by A. W. Exley
My heart plummeted to my boots. Matthews was alive when Ella removed his head, and hers would soon be stretched from her neck. But it still didn't explain the lack of blood. Everyone bled as long as the heart still pumped.
Only the dead don’t bleed.
The narrator advised leaving the authorities to deal with the returned, as some were in a fragile mental state due to what they had experienced. That they should be herded to a central location where they couldn't hurt themselves in their confused state. He most certainly did not advise beheading as a way of dealing with them. In fact, he didn't mention beheading at all. Only containment. There went Ella's legal defence.
The more I listened, the more little things bothered me. How could so many people have been buried alive that the risen dead occurred not just across England, but the world? Our doctors and nurses were overworked, but how could they wrongly declare death in thousands of cases?
Next, I seriously doubted that Mr Fisher, our policeman, would want to be responsible for every single pandemic victim if they all decided to pay a visit. Where would we herd them and what sort of shepherd would they need? I imagined the ballroom of Serenity House turned into an asylum for those who clawed free of their graves.
Lastly, the cold weight of dread pressing on my back leaned closer and whispered in my ear. But what if they really are dead?
"What do we do, my lady?" Magda spoke up.
"Do?" Lady Jeffrey's cold gaze pinned the cook to the spot like a specimen butterfly. "We do nothing. This estate is untouched, so this matter does not concern us."
"But what about Ella, ma'am?" Alice drew herself up and asked about our friend.
That hard gaze swung to the young maid, but Alice didn't cower. She stood up for Ella and wielded the only sword she had, her words.
"The authorities will deal with her in due course. I see no need to worry about a murderess. Now go back to your chores." She waved a hand to dismiss us all.
The four of us trooped back to the kitchen. Magda busied herself banging pots and rattling cupboard doors. Cooking was her way of thinking, plus it prepared the evening meal at the same time.
Alice stood in front of me and laid her hands on my arms. "Tell me you'll go see Ella? We will not leave her alone to rot in a jail cell. Something is not right."
I nodded my agreement. You soon learned in the army, higher ups knew a lot more than the poor bastards standing in front of the guns. The announcer's carefully picked words made me think of the dispatches telling us there would be another charge. You never got all the information. They’d feed you enough to make you think you knew what was happening, but they always left out some pertinent detail. Like the Germans had a new artillery base and would mow us all down like dandelions before we managed to run a hundred feet.
Which begged the question—what did the authorities know about the pandemic victims that they weren't telling us?
I needed to see Ella. More than that, if the end really was nigh, I needed to see Hazel. Mr Morris and his warning be damned.
12
As though Lady Jeffrey read my mind, she discovered a job that had to be done immediately and kept me from riding to see Ella the next day. Instead Stewart and I had to dig out a ditch by the end of the driveway. She wanted it deeper in case of winter rain. I swear she wanted a moat. By evening we both had blisters on top of our callouses and to my shame, I was too tired to spare much of a thought for either Ella or Hazel.
Three days had passed since Alice ran home screaming and Ella was arrested. Dawn still hadn't made the horizon as I sat in the kitchen, warming myself in the chair closest to the coal range while I chewed my toast. My gaze fixed at a point on the far wall, but my vision turned inward as I sorted through my plans.
Firstly there was the issue of Ella, no doubt freezing in the cold cell. Then there was the girl trapped in another type of gaol. Mr Morris would skin me for gaiters if he caught me around the tower, but I’d risk it for Hazel. My chances of sneaking over the wall would be better at dusk, when the family moved inside to prepare their evening meal. Which meant going into the village and trying to rescue Ella first.
I slipped out before Lady Jeffrey issued some other ridiculous decree. Cossimo was once again my partner in crime and we rode for the village. It was strange to see so many people out in the streets, despite the winter chill. At the same time, the ice resident in my bones refused to budge. A primordial warning seeped through the marrow and spread through my body. Things were not what they appeared.
I tied Cossimo to the hitching rail out front of the jail. Then I threw pebbles through the barred window until Ella's outstretched hand appeared. I reached up to touch her, then I passed up the buttered scones wrapped in cotton Magda had packed for her. With Ella fed, I turned to see what the crowd was doing. A group congregated in one place, and from farther along the road by the blacksmith's yard came the sound of hammering. Two men put up boards around a horse pen. I weighed which curiosity to investigate first and came down on the side of the crowd.
Father Mason stood at the front of a mob of nearly twenty people. This congregation was dressed to ward off the cold with scarves around their necks and hats pulled low. A strange tension ran through everyone, like the thrum of the motorbike engine as it waited for me to ease off the brake just before it jumped forward.
"It is a miracle! God has returned our loved ones to us," the reverend shouted to a few cheers and cries.
Others shook their heads and muttered about crimes against nature.
"How is any of it possible?" Someone asked the question I wished I could voice. "Some died more than two months ago. How does a person survive in a grave for that long? What did they eat, drink, or breathe?"
A murmur ran through the crowd. Perhaps at last they would see what I saw. As much as we desperately wanted to believe the sick had returned to us, what if they did die and some freak occurrence allowed them to walk? Like chickens after their heads are cut off, they would run around the orchard and we would have to chase them. Perhaps because humans are far bigger than chickens, the effect lasted longer.
"We cannot question how our Lord works, for aren't His ways mysterious?" Father Mason's booming voice seemed unsure. Was he trying to convince us, or himself?
A scream cut through the air, following by grunts and groans. As one, we turned to the direction of the noise. The smithy's yard. Singularly and then in pairs, we drifted toward the noise. One of the outside yards had been completely enclosed with timbers and the moaning came from within.
Constable Fisher stood to one side, staring at the wood as though he expected the hastily erected barrier to explode, and despite the cold, he wiped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.
"What is going on, Mr Fisher?" one of the older men asked.
The policeman nodded to the source of the noise. "We did what we were told. Four of the returned are in there. They came back to the village last night. The blacksmith and his lads helped me wrangle them. They bite, you know."
"This is not right," Father Mason said. "These poor unfortunates should be tended by their families until they recover. Not herded and corralled like animals."
People muttered but no one offered to take them in. No one else wanted their nose chewed off. I kept to the back of the group, looking around, trying to pinpoint what made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Perhaps the inhuman growls and wails from behind the timber wall.
The policeman's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. Men stared at each other, waiting for him to tell us what was happening. "The government has put the War Office in charge and they have sent out orders. They say these people did die of the influenza. That what has returned is not alive and the only way to send them back to death is to take their heads off."
Silence dropped over those assembled as we all struggled to take in the gravity of the policeman's words. My mind found relief in his statement. But in answering one question, a hundred more sprang up in its place. How did the dead walk and
attack the living? And for what unholy purpose?
I couldn't help but think of Mr and Mrs Morris and their fervent belief that Judgement Day was upon us all. Dastard luck if they were right all along.
"You are suggesting murder." Father Mason tried to regain control and sway everyone to his point of view. It was a losing argument.
As impossible as it seemed, that the returned were dead was the only explanation that made any sense. Unless we were truly all mad.
"How can you murder someone who is already dead?" another person spoke up. Questions started to swirl as everyone sought a way forward in a world gone insane. At last we grasped for the answers my mind desperately needed.
"Tim Matthews didn't bleed. How can you cut someone's head off and they don't bleed?" There was the question that haunted me at night, the one image that could superimpose itself over the grisly war memories. A clean wound with no sign of blood.
"It indicates that his heart didn't beat and therefore could not pump blood around his body. No heartbeat means the person was already deceased." Dr Todd pushed himself to the front. At nearly seventy years old, the doctor missed out on going to war because of his age. Instead he had to stay here and attend births and stubbed toes. Now he had to grapple with something far beyond his medical training.
"So Tim Matthews was dead when Miss Jeffrey took his head off?" another person spoke up.
"They are all dead." Dr Todd pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger. He seemed more certain of his stance than Father Mason.
The noise coming from the impromptu holding cell increased. The dull thud of bodies being thrown against wood accompanied the moans and groans. The tops of their heads peeked over the barricade as they jumped and threw themselves at the restraining walls. They tore and snarled as though they were trapped wild animals. It would take a brave man to argue they were alive, take one by the hand, and lead them home.
"If they are dead, how can they try and escape their predicament? Surely it proves they are alive and in need of our care and ministrations?" Father Mason stood in front of the rattling timbers.
"How can living beings survive two months under the ground? How a person have his head cut off and not only does he not bleed, but he searches the ground for his missing head?" The doctor pointed out the obvious medical mysteries that none of us could answer.
Science collided with faith and Father Mason's belief took the fatal blow. The reverend cracked before us. He shook his head but jumped away from the noise coming from the pen.
"Shouldn't we wait for more information?" Father Mason held up his hands as though to hold us all back, but the quaver in his once-strong voice betrayed his failing convictions.
The snarling became angry roars and the boards rattled. Nails loosened and began to push through. If we waited too long they would escape, and then what? How many people would they attack?
"Ella Jeffrey. She can do it," a quiet voice spoke.
I swung my attention back to the conversation.
Our policeman had come to a decision, one that would forever condemn Ella. "I already hold her for decapitating Tim Matthews. If they are indeed alive, she will hang for his murder anyway. What does it matter if she hangs for one murder, four, or a hundred even?"
I shook my head. No, not Ella! I screamed, but only dust came from my throat. They would forever brand her as a murderer. Men returned from the war would leave a seventeen-year-old girl to do a task they were too scared to do themselves.
Grown men looked from one to the other. "I say we vote on it."
"All in favour of giving Ella back her sword in return for decapitating—" Constable Fisher struggled for a word or description to append to the prisoners. Did we call them by their names? That seemed wrong. "Those who have returned to us." He finished his sentence, smoothing over the problem of identifying the walking dead he expected my friend to dispatch.
I pushed to the front of their circle, shaking my head. I thrust one finger at the policeman. You, I mouthed. As our representative of King and law, he should bear that weight.
He brushed my hand away with a flash of shame in his gaze. "No, lad. I have a family. I'll not go home with blood on my hands."
Blood on his hands? It filled my vision. I thought I was the coward until this lot voted to throw Ella to the hounds of Hell. I slammed my fists into his chest but hands grabbed at me and hauled me backwards.
"Keep Henry out of the way," he said.
I fought and struggled, but three men held me firm. Cowards, I screamed, you are all cowards. But not a whisper passed my lips.
As the policeman walked to the stout little jail, one of the men holding me met my gaze. "It must be done, Henry, and she is already condemned. This village has lost too many already."
Father Mason—would he stand by and condone their actions? Would he let this atrocity occur? The reverend's hands gripped his bible. His lips moved as he prayed but even in the eerie quiet, he emitted no sound. Like me, he seemed struck dumb by events and had retreated to a safer place in his mind.
Constable Fisher escorted Ella from the jail, the katana in her hands. The blade bright in the wintry light, as though she held liquid silver. Her wide gaze took in the assembled crowd and then passed over to me.
Once again I tried to shrug off my captors but fingers bit into my flesh, holding me in place.
"It's all right, Henry," she called out. "I will do this."
No! You shouldn't have to do this! I yelled back, forgetting my vocal cords no longer worked. I couldn't watch my friend walk straight into Hell.
Ella's hand tightened on the sword as she stood before the impromptu cage. Never had she looked so alone and strong at the same time. Four men arranged themselves around her, to either ensure she carried out her task or to stop the things inside from escaping. For a moment she was completely still and silent. No one moved.
Then she nodded to the man on her right. "I'm ready."
Three of the men climbed up the sides, each holding a pitchfork. The fourth man levered off one of the boards with a crowbar. The noise within changed. The snarls and growls became low moans that jumped in pitch as Ella stepped into their pen.
The men on the sides used their forks to hold the captured flu victims back. As small as their part was, they did something to aid Ella and weren't going to watch while the returned tore her apart. A sweet note rang out and then a thud. The moans became shrill screams. Inhuman. How could Father Mason think they were the same people they had once been? Nothing on this earth made a sound like that.
A pitchfork prodded another creature toward Ella and her sword sang again on the morning air. Nobody spoke until the throaty noises of someone being sick in the bushes broke the silence. The growls diminished with each thud until they turned to gurgles and then nothing.
The men behind me let me go and I ran to the yard as Ella emerged.
"It's done." Her eyes were as blank and empty as her voice.
Behind her lay four bodies, but they did not go quietly back to their Maker. They twitched and shuddered. Hands grasped at the dirt and dragged torsos forward. Father Mason's eyes were wide as he tried to comprehend the horror.
As we all did.
"They're not human," someone said and swore under their breath.
The bodies tried to reunite themselves with their heads. One man used his pitchfork to sweep a head beyond the reach of a hand that nearly reclaimed its fellow part. A woman screamed and swooned as another headless body tried to crawl out of the pen.
"You can go home now, Ella." The policeman held out the scabbard for her sword.
I placed an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the horse.
Ella wrapped her arms around Cossimo and buried her face in his neck. I swung myself into the saddle and waited while she drew strength from the patient horse. Or perhaps she whispered to him, asking for forgiveness. Horses can heal a soul if you let them. When she was ready, she put a foot in the stirrup and took her place behind me, th
e sword settled on her back. Her arms slid around my waist as I put heel to the cob.
We left death behind for once. It had drunk its fill and left me alone.
13
The household bombarded Ella with questions as soon as we returned. The poor girl barely made it over the threshold into the kitchen. Alice squealed and hugged her friend so tight it looked like she might never let go.
"I was so worried," she said. "What happened?"
"They let me go." Ella's gaze met mine. How much would she tell the others? Would she mention the price of her freedom—decapitating four other people?
"I'd love a cup of tea and a bath. I don't think I will ever be warm again." Ella turned to me. "Thank you, Henry."
I’d done nothing. How did she stand tall and brave when so many grown men showed themselves to be cowards? But then I shouldn't be surprised. I served under Sir Jeffrey, and his daughter had the same iron backbone.
I left her to the care of Alice and Magda and busied myself with the farm chores. My next rescue mission wouldn't be so public. I waited until the approach of dusk before saddling up Cossimo. The horse looked at me and I swear gave a low snort and rolled his eyes. I slapped his neck. I didn't need him judging me, not when I saw the way he made eyes at the petite chestnuts that Lady Jeffrey acquired for Louise and Charlotte to ride. The chunky, common cob had as much hope with those high stepping fillies as I did with Hazel. One male to another, he should understand my need to ride out to the tower, no matter how pointless.
We trotted forth in a world gone crazy, where the dead clawed their way free of their graves and sought to return home. Was this the end that Mr and Mrs Morris foresaw? Horrors compounded horrors and pressed on my lungs. My nightmare world manifested itself and spread over the land. I raced through the castle in my mind to find a safe point, to breathe before the full panic descended. Lucky the horse knew where we were going.