Even as Fran waited for Tom to answer her, she watched the tragic figure of a Dead woman slowly begin to pull herself over the rusted wreck of the car that had long ago collided with the rear of the overturned bus. The woman, for Fran could tell that had once been her sex despite her bald head and the mutilations her body had suffered, was dressed in the filthy remnants of a tattered traffic warden’s uniform. The poor creature had had much of the flesh torn from one side of her chest and with each movement the rotting muscle stood out in sickening contrast against the yellowing bone of her exposed ribcage.
‘Poor Bitch,’ murmured Fran to herself, watching as the Dead woman’s claw like hands latched onto more of the twisted metal to drag herself forward.
It was only when the Dead woman had managed to pull herself totally over the mangled remains that Fran could see the true extent of the woman’s injuries. Not only had she suffered the most terrible abuse to her torso but she was also missing one of her legs from just below the knee. Fran casually noticed that its blackened and putrid stump was still wrapped in what looked to have once been bandages. Whether the missing leg had actually been the initial point of attack and someone had removed it in a pointless attempt to prevent the woman from the inevitable transition into one of the Dead, Fran would never know for sure, but from her other wounds the woman had clearly been attacked for a second time when she had been at her most vulnerable. Watching the Dead woman’s slow progress, Fran wondered just what had caught this corpse’s attention enough to compel it to clamber over the rusting obstacle.
‘Tom,’ she began to whisper, unable to take her eyes from the woman’s savaged cadaver.
‘Hang on… Shhh,’ he replied, holding up his hand to abruptly cutting her off.
When he was sure neither Fran or Kai were going to speak, Tom lent closer to the thin slit cut into the wall in front of him, tilted his head to one side and strained his hearing, trying to pinpoint the faint but somehow out of place sound that had caught his interest.
Fran glanced nervously over her shoulder at Kai who had been quietly studying their battered map of the area, looking for an alternative route so they could avoid the wrecked bus entirely. Almost as if he felt her eyes upon him, Kai moved his head slightly and looked back up at her. With that small insignificant movement the top half of his face was suddenly struck by one of the golden beams of light that crisscrossed the dim interior of the cart. For a split second his dark eyes seemed to flash with a burning fire, the light dancing mysteriously across them, but then in less than a heartbeat the illusion evaporated returning them to their usual disks of pure obsidian.
Kai and Fran silently looked at each other; each locked in the other’s gaze, unable to speak or look away. For a brief moment Fran’s whole world seemed to exist within the swirling darkness of Kai’s attractive eyes. The Dead, Star, Tom, all the other people she had loved and lost over the last five years, all of them were washed away in that instant by the welcoming blackness that promised to smother her in its unknown embrace; and then as Kai’s eyelids began to close in an involuntary slow blink, her world and the reality of it came rushing back to her, demanding to be recognised and remembered.
‘There!’ hissed Tom, finally interrupting Fran’s eye contact with Kai. ‘Did… did you hear it that time?’
‘What? I…’ she began to answer but stopped herself, realising she too could actually hear something, something faint but definitely increasing in volume. ‘What… what is that?’ she continued, moving her head closer to the thin opening to hear better.
As she strained to identify the sound, Kai also moved to the front of the cart to stand next to her; his muscular body self-consciously close to hers in the limited space. Fran tried to ignore the soft whisper of his breath against her neck, the press of his thigh against her own or the warm touch of his hand as he casually placed it against her back enabling him to lean forward. But these minute touch points where their bodies innocently collided called out to her to be noticed and before she even realised she was even doing it, Fran had noted, detailed and relished every one of them.
‘It’s getting closer, whatever it is,’ Tom whispered, looking from Fran to Kai.
The sound, which had become a lot clearer, could only be described as a thudding with an intermittent high pitched whine somehow overlaid on top. It was only as Fran let her gaze idly drift back to the Dead woman that she realised what it might be. For whatever it was, it had certainly attracted the cadaver’s attention and even now the decaying creature was dragging her body slowly past the crashed bus towards the corner and the smaller side road beyond.
‘It’s a…’ she began to say, knowing there was only one thing that the Dead were ever interested in.
But before Fran could finish her sentence a clearly traumatised young man darted across their path with a large Alsatian a few metres behind. With one hand tugging nervously at his right ear and a terrified wailing escaping his shaking lips, the stranger ran as fast as his slightly lopsided gait would allow. It was clear to everyone in the cart, even with only the briefest snapshot they got of him as he sped past, that the man was either mentally disabled or at the very least had severe leaning difficulties.
‘Shit! We’ve got to help him!’ gasped Fran, already reaching for the side hatch.
‘No!’ said Kai, swiftly grabbing her arm.
‘What the fuck!’ she hissed, defiantly yanking her arm free from his grasp.
‘W…wait,’ Kai quickly replied, seeing the anger flare in Fran’s eyes. ‘He’s r…running from s…something, isn’t he…’
‘Yeah, the dog!’ Fran interrupted, knowing many had fallen to the animal no longer classed as man’s best friend. ‘He’ll be torn to pieces!’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tom, watching the young man disappear over a barrier that led to a small car park once used for drivers to park up and take in the ocean view. ‘That dog’s keeping pace, not chasing him… my bet is that it’s his dog.’
‘But,’ Fran protested, desperate to help the young man and slightly put out that Kai, someone so new to real life in this world of the Dead was telling her what to do.
‘We n…need to find out what we’re d…dealing with,’ Kai stammered, slightly wary of the fierce anger he had just seen appear in Fran’s eyes. ‘We’ll be n…no help to him d…dead.’
‘I…’ Fran began to say but then her words died in her throat as a blood drenched elderly man suddenly sprinted around the corner following his prey.
Moving his Dead limbs faster than he could possibly manage when alive, the Dead man darted along the side of the overturned bus and abruptly skidded to a halt. With his head spinning back and forth, bloody spittle falling from his snarling lips with every turn, he sought the living flesh that was trying to escape him. Then as a tell-tale child-like cry echoed across the small car park, his head snapped unnaturally fast to one side and he caught sight of his fleeing quarry.
‘Easy,’ Tom warned, his voice barely a whisper as the Dead man, intent on claiming his meal, darted off into the car park. ‘Not yet… not…’
‘If we leave it any longer we’ll be too late!’ Fran spat, suddenly pushing Kai out of her way to kick open the side hatch.
‘Fran!’ Kai urgently whispered, wishing she would listen to him.
‘No!’ she snapped back, reaching back in for a heavy length of pipe. ‘I’m going to help him… Tom, are you coming or not?’
‘Christ!’ Tom grumbled, quickly tying off Star’s reins. ‘If I get out there and a horde of Dead bastards suddenly appear round that corner I’m going to be pretty pissed off… so be warned.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ she replied, already moving away from the cart, safe in the knowledge that Tom would soon be following on her heels.
‘Fran, b…be c…care,’ Kai began to say but before he could finished she cut him off.
‘You stay here,’ she barked, the wounded look on his face instantly making her regret her tone. ‘Sorry, just keep an eye on
Star, Okay?’ she continued. ‘And… and if we’re not back in fifteen minutes… well… well, don’t come looking for us.’
‘But?’ said Kai, moving aside so Tom could pass.
‘No ‘buts’, mate,’ Tom interrupted, slapping the young man on the shoulder before jumping down onto the cracked road surface. ‘No offense, but I doubt you’d stand much of a chance against just that Dead old geezer let alone if there were two more of them.’
Knowing that the increase in number Tom had just referred to would be Fran and Tom himself, Kai was even less keen for Fran to go charging off to save the stranger. He hated to admit it but if it was between Fran and this unknown young man, no matter how innocent or mentally challenged he appeared to be, he would be forced to sacrifice him every time. Kai may have only known Fran for a short while but in that time he had grown alarmingly close to her. At first it may have started as a simple physical attraction, after all Fran was a beautiful young woman whose small stature and deep hazel eyes hid an inner strength and resolve beyond her years, but it had soon grown into something deeper; something that both thrilled and terrified him. Of course in Kai’s eyes Fran had no reason to be interested in him in that way, after all what could she possible see in a stammering fool that couldn’t even protect himself. He had convinced himself that she saw him as more of a burden than anything else; a burden she would undoubtedly unload as soon as they got to St Michael’s mount. Yet until then he was her friend and for as long as that lasted that was all that mattered.
‘J…just be c…careful,’ Kai continued, his anxious eyes flicking from Tom to Fran’s back as she jogged towards the barrier, following Dead old man.
‘Will do,’ Tom replied, a smile twitching at the side of his mouth while he deftly pulled free the two sickles from the strapping on his back. ‘We’ll be back… don’t worry,’ he continued, his eyes gleefully flitting across the two curved blades in his hands.
Then with words not meant for Kai mumbled under his breath, Tom gave himself over to the call of his lost family, turned on his heel and charged after Fran. So keen was he to catch up with the blood drenched corpse that he effortlessly vaulted the barrier blocking access to the car park and before Kai had even reached for the handle of the hatch, he was lost from sight.
He was just about to pull the hatch closed when the frantic voice of a woman calling out froze him mid-movement.
‘Petey!’ cried the unseen woman, her words filled with panic and urgency. ‘Petey, where are you?’
Suddenly, with a thunder of footsteps, the voice was given form and a woman in her late twenties stood before him looking up at Kai with a look of surprise on her face. Held tightly in her hands, as if her life depended on it, was a crowbar; Kai noticed the end of it was already bloody and matted with what looked like clumps of hair.
‘Which way?’ she panted, gulping down urgent lungful’s of air.
Kai stared at the woman or rather he stared at the growing patch of crimson spreading across the sleeve of her denim jacket. She had been bitten and even now something inside her was shutting down her organs one by one. If she was lucky she had a day, maybe two; if not her time left alive could be counted in hours.
‘Which Fucking way!’ she screamed, shaking as adrenalin coursed through her body. ‘Which way did they go? Please… I’ve… I’ve got to save him…’ she continued, visibly trying to regain control of herself.
Kai looked into the eyes of the young woman who clearly knew her fate and yet still wanted to do all in her power to prevent another following her down this bloody and terrifying path. Knowing time was ultimately not on her side, he pointed to the barrier and the car park beyond.
‘Th... there,’ he simply said, hoping Fran and Tom had been quick enough to save the young man. The last thing this woman needed right now was to see the body of someone she obviously cared about torn to pieces.
Without waiting for him to say anything else, the doomed young woman briefly nodded her thanks and then sped off in the direction of the car park. She had barely reached the barrier when a man’s voice called out what was presumably her name, causing her to falter slightly but ignoring him and certain of what she must do, she ducked under the bar and was gone.
‘Sharon!’ another unknown voice called out again, this time it was woman.
Wary of strangers, Kai reached into the cart, slowly wrapped his fingers about the handle of a long machete and making sure to keep his weapon out of sight, waited for them to make an appearance. Just as with Sharon, for Kai could only assume that had been the woman’s name, the two men, a middle-aged woman and a young boy of about eight, all looked totally surprised to find a horse and cart greeting them as they sped out from the side road in pursuit of their friend. The man in the lead abruptly skidded to a halt and locked eyes with Kai. It was clear he was trying to decide something, looking from Kai back to the woman and young boy. Then as if something suddenly slotted into place he grabbed the woman by her shoulders, stopping her.
‘You and Riley need to stay here,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder at the second, slightly older looking man, ‘Max and I will… we’ll deal with Sharon and the old man, Okay?’
‘No, Dave, I…’ the woman began to say, shaking her head.
‘Jane, you’ve got to look after Riley… please, just… just do as I ask,’ the man continued, already taking a step away from her to follow the man he had called Max.
‘Dad,’ said Riley, reaching for the man as he took a step away from the woman.
‘Look after your mum, son,’ said Dave,. ‘Uncle Max and I will be back soon… promise.’
‘And Pete?’ said Riley. ‘You’ll bring back Pete… and Bella.’
Dave’s eyes flicked briefly to his meet those of his wife and in that moment a look was shared. They both doubted Pete could have survived the attack from the old man and feared this loss would hit their son hard.
‘Dave, we need to go!’ bellowed Max, already ducking under the car park barrier. ‘Come on!’
Dave looked at his wife and son one last time, and then as if glossing over his son’s awkward question he turned back to Kai.
‘Please… look after them!’ he said, before running to join his brother.
In their haste to catch up with Pete, his Dead grandfather and Sharon, Dave and his older brother had failed to notice the Dead woman pulling herself eagerly across the tarmac to Jane and her son. With their backs to the advancing corpse they did not understand why Kai suddenly jumped down from the cart, with a menacingly large blade in his hand.
‘No… Please!’ Jane whimpered, pulling her son close to her as she instantly imagining the worst and began to back away.
Worried the woman was about to literally walk backwards into the corpse’s open arms, Kai halted. He was about to speak when the Dead woman decided at that moment to release a deep raspy moan from her decaying lungs, alerting Jane and her son of her presence for him.
‘Jesus!’ Jane gasped, swiftly dragging her son beyond the Dead woman’s reach.
‘Oh, mum… she’s an easy one,’ said Riley, struggling to release himself from his mother’s tight hold so he could pull a hammer from a loop on his belt.
‘No, Riley… let the man deal with her,’ Jane told her son, keeping her eyes on the Dead woman who was once again trying to close the gap between them. ‘His knife is bigger… let him do it.’
‘Aww, mum!’ Riley whined, stopping just short of petulantly stamping his foot in protest.
Kai knew that Jane was probably only asking him to deal with the Dead woman not because she thought he was better armed or better skilled but rather she didn’t want to put her own son at risk when someone else, a stranger no less, was there to do the job for her. In fact Kai thought that Jane and, though he hated to admit it, probably even young Riley, would be better at dealing with the savage corpse than himself, after all they had survived the last five years among them; their unholy hunger an everyday constant.
‘St… stand b�
�back,’ he said, jerking his head for the woman and her son to move a little further behind him.
Raising the blade high behind him, Kai took another step closer to the Dead woman and prepared to end her unnatural existence. Looking down at her corpse, he took in every detail of her pitiful state. The grey tinged skin stretched taught across her skull, the tattered strips of flesh still clinging to her savaged torso, the blackened and broken fingers of her claw like hands and worst of all, the monstrous Dead eyes that burned with their ceaseless hunger. For a brief moment Kai wondered who this woman may have once been; what dreams had she had, what sort of life had she lived and had there even been someone with her at the end to mourn her passing. But of course he could know none of this, her story had already been written, its ending there before him to read in the decaying flesh of the limbs that even now reached beseechingly for his own. Her tale was over and yet forever unending. For she and the millions like her, still awaited that foreign hand, that unknown author, to gift them those final two words and as Kai let his blade fall, this woman’s story finally came to end; her page at last inscribed with the words ‘The End’.
Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel Page 4