Dark and Deadly Land

by Richard Murray

  Each of them was dressed in a thick jacket, walking boots and jeans or trousers. All materials that would be hard to bite through straight away and allow the most range of movement without restriction.

  Several of them wore gloves and woollen hats. All but one of the men had beards, though they were neatly trimmed and the women had their hair up in buns or out of the way. Their expressions were hard, suspicious even.

  These were people who had fought the undead and most likely the living and they were still here. They weren’t easy prey and as I glanced at Ryan I saw that he recognised that too. His hand was on the hilt of his knife and his smile had widened almost to a grin while his eyes were dead. He was ready for violence.

  “Stop,” one of the women called as six rifles were raised to their shoulder and pointed at us. We were still ten metres or so away from them.

  “We mean no harm,” I called and saw the look of doubt on their faces. Four of the rifles were aimed at Ryan and I saw he had his knife half drawn. I hissed and gestured for him to relax. He didn’t look at me but he released his hold on the knife.

  “What do you want?” the same woman called. She was stocky and short, barely above five feet but she spoke with authority.

  “Just passing through,” I called as I raised both hands before me to show they were empty. “Travelling north and looking for survivors and supplies on the way.”

  “We’ve no supplies to give you,” she said. “And no room for more mouths to feed. Be on your way.”

  “We were hoping to find a boat, some way to get us across the bay to the north so we can avoid Carlisle.”

  “A boat you say?” she looked thoughtful for a moment and her rifle lowered a little so that it wasn’t aiming directly for my head. “We can’t give you a boat but you could buy passage.”

  “Buy passage?” I said. “With what?”

  “Best you come with us, we can discuss it,” the older woman said as one of her companions looked to her.

  “You sure about this Bess?”

  “That I am Silas,” she said as she gestured for them to lower their weapons. “How many of you are there?”

  “Eight,” I called as I lowered my own arms. “Though two of us are just a couple of kids we picked up on the way.”

  “Well you leave your car and any weapons out here,” she said. “We don’t need the sound of an engine setting them damn things off.”

  “Zombies?”

  “Aye, rotting bastards are bad enough but get em riled up with a lot of noise and they’re a right pain in the arse.”

  I gestured to the others to leave the car and a couple of the rifles were raised once again as they saw Jinx pad quietly up to Ryan’s side.

  “Nice dog,” the woman said as she held her across her chest. “It can come with you but it barks once and I’ll put a bullet through its head. We clear?”

  “As crystal,” I said and could almost feel the ice filling my voice.

  “Nothing personal but… well, you’ll see.”

  Our weapons, such as we had, were left at the barricade. Ryan showed obvious reluctance to leave his knife but I reached out my hand to his and he smiled as I pressed into his hand that folding claw-like blade I had last used to take the life of those men at the island.

  His hand tightened around mine and I glanced up to see him watching me, his eyes caught mine and I took in a deep breath. A slow count of my breaths as I concentrated on the touch of his hand, the blue of his eyes and the absence of that darkness he usually carried there.

  I smiled my thanks and he nodded, surreptitiously dropping the blade into his pocket. I was confident he wouldn’t need to use it but it would make him feel better to have it which would make him easier to work with.

  We followed the woman along the road. She refused to answer any questions but gave her name as Bess and instructed us to silence when we came to the edge of the holiday centre grounds. She held up one hand and poked her head around the edge of the fence before waving us forward.

  My curiosity as to her behaviour was short lived when I saw the housing estate that stretched alongside the opposite side of the road to the golf course and all the way to the town. When it was built a six-foot-tall wooden fence had been erected all along the road, in part for the privacy of the homeowners.

  That fence stretched all along the road and around the sides to fence in the estate on three sides, effectively acting as a trap for the zombies when they turned. In the inch-wide gaps between the wooden panels, I saw splotches of stained wood at about head height and in the gardens beyond were many slumped bodies.

  From the length of the fence that I could see and a quick guesstimate of the number of houses it contained, I was fairly confident that there were hundreds of zombies beyond that fence. I suddenly understood her need to be quiet as we walked so as not to attract them. So many would push down the fence in no time at all if they had a reason to.

  It also told me that they didn’t have the numbers or perhaps the will, to clear them out. I was suddenly glad we’d left the car and silently willed Jinx not to break the habit and start barking. I also wondered why it wasn’t just simpler to cut across the golf course.

  We came to the end of the housing estate and turned left onto a road that led to a large cluster of warehouses surrounded by a wire mesh fence. That seemed to be where Bess was leading us and as we passed another road that turned off north, I saw steel containers blocking the road.

  “Port and flour mills,” Bess said as a steel mesh gate was pulled to one side by a youth who looked barely fourteen. He carried a rifle confidently all the same and had the same weary look as the rest of the survivors we’d seen.

  I admit that I gawked like a tourist as we entered the enclosed area. A large open pool of water easily two hundred and fifty metres wide and twice that in length sat in the centre of the compound. A set of gates at the far end of the pool allowed access to the sea and held the water level in when the tide was out.

  On the south side of the pool a cargo boat was at anchor and several smaller vessels, most likely used for fishing, were tied up beside it. All around the edges were the tall warehouses and port buildings while on the opposite side was the enormous flour mill she had mentioned.

  Cranes and storage containers lined the sides of the enclosed area and people moved about the place at their tasks. From somewhere beyond the mill came that now familiar sound of moans that denoted a large number of undead.

  “Welcome to Haven,” Bess said proudly.

  Chapter 13 - Ryan

  “Haven?” Lily asked.

  “That’s what it is to us,” the grey haired woman said. She must have mentioned her name but for the life of me, I couldn’t recall it. “A safe haven away from the undead.”

  “How many people are here?” Becky asked.

  “One hundred and two.”

  “How many were in the town before this?” I asked.

  “More than three thousand.”

  “They’re all beyond your defences?”

  “That they are,” the woman replied with a solemn nod.

  “So what happened?” Lily asked gently. Her hand raised as thought to reach out in comfort but paused halfway before falling back.

  “Same as everywhere else,” she said and anger laced her tone. That I could recognise. “Everything went to hell. Men and women became those, those, things. They tore their families from their beds, attacked each other in the street. It was chaos.”

  “How did you come to be here?”

  “My Derek, he worked here and was on shift when it all happened. I came to find him but it was too late.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, voice barely above a whisper. This time, she did reach out to touch the older woman gently on the arm. I wondered briefly what that actually accomplished and then dismissed the thought as unimportant.

  “What’s done is done,” the old woman said. Bess, her name is Bess, I thought as the
name came to me. “Others came here and Ethan managed to get things in order.”

  “Ethan?” Lily pressed. It came to me then what she was doing and I was impressed. She was gaining as much information about the place as possible and getting Bess talking was an easy way to do that.

  “Aye, Ethan Bowen, foreman at the port here,” Bess said. She led us around a stack of steel containers and waved off the curious glances of a group of women hanging washing on a line strung between them.

  “He’s the one who organised us, cleared out the undead here and secured this area. It was his idea to use the containers as a barrier.”

  “Barrier?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, all along the north side of the docks, all the way to the beach, we’ve made a wall of containers. Stacked like bricks and welded together, they hold back the undead from the town.”

  “You live here with all them things outside your walls?” Becky asked. “How can you sleep at night?”

  “Better than if they were inside the walls,” Bess said with a cackle of laughter. She seemed to be leading us towards the Mill and the offices located beside it.

  “How do you survive?” Gregg asked.

  “We had a few folk sail up the coast and they use our harbour at night and fish during the day. We have more bread than we can eat from the mills and we can make fresh daily. Most of the containers brought through the port have wheat and fertiliser, but molasses too and some other foodstuffs intended to be moved to Carlisle. We get by.”

  “Why haven’t you cleared out the housing estate?” Aiden asked and I looked back in surprise. I’d forgotten he was there. Most of the time he was as quiet as his sister as though afraid to bring notice to them.

  “We don’t have the people to do it,” Bess said. “Least not without so much noise it’d bring rest of the town running.”

  “You really don’t have the people to clear the whole town either do you?” I said. “Especially since you’ll no doubt have new ones keep trickling in.”

  She looked at me, her face scrunched up as she squinted my way. Finally, she grunted and nodded. “Aye, spill over from Carlisle to the east.”

  “And you’re planning on using the fertiliser on the golf course,” I said. “With a wall around it and all this wheat you have, you can start to grow crops.”

  “You’re a clever bugger I’ll give you that,” she muttered.

  “So what do you want from us?” I asked. Lily shot me a look that said I was pushing too hard but I wanted to know. “You’re surrounded on two sides by a growing number of the undead, the sea on another and at some point likely more undead from the south. No wall will hold them out if their numbers keep growing so, I ask again. What do you want?”

  Bess stopped and turned to me, she seemed to be debating what to say and opened her mouth a few times before closing it. Eventually, she sighed. A sharp exhalation of breath and then she spoke.

  “We need them gone,” she said. “We’ve not the people to do it but if we could get rid of most of those on the streets then we could clear the houses. Salvage what we could from them and the shops and actually have a chance of surviving the summer.”

  She paused and spat over the side of the wharf into the sea water and cleared her throat before continuing.

  “There’s some new zombies,” she said and seemed unsurprised when several of my friends nodded agreement. “They’re not great at it but they can climb. We’ve had them over the fence twice and lost people each time. We won’t survive long if we don’t do something.”

  “What is it you think we can do that you can’t?” Lily asked.

  “You’ve been out there a while and survived which means you’re tough,” she said. “We’ve sent people out to try and draw them away but it doesn’t work. None have come back. You look like you’ll have a chance and if you fail… you aren’t our people.”

  “Ruthlessly pragmatic,” I agreed. “Admirable and the right sort of attitude you need.”

  “Why would we risk our lives for this?” Gregg asked as the others asked the same.

  “You want a boat ride across the bay, we can arrange that. If you decide not to help us, you won’t set foot on one of our boats and the only way north is through Carlisle. Good luck with that.”

  “What sort of distraction do you need?” Lily asked. She at least seemed to be contemplating the old woman’s words. “I’m guessing something big to pull them away for good.”

  “Fire,” I said before Bess could answer. She muttered something I didn’t catch and looked away. “A lot of fertiliser and some spare fuel. You want us to set off a bomb don’t you?”

  “A bomb?” Gregg said with a gasp that was echoed by the others. Lily at least looked to be thinking about it rather than just reacting.

  “Loud enough to get their attention, plenty of smoke for them to see and if done in the right place a lot of flames to attract them. They’ll walk straight into it if done right,” I said.

  “Aye,” the old woman muttered. Her expression all the agreement I needed.

  I had to admit, the idea had some merit. Even if they didn’t burn themselves up, having them walking in the direction of the flames would likely mean they’d just keep on walking and away from Haven.

  “Where?” Lily asked.

  “There’s an old airfield a few miles north-east of here,” Bess said.

  “Airfield?” Becky asked, her interest piqued.

  “Closed down in the sixties. It’s a business park now. There’s a factory there that makes furnishings. Not much use to us but lots of flammable things.”

  I happened to be facing the right way to catch a glimpse of Aiden’s face when she mentioned the factory. He paled and a look of abject terror crossed his face. No one else seemed to notice it so I left it alone, I’d ask him about it later.

  “Now if you’ve finished badgering me, we’ll go speak with Ethan,” Bess said. “Not that he’ll need to say much since I’ve just told you every bloody thing.”

  The crotchety old woman was amusing and I decided that I liked her. I’d slit her throat given half the chance, but still. She was entertaining.

  We followed the older woman into the Office block that sat beside the Mill. Since the apocalypse began it had seen some changes. Few desks remained and all of the computers and electronic equipment had been taken out.

  Lighter sections of carpet suggested filing cabinets had been pushed up against one wall and since taken out to provide space for the ‘off duty’ people to lounge around in relative comfort compared to the starker warehouses.

  The man Bess led us to was older than me, perhaps in his early fifties. Salt and pepper hair swept back over his male pattern baldness and he still had a slight paunch beneath his shirt. He looked us over as he spoke quietly with her and then approached, a wide smile on his face and arms spread wide in welcome.

  “Hello to you.”

  “Hey,” Lily said while the rest of my friends nodded or muttered greetings.

  “I understand that Bess has explained our situation to you already so I won’t repeat what she’s said. You think you can help us, yes?”

  “If you can offer us a ride across the bay then we can certainly discuss it,” Lily said and his smile faltered a little. I held back my grin and rested my hand on the folded knife in my pocket.

  “Bess said… I was under the impression that you would do this thing,” he said with a glance back to the woman in question. She shrugged and when he turned back, she stuck her middle finger up at him. I liked her more and more.

  “We think it’s possible to do what you want but at the same time, we aren’t interested in a suicide mission.”

  Ethan’s smile had disappeared and along with it the false joviality he had been showing. He cast a glare back at Bess.

  “You want a boat yes? Well since money is worthless and you have nothing on you that we could have any interest in, the price of passage is to do this. If you don�
�t do it, then leave. Now.”

  “We could just take a boat,” I said in an over loud whisper to Lily who flashed a furious look my way that said quite plainly, you’re not helping.

  “They are guarded and you won’t find any others on the coast,” Ethan snapped. His irate tone had been noticed and several of the men who had been lounging around climbed to their feet. I widened my grin at the violence that seemed about to erupt.

  “Fine,” Lily said. “We’ll do it. I just wanted you to know that we aren’t throwing away our lives on this.”

  The look she gave me was enough to make me release my hold on the knife and sigh. I’d hear about this later. I didn’t quite grasp why she was so mad, the man was clearly an idiot and the world would be a better place without him.

  I flicked my eyes towards Aiden and saw him looking down at his feet, his sister was attempting unsuccessfully to get his attention and I made an educated guess as to why.

  “What about the people that are there?” I asked and Ethan stopped, mouth open. He appeared dumbfounded for all of a minute.

  “People?” Lily asked with suspicion fairly dripping from her voice.

  “There are some… people there,” Ethan admitted. He looked me up and down as though seeing me properly for the first time and not entirely happy about it.

  “Why didn’t you mention them?” Gregg asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Ethan waved his hands as though to wave away our concerns but my friends wouldn’t be put off.

  “People, any people, being there are not ‘nothing’ to us,” Lily said.

  “They are not nice people,” Ethan said.

  “They’re bloody arseholes,” Bess added.

  “Let me guess,” Becky said as she stepped forward to join the conversation. “Bunch of men with weapons who steal from you? Abuse the people they capture and kill anyone who stands against them?”

  “Something like that,” Ethan muttered.

  “Bloody cannibals is what they are and you know it Ethan, don’t you lie and say you don’t.”

  The leader of Haven glanced at Bess then back to our group and seemed to deflate a little, some of his pompous nature draining away.