the obvious fears he saw bubbling under the surface of those in the room.
‘Yeah, those scum just take what they want and then fuck off somewhere else to bully the next group of unfortunates they come across,’ added Tom, a sneer twisting his mouth.
It didn’t matter when or where you were, throughout history there were always those who thought just because they were greater in strength or number that they could simply take what they wanted. The meek inheriting the earth was a nice idea but in reality they usually ended bleeding in the dirt while their women were raped, belongings pillaged and children traumatised. Such was the way of Man.
‘Look, there’s a million and one things that can go wrong,’ Charlie continued, looking from one anxious face to the next, his gaze finally lingering on Carmella, ‘but if we don’t try then they’ve won…. all of them, the Dead, the raiders, those bastard aliens or terrorist or whatever they were that heaped this shit down on humanity… they’ve beaten us and we might as well top ourselves here and now… and I don’t know about you but fuck that! While I’ve got breath in my body I’m going to fight for those I care about, fight to survive… No, actually fuck that too, I’m not fighting to just survive, I’m fighting to live.’
Slowly one by one heads began to nod in agreement. They would take their chance on the road. They would deal with the Dead and if they came across them, deal with the raiders too. They needed to live not simply survive and if Saint Xavier’s offered them a chance of that then they would risk it all to get there.
‘Right, so when are we leaving then?’ asked Phil, snapping closed the lid of a plastic box now full of cooked horse meat.
‘Well, we’re safe here for the moment,’ said Charlie, ‘and we don’t want to spend more than one night on the road unless we have to, so I think we should finish packing up what we can and after we’ve said a proper goodbye to Vincenzo, leave at first light tomorrow.’
At the mention of his name, Carmella slowly turned her head to look at Charlie, fresh heavy tears already filling her eyes as her hands instinctively moved to her cradle the unborn child within her.
***
‘Goodbye, Vincenzo… I’m sorry…’ said Charlie, solemnly moving the flaming torch from one spot under the pile of kindling and chopped wood to the next. ‘And don’t worry, Carmella and the baby will be looked after…’
While the wood slowly began to crackle and pop under the growing flames, Charlie turned and walked back to join the assembled group of survivors, his gaze lingering on Carmella. The wretched woman had somehow managed to claw her way back from the catatonic state her overwhelming grief had imposed upon her and as she watched the body of her husband wrapped in an old blanket begin to catch fire heavy tears fell freely from her eyes. Beside her, Phil placed a hand on her shoulder, eager for her to know they all understood her loss but the comforting weight of his touch could do little to ease the pain ripping through the young woman.
With death an everyday acquaintance for them all, they knew there was little they could do to really help her. Carmella had to find her own way through this personal hell, if not for herself then for the child she held inside her. In a way she had been fortunate to have been spared death’s woeful embrace for so long and even in its smothering grasp she had been left with a small part of Vincenzo to live on in his stead, his unborn baby. For Carmella the child would always be a part of him left behind for her to love and to cherish, and in that she could take a small amount of solace.
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One by one the group began to return to the kitchen, each giving Carmella a hug, kiss or simply a touch to show that they knew, shared and understood her pain.
‘I’m so sorry,’ finally whispered Fran, her hand hovering but a hair’s breadth from touching Carmella’s arm, almost afraid to make that final contact.
Carmella turned away from the now blazing pyre to look at Fran.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ she said, her questioning gaze searching Fran’s face for the truth.
‘I…’ Fran tried to reply, drawing her hand back
‘It was you… you stopped him coming back,’ Carmella continued, reaching to fiercely grasp her hand.
‘I’m… I’m sorry… I had to…’ was all Fran could think of to say, trying to pull her hand free.
‘Thank you,’ Carmella interrupted, holding Fran’s hand even tighter and pulling it to her chest. ‘Thank you Fran, thank you…you… you gave him peace… you gave my Vincenzo peace and for that I can never thank you enough…’
With that, more heavy tears fell as Carmella’s raw grief rose to the surface again, demanding to be acknowledged.
‘It’ll be alright Carmella… I promise,’ Fran whispered, pulling the grieving woman into her arms as her own grief bubbled forth to mirror it. ‘It’ll be alright…’
‘How, Fran?’ Carmella sobbed. ‘How can it be ever be alright again? I am alone now…’
Pushing Carmella slightly away from her, Fran took the woman’s chin in her fingers and tilted her tear filled face up to look at her.
‘I made a promise to Vincenzo, remember,’ she whispered, her thumb moving to wipe away a tear as it rolled down Carmella’s cheek. ‘I will take care of you… you are not alone, Carmella… as long as I live you never will be….’
‘Fran…’ Carmella started to say.
‘I made a promise,’ Fran repeated, using the back of her hand to wipe away her own tears. ‘You’ll see, together we’ll give your baby a long and good life… I promise… you’ll see…’
A gust of wind suddenly sped past them sending a shower of golden embers twirling from the flames up into the darkening evening sky above them.
Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead Page 8