Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead Page 12

  “Anyway, an hour or so after that we heard someone calling outside. It was a neighbour of ours. Well, I say neighbour, he lived roughly a mile away but our farms backed on to one another so in country terms it was as close as most people got. We even used to swap tools and machinery sometimes, depending on what crops needed harvesting. Well, there he was, battered and bloody outside our house, screaming his head off for help. We let him in, of course. He was in a state, crying on my shoulder as I led him inside. I'd never seen him like that, he'd always seemed a rather stoic man. He told me that he had seen his whole family die under a wave of “walking bodies” as he called them, and only he had survived. Part of me wondered at the time why exactly he had lived when the others had died but I chided myself for thinking about that when the poor fellow had lost everyone he had loved. As it turns out, we soon knew why, the cowardly..." Arthur gave a short sound of exasperation before continuing.

  "When I briefly went upstairs to check on Dorothy he grabbed all our fresh food, everything up to our last piece of bread, along with my tractor key. He just wanted to get away. I spotted him from the top floor and went out to him as quickly as I could, trying to reason with him whilst reaching up and holding the wheel of the tractor in place. There was no way I was going to let him take it, not in a month of Sundays. Then that maniac... he pulled out a hand axe, can you believe it? Thankfully he only hit me with the back of the axe head, breaking my arm. Yes, I'm sorry...” he saw my face crease in puzzlement, “I lied about falling. It was easier to say that, because the truth is I was ashamed of what came next...” he stopped, his mouth working silently as he tried to work out the best way to explain himself. “As he was driving off, I went to get my shotgun, as I'd placed it next to the door inside, after the first attack...”

  “You shot him?” I asked quietly, not believing that such a pragmatic man could resort to revenge.

  “No, no, but I might as well have. I wanted to fire a warning shot but my aim was poor due to my broken arm and I hit the engine block. I must have hit a fuel line or something, I'm not sure, I never checked on the damage. All I know is that the tractor slowed and then stopped. He tried desperately to get it working, but then I saw them, the dead, converging on the poor selfish idiot. Maybe it was the group from his farm... maybe some were his family; they looked very fresh, a few of them. I tried to help him, I did," he said, tears welling up in his eyes a little as his mouth twitched at its corners. "I reloaded and fired as quickly as I could. I think I hit one but some of them headed towards me. I had to get inside, so I didn't get a chance to fire another shot. Yes, I'm sure that his family were amongst them," he continued, piecing together some memory or other, "because he reached for one of them from his seat, tenderly, as if... that was before his first scream... I..."

  Arthur fell into silence and I didn't press him further. It was now obvious that it was this very neighbour who had attacked me in the wheat fields, his jaw askew, hands grasping and cutting. I had removed the man's thumbnail from my ankle. Nausea wound a tight belt around my belly and I slowed the car to a halt in a secluded spot near a cluster of trees, before jumping out and emptying the contents of my stomach onto the weeds and wild flowers. As I stood back up, wiping a hand across my mouth, I felt a wave of sadness wash over me as I realised this man's story must be far from unique. It was probably even shorter than some people's stories, more merciful. The huge corpse that had attacked me at the farm and had almost finished me... he was so fresh. How many weeks had he survived, moving from escape to escape, before succumbing? Had he saved other's lives? Had he been protecting anyone? Had they also died when he had fallen under the rotting waves? And the child...

  I spat onto the ground venomously, trying to expel my rage as much as eject the taste of vomit from my mouth. There was no-one to blame though, no one who could pay for this. It just went on and on and everlastingly on.

  I got back into the car, rubbing my palms on the leather steering wheel cover. Arthur looked over but didn't need to speak. I nodded to show I was ready to continue and pulled away from the trees and back onto the road.

  After what seemed like an age (though it couldn't have been more than five minutes more) we reached the outskirts of the town, as fields gave way to small houses. I pulled up just at the edge of the first garden, before turning in my seat towards Arthur. I glanced at Dorothy, quiet and still in the back, her lips fluttering with soft breathing.

  “What do you think is the best way to do this?” I asked. “Do you know how far the nearest pharmacy or doctor's office is? I could walk...”

  “I think we'd be in just as much danger sitting here as driving into town to be honest,” replied Arthur, “and there is no way I can drive us away myself with one arm. We've got to stick with you. There is a pharmacy along the high street at some point, next to a book store I believe, opposite the police station. Just keep going, you can't miss it. Thank you for this, I do, I really... I really appreciate this, I, heh...” he laughed suddenly. It was a joyous sound, a stark contrast to the darkness that surrounded us. His gritty laughter put me in mind of a rock slide in a quarry, rolling from high to low. “I don't even know your name.”

  I didn't either. “It's Guy.”

  “Guy, really? That's a strange name for... well, that's by the by. Times change I suppose. Glad to know you,” he said, shaking my hand warmly. His palm felt rough and cold but there was warmth in his eyes. I smiled and turned forwards again, before slowly pulling back onto the road. I opted to stay in second gear as the road was far from easy to navigate. Cars lay abandoned at the roadside and across the tarmac at skewed angles, their doors hanging open and promising horrific sights within. I tried not to look too closely as we passed by; there was not likely to be anyone living in the vehicles and that was what I was concerned about now, keeping people alive. If I never had to put another corpse down I wouldn't have been sorry.

  The houses looked empty for the most part, most of them made of red brick under grey roofs laid with slate. Windows and doors lay open or swinging in the breeze, and there was evidence of flame damage in various spots as people had obviously tried everything they could to destroy the dead. Fire would have taken a long time to burn the corpses though, as they felt no pain, so would be no use as a quick form of self defence. It would have just been like barbecuing meat. There were one or two houses with boards across the windows and I half thought about stopping and checking for more survivors, except that we had no room in the car. A quick glance in the rear view mirror showed one or two dead emerging lazily from houses a hundred yards or so behind us and following at a ponderous pace. I resisted the urge to increase my speed, just in case I lost control or passed the pharmacy and had to double back.

  The road turned beside a small slip road that ran down a dip towards a modest hotel. It looked relatively undamaged, presumably because the guests would have left when the troubles started and the staff would have gone home to their loved ones, so there was no reason for the dead to congregate there. Beyond the hotel there was a small park littered with rubbish and the unidentifiable remains of one or two people, little more than red stains with clustered lumps of matter liquefying in the raindrops. There was something ludicrous about the juxtaposition of so much death with the gaudy yellow and red of the slide and the roundabout, which was spinning gently as it carried what looked like the remains of an arm on an endless twirling dance in the breeze.

  After we passed a few more houses I started to spot the tell tale signs of shop fronts in the distance, managing to still be bright and colourful despite the weather. It was quite a large town if you included its outskirts but it was old fashioned in its design, sprawling outwards rather than upwards. There were no tenements, no high rise office blocks, so I had no landmarks to head for. Even the spire of the church was rather small and squat, peeking out from behind a tree to our left as we rounded a bend. It was an ancient grey stone affair, humble architecture surrounded by a small graveyard of lichen coated weather-worn gr
avestones. As we passed by it I saw that the stained glass windows depicting saints and angels in various poses were still intact, however the doors were long ago destroyed and the dead were clustered in and around the arched doorway in worrying numbers. The church and graveyard were above the road, set up a few steps on a flat area of ground overlooking a four foot rough stone wall, over which the corpses tumbled, attracted by the sound of the car. My nerves started to shred a little as I glanced in the wing mirror, watching the bodies tumble, some breaking limbs as they hit the pavement. I had never seen so many, stumbling and crawling over each other like slugs.

  We turned past a tool shop and towards a roundabout which was clogged with cars, forcing me to brake aggressively, sending a squeal down the high street that now lay ahead of us. There was the suggestion of smoke ahead past another dip and turn amongst the shops, which perhaps meant there were still people alive here, although why they would choose to stay in a place of such obvious and ever-present danger was beyond me. Then again, here I was driving through it, pulling the dead from their nests as I went. They were now ahead of us as well, only three or four at the moment but more were already emerging from dark recesses either side of the road. There was still no sign of a pharmacy.

  “Where?” I asked urgently. Arthur pointed along the left branch of the high street, towards some older looking buildings with three or four storeys each. The shops themselves were for the most part looted here, their contents scattered all over the road and turning to mulch in the rain. Glass, paper, spoiled fruit and all manner of useless consumer electronics were spilling out of windows, bringing to mind the eviscerated organs of the corpses that milled around outside, their feet trudging and sliding over the remains of the society they used to inhabit.

  I had to nudge the car up onto the pavement to edge around a burnt-out hatchback and as I did so a pair of hands slammed onto the car bonnet as a corpse half fell out of a shop doorway to attack us. I heard Dorothy moan from under her blanket as the sound of the impact rang around the metal frame of the car. Arthur nearly jumped out of his seat, straining as he reached for the shotgun that he had left on the floor of the back seat. I managed to turn away from the corpse and move into the middle of the road. Although I tried to avoid a lot of the rubbish the tyres by necessity started to churn through the detritus, with broken stereos and televisions bouncing off the bumper. Two corpses started to converge on us from opposite sides of the road, so I had to accelerate to try and get past. I missed the one nearest to Arthur but the one on my side slammed off the windscreen head first, cracking the glass and leaving a wide smear of blackening dead blood. We swerved a little on the wet rubbish but I managed to pump the break and pull us back on course. There were seven or eight of the dead ahead of us now, with more coming from every side. I pulled to a halt and craned my neck behind. The road was already starting to fill with corpses, closing the net around us with their inexorable, inevitable drive for flesh. I could hear Arthur's breathing rasping in my ears as he started to panic and I knew we only had one chance of an escape, though it would be a dangerous one.

  I accelerated as hard as I could, moving up to second quickly although I couldn't make it to third before I slammed through the corpses ahead, their bodies rolling over the roof and under the wheels, smashing into the windscreen and causing the cracks to spread, as we twisted and turned before eventually the wheels started to spin ineffectually. There must have been a body or two caught under us, jamming up the tyres and axle with bone and flesh. We were as clear as we were going to get from the swarm so I opened my door before wrenching open the door to the back seat, pulling Dorothy out as quickly as I could, which led her to cough and moan as I threw her over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. The stench was thick in this part of the town, lingering despite the cold wind that was running down the high street. Arthur struggled out of the car and rested the shotgun momentarily on the wing mirror, firing a shot at the closest corpse, catching it in the neck and chest and dropping it in a fountain of red vapour as the lead tore through its flesh.

  I looked around desperately as I jogged forwards, with the weight of Dorothy’s body not really causing me an issue, although she was pulling me off balance. More of the dead were emerging from either side and there was one ahead of me, its head lolling and arms raised in blind, hellish desire. Beyond it I finally spotted the green cross of the pharmacy. It wasn’t illuminated but to me it was a shining star and something tangible to aim towards.

  Arthur caught up with me, wheezing laboriously. His face lit up as he saw the pharmacy sign but immediately dropped when he also saw the corpse ahead, now barely ten feet away. I also spotted three to my left and four to my right, closing in on us slowly but surely. Arthur went for broke, groaning with effort as he wrenched the shotgun up and fired it one handed. The shot was wild, barely catching the corpse in the shin but it was enough to knock it off balance and it stumbled, still reaching for me as it fell, crashing face first onto the tarmac. We ran beyond it as fast as our legs could carry us, trying to outpace the corpses and gain a bit of distance to allow us time to think. As we passed a couple of cars that were skewed across the road, the pharmacy came fully into view.

  The sight that greeted us made my heart sink. There were four of the dead clustered around the entrance to the pharmacy and they had already seen us, their moan rising up and echoing around the buildings. I looked over at Arthur, who was fumbling with the shotgun, opening it over his knee and then trying to pull two more shells out of his jacket pocket. It would take too long, I knew. There were four of them, and the best we could hope for was to take out two. I was carrying Dorothy and couldn’t get involved. It was the end.

  That was when I saw them, hand in hand all three, walking side by side down the waste filled street towards me. Marcus was on the left, his coat little more than a mass of skin woven together, held on to his shoulders by dark spikes, trailing blood. His features were almost alien, simply a mass of dark lines and bristles. He was not smiling with his usual predatory grin and his red eyes looked haunted. Cato was being pulled along on the right, his features and height fluctuating as if he were being seen through a heat haze. He was trying to dig in his heels but was being pulled against his will by the central force, Perdita. She seemed a little taller than usual and the strength and power she held over the other two was obvious. She swung her arms forwards and Cato tumbled and rolled ahead of her, finally coming to a rest on his back. Marcus stumbled a little but held his footing. They both looked at me, a strange mixture of emotions in their eyes. There was anger in Marcus and fear in Cato but both of them also exhibited signs of resignation. The corpses were getting ever closer but I was too focussed on the three to notice.

  The two in the front raised their arms in unison, as if under command. They outstretched their finger and pointed to my right. Then I saw it. In the doorway of the police station opposite the pharmacy, there was a man. Not a corpse but truly a man, alive and breathing, gesturing wildly for us to join him. I didn’t need to think about it. I grabbed Arthur’s coat and hauled him to his feet, grabbing the shotgun as he dropped it in surprise and pushing him towards the doorway. He spotted the man and broke into the quickest run he could manage but one of the faster corpses, the body of a young woman, was getting closer and closer. I kept my eyes away from the three and swung the shotgun whilst holding the barrel like it was a club, hitting the corpse in the side of the head with the stock. It staggered away and gave us just enough time to scramble through the door that the man was holding open. Arthur fell to the ground once inside, leaning against the wall and breathing in short ragged breaths. I kept holding Dorothy, not wanting to lay her on the cold tiled floor without a blanket. It soon turned out I didn’t have a choice.

  “You need to be more careful, you fuckers made enough noise to wake the dead,” said the voice of the man as he closed and bolted the door. “Now put the gun and the hag down.” He wasn’t very tall but was stocky, with a wide torso and hanging gut. His ey
es were red and tired, there was a thick growth of dark brown beard hair on his square chin and his clothes were baggy white overalls stained with blood. These were all incidental details that meant little as soon as I saw the crowbar in his hand. Maybe I could have swung the shotgun around even with Dorothy on my shoulder and grabbed the stock, firing off a shot before he landed a blow, but I doubted it. I couldn’t risk Dorothy anyway, I’d come too far to save her.

  I looked to Arthur, whose face was a mask of white shock. He knew we had no choice. I put the gun on the ground and the man nodded, breathing deeply as he smiled, his teeth shining yellow in the dim light creeping through the gaps in the boarded up windows.

  “There you go.”

  7

  Bargaining Tool

  I could see Dorothy lying on her back, her breathing now much more obviously laboured. She was no longer drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness but was simply gone, her arm hanging down from the sofa where they had placed her. Arthur was talking low and continuously to her, trying desperately to do something from behind the small window in the door to the cell we were both confined in, though all he could realistically do was hope that she could hear him. I turned and surveyed the grimy cell, littered with waste and dried blood.

  How long had it been since they had thrown us in here? I had no idea. It was still light outside but up until a few moments ago I had been drifting in and out of sleep on the cramped cell bed, despite the dangerous nature of the ordeal. Maybe it had all caught up with me; the blood, the death, the endless running. Even though we were at the mercy of whoever had taken us prisoner, this cell offered a safety that I hadn't felt for as long as I could remember. This helplessness was somehow comforting. If we couldn't get out, then the dead couldn't get in. The walls and tiny frosted windows were also so thick that I could barely hear the groans of the corpses outside.