Prey for the Dead [Book 3]

by C. A. Earl

  Heather looked around the room, feeling suddenly intrusive. ‘Uh’ she stuttered, ‘perhaps we should give you two some time alone to catch up. Come on, everyone.’

  Katie nodded to each of them in turn as they said their farewells and shuffled toward the door. Moving ahead of them, Captain Miller was halfway down the corridor before the others had even left the room.

  Finally alone with her husband, Katie wandered over to the window. The glass of water, still half-full, had been left on the sill. Katie picked it up and handed it to Ben before turning back and opening the window a little wider. He composed himself again and took a sip as she looked out into the azure sky. The mid-morning sun was warm on her cheeks.

  ‘We finally got word on mum’s place a couple of days ago’ she said with a sigh, her shoulders slumping. ‘They didn’t find any survivors.’

  Ben lowered his glass and stared at the back of her head. ‘Oh God, Katie. I’m so-‘

  It’s okay’ she said. ‘At least we know now. She was crippled with the Alzheimer’s, Ben. That wasn’t any kind of a life for anyone. At least she’s not suffering anymore...’

  Katie held her place by the window despite Ben’s gestures for her to come closer. She had already grieved her mother’s suspected death a dozen times since the first day of the attacks. Now, if ever they were to move on, it was finally time to let go...

  As Ben stared at her a sense of dread began to creep over him. It didn’t matter that he was still nursing bad injuries or that the painkillers had him slightly disoriented. There were others whose fate was still unknown and he felt terrible for not asking about them before.

  ‘What...what about the others? Where’s Cassie?’

  Katie gave a nervous chuckle, a reaction completely at odds with the grief gnawing at her guts. ‘Cassie’s fine’ she said, turning back around. ‘She’s in the playroom with the other kids.’

  Ben looked confused. ‘The playroom?‘

  ‘Yes, you heard right; we have a playroom here.’

  ‘And what about Paige? And Ashley?’

  Katie’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Ash didn’t make it’ she said, lowering her eyes to the floor. ‘He got bit helping a load of kids out of that leisure centre. He fought it bloody hard but he died a couple of days ago...’

  Ben’s heart sank again. In the short time that he had known him, the Scotsman had proved to be a capable ally. Despite Ben’s initial reservations, Ash had worked tirelessly to earn his trust and Ben felt guilty for not accepting his friendship more readily.

  ‘Poor Ash. He was a good guy.’

  ‘Yeah, he was’ said Katie, biting her bottom lip.

  Ben took a deep breath. ‘And Paige..?’

  ‘You mean the pretty girl with short black hair? The rock chick?’

  Suddenly, Ben remembered that the two women hadn’t met before. ‘Yeah’ he answered with a slow nod, dreading the response.

  ‘She’s still in Sevenoaks. She stayed behind at the leisure centre to help out.’

  Confused, Ben looked around the room for a clue. ‘You mean we’re not in Sevenoaks anymore? Then where-’

  ‘Bexhill’ replied Katie. ‘One of the hospitals. They brought us here a few days ago. There’s still too many of the dead inland so the army’s been moving everyone out to areas along the coast. We’ve been here for about four or five days now. They’re taking good care of us, considering.’

  Ben rubbed his eyes, weariness creeping up on him. ‘So, this Miller seems interesting’ he mumbled, stifling a yawn.

  Katie nodded. ‘He’s a bloody good man. Put it this way, I’d sooner have him with us than against us.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that - but he’s a Captain, right? He must be getting orders from someone else that we can talk to.’

  Katie sighed. ‘Will you please just take it easy? You know what it’s like. They have their ways of doing things. All I know is, we don’t have to do the fighting any more. We can trust them, Ben. We’re in their hands now. It’s time to try and be a normal guy again...’

  Ben nodded reluctantly and gave another yawn. Finishing the glass of water, he reclined back into his pillow and closed his eyes for a moment. It was only when Katie lifted the glass from his hands a full minute later that they flickered open again.

  ‘Oh, sorry’ he said. ‘Almost nodded off there.’

  Leaning in, she kissed his forehead. ‘Why don’t you get some sleep?’ she whispered. ‘I’ll come and see you again later.’

  As she started to move away Ben caught her hand.

  ‘Katie?’ he asked, fatigue slurring his words. ’I know what you’re saying, but how are we going to get through this?’

  ‘Because it’s what we do. We survive. And now we have to live.’

  Ben was already fast asleep by the time that Katie reached for the door handle. She exited the room and moved down the hallway, turning left at the bottom of the corridor, up some stairs and through another set of heavy swing doors. The large room that opened up before her had been used as a lounge/meeting area and Katie was pleasantly surprised to find it empty. That was fine; right now she just wanted to be alone.

  Books and magazines were spread out over the central coffee table along with a couple of mugs and a half-eaten bowl of cereal. A breeze was drifting in from the large open window and Katie was once more drawn to it. Pushing aside the curtains as far as they would go, she looked down from the fourth floor.

  In the car park below a group of around twenty people - adults and children – old and young - were playing football. The air was filled with their cries of joy; sounds that she had almost given up on ever hearing again. Unable to suppress a throaty chuckle, her body shuddered and her eyes began to water.

  Perhaps, she thought, there was still a future worth living.

  ~ 19 ~

  Forty miles away from Katie Reilly and her uncertainties, Paige Ryder was busy driving a hatchet deep into the skull of a mouldering zombie and then wrenching it free.

  ‘All clear here’ she announced, wiping the edge of the blade on the thing’s ragged clothes. The three people behind her, two men and one woman, glared at her with disbelieving eyes. Page shook her head. ‘One of you can get the next one. This is what you signed on for; you’re gonna have to pop your cherries some time.’

  Ten feet further back, with a watching brief over the civilian quartet, two British army soldiers smirked at each other. ‘Well done Paige’ one of them shouted. ‘You’d make a pretty good squaddie.’

  ‘Yeah’ she replied, turning away to whisper under her breath: ‘Shame it’s taken the end of the world for me to find that out...’

  Handing the hatchet to a man behind her (who reacted like it was a scorpion on a stick) Paige put her hands on her hips and looked up the street. Further ahead she could see another team of six (four civilians and two soldiers) investigating the area outside a collapsed shop front. A trapped zombie, its lower body wedged firmly under a huge pile of rubble, was clawing the air to try and reach them. Standing just out of range, the soldiers in the group were deep in the throes of discussion. Although Paige couldn’t hear what was being said, it was clear that they were using the opportunity to show a very nervous, middle-aged woman the best area of the skull to strike. Paige watched as the woman stepped up and batted away the fumbling hands before swinging a mallet down with all her might.

  The thing’s head exploded like a rotten pumpkin, spraying the ground with rotten chunks of flesh, chips of bone and avocado coloured, foul-smelling mush. The woman recoiled, her nose wrinkling at the fetid stench as behind her the two soldiers fist-bumped and patted her on the shoulder, receiving a flinch of acknowledgment in return. As the group moved away she took a few extra seconds to examine her handiwork and then trudged after them, a strange smile on her lips.

  Paige smiled as well, but to herself. On their way out here, bunched together on the back of a pick-up truck, she recalled speaking to the woman and giving her one particular piece of advice:
<
br />   ‘Don’t think of them as people. But if you really can’t help it - think of them as someone you hate.’

  The woman had made it clear that she was going to visualise her ex-husband every time. For Paige, it would always be her abusive stepfather.

  As the leading group disappeared along a side road Paige scratched her scalp, making her spiky black hair stick up in all directions. Then she leaned over to brush the dust from her black jeans.

  ‘Looking good’ said a voice behind her.

  She whirled instinctively to face Liam Mercer, a twenty-five year old Londoner who was a member of the third and final team on today’s supply run. Despite being capable enough in his own right, Paige found his cocky attitude intensely annoying.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be with your own lot?’ she replied, trying not to show that he had caught her by surprise.

  ‘Yes, he should’ shouted the soldier who had called out before, a gruff Mancunian called Harker. Marching past the others and stopping directly in front of Mercer, he pointed three hundred metres back down the road. ‘You should get back with ‘em. Now.’

  With a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head Mercer sauntered away to rejoin his group, his languid gait like that of a sulking child.

  ‘Thanks’ said Paige, nodding at Harker.

  ‘He won’t be coming on the next run. Too much of a liability, that one. He can stay behind and whitewash the walls instead. Now, Adam’ he said, gesturing toward the man with the hatchet. ‘It’s your turn to take point. And remember, if you come across one of the dead; keep your mouth closed when you hit them. Better yet, cover it up. Believe me - you don’t want to swallow any of their gunge.’

  Paige glanced back down the road just in time to see Mercer return to his group, where he was instantly reprimanded by a ranting soldier and given a heavy pack to carry. It was a chore that each member of a team had to take a turn at – to be the mule for a time - but for Liam Mercer it would now be a particularly extended period. His juvenile scowl, even at a distance, told Paige how enthused he was about the whole thing.

  ‘Come on, let’s keep moving’ said Harker, gesturing Group Two forward. Paige slipped into fourth position, with only their group’s ‘mule’ and the other soldier behind her. The man called Adam, now leading the line, had taken Harker’s advice and pulled a bandana up over his mouth. As he edged forward, hatchet in hand, Paige noticed the small pistol in his back pocket and remembered something else Harker had said days ago.

  ‘No firearms are to be used, except against enemy soldiers or as a very last resort if you get cornered. Use the hatchets and machetes on the dead.’

  As it was, a living enemy hadn’t been seen for days. The general feeling was that most of the country had already been liberated and that only pockets of invading soldiers remained. Paige dearly hoped that was the case. It was one of the reasons that she had volunteered in the first place; to help bolster the British Army troops and reclaim the nation as quickly as possible.

  Plodding one foot in front of the other, she drew a large machete from her belt and used the blade to sift through the flotsam of rubbish on her left. The aim was to try and find as many useful items as possible: sealed packets of food, tampons, bottled water and medical supplies, although other things also made it back to base, including cigarettes and condoms.

  Or maybe that was just Liam Mercer.

  Suddenly, Paige looked up, the hairs rising on the back of her neck. The others had stopped too so she knew that she hadn’t imagined it. Then it came again - the sound of shouting from along one of the roads up ahead. Whatever it was, Group One had found it first.

  All eyes on him, Harker readied his rifle. ‘Stay calm’ he said grimly, turning to wave down the hill toward Group Three. They also stopped in their tracks.

  Before another word could be said, Paige noticed the members of Group One reappearing from along the side road. They were returning at some pace, and in the middle of their cluster was a new figure dressed in a dirty black uniform. It was one of the enemy soldiers.

  Immediately realising the importance of this, Harker pushed past Adam and met the group head on. ‘Get him on the ground’ he ordered. ‘If he’s got one of those poison capsules in his mouth, we need to get it out.’

  ‘Already checked’ answered a squaddie called Thompson. ‘Nothing there.’

  ‘Okay’ said Harker, turning back to Paige and the other members of Group Two. ‘That’s enough stockpiling for today. We need to get this prisoner back to base now.’

  Paige fell in line behind the other groups as they quickly headed down the road to merge with Group Three. Adam began talking to someone from Group One and Paige listened in on their conversation.

  ‘I got him’ bragged the other man. ‘He was kneeling over one of the dead ones. He didn’t see me until I hit him with this.’ Paige angled her head just enough to make out a baseball bat swinging in his hand.

  ‘You should’ve fucking beat him to death’ replied Adam. ‘That’s what I would have done.’

  ‘I know. I would have if they hadn’t stopped me.’

  Paige cringed at the juvenile display of machismo and trudged along at the rear, bobbing up and down to try and catch a glimpse of the prisoner. Then she saw his head, bloody on one side and wobbling like one of those dashboard toys. It was only then that she realised that he was being frogmarched by a person on either side. Barely conscious, his heavy boots scuffed languidly over the ground.

  At that point a spark of recognition flickered through Paige’s head. Although the meeting had been incredibly brief, she had definitely seen this person before. Thinking fast, her mind zipped back over the previous week, settling on the frantic scenes onboard a military bus. In her head she was back there again, fighting to hold the doors while zombies rocked the vehicle with their groaning bodies.

  And then it came to her.

  ‘Hang on!’ she blurted, barging past those in front and receiving toxic glares in return. ‘He’s not one of them. I know him!’

  Harker grabbed her firmly by the shoulder as the men holding the prisoner swung his dazed body around to face her.

  ‘So who is he then?’ growled the soldier, pointing at the drooping figure.

  Paige gulped and looked into the young man’s battered face. His cheeks were swollen with cuts and bruises both old and new. His eyes were red and puffy and his nose was bleeding. If he hadn’t also been caked in mud then she had no doubt that his injuries would look even worse. As it was, she might not have recognised him at all but for two things: his dirty, spiky blond hair and his half-missing ear.

  ‘His name is Chris’ she said softly, slowly shaking her head in disbelief. ‘He saved my life and loads of others too. He led the dead away from our bus...’ she gulped, ‘but I don’t know how the hell he’s still alive.’

  Within minutes the entire group were back at their three vehicles, two pick-up trucks and one Jeep. The majority were herded back onto the trucks while Thompson slid into the driver’s seat of the Jeep. Paige and Harker climbed into the back seat with Chris, still dazed, between them.

  ‘You’re absolutely certain he was bitten?’ Harker asked Paige as the Jeep’s engine grumbled into life.

  ‘Look, I didn’t see it myself’ she replied. ‘But look at his ear. Ben Reilly told me that this kid’s girlfriend turned and bit him. He should be dead - but he doesn’t even look infected now...’

  The Jeep lurched and started to pull away ahead of the slower moving trucks. Harker leaned forward and stared at Paige until she moved to the edge of her seat to lock eyes with him.

  ‘You know what this could mean?’ he asked expectantly.

  Paige nodded but didn’t offer a verbal reply. A born pessimist, she didn’t want to raise her hopes just yet.

  Not just yet.

  ~ 20 ~

  ONE MONTH LATER

  The figure seated in the dark shuddered as a sudden hum of electricity broke through the silence. Overhead, two fluorescent tubes f
lickered three times before lighting up the room.

  A door opened in the wall directly ahead. The man tried to rise but found that he could not move; he was stuck in a chair and his arms and legs were held fast. There was a taste in his mouth that seemed unnatural and his eyes felt sore and itchy. Confused, he looked up as three men entered, all dressed in British Army uniforms. Two of them stayed on either side of the door as it swung shut while the third, the most senior in every respect, approached with a stool and set it down six feet away.

  ‘What is this?’ asked the prisoner, immediately shocked at the sound of his own voice. It seemed different somehow, more nasal than usual, and it only made him feel more anxious. As his jitters increased, he asked again. ‘What...is...this?’

  Taking a seat on the stool, the man opposite produced a small metal case which he then placed on his lap and opened with a click. With the contents hidden from the prisoner’s gaze, he peered inside before looking back up into the other man’s face.

  ‘Good Morning, Henry. How are you feeling today?’

  Perplexed, the prisoner looked around the room. A sudden whirr of circuitry drew his eyes up to the ceiling where a camera was pointing down, its tiny red light blinking every few seconds. ‘What is this?’ he asked for a third time.

  The man opposite gave a loud sigh.

  ‘I can see that you’re confused so we’ll start at the beginning. My name is Isherwood. And you’ he added, pointing a finger, ‘are Henry James Sawyer.’

  Sawyer stared back, sensing something familiar about the man’s slicked back hair and pencil moustache. When the memory refused to develop he looked around the room again, more nervous than ever.

  ‘Where...am I? How did I get here?’

  The man called Isherwood leaned forward. ‘That’s not important, Henry. Now, why don’t you tell me what you do remember?’

  Sawyer closed his eyes and shook his head, desperately trying to hook onto something that would help him make sense of his predicament. Images began flashing through his brain, growing clearer with every second. Suddenly, he was back in the maintenance room again; covered in blood and slipping away as an infant zombie gnawed eagerly at his hand. He grimaced, and Isherwood leaned even closer.