Domain of the Dead (6 page)

It was a rotten world made all the more rotten by the aimless wanderings of the zombies that inhabited it. It seemed to Sarah that the dead had fashioned a derelict realm over which only they had domain. A dead world populated by dead people. She kept her gaze out of the window so no one could see her tears. She felt ashamed for crying. She had lost everyone close to her during the Rising and she had cried for them. Today she had lost all but two of her friends, but this time their deaths were her fault.

Broken rail tracks and toppled power lines punctuated the feral pastures until a strip of lonely beach heralded the boundary between the land and the ocean. A finger of fresh water bled into the ocean, its lighter shade of blue pushing out against the overwhelming power of the sea.

As the land disappeared behind them, the occupants’ attention turned away from the windows.

Sarah felt Jennifer’s breathing relax as the young girl drifted off to sleep. It felt comforting to have this young child asleep on her lap. At least Jennifer had survived. Running a hand over the child’s hair, smoothing it down in a long stroke, Sarah wrapped her arm around her. Closing her own eyes, Sarah tried to drift off. She felt exhausted. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, her legs ached from the mad dash carrying Jennifer.

In the darkness behind her eyelids, sleep wouldn’t come. All Sarah could see were the faces of the people she’d left behind. Ryan’s stoic visage as he stroked his infected daughter’s cheek. Elspeth’s apologetic eyes pouring out regret for her failure to protect Ryan and Sam’s child. Even though she had been bitten defending the baby, Elspeth had shown no concern of her own plight. Then there were the others. Ali, Ray and George. All left behind, lost in a sea of decay. A very small part of Sarah threw out a modicum of hope. She hadn’t seen them die. Them might have fought their way free and met up with the soldiers; they all might be safe back at the warehouse waiting for rescue.

It was just a wishful thought and Sarah knew it.

Nathan was the first to break the silence. “I’m Nathan. This is Sarah and Jennifer.”

“Shit yeah,” Bates said in way of an apology. “Kind of got caught up. I’m Bates. Gideon Bates.” Bates lent forward and placed his hands on the seat in front of him. “And this is Angelika Chernov—or
Angel
as we like to call her, our team sharpshooter.” Bates drummed his fingers on Angel’s seat. “Expert shot and poker player, both because she never blinks.”

“And you never shut up, Bates!” Angel retorted.

Bates continued, his enthusiasm unabated, “And your pilot for this flight is Idris Hayder.”

Idris raised his hand and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment at the introduction.

“So what’s happening to the rest of the world?” Nathan asked.

“How long you been out of the loop?” Bates said.

“We stopped picking up radio broadcasts, what, about three years ago? Things were in bad shape when they went off air.”

“Yeah, it’s the same all over, W.D.’s all over the place,” Bates answered, rubbing his cheek. The straps from his helmet had obviously irritated him but not enough for him to remove his protective Kevlar helmet until the helicopter was safely away from the infected mainland. He ran a hand through his cropped blond hair, rubbing the spots matted flat by the pressure.

“
Double-you dee’s
?” Nathan asked.

“Whisky Deltas.” When Nathan stared back at him blankly, Bates elaborated, “Walking Dead.”

“Ah,” Nathan nodded.

“The dead fucks have taken over the planet. Nowhere’s safe,” Bates said.

“Well, almost nowhere,” Idris chipped in.

Nathan lent forward, more to show interest than to hear better. The noise in the cabin would have been overpowering if it weren’t for the headsets. “So what’s left?”

“There are a few places, mainly islands like Ascension, Hawaii, the Falklands,” Bates said.

Idris’ matter-of-fact voice cut over Nathan’s headphones, “I hear Greenland is nice this time of year.”

Again Bates filled in some of the blanks. “Yeah, lots of places in the arctic circle are still safe. The Scandinavians are doing better than most.”

“Why’s that?” Nathan asked before thinking.

“W.D.’s don’t like the cold,” Angel said. “They freeze solid.”

“Of course.” He remembered back to the winters where they had gone foraging in the comparative safety of the frozen city. “So where did you guys spring from? You seem well equipped, well organised…”

Bates jumped in, all too happy to pass the time with small talk. “We’re assigned to Ishtar.”

“What’s an Ishtar?”

Bates smiled. “Ishtar is a research ship. Got some fancy scientists on board lookin’ for a cure.”

“So is that government funded?” Nathan asked.

“Ain’t no government,” Angel added, her Russian lilt rolling over the words.

“No social security cheques either,” Idris said.

“Well, there’s a government of sorts,” Bates corrected. “Whole world—or at least the bits we have left—is under martial law.” He paused, thinking. “So how did you guys last so long on the mainland?”

Nathan was about to answer when Sarah spoke up. “We got lucky.”

Surprised that Sarah was awake and listening, Nathan shrugged in grudging agreement. True, they had worked hard, but he had to admit much of their success was down to good fortune.

“Suppose we did,” he said. “I mean if Sarah hadn’t been up on the roof when you flew past, we might never have heard you.” He smiled over at Sarah. “Yeah, lucky. I take it you couldn’t sleep and went for a wander?”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah.”

She turned and looked out the window to hide her face. She didn’t know if Nathan would spot the lie but she didn’t want him to question her. She didn’t want to explain the real reason for her being there, standing on the ledge looking out, her mind full of the urge to step off.

What made her cry as she looked out over the ocean was the cruelty of it all. Bereft of hope a few hours ago, she had been about to kill herself. She put her fingers into the pocket of her jeans and felt the now crumpled corner of her suicide note—the note she had left at Nathan’s bedside before she went to watch one last sunrise.

Nathan could see Sarah was crying from the way the silent sobs rolled across her shoulders.

Bates was still looking at him, waiting for the rest of Nathan’s story.

Nathan decided not to press Sarah. After all, they were both upset at losing their friends. He turned back to Bates and explained, “A few of us found our way to a groceries warehouse. We met up by accident in the first few weeks.”

“How’d you keep em out?” Angel asked.

Nathan tried to sum up the last few years for his saviours. “Luckily...” he heard himself start. He ticked off a mental note that he had agreed with Sarah and they had just been lucky. He continued, “Luckily for us the warehouse was in a bad neighbourhood. Place was built like Fort Knox. When we got there the place was still buttoned up tight. We broke through the main gates and Sarah suggested we barricade them after us so that we didn’t meet any surprises on the way out.” He looked across at Sarah to see if he could pull her back into the conversation, but she was still staring out of the window. “We got into the main building looking to scavenge what we could. The place was a goldmine, far more than we could haul away in the van. It was Sarah who saw the potential. She suggested we clear it out and stay.”

“And you’ve been there ever since,” Idris chipped in. “That explains why there were so many W.D.’s in the area. You must have been pulling them in for miles.”

“It wasn’t bad to start with. The fences were strong enough to keep ‘em out, so we just ignored them to start with, no point going out and getting them all agitated. When the world got quiet and they started to swarm, we decided to try and thin them out. More out of frustration than anything else. I mean we were doing something, taking some of it out on them. Occasionally in the dry weather we’d go up onto the roof and throw petrol bombs. You can vent a lot of anger doing that, but generally we tried not to leave the warehouse much cause of the smell an’ all.”

“Those fuckers smell bad enough without barbequing ‘em,” Bates agreed.

“Damn straight,” Nathan said. “But we had it pretty good for a while. Set up a rain butt to collect fresh water. We even had electricity.”

Bates was genuinely interested, “Yeah? How? A generator?”

“To start with, yeah, but when the fuel ran out we used solar power and then wind generators. What was that kids name?” Nathan gently elbowed Sarah.

“Gabriel,” she replied, annoyed at Nathan for his lack of reverence towards a deceased companion.

“Yeah, Gabe,” Nathan said, missing or ignoring Sarah’s implicit chastisement. “Smart kid. He wired up a whole bunch of those solar powered lawn lights to some car batteries. On a sunny day we could cook stuff up in the microwave.” He turned back to Sarah. “How old was he?”

Sarah couldn’t remember and she felt hypocritical for her failing. A lot had happened since those early days; a lot of companions had died. How much had slipped from her memory? She shook her head slightly and guessed, “Twelve? Thirteen?”

Nathan beamed, recalling some of the excitement he had felt at the boy’s achievements. “He set up solar heating. Well, he designed it. Ryan and Grandpa George did most of the work. Set it up on the roof, gave us hot showers and it took the chill out of the winter that first year.”

“Cool,” Bates said, soaking in some of Nathan’s excitement.

“He died.” Sarah’s harsh statement chilled the conversation. She was angry. She had survived when others hadn’t and she felt responsible for that, angry at herself for exposing her friends to the monsters outside the warehouse. But she was also angry at herself for what she had forgotten. Gabriel wasn’t with them long but he had deserved to be remembered. Now Sarah couldn’t even recall his last name. She had let that die.

Bates gave a knowing frown. He asked, “Got bit?”

“No.” Sarah’s face went blank as her memory retrieved the boy’s death. This she recalled in piercing detail; she hadn’t forgotten that. She remembered the blue tinge to his lips, the pallor of his skin, the hard rasping breaths that finally surrendered. Except for the lack of a fever, Gabriel’s death was almost identical to one of the infected.

“Asthma attack,” Sarah said, recalling Gabriel’s futile puffs on his long exhausted inhaler.

Nathan scowled his thin lips, sucking in stifling remorse. “His puffer ran out.”

“Shit...” The shock made Bates’ jaw drop.

“I remember finding a couple of unopened ones in a bathroom cabinet that winter when we went foraging,” Nathan said. “The apartment was just a five minute walk from the warehouse.” He shrugged. “No way we could have saved him, not with those things crowding round us like they were.”

“Harsh, man,” was all Bates could muster.

There was silence again in the cabin.

Feeling uneasy with the quiet, Nathan decided to break it. “There must be all manner of shortages like medicines and fuel and stuff?”

“We got plenty of gas,” Idris said, pointing up as if to connect the chopper’s rotors with his comment.

Bates nodded. “Yeah, no fossil fuel crisis anymore.”

“Why’s that?” Nathan asked.

“Oil rigs were the first things the military moved to protect,” Bates answered. “W.D.’s ain’t no good at climbing and they proved just as hard for panicked civvies to crack. Kind of like castles, just pull up the drawbridge.” Bates smirked. “Well, ladders in this case.”

Idris elaborated, “And those things are hell of a tricky to land a bird on unless you know what you’re doing.” He made a thumbing motion in Bates’ direction. “Just need a couple of grunts like him with a machine gun to discourage any unwanted company.”

“I miss beef,” Angel said suddenly, breaking her silence from quietly enduring her pain.

“Christ, when was the last time any of us had a steak?” Bates complained.

“We had steak last Wednesday,” Idris said.

“Proper red meat.” Bates lent forward and prodded Idris in the shoulder. “Tuna doesn’t count.”

“Ah, what’s the difference?” Idris asked.

“If you’d been raised in the south and fed proper food you’d know,” Bates said. “Everything your momma made for you came out of a can swimming in tomato sauce.”

“Bates,” Angel interrupted, “Everyone eat out of cans now.”

Laughter filled the cabin but the good cheer grated at Sarah. Her thoughts were still with Gabriel and Elspeth and George and all the others not able to share in the joke. She cocked her head around Jennifer, who was fast asleep.

Nathan asked, “So what were you doing this morning anyway? I saw a cargo net. Were you looking for supplies?”

“No, it wasn’t a supply run,” Bates said. “We get most of ours from Cape Verde.”

Angel corrected him, “Was supply run of sorts.”

Bates sniggered in agreement. “I suppose.”

The blank looks of the awake survivors begged clarification.

“We were specimen collecting. Every few months we get sent out to round up some W.D.’s.”

“Why?” Sarah’s tone was almost shocked.