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

by Oldham, S. P.

  Lavender stared at him, still trying to reconcile what she had just witnessed. At length she shook her head, her mouth so dry she could barely get the words out,

  “No, I’m not okay. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again,”

  “If Gasher was here he’d be down there already, tearing into those Thinkers,” Carson smiled ruefully.

  “But he’s not,” Lavender said sternly, “I know we promised to kill them off wherever we found them, but we have to be realistic Carson. One of them is bad enough, but four? We’d be dead in minutes. There’s plenty others out there to kill, and if we’re lucky plenty of time to do it in. We can even come back for these, but not now, not the way we are. We need some time to heal, to get strong again. We’re both too weak just now Carson,” She looked up at him pleadingly.

  “I know,” he murmured, drawing her close, burying his face in her hair, “I know,”

  The Plan

  “Now what?” Lavender asked, looking over at the door, “There’s a nutcase with a shotgun the other side of that door, listening to us for who the hell knows what reason and a yard full of zombies down there,” she nodded out of the window.

  “I know,” Carson said, “Let’s just think about this a minute,”

  She was so grateful that she was dealing with Carson as himself, not the distant, confused man he sometimes was these days. She couldn’t think about that now; now, the only thing they had to worry about was getting well away from this place. She had already decided to abandon the things they had found along the way. She said as much to Carson.

  “I’m with you, we need to travel fast and light,” he looked out of the window at the variety of vehicles, “Pity none of them probably work anymore,” he said regretfully.

  “Even if they did they’d be too noisy and way too slow,” Lavender pointed out, “Besides, we have to get out of this house and down to them first. Any suggestions on how we do that?”

  Carson flicked his eyes to the bedroom door and leaned in again, “We have to deal with him first,” he said grimly.

  Lavender nodded. There was no way Noble intended to let them just walk away. Seeing the fate he had abandoned Mayhew to, Lavender could guess what her own ending, and Carson’s, would look like if the lunatic had his way.

  “But how?”

  *

  There had been some thudding at both the front and back doors to the house. Lavender held her breath, expecting them to give at any moment, but they seemed to have held firm. They heard Noble run downstairs, his feet heavy on the treads. He was laughing manically, shouting something indecipherable.

  The sound of his mirthless laughter sent her cold. She and Carson had come up with a means to try and escape whilst simultaneously disarming Noble. She had wanted to kill the man, not only for what he had done to Mayhew, but to eradicate him as a threat once and for all. Carson had agreed with her in part, but had come up with an alternative method of disposing of him; one which made her wonder at him all over again. One that made her think for the thousandth time that it is never truly possible to know someone; that even someone you love and trust can do things capable of shocking you to the core, changing the way you look at them forever.

  She was uncertain of the plan. So many things could go wrong. At the same time, part of her was no longer sure she cared. Death would be the last great escape, she reasoned. Having lived through all of this, she knew as well as anyone that there were far worse things that could happen to someone.

  “Ready?” Carson asked her.

  “As I’m going to be,” she said, taking up position in front of the door. When – if – Noble swung it wide as they hoped he would, she would be the first thing he saw in the room, beyond her the small bed stuffed with pillows to give the illusion that Carson was bundled under the covers. If he chose to unload the shotgun at that moment, it would be the end of all her problems. Some dark and troubled part of her hoped he did.

  Carson stood the other side of the doorway, a foot or two clear of the wall. To see him, Noble would either have to step into the room fully, or put his head around the door. Either way would suit. Carson held one of the table lamps aloft, the wire wrapped around his wrist.

  “The hardest part of this is going to be getting Noble back up here,” Carson said, “I think he was listening earlier to gauge our reactions to the way he got Mayhew killed. Sick bastard probably gets a kick out of it,”

  “You think? I think once I tell him you’re so sick I’m sure you’re dying he’ll be back up those stairs faster than you can say ready-made sacrifice. You just make damn sure when you hit him with that thing you do it hard. Very hard,”

  Carson smiled. He leaned over to her, cupping her chin in his hand to plant a gentle kiss on her lips.

  “I love you Lavender Gin,” he said.

  “I love you too, Carson,” she bit her lip to prevent tears from forming, forcing harshness into her voice, “now, let’s get this done,”

  By the time Noble finally responded to Lavender’s screaming and pleading through the bedroom door, her voice was hoarse. Using it as an excuse to vent the anger and frustration that had built up in her for so long, she had pounded at the door in a frenzy, raining blows upon it as if it was her enemy.

  “Hey! Hey, take it easy! Wait, wait!” Carson said. He grabbed her wrists and turned her away from the door, pulling her into him to rest her bruised hands against his chest. She was panting with exertion, a distant look in her eyes.

  There was a creak on the floorboards outside. Lavender felt her hackles rise. She met Carson’s eyes and nodded; Noble had taken the bait. All they had to do now was get him inside.

  She could feel him standing the other side of the door, his bodily presence emanating through the wood. It occurred to her that he could shoot right through it and drop her then and there. She moved back to her position alongside it.

  “What is all the noise about?” Noble’s voice was also hoarse, perhaps a result of all that weird laughter.

  “It’s Carson,” Lavender rasped, no need to pretend to breathlessness, “He’s sick, really sick,”

  A pause, “So what?”

  Lavender’s heart sank. She looked at Carson who gave her the nod to carry on.

  “I mean he’s really sick. I think,” she looked at Carson again, shaking her head, “I think he’s dying,”

  Another pause, “He seemed well enough to me last night,”

  “But he wasn’t,” Lavender assured him, “not really. I think maybe he’s got whatever infection Mayhew had. His skin is cold and clammy, he’s sweating all over, I’ve got no response from him for hours now,”

  A grunt, “Like I said, so what?”

  Lavender shut her eyes, resting her forehead against the coolness of the wall, trying to think fast,

  “Well if what he’s got is catching, and it looks like it might be, then I don’t want to be in the same room as him. I saw what you arranged for Mayhew. I saw that you liked it. I thought maybe you’d want to do it again, with a fresh man, so to speak,”

  She shut her eyes, cringing. She had gone too far. There was no way Noble was going to believe that she could just coldly accept what he had done to Mayhew, much less offer up another victim to it. Any second now, Noble was going to step in, firing. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. What had they been thinking? How could she and Carson ever have thought this was going to work?

  “Hmm,” Noble said behind the door, “Perhaps I’d better come and have a look at him,”

  Lavender stood straight, staring at Carson in shocked surprise. He caught her eye and nodded, wrapping the flex more tightly around his wrist, adjusting his grip on the lamp to greater effect. He had removed the lampshade, leaving the hard ceramic body of it exposed. His mouth set in a firm line, he planted his feet wide apart and waited.

  “Step back from the door, I’m coming in,” Noble said.

  Lavender did as she was told, taking two small steps backwards, hoping to entice him in far enough
for Carson to get a good target. There was the sound of a key turning in the lock, the door fell open and Noble stood there, shotgun levelled at Lavender, looking at her.

  She had thought he was strange before. After witnessing the nightmare in the yard, she had thought him psychotic. Now, she was convinced he was insane.

  He filled the doorway, his frame imposing. She had seen how strong he was from his treatment of Mayhew, up close she had an even greater sense of it. His upper body was covered in blood spatter, grime, and dirt of all manner. He was barefoot, seemingly unaware that his feet were bleeding and were at that very moment leaking small dots onto the carpet.

  He took one step forwards, still behind the door, keeping the shotgun aimed right at Lavender’s midriff.

  “Where is he?” Noble asked her, a keenness in his eyes.

  “Just there, “Lavender said, indicating the bed she and Carson had slept in.

  Noble stepped further into the room, the whole time keeping the shotgun trained on Lavender. He issued a small ‘fuck’ when he caught sight of Carson standing to the side, but was too slow in swinging the gun round to do anything about it. Carson smashed the lamp down with all his might, watching the skin split on Noble’s cheek as the lamp hit. It wasn’t enough to drop him. Noble staggered, shook his head and tried to right himself. Lavender threw her weight across the length of the shotgun, desperate to prevent him taking a shot at Carson.

  Carson struck again. There was a hollow thump as the solid rim where the base of the lamp met the bulbous body, connected with Noble’s head. His legs gave and he went down, his eyes rolling back in his head. Carson knelt to take the shotgun. He used the lamp flex to secure the man’s hands, the lamp still dangling from it.

  “That’s a start,” he said, kneeling alongside the unconscious Noble, “but he’s going to be a handful when he wakes up,”

  “We better get moving then,” Lavender said, going to the window to look outside. As far as she could tell, there were no lingering zombies out there, though it was hard to say for sure with all of the potential hiding places down there. She went through the other upstairs rooms, as far as she was able checking the perimeter of the house from their various windows. From the front bedroom she thought she heard the ghastly moans of zombies. She stopped, listening hard. Difficult to tell if it was, or if it was the steadily growing wind blowing in the trees or simply her fevered imagination. They were going to venture out there. It was madness, she suddenly realised, especially since the yard had so recently been full of Thinkers.

  “We can’t go yet,” she said to Carson. He was standing over Noble’s still prone body, the shotgun resting against the back of the man’s head.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “Think about it Carson. I want to be away from here as much as you do. But we’ve got no transport to speak of and there were zombies, Thinkers, milling about in groups out there just a short while ago. We’d have to be as crazy as he is to go out there now,”

  “I’m not crazy,” Noble’s voice, his face pressed into the carpet, was muffled, “I am the sanest person around here,”

  “Then God help the rest of us,” Carson said, shoving the nuzzle of the gun viciously into the back of his skull. He was rewarded with a small yelp of pain.

  “Then what do you suggest?” he turned back to Lavender.

  “I suggest we tie him up properly, lock him in here and go take a look around. We’ve got the shotgun now,”

  “Three extra shells too, in his pocket,” Carson interrupted.

  “Great! So, we’ve got the shotgun. It’s a farm. Maybe there are other weapons here somewhere. Maybe you’re right about those vehicles, we should at least try them. Who knows what we might find hidden in one of those outbuildings, if we just look?”

  Noble made a strange noise. Carson bent to grab a handful of his hair and yank his head back.

  “What was that?” he growled.

  But Noble hadn’t said a word. He was laughing.

  A Noble Cause

  Lavender’s heart was thudding as they reached the front door, Noble having been tied to the bed by a variety of means, gagged and locked into the bedroom. It was the best they could manage, Lavender reckoning he was the least of their worries now.

  Carson had the shotgun. Lavender considered offering to take it from him, refraining from doing so only because she felt it would upset him if she did. Now and then, when she looked into his eyes, she saw a flicker of doubt, a fleeting shadow of confusion. It was like watching a light bulb dim before dying, or a candle flame gutter and revive, gutter and revive, before finally blowing out. She had a horrible sense of foreboding; one that told her that the Carson of here and now would once more fade out of view before too long.

  She would have felt a lot better with the shotgun in her own hands, but there was no way she was going to agitate him unnecessarily. There were plenty of other things out there in the big bad world just slavering to do that. She kept her concerns to herself, giving him a brave smile as she gripped the door handle with a cold, trembling hand and said, “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Carson replied.

  Lavender took a deep breath and pulled the door open.

  If they had hoped for a breath of fresh air to help refresh them, they were disappointed. The air was heavy with the visceral stench of blood and seemed even thicker with flies than before. Lavender, out front, held up a hand of caution and scanned the area immediately in front of them for any sign of movement.

  The trees and bushes shimmered and shook in the wind, making her jumpy, but as far as she could tell, the area was clear. She took a left turn, broaching the house from the opposite side Noble had taken earlier when he had fed Mayhew to the Thinkers.

  A pile of what looked like junk to Lavender was stacked against a wall of the house. She ran her eye over it for anything resembling a weapon. There was nothing that looked light enough to carry so she abandoned it, focusing on the way ahead.

  Various debris littered the shadow cast on this side of the yard; a couple of bikes, their wheels buckled, one of them missing a seat. A heap of house bricks that had evidently been neatly stacked but which now lay in a messy pile, weeds growing through their holes. Bits and pieces of heavy machinery that Lavender neither knew nor could name. Knowing what was waiting for them around the far corner – the tractor wheel altar upon which Mayhew had been slaughtered – Lavender felt bile rise. She gritted her teeth and turned the corner.

  Up close, the tractor was far more imposing than it had been when looking down upon it. The wheel was easily taller than both Lavender and Carson. She tried not to see the remains of the man still dripping from it, or the pieces of flesh and bone that had become wedged in the deep ruts of the tyre. It was as if her eyes had a life of their own; they would not stop wandering over to the spot.

  “Poor bastard,” Carson’s voice was tremulous behind her. She knew he was looking at it too.

  “This way,” she said, trying to remain calm and focused while at the same time guiding Carson away from this particular devastation. She veered right, away from the tractor, the paddock lying up ahead some way, coming alongside what she had guessed was the cow shed.

  The flies were far thicker here. Lavender now saw that what she had thought of as some kind of climbing plant covering much of the outer wall, was in fact a vast body of flies. It spread over it like a black, buzzing ivy. The realisation made her head itch, her skin crawl.

  The big double doors were slightly ajar. Flies worried at it, flitting in and out of the crack. Lavender wondered if it was worth bothering to look in there; after all, Noble had said it was full of dead and rotting cows.

  There was a footstep up ahead and a low bellow. Carson and Lavender froze, she instinctively reaching for his hand. He did not reciprocate and she was gratified to see that he had the shotgun levelled, eyes like a hawk on the space ahead of them. He was still with her then, for now.

  A cow stepped out from behind the tractor, chewing and s
taring as if there was nothing at all wrong. Lavender was too relieved to tell if it was the same cow they had released from the hallway only yesterday. It took an inquisitive step towards them, then stopped square on. Two more cows appeared at its back, their expressions slightly less trusting. Lavender almost laughed out loud.

  “Noble told us the cows were all in the shed,” she whispered to Carson, not taking her eyes off the beasts who, for all their apparent harmlessness, were nonetheless big animals.

  “Maybe he got it wrong,”

  “Looks like it,”

  “Or maybe he lied,”

  “Why would he lie about that?”

  Carson shrugged, “You saw the man. He’s crazy,”

  Lavender considered. She looked away from the cows back over to the fly-ridden shed. She thought about the way Noble had simply laughed when they talked about investigating the out-buildings.

  “A man like that is capable of anything,” Carson went on.

  Lavender nodded, “I for one would love to know what the hell went on in that kitchen,” she tossed her head back towards the house, “then again, maybe I wouldn’t,”

  “Maybe he butchered cows in there?” Carson suggested.

  “Then why allow them to wander freely? They could just walk out the gate and keep on going,”

  “To let them eat sweet grass, maybe? They’d taste a lot better than if they were just kept locked up all the time. What would he have to feed them on?”

  “Good point,” Lavender agreed, “but I don’t think that’s it somehow. He was hungry when we met him, remember? If he had steak meals in abundance, why would he be so interested in our food? No, I think something else altogether went on in there,”

  “God knows we’ve seen enough insanity since this all kicked off. People are capable of the most unbelievable things, good and bad, that’s for sure,”

  “True enough. Maybe the ‘dead cows’ story is a way of keeping us out of the cowshed? Maybe he’s got something stashed away in there that could be really useful, something that he just doesn’t want us to know about?”