“Sorry,” Ben said, fighting with the wheel. Lisa was surprised that he could even think about her while tearing along like a madman, yet he seemed in full control.
He did not slow until they had left Holtford behind. He didn’t ask for directions and Lisa didn’t offer any. As long as they were heading away from the village and the walking dead that had invaded her home, that was fine by her.
Lisa tried to keep her eyes on the road but every now and then she caught herself peering anxiously out through the side window. Not that she was likely to see anything. To the east the sky seemed a little brighter. Elsewhere night still ruled, and while the moon was clear in the sky, the fields they passed were punctuated by the shadows of trees. Dawn still seemed a long way away.
Ben drove in silence. When Lisa stole a glance at him, his eyes were fixed intently ahead. His jaw muscles worked as if he were grinding his teeth. If he was in shock then Lisa couldn’t blame him; she felt as if she’d been through the wringer, too. And despite her earlier misgivings, she was now pretty certain that Ben had nothing to do with what had happened. Like she, and like Alison, he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe a satellite had crashed and radiation had caused the dead to rise, like in one of those Romero movies she used to watch as a teenager. Then again, it could be the end of the world and the King of all the dead was the reaper, come to harvest their souls. Whatever the cause, the walking dead were out there and they were dangerous. Staying alive had to be the number one priority for now; dealing with her own battered emotions would have to wait until they were safe.
“What in the name of God were those things?” Ben asked suddenly.
Lisa didn’t answer. The question, she felt, was rhetorical.
“They were dead,” he said. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“I was just wondering that myself.”
She toyed with the idea of telling him about her dream, then decided against it. He seemed to be having enough trouble coming to terms with what he had seen as it was, without her landing him with any more to worry about.
“You know where we are?” Ben asked snatching her away from her thoughts.
Lisa looked around her but could see little more than fields and hedges, none of which had any real identifying features.
“Not really,” she said. “Does it matter?”
“It might,” he said tapping the dial on the dashboard. “I don’t know how much petrol we’ve got left.”
She craned her neck to look at the gauge. “You’ve still got nearly a quarter of a tank.”
“It’s knackered,” Ben said. “One of those things I always kept meaning to get fixed but never got around to. Once the orange light comes on we’ve got fifteen, twenty miles max in the tank. Trouble is, the damn thing doesn’t stay on long.”
“Shit,” she said, sinking back into the seat.
“What is it?”
“It came on earlier. When you were …” When you were killing the dog, she almost said. When you were smashing it to a pulp. But she thought better of reminding him of that.
“Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he demanded angrily.
“It went off straight away. I didn’t think any more of it.”
Ben sighed loudly, then reached out and touched her hand. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Lisa said, squeezing his hand briefly. “Been a rough night.”
“You’re not bloody kidding. Well, there’s nothing we can do but keep going until the juice runs out. Hopefully we’ll find somewhere safe before it does.”
Lisa could make out a single light in the distance, flashing on and off. In an instant she knew more or less where they were. “There’s a turning just up ahead on the left,” she said. “Go that way.”
“Sure,” Ben said.
Seconds later they had left the road behind and were travelling along what was little more than a lane. Lisa wound the window down a crack. The wind was fresh and carried a whiff of ozone. She closed her eyes and breathed it in greedily.
“Where does it lead?” she heard Ben ask.
“The beach,” she said. “We’re not far from the sea.”
“What makes you think that we’ll be safe there?” Ben asked.
Lisa stared out into the darkness while she thought about that. Even as a child the beach – any beach – was one of those places where she had felt at home. It was one of the reasons why she had wanted to buy a cottage so close to the sea.
“I don’t know. I’ve just got this feeling.”
“I’ll go with that,” Ben said, without hesitation. “But we’d better not be too far from the beach because this thing isn’t going to make it much further.”
A few minutes later the Transit’s engine spluttered and threatened to die, but by then the road had started to wind down towards the shore. She looked across at Ben as he slipped the gearbox into neutral and allowed the van to coast.
“Got to try to keep the engine running,” he said as they continued down the hill, the van picking up speed as the gradient increased, forcing Ben to tap on the brake pedal with increasing regularity. The inky blackness of the sea lay ahead of them, the beach itself hidden behind hedges and dunes. “If it dies on us the steering will lock and we’ll just have to make a run for it.”
As if on cue the engine spluttered, coughed back into life, spluttered again then died. “Shit,” said Ben. “Better hold tight.”
The end of the lane opened up into a small deserted car park, which Lisa had always found woefully inadequate when she had visited. Ben suddenly yanked on the handbrake. Tyres skidded on the sandy ground and the van’s back end slewed round before hitting something and coming to rest.
“Jesus Christ,” Lisa gasped. The inertia belt had tightened around her chest and lap so much that it hurt. She quickly unclipped it.
Ben looked in his wing mirror. “Got any change?”
“What?”
“Pay and display.”
Lisa grinned, his sense of humour giving her a lift despite the circumstances. It worked for a moment, but then she was peering out of the window again.
“So where now?” Ben asked.
She pointed to a gap in the dunes. “The beach is through there.”
“What about the sea?”
“Don’t worry, there’s quite a stretch that’s always above the high tide line.”
Ben flicked on the interior light. “Just after four,” he said checking his watch. “We’ve at least an hour and a half before the sun comes up.”
“Maybe we could just stay here. In the van.”
“We could,” he said. “But if those things find us we’ll be trapped inside. Any more of them turn up, I reckon we could outrun them if we were out in the open.”
Lisa nodded. He was right. While she hardly relished the idea of wandering around the beach in the dark, the alternative was even worse. And apart from anything else, the sea offered a last-ditch escape route should the dead close in on them.
“Stay here a minute.” Ben said as he opened the door and slipped out. “I’ll just grab a couple of things out of the back.”
Lisa strained to hear as his feet scuffed across the sandy ground, anticipating another, shuffling set of footsteps to join them. She relaxed only when Ben opened the rear doors. She scanned what she could see of the car park as he scrambled around, searching through his things. She almost called out to him to tell him to make less noise, but then was struck by a thought. Can the dead hear?
It was like one of those stupid questions that sometimes came to her in the middle of the night, when she emerged from a dream and could not get back to sleep. But did it matter how much noise they made? And even if the dead could not hear them, would they still know where they were? Alison obviously knew to seek her out in the cottage.
But could this King of all the dead, whoever or whatever it was, see her here, far from home?
Questions. So many questions.
And so few answers.
“You ready?” Ben asked when he reappeared a minute or two later. He was holding a bulky, shapeless bundle in both hands.
She nodded. “What were you looking for?”
He raised his arms towards the light, showing her what appeared to be a sleeping bag and a jacket. “It’s going to feel cold out there.”
It felt strange, though not unwelcome, to have someone else look out for her. David had done everything for her but once he was gone she had been forced to learn independence. In some ways she felt she had become a better person for it.
As she stepped out of the van she was surprised at how loud the sea was, even from the other side of the dunes. They walked carefully along a rough path winding between two of the towering sandy mounds. Lisa wanted to run but held herself back. Her ankle was still sore, and she knew that rushing would only invite a fall, possibly a broken limb. By the time they were almost on the beach the sound of the surf was deafening, leaving her worried that perhaps the water came higher up the shore than she had remembered.
But when they came out of the path onto the sand she found that the moonlit sea was some distance away. The endless roar of wave after wave crashing down, each dragging back its haul of sand, was amplified in the otherwise silent night.
Ben took a few paces across the beach before dropping his burden. Lisa halted beside the small pile and looked around at the sweep of the bay. At the far right stood the lighthouse, a literal beacon of hope. To the left were the steps that had become affectionately known to locals as Jacob’s Ladder. Cut into the cliff face that seemed to rise up from the beach, they led to the Church of St Agnes. The popular joke was that the small cemetery in the churchyard gave its inhabitants the best view for miles around. Once she had found that funny. Now she could only shudder at the thought.
“Give me a hand with this,” Ben said, pulling her from her thoughts. He had gathered pieces of driftwood together and was starting to build them into a pyramid. He pointed to some other scraps of wood lying close by.
“Will this burn?” she said. Some of the wood still felt damp after being in water while other pieces had obviously been on the beach for ages, feeling dry and brittle to her touch.
“Should do, with a little help,” Ben said, producing a small bottle of paraffin and his lighter from the midst of his pile of belongings.
Soon the fire was fizzing and spluttering into life. The occasional shower of sparks it spat out meant they could not sit too close to it without running the risk of getting singed, but at the same time it provided comfort. If anything, the light it gave was more important than the heat. They kept warm anyway, Lisa with the sleeping bag draped around her shoulders, Ben with the jacket over his.
“So,” he said. “You know my story. What about yours?”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“No? So who was that fella in the photograph on the mantelpiece?”
Shit. It was so familiar she hadn’t thought about it when Ben was in the house.
“David,” she said, seeing no point in lying. “My husband.”
“Where is he? Or am I not supposed to ask.”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh Christ, I’m sorry,” Ben said.
Lisa stared into the flames. “We were married nearly six years. But we didn’t seem together than long. There were so many things we never got round to doing.”
“What happened?” Ben asked softly.
“Car crash,” she said, reluctant to tell him everything, wanting to save herself the pain of having to relive it.
“Were you in the car?”
She nodded. “I nearly died.”
“What happened?”
“I was taking him to work. David usually dropped me off, but he’d been out the night before, had too much to drink. So I drove, rather than risk him being over the limit. A lorry came straight out of a side street without stopping. Hit the car side- on. David died straight away. Me, they managed to keep alive.”
“God, Lisa. It must have been bloody awful for you.”
“It was. Still is. I just can’t get over the fact that if he hadn’t drunk so much, he would have been driving. Then he would be alive instead of me.”
“There’s no point going there,” Ben said. “Thinking of what might have been won’t bring him back.”
“I can’t help it.”
Ben fell silent, stabbing at the fire with another piece of wood. “So what do you do?” he said eventually. “When you’re not saving strangers’ lives, that is.”
“I’m a nurse.”
“Must have been my lucky night. Where do you work?”
“St Jude’s. The patron saint of lost causes.” She laughed quietly to herself, still finding this amusing after all the years. “We get the geriatrics and the terminally ill.”
“Shit,” Ben said. “I suppose that must make it harder – you know, having to confront death every time you go into work?”
“It’s not like that,” she said. “Of course there’s sadness. But it can be uplifting, too. Seeing how some people cope … I just don’t think I’d have the strength.”
“You seem pretty strong to me,” Ben said.
“Well, right now I don’t feel particularly strong.”
“Me neither. Every time I think of those things, I start shaking.” He looked quickly along the beach in both directions. “I keep thinking they’re still out there.”
“They won’t find us here,” Lisa said, knowing she was whistling in the dark.
Neither of them spoke for a while. Lisa, fighting fatigue, let the sounds – the crash and swish of the tide, the crackling and popping of the fire – wash over her. She closed her eyes and could feel herself start to drift away when Ben gave a loud cough.
“Listen,” he said, sounding hesitant and awkward. “I want to thank you.”
Lisa waved the words away. “There’s no need. Really.”
“Yes, there is. With all the shit we’ve been through tonight I haven’t had time to stop and think. But, you saving my life, what happened to your sister …”
“Was it worth it, though?”
His eyes briefly met hers, then he looked away. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
“At least tell me you won’t try to kill yourself again.”
Still he refused to face her. “I wish I could. But something inside me just can’t let go of the idea that I killed five people. That’s pretty fucking hard to live with. I saw their pictures in the paper. Now I feel like they’re haunting me.”
“The only thing that’s haunting you is guilt.” Lisa wanted to reach out and touch him, but held back, knowing she might only push him further away. “Who’s to say they weren’t one of those families that took the batteries out of their smoke detector to use in their TV remote control? Perhaps the parents smoked in bed … nothing to do with the wiring. Maybe they were just fated to die when they did.”
“You honestly believe that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe, Ben. It’s what you believe. If you could let go of your guilt, would your wife take you back?”
The question seemed to throw him briefly. “I guess so. I was the one who walked out. She wanted me to stay, reckoned we could get through it together.”
“If you ask me, that’s a pretty good incentive.”
Ben sighed. “I hear what you’re saying, Lisa. Trouble is, letting go of guilt is not easy. From what you’ve told me tonight, you of all people should know that.”
Now it was Lisa’s turn to fall silent.
The minutes crawled by. Lisa found it a struggle to stay awake. As the fire
calmed down a little she shuffled forward to embrace its warmth. She raised her knees and wrapped her arms around them to form a natural resting place for her head, and closed her eyes. The next she knew, Ben was shaking her gently. She looked up at him in confusion. He pressed a finger to his lips. Lisa shook her head and rubbed her eyes to wipe the sleep away, trying to make herself more alert.
“What’s the matter?” she whispered
“I heard something.”
“What?” she said, making no attempt to hide the panic in her voice. She scrambled to her knees trying to see anything that might be moving, but beyond the glow of the fire everything else was just featureless black. She strained to listen; other than the sea’s relentless assault on the land, the crackling of the fire and her own heartbeat, there was nothing. Nothing at all.
“Not sure,” Ben said, pushing another branch into the flames, sending a shower of sparks spiralling into the sky on a column of smoke.
“You sure it wasn’t just the sea?”
“No. It … it sounded like it was coming from overhead.”
She looked up into the night sky, seeing only the moon and a handful of stars still remaining. There was not long to wait until dawn; certainly less than an hour.
“There!” Ben called.
Still she could hear nothing out of the ordinary.
Wait. There was something. A whooshing sound, over her head. A familiar sound, something she heard almost daily. She almost giggled with relief. “It’s only birds,” she said. “Seagulls. We get them all the time.”
“At night?” he asked.
She stopped to think for a moment and had to admit that she had never heard them in the dark. That didn’t mean that they didn’t fly at night. It just meant that she hadn’t heard them.
“It’s nearly dawn,” she said.
“Maybe, but it’s still not right. I’m sure they don’t fly at night. And, besides, when have you heard them be so quiet?”
Never. She searched the sky for them and, although she could hear the sounds of birds swooping through the air above, she could see not a single one.
King of All the Dead Page 9