Sleep, Think, Die (Book 2): The Undertaking

by Oldham, S. P.

  He hoped Lavender was all right. Her image flashed clear and sharp into his mind, making him smile She was much tougher than she knew, tougher than she had ever been before. The world needed more people like her. He needed her.

  A sudden weariness seeped through him. His confusion and absence in the sewers, the encounter with the Thinker, finding the ravaged girl’s corpse and then digging her grave – it had all taken its toll. Carson was exhausted, every inch of him ached and his head was beginning to pound again. Certain he couldn’t take another step, he stopped and looked around, assessing as best he could from this vantage point which of the buildings around him would offer the safest temporary hide out; safety being entirely relative these days. There was one building, a narrow house wedged between what was once a taxi firm on one side and a chip shop on the other. Unusually, most of its windows were still intact. That was enough of an encouraging signal for Carson.

  Bringing the sharpened shovel down from his shoulder to hold two-handed across his body, ready to put to immediate use if need be, he prepared to kick the front door in.

  Perhaps less encouragingly, the front door was not shut tight, merely ajar. He pushed it open cautiously with his foot, allowing daylight to illuminate the gloomy interior as far as it could reach. The passageway was littered with debris; dead leaves, cigarette boxes, flotsam and jetsam that had drifted in off the street. Not a trace of blood nor a severed limb, rotting bone or tattered clothing in sight. Heartened, Carson advanced towards the flight of stairs in front of him.

  Before he reached them, he came across a door set into the left-hand wall. It was wide open, revealing a small sitting room where, miraculously, an untouched television screen remained affixed to a wall, though missing its wiring. A sofa and single armchair was arranged in front of it as if waiting for an audience to come sit and watch. The fabric of the sofa was holed and tatty, doubtless where burrowing rodents and other small creatures been left to do as they pleased. Three remote controls had been tossed onto the low coffee table, robbed of their batteries. A vase on the windowsill had been knocked over, long dead flowers dangling from it, brown and dry, no trace of their former glory left. Various ornaments were left scattered and smashed, anything remotely of use had long since been taken, either by the owners or raiders. The bulb was missing from the light, the curtains missing from the windows. The room had an empty feeling, as if it had not welcomed visitors of any kind, human or zombie, for the longest time.

  Further encouraged, Carson retreated to the passageway, remembering to close the front door before he mounted the stairs. It shut with a satisfying click. Carson hesitated for a moment, then reached out and twisted the lock, the action somehow comforting.

  Two rooms lay ahead, probably a lounge and a kitchen. Carson knew he should check them out, but he was so damn tired. The throbbing in his head was becoming a constant, making him want to lie down and close his eyes. He would check the rooms later, when he had rested. There had been no reaction to his entering, no tell-tale moans and groans or the shuffle of zombie feet. Besides, the house felt empty.

  He climbed the stairs, vision blurring so rapidly now that each step became a hazy darkness before him. By the time he reached the small landing he could barely see at all. At least he was off the streets, he reasoned. At least he was under cover, with a closed door behind him and the sun off his back. He stumbled into the nearest doorway, a small bedroom at the back of the house. Empty or not, it hardly mattered to him now. If there was anything in there it would just have to have its way with him. All he could think about was sleep.

  He found the strength from somewhere to close the door. He wedged his shovel as best he could under the handle, a feeble attempt to prevent anyone from opening it. Then he fell upon the single bed, mercifully still equipped with a mattress, and allowed his body to give up, his mind to collapse in on itself. He slept.

  Taking the Fall

  “Okay Lavender, I’m sorry but enough’s enough. We are totally lost and so is Carson. It’s almost dusk. We need to get the hell off the streets and out of harm’s way,”

  Lavender’s heart sank. Magda was right and this time she couldn’t argue. The longer they stayed exposed in an area they didn’t know, the more likely they were to be attacked. She looked around, swiftly assessing their options.

  “Okay, where?”

  Magda’s shoulders sagged, taking Lavender’s point. There was nowhere suitable on the street they were on.

  “Can we just get moving?” Petra said anxiously, “there are way too many alleys and doorways here for my liking,”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Lavender said, “Keep your eyes peeled everyone; for somewhere to stay as well as for unwanted travel companions,”

  “We’ve got enough of those already,” Hannan drawled. Lavender was about to ask him what he meant by that when she saw the pallor of the man’s face, the shaky way he drew breath. She had seen it before, more times than she cared to mention.

  She took a few running steps forward, coming alongside Magda who was striding ahead with a purpose. “I need to talk to you,” she said in a low voice.

  “When we’re under cover,” Magda said, not breaking her stride.

  “I think it might be more urgent than that,” Lavender said. They rounded the corner together, both coming to a sudden halt.

  The street had come to an end. They found themselves on the edge of a wide, pedestrianised square. Civic buildings surrounded it, including a police station, a Victorian style public library and a grand-looking church. Larger shops and an office block lined the other sides. In the centre stood a modern fountain; quadruple figures giving the impression of a small boy somersaulting across a man-made stream, each figure a different stage of the somersault. It was dry; sparkling water no longer issuing prettily from its spouts. As they approached they saw that the scummy water line at the outer edges of the fountain basin was tinged with rust coloured foam.

  Benches were arranged in what was probably deigned an arty fashion by some city planner, but to Lavender they looked haphazard, as if untidily placed. Several of them were draped with rotting corpses of various vintage. Lavender was immediately on edge. As a group, they all slowed down as they approached; the only exception was Hannan. He never missed a beat. In fact, he picked up speed as he went to inspect the dead bodies on the nearest bench.

  Lavender watched him, her unease growing. She let the others explore the centre of the square, something on a bench to her right catching her interest. As she drew closer, she understood why. The corpse, appearing to be that of a teenage girl, was far too fresh, far too recent a kill.

  There came a flicker from beneath the greying eyelids. The minutest tremble of a manicured finger.

  “Shit!” Lavender hissed, “Shit! Everyone get moving, now!”

  “What’s up?” Mayhew called as the others looked over, alarmed.

  “She’s not dead! This body, here, it’s not dead!”

  As she spoke the corpse moved; a slow, heavy motion, the head lolling to one side, showing the neck, and the oozing, gleaming bite it bore there.

  “Where?” Magda came running, but Lavender was already at work. She sliced the scythe downwards, swinging it back in a wide arc, narrowly missing Magda. She intended to decapitate the newly animated figure, but succeeded only in slicing partially into the neck before the scythe came to a stop. Petra offered her the Bowie knife, to finish the job. Lavender was just reaching for it when a bone-chilling moan reached them on a ripple of air, and it wasn’t coming from the now near-headless zombie on the bench.

  They turned as one, the sound coming from the opposite end of the square. A group of ten or more disjointed, lumbering figures were heading towards them. Their groaning intensified as they sensed new flesh, their aimless shambling taking on new purpose.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Magda said, “Run!”

  No one stopped to argue. They ran, heading straight for the nearest building; the church.

  �
�Not there!” Lavender screamed, breaking free from the group and making for the police station, “this way!” She ran on, not bothering to check if they were listening to her. Footsteps thudding behind told her that they had. They raced up the steps to the station and into the foyer, pausing only a moment to determine where to head next.

  “This way,” Lavender said, following a sign that read ‘Cells’ along with an arrow pointing the way.

  “No way,” Mayhew said, “I’m not getting cornered in some tiny cell with you lot. This way,” He led the way up a flight of stairs and the others made to follow him.

  “Not you,” Lavender said, rounding on Hannan, stopping him in his tracks.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Magda said. She stopped, glancing urgently out of the open doors, “We haven’t got time for this Lavender, they’re getting closer!”

  “Get out of my way,” Hannan snarled, making to barge past Lavender. The scythe was at his throat, a dangerous gleam in Lavender’s eye.

  “I said not you,” she spoke the words deliberately.

  “Are you for real? Look, you can continue your debate with Hannan later, if we survive. Let’s at least try to come out of this alive first!”

  “If he comes with us, we won’t,” Lavender said. She spoke to Magda but her eyes were on Hannan, noting the tinge of green that had crept into his eyes, the cold clamminess emanating from his skin, “He’s been bitten,”

  “What?” Magda said incredulously, “But how? When?”

  “Down in the sewer, when we had that little scuffle, remember? He said at the time that he’d been accidentally nicked by someone’s blade, but that’s not true, is it Hannan?”

  Hannan’s shoulders sagged. He offered up a grin that revealed gums beginning to bloody at the edges, “I can beat this,” he said pathetically, “I just need to sleep that’s all, some rest and I’ll be okay,”

  “The girl on the bench was resting,” Lavender said, tightening her grip on the weapon, “she woke up as an undead. You’ll do the same, if we let you. And I’m not going to let you,”

  “Lavender true or not, we have to get out of sight! We need to go, now!” Magda tugged at Lavender’s arm, simultaneously pulling the scythe back across Hannan’s throat and drawing a thin line of yellowing blood. Magda stared at it in horror.

  “Now do you see?” Lavender asked her, “Do you still think he should come with us?”

  Magda looked outside again, “No I don’t, but he’ll have to, for now. We can deal with him later. Look!”

  The shambling group of zombies had just reached the bottom step of the flight up to the station. The time for arguing was past.

  *

  The stairs led to a landing, three doors leading from it. There was a horrible moment when the first of the doors refused to open. Thankfully the second did, leading onto another corridor with numerous doors leading from it and a large room at the end.

  “Head for the furthest room,” Lavender instructed, “see if we can’t barricade it from inside. If anything moves, you kill it,”

  It turned out to be a conference room, chairs arranged to face a raised platform where a whiteboard was set into a wide wall, alongside a large sized monitor. There was a desk set before it, bloodied fingerprints at its edges. Many of the chairs were overturned or cast aside, the floor strewn with paperwork and plastic cups, but aside from the gory table there was no sign of violence within.

  “Here will have to do,” Lavender said, slamming the door shut, rueing the fact it was missing a lock, “Let’s get busy,”

  She began shoving the chairs aside, clearing a path through which she could drag the table, the heaviest looking object in the room. Mayhew saw what she was doing and rushed to help. Between them, every item of movable furniture in the room was piled in an untidy stack behind the door.

  “That’s not going to hold for long,” Petra said, voicing everyone’s inner thoughts.

  “I have to wonder what the point is, when we’ve already got the enemy within,” Lavender said, giving Hannan a hard look before making a more considered assessment of the room.

  There were windows set high into the wall above the screen and whiteboard. They didn’t look like they could be opened and were just there to allow daylight into the room. The other outer wall was a different proposition altogether. Made up entirely of single-glazed windows, the powers that once were apparently preferred to spend their budget on high-tech resources rather than comfort. The top row of windows were wide and could all be opened outwards. Lavender strode over to see what lay below them, suspecting they would be the only way out of the police station.

  It was a long drop, leading down to an enclosed area that looked to be the service yard to the station. Several police vehicles were parked there, one car had its passenger and driver’s door wide open. On another, the driver’s door was missing altogether, lying some feet away from the car. At least two vehicles appeared to be in good condition, though it was hard to tell from her vantage point and even if they still had full tanks of petrol, left standing idle for so long it was unlikely they would work.

  “What does she mean, the ‘enemy within?’” Mayhew asked of Magda. Lavender focused her attentions back on the people in the room.

  “I mean him,” Lavender said, waving the scythe at Hannan, “He’s been bitten,”

  Petra and Mayhew turned wide eyes upon Hannan, Petra taking a step backwards, “What the fuck? Why is he in here with us?”

  “When?” Mayhew asked, his expression deadly serious, “When was he bitten?”

  “I can hear you, you know. I’m still myself,” Hannan rasped.

  “Not for much longer,” Lavender said scornfully, “To answer your question Petra, he’s in here with us because there was no time to kill him downstairs,”

  There came a thud against the barricaded door, shaking the precariously balanced, flimsy furnishings alarmingly.

  “And there’s no time to kill him now, either!” Magda said, crossing to Lavender’s side at the window, “If they get in here, we’re dead for sure. We need to get out of here,”

  Between them they got the windows open. Mayhew offered his shoulders to Petra and she stood upon them, easing herself out of the window to drop lightly onto the narrow ledge outside. Her face was white with fear as she pressed her rigid body up against the pane, not daring to look down.

  “You next,” he said, offering cupped hands to Magda for her to rest her foot in.

  Magda looked at Lavender. She could see her weighing her words before she spoke them, at war internally with the need to escape against the need to be seen as a leader, even now.

  “No, you next,” Magda said to Mayhew.

  “You can’t boost me up!”

  “No, but I can get you a chair from that useless pile over there,” Magda said, already half way to the barricade. It bulged inward violently as she approached it, husky moans reaching her through the door. She flinched, then snatched up one of the chairs and returned to the windows with it.

  “Climb up,” she ordered.

  Mayhew took a bewildered look around. When Magda had hurriedly removed the chair, she had left another one partially raised from the stack. It toppled noisily to the floor now as the door took the brunt of another blow, all the encouragement Mayhew needed. Shrugging his shoulders, he tucked his shiv into his back pocket and scrambled up to the window, dropping clumsily to join Petra on the ledge. He began to edge slowly and carefully sideways, reaching out to a drainpipe that led to the ground.

  “Let me go down first, then you,” they could hear him telling Petra through the pane. They saw her give a terrified nod, though she didn’t move an inch in response.

  “Scared of heights,” Magda observed, “Right Lavender, you next. On the chair,”

  The door bulged inwards again, this time allowing so wide a gap that they could see the flailing arms of the zombies crowding against it.

  “No time for that anymore,” Lavender said, “we need a much qu
icker escape route,”

  Hannan stood between them. In the few brief minutes since they had decided upon the windows as their only recourse, his skin had taken on an even more greenish tinge. His eyes had taken on a distant aspect, the pupils wide and darkening. He seemed barely aware of what was going on around him. Lavender knew from experience that the next stage in his unavoidable fate was sleep, or something like it. Then he would be awake again, reanimated and hungry for their flesh and bones.

  She took a firm hold of his arm, her legs apart, her expression determined. She nodded across to Magda on his other side.

  “I think Hannan here can help us open the window,” she said meaningfully.

  Understanding dawned in Magda’s eyes; that, plus a grudging respect. She gripped Hannan’s other arm, the man not reacting in the slightest to their touch.

  “On three,” Lavender said, “One, two three!”

  The women part-ran, part pushed, propelling the larger form of Hannan directly towards the windows with all the force they could muster. There was a sickening squelch as his head hit the glass first. There was a moment of suspended time, when Lavender thought the glass would not give, after all. Then there was a sound like sudden rainfall, quickly becoming a splintering, cracking noise. Opaque veins began to spread from the point of contact, cracks in the glass filling with Hannan’s’ red-yellow blood closest to where he had hit. Then the window finally gave way, shattering into myriad glittering pieces as it fell like spiteful, searing hail onto the yard below. Some of the glass remained embedded in Hannan’s forehead. He appeared to hover there a moment, as if preparing for the dive, except there was no reaction whatsoever from the once-man. The women released him and he simply fell, plummeting without a word, without a movement, to the ground below.

  His head exploded upon impact, splitting like a soft-wood log cleft through with an axe. His body landed with all the weight and absorption of full sack of flour, except this particular sack was full of bones that snapped loudly in the silence of the yard.