‘It is sharp,’ said Carmella, wincing as the cart rumbled over a series of shallow potholes. ‘I’m sure it is just this road, it is very bumpy, yes?’
‘Sorry about that,’ said Charlie, glancing over his shoulder. ‘It doesn’t look like this road has seen much in the way of maintenance for years… I’ll try my best to avoid the worst of it, OK?’
‘Thank you, Charlie…’ Carmella replied, wincing again.
They had been travelling for a few hours now and the refreshing dawn sun had blossomed into a warm bright morning, the vibrant rays seeming to cleanse the moors of the previous day’s gloom. The new day had even given them a brief respite from the ever present Dead. For, just as Charlie had hoped, they had only encountered a few of the walking cadavers; their decaying corpses wandering the lonely moors in pursuit of something living that had eluded them.
‘Do you need some more air?’ asked Liz, sharing Fran’s concern for Carmella. ‘It’s a nice day… we can open the top hatch if you like?’
‘Yes, Liz. I think you are right,’ Carmella replied, ‘some fresh air would be nice.’
‘OK…,’ Liz continued, using her arms to steady herself as she stood up onto one of the benches running along the inside of cart. ‘Charlie, anything ahead of us?’
‘Nope, we’re clear,’ he replied, checking the road and moorland in front of them.
‘Michael, Cam, any of the Dead behind or to the sides?’
‘Erm… hang on…’ said Michael, placing his eye against one of the spyholes in the back wall of the cart.’
‘Dead free,’ he finally said, giving Liz the thumbs up.
‘Sides too.’ added Cam.
With a smile to Carmella, Liz reached over to the securing bolt and slid it across. So not to let it needlessly bang as it fell open, Liz placed a foot on the opposite bench to distribute her weight and slowly pushed the hatch open. With her head and shoulders now standing proud through the open hatchway she gently lowered the door down onto the roof.
‘There you go,’ she finally said, taking a moment to look at the passing world around her.
Taking in a deep breath of the clean air, she could smell the sweet aromas of the flowering heather and gorse that seemed to blanket the moor in alternating swathes of small purple and yellow flowers. Seizing the moment to enjoy the feeling of the warm sun on her face, Liz closed her eyes for a few seconds. It was only when the rising incline of the road caused her back to dig painfully into the wood behind her that she opened them again. As the cart slowly reached the crest of the small hill she noticed the figure of a man slumped at the base of a twisted tree by the side of the road.
‘Charlie, I think there’s one of the Dead coming up…,’ she said, as the cart drew nearer, ‘It’s on the left by the tree…’
‘Moving?’ asked Charlie, leaning forward to get a better look himself through the slit in front of him.
‘Erm… wait… yes, yes it’s moving,’ she replied, seeing the Dead man’s head slowly move in her direction at the sound of her voice.
‘Hmm….’ Mused Charlie, his thick eyebrows creasing together as he watched the Dead man making no attempt to move from the base of the tree, ‘and just why aren’t you trying to get up, Mister?’‘Liz, let Tom know we’re stopping,’ continued Charlie, calling up to her. ‘I don’t want him driving Snow right into the back of us.’
‘Will do,’ Liz replied, gingerly moving her feet from one bench to the other so she could turn round to face the cart behind them.
Although she was sure Tom had already seen her, Liz still waved her arms indicating they were stopping. Sure enough, Snow had barely taken two strides before she came to a halt.
‘What’s up?’ called Tom, his face appearing through one of the side hatches looking a little too eager for Liz’s liking.
‘Charlie just wants to check out something…’ she replied, shielding her eyes from the sun as she relayed Charlie’s words. ‘He says we’ll deal with it… there’s no need for you to get out as well…’
‘Oh, OK…’ waved Tom, his disappointment barely hidden before his head disappeared back inside the cart.
‘I won’t be a minute,’ said Charlie, securing Star’s reins before moving through the cart to one of the side hatches. ‘Liz, Cam can you keep watch from here?’
‘Sure,’ they replied in unison as Charlie jumped down onto the crumbling road surface.
Approaching the ravenous corpse with caution, Charlie pulled free one of the small ice picks from its channel on his chest and readied himself to dispatch the unfortunate soul in front of him.
The Dead man, stripped to the waist, had been reduced to little more than rotting skin stretched taut over sharp angular bone. His sunken chest, tinged grey and covered with a creeping black mould, bucked and jerked as he strained to get closer to Charlie. Curiously though despite the Dead man’s obvious desire to rip into the living flesh so conveniently appearing before him he still remained seated at the base of the tree. Whether the corpse still had the use of his legs or not, Charlie knew it was incidental. He had seen the Dead with nothing below the waist but trailing entrails, drag their ravaged bodies hand over fist to get to the living flesh they craved. So the fact that this Dead man made no attempt, apart from his snapping jaws, to get to him was a puzzle indeed.
‘Now… what’s your deal?’ he mumbled to himself, eyeing the moaning cadaver as he crouched down a few strides away.
Now that he was studying the cadaver closely Charlie could clearly see what the problem was. At some point someone had secured the corpse’s emaciated arms with a thin wire wrapped around the trunk of the tree. Not only that but digging deep into the putrid flesh of the man’s torso was a second strand of wire locking the corpse in place, preventing it from standing. This in itself was strange enough but it was the five roughly formed small letters carved into the bark of the tree above the Dead man’s head that made Charlie pause.
‘Thief,’ whispered Charlie, reading the word aloud.
Unfortunately he had seen horrors like this before. With food in such short supply and the law only a thing of the past, many of the survivors had turned savage, taking what steps they considered necessary to protect what was theirs. Charlie could only imagine the torment the man had gone through, struggling against his cutting bonds as he waited for either the elements or the Dead to claim him.
‘Christ, you poor bastard…’ said Charlie to the corpse, stepping forward to finally end the Dead man’s torment.
Receiving only a guttural moan in response Charlie took another step closer, the ice pick in his hand already swinging through the air toward the Dead man’s chapped skull. With a sharp ‘crack’ the brittle skull plates shattered under the force of Charlie’s blow and as the Dead man’s muscles spasmed one final time he was at last released into the oblivion beyond.
‘So just who did you cross, eh?’ Charlie asked the now lifeless corpse, tearing free the ice pick from the ruined skull.
Flicking some rotting gore from the end of his weapon, Charlie thought more about the corpse in front of him. Whoever had consigned the unfortunate thief to his fate must be located somewhere close by. After all, there seemed little point in transcribing the man’s crime into the tree if it wasn’t to serve as a warning to others that such actions would not be tolerated here.
‘Ah… there you are…,’ Charlie said under his breath, noticing in the distance the lichen covered roof of a small farmhouse nestled by the side of the road.
Walking back to the cart Charlie’s gaze kept returning to the small farmhouse off in the distance, wondering just who, if anybody, still lived there. From the state of its body Charlie guessed that the unlucky thief could only have met his demise sometime in the last three months and thanks to the scarcity of the Dead on the moors, it was quite possible whoever had played his judge, jury and ultimate executioner was alive and possibly still in residence nearby.
‘What’s up?’ asked Liz, as Charlie climbed back into the car
t.
‘Rough justice,’ he replied shaking his head in dismay. ‘Very rough…’
‘But we should be OK… shouldn’t we?’ asked Fran, looking from Liz to Charlie.
‘Who knows?’ shrugged Charlie, gathering up Star’s reins again. ‘We’re dealing with the sort of person who ties someone to a tree and leaves them to die… I certainly don’t want to make any assumptions around them, do you?’
‘No,’ replied Fran, her gaze drifting to Carmella and Anne.
‘And unfortunately I think whoever did this is close by… like ‘that farmhouse down the road’ close,’ Charlie continued, nodding to the road ahead of them.
‘Oh,’said Liz, nervously chewing on her lip, ‘and we have no choice but to ride right past them…’
‘Exactly,’ Charlie simply said, giving the reins a sharp flick to get Star moving. ‘No choice at all…’
Within twenty minutes they had reached the small farmhouse and Charlie was pulling the cart to a stop again. Using the tip of the covered knife on his wrist to scratch the stubble under his chin, Charlie took in the scene before them.
Set slightly back from the road, the dilapidated two story farmhouse in front of them had certainly seen better days. Like the house in which they had spent the previous night in, it too was made from the grey stone common in the area and its slate roof was dotted with patches of moss and lichen. Though this time, looking somewhat at odds with the rest of the old looking exterior and hanging rather loosely at a precarious angle on one corner, was a battered satellite dish. Attached to the far end of the farmhouse Charlie could see a curious looking fenced-in area. Made up from an assortment of mismatched planks, chain link panels and old doors, he was unable to see just what the enclosure held but the three Dead figures pawing desperately to get inside told him whatever it was, it was still alive.
‘Any sign of our vigilante?’ asked Liz, her face appearing over Charlie’s shoulder to look through the viewing slit.
‘Not unless he’s one of those,’ he replied, nodding toward the three moaning Dead.
‘Wonder what’s caught their interest,’ continued Liz. ‘Perhaps it’s someone who needs help?’
Thinking back to the poor man left to die tied to a tree, Charlie was unwilling to risk any of his group to help someone who may have been responsible for such an act of barbarism. But he already knew it was an argument he could never win with Liz. Despite seeing humanity at its worst over the last five years she still had grown into a young woman with such capacity for optimism and generosity of heart that it sometimes baffled him.
‘Charlie, we have to help…’ she repeated, sensing his reluctance.
Looking over his shoulder at the almost exasperated look on the young woman’s face, Charlie sighed.
‘Fine,’ he said, giving Star’s reins a gentle flick. ‘We’ll get a bit closer and see what’s what first… OK?’
‘OK,’ she replied, a smile of triumph twitching at her lips.
As the cart moved past the front of the seemingly abandoned farmhouse and approached the ramshackle addition, the distinct bleating of distressed sheep could be heard over the excited moaning of the Dead.
‘Fucking hell!’ said Michael, eagerly moving from one spyhole to the next.There’s some sheep in there!’
When the rampaging Dead had swarmed across the countryside it had not only been the resident human population that had felt the sharp bite of their putrid teeth; cows, sheep and pigs had also fallen victim to the bloody hands so eager to tear into the flesh of the living. So to find livestock of any kind after all these years could only be considered a marvel.
‘Look we’ve already seen what happens to people who just help themselves around here,’ Charlie warned, looking back at Michael. ‘We’re not doing anything stupid, OK?’
‘Fine…’ Groaned Michael, trying to push the mouth-watering memories of roast lamb from his mind. ‘Let’s deal with these corpses… who knows, someone might show their gratitude with a bit of meat that’s not rabbit, squirrel or rat?’
‘Hmm… I wouldn’t count on it,’ Charlie mumbled under his breath, pulling Star to a halt.
Now that they were alongside the three excited Dead figures they could see that at some point they had managed to break through a small section of the fencing. Making a hole just wide enough for them to force their arms through, the bloody lumps of woolly flesh rotting on the ground a clear indication that at least one of the poor beasts inside had wandered fatally close to the grasping Dead limbs.
‘Right, so first we’ll get rid of these three bastards…,’ began Charlie, in a hushed tone.
‘Four,’ interrupted Cam, looking though one of the spyholes nearer the top of the wall.
‘Four?’ asked Charlie, craning his head forward trying to find the unaccounted corpse. ‘Where?’
‘Looks like a suicide,’ Cam whispered, glancing from the hole back to Charlie, ‘he’s hung from an upstairs window over the enclosure.’
‘So it’s possible no one’s home then,’ suggested Michael, images of roasted meat once again coming to mind.
‘Hmm…’ Charlie reluctantly agreed, knowing it was unlikely anyone would still be living in the house with a corpse hanging out the window.
‘OK then,’ he continued, turning to look at those behind him. ‘Cam, Michael I want you get Tom and check out the house…. and for fuck’s sake watch your step.’
‘Will do,’ nodded Michael, already quietly opening the hatch on the side of the cart facing away from the Dead.
Cam was about to jump down to follow Michael when he felt Fran’s small hand on his arm.
‘Be careful…’ she said, her urgent words barely a whisper.
With a reassuring smile on his face, Cam nodded and lowered himself out of the cart.
‘Liz?’ whispered Charlie, making sure she was ready to join him in taking down the two Dead men and the Dead woman pawing desperately to get to the penned sheep.
‘Shut the hatch as soon as we’re out,’ Liz said in a hushed voice to Fran as she followed Cam and Michael out of the cart.
Nodding her understanding, Fran moved aside to make room for Charlie to pass by.
‘Go!’ said Charlie, tapping Michael on the back once they were all poised and ready.
Almost immediately, Cam and Michael darted out from their hiding place and in a low crouch ran back to Snow and the second cart. With all their unholy attention on the terrified livestock just beyond their reach, the three Dead figures failed to notice the living flesh silently running behind them or the two creeping up to them, blades drawn and ready to send them into their perpetual overdue oblivion.
‘Hey!’ shouted Liz, her blade slicing through the air towards the first of the Dead men in front of her.
As a face covered in rotting gore began to turn to look at her, its film covered eyes already registering the sudden appearance of her living flesh, the blade hit home; separating the head from its decaying shoulders. Before the decapitated head of the Dead man had even touched the ground Charlie had stepped forward and his own weapon was tearing into the back of the Dead woman’s skull. Ripping through her skin, bone and brain tissue he brought a swift end to her unnatural existence. Then with a sharp tug his ice pick, he began to pull her backwards, drawing the now truly Dead woman’s body back away from the breach in the fence. He had barely moved her lifeless corpse half a metre before the force of his pulling tore free a large section of her skull, exposing the putrid mush of her decaying brain.
‘Fuck!’ said Charlie, instinctively using the crook of his elbow to shield his nose from the overpowering stench.
‘I know!’ agreed Liz, stabbing her blade forcefully through the eye socket of the last remaining Dead man, putting him to rest. ‘I don’t know what smells worse, these bags of shit or the poor rotting beast they’ve torn to pieces.’
With a smooth practiced motion, Liz pulled free the tip of her sword from the Dead man’s head and flicked away any of the remaining gor
e smeared along its blade.
‘Close call,’ replied Charlie, stamping down hard on the head Liz had freed from its body, ‘they’re all pretty rank…’
‘But worth it,’ said Liz, looking through the break in the fence to the enclosure within.
Beyond the ramshackle mishmash of hastily attached wood and chain-link fencing Liz could see a small barren area of trampled down mud, some six by five metres square. Apart from a water trough full of rainwater there was very little else to sustain the animals and in fact every scrap of vegetation had already been gnawed down to its roots by the penned-in sheep, most of whom had not survived their ordeal. Apart from the beast that had been torn apart by the Dead, another four had simply succumbed to starvation, their bloated rotting corpses still littering the enclosure. Only two sheep inside were still alive and it didn’t take a farmer to see they were both in a very sorry state. Their fleeces, presumably once a creamy white, were now little more than a matted mess clogged with wet mud and their own faeces and Liz could only imagine what infections the animals may have caught from the rotting carcases that shared their sorry home.
‘I don’t know how long they’ve been left in there,’ said Liz, turning to look back at Charlie, ‘but they look like they’re on their last legs to me…’
‘Well, let’s get them out so they can graze,’ Charlie replied, stooping down to look through the hole in the fence. ‘If we’re lucky they might pull through?’
‘Hmm…’ pondered Liz, thinking it would take more than a quick munch of grass to help these poor beasts survive.
‘And I think we should get them out before dealing with our friend up there,’ Charlie continued, stepping back to nod to the Dead man hanging from the window overlooking the pen.
Looking up at their un-living host, Liz could tell the man had taken his own life sometime probably in the last three weeks. His stomach, distended with bacterial gas, swelled against a pair of filthy dungarees but from what little of his sagging grey weather-worn skin she could see he hadn’t committed suicide to spare himself the searing pain of turning from a bite. Just what had tipped the man over the edge after nearly five years of survival, Liz could only guess but she hoped the envelope sealed in the clear zip-lock bag hanging around his neck held the answers to this tragic mystery. With movement in the open window above the straining cadaver catching her eye, Liz saw Tom had already made his way through the house and was waving down the ‘all clear’ to them.
Lanherne Chronicles (Prequel): To Escape the Dead Page 15