Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) (28 page)

BOOK: Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2)
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‘Wait!’ said Sergeant Blackmore, his word stopping everyone.

The gaze of all those assembled flicked between the Sergeant and the beaten form of his son, wondering if he was to be given a last minute reprieve. However, Steve knew better than to expect anything other than cold detachment from this man. So when his father stood in front of him and reached up to his neck, it was no surprise to him that after a tug, his father’s hand came away clutching Steve’s pulse detector.

‘You
bastard!’ Steve spat.

His father, not content with condemning Steve to a slow and painful death, also wanted him to die knowing he would come back as one of the rotting corpses that were cursed to walk the earth and Steve realised  he had never hated him more.

‘No, you can’t do this! This is madness,’ cried Penny, as one of the soldiers threw the rope over a thick overhanging tree branch, ‘Please, please don’t do this.’

With a cry of pain, Steve was slowly pulled into the air. Already the weight on the wrist ties was causing rivulets of blood to run down his arms and with each jolt from the men hoisting him aloft, pain from his cracked ribs would spasm through him making him cry out.

‘That’ll do,’ Sergeant Blackmore said when Steve’s feet were hanging chest level to the soldiers.

With one last disapproving glance at his son, Sergeant Blackmore turned to address the gathered
crowd.

‘Let this be a lesson to you all,’ he
said, looking from one face to the next. ‘Cross me and you will regret it. There will be no second chances and no mercy. Now get those civilians into the truck, we’re leaving.’

‘No! Y
ou fucking bastard, you’re a fucking animal!’ Penny screamed, as the group from Lanherne were shoved roughly back to the holding trailer by the soldiers.

‘No!’ Penny screamed again and moved to break from the group.
Luckily, Cam grabbed hold of her waist, pulling her sharply back.

‘Penny! Penny, they’ll shoot you down before you’ve taken three steps,’ Cam said, pulling the hysterical young woman through the door and into the trailer
. ‘There’s nothing we can do for him now. I’m sorry, Penny. I’m sorry.’

‘This is insane
!’ she cried, slumping down onto the padded bench in the trailer. ‘Why can’t they see it?’

Outside,
the vehicles were roaring to life, one by one, filling the small compound with their choking exhaust smoke.

‘Sir, do you want us to look for the missing woman and the two children before we bug out?’ asked Clarkes
. ‘They can’t have gotten too far.’

‘No, orders are to return to base,’ he replied, scanning the surrounding trees and
hedgerows. ‘Dr Farrell wants to examine Morris’ data asap, so we’re to get to the pick-up point asap.’


Yes, sir,’ the solider snapped, saluting before jogging over to board one of the Jackals.

The Sergeant turned to scan the tree line one more time. As much as it galled him to let the woman and two children escape, orders were orders. Consoling himself that without weapons and in a terrain crawling with walking corpses, they were surely as good as dead already, he pulled himself into the lead Jackal and gave the signal to leave. As his vehicle pulled out of the small picnic area they had made their home for the night, Sergeant Graham Blackmore didn’t
even look back at the figure of his son he had left hanging within easy reach of the Dead. In his mind, the man was already dead, and quite frankly, he would not grieve for his passing.

***

Jen pulled the two children close to her at the base of a large snow blasted oak. Already exhausted and out of breath, she dusted away much of the shallow snowdrift to find the large gnarled roots beneath to sit on. Holding her finger to her lips for quiet, she listened intently for any indication they were being followed. She knew their trail would be easy to follow through the wild overgrown fields that ran alongside the road. Their tell-tale tracks in the snow gave them away, so it surprised her that they had managed to get so far from the convoy without any sound of pursuit.

‘We’ll just catch our breath here for a moment
,’ she whispered to the two children, but it was really for her own benefit that they had stopped.

Despite the children being small, they seemed to be in a much better condition than
she was. They obviously had a good life at the convent, certainly better than she and her brother had been forced to endure. They had lived with a constant hunger burning in their stomachs, always finding just enough food to keep them going. After years of living like that, she simple didn’t have the reserves of energy to call upon and already she was fighting the stitch in her side that pained her with every step.

‘Perhaps if we follow the road we can find our way back to Lanherne
,’ Anne suggested hopefully.

‘I don’t think so, sweetie,’ Jen replied, placing a comforting hand on Anne’s shoulder, as she nervously scanned the tree line for soldiers or any sign of the Dead
. ‘We turned a lot of corners since we left the convent and any tyre tracks they made would have been covered over by last night’s snow, but first we’ve got bigger problems to think about. Okay, we need to find something to protect ourselves with, so look for something heavy you can fit in your fist like a large rock or something.’

As upset as the two children were, they knew if they couldn’t protect
themselves, they were as good as dead already.

‘How about this?’ Anne asked, digging out a large stone from the base of the tree.

‘It’s a start,’ Jen replied, the weight of the rock in her hand making her feel slightly better about being out in the open with two children to look after. ‘See if you can find some more.’

Suddenly, the
two children froze, their heads snapping to look in the direction from which they had come. In the distance, they could hear the convoy’s engines suddenly roaring to life. It was odd to hear such a sound after so many years of its absence and even to Jen, it had become something alien and unnatural. For the children who had few, if any, memories of working cars, the sound was quite unnerving.

‘It’s alright
,’ Jen said softly, pulling the children’s attention back to the task at hand. ‘They’re leaving, so we’re safe. Well, at least from them.’

As much as she hated to admit it, the soldiers were the lesser of two evils that challenged them at the moment. The Dead
, that surely must even now be pulling themselves through the snow-covered hedgerows to follow the departing sounds of life, were by far a greater concern for her.

‘Right, let’s follow this ridge… it seems to run parallel with the road for a while,’ she said stuffing more of their collected rocks in her jacket pockets
, ‘keep close, keep low and if I tell you to stop, just do it, no questions, okay?’


Okay,’ both children replied in unison, their eyes nervously scanning every shadow about them.

‘Oh… and if we do come across any of the Dead,’ Jen said turning each child to look at her to know just how serious she
was. ‘For God’s sake don’t scream, or we’ll be swamped with them.’

Anne and Justin nodded silently that they
understood, and once Jen was satisfied that all was clear, the three escapees began their journey through the snow covered high winter grasses and brambles. A journey that the children hoped would eventually take them back to the safe walls of Lanherne.

With the threat of the soldiers catching up with them now gone, Jen decided they could afford to slow their pace down to a simple walk. This also allowed them to move with the necessary stealth
that they would need if they hoped to avoid the Dead. Every so often they would hear the snap of wood or an ominous rustle of unseen movement somewhere deep in the thickets and each time, with her heart pumping loudly and a surge of adrenalin flooding through her, Jen would hold up her hand for the children to halt. Jen didn’t know if she could take this tension for long, since they had only been walking for ten minutes and already her nerves were frayed. It had been different when she had been travelling with her brother, he could take care of himself and she had always felt safe with him by her side. Now that she had the two children depending on her and with only a few meagre rocks for protection, safe was the last thing she felt.

‘We’ll stop here for just a minute
,’ she softly said, resting against a tree.

The effects of the adrenalin pumping through her was taking its toll on her already strained and weaken body and even if was for a short while, she needed to try to calm herself down.

‘Are you alright?’ asked Anne, crouching down beside Jen.

‘I’m just not in very good shape, I’m afraid,’ she replied looking across into the young girl’s concerned eyes
. ‘I’ll be alright in a minute…’

Suddenly,
a tattered shape barrelled into Anne, knocking her to the ground.

‘No!’ cried Jen, throwing herself
at the Dead man that even now was struggling to get to the soft flesh of the small girl’s neck.

From somewhere deep within her, Jen found enough hidden reserves of strength to grab hold of the animated corpse to pull him away from Anne but as she did
so, her hands slipped on his wet and slime covered clothes, allowing the cadaver to twist in her grasp. The Dead man did not care whose flesh he tore into and as he refocused his attention to Jen, he lunged for her. Catching her off guard, he pushed her back against the tree and darted in with his jaws snapping, eager to bite into the flesh of her face. As his decaying face came perilously close to hers, Jen could not help but cry out. At that moment, time inexplicably seemed to slow down for Jen, allowing her to take in every detail of the mottled and emaciated face rushing towards her own. Somehow frozen in time, she noticed a small metallic green beetle moving within the dead man’s matted hair, burrowing into the corpse’s thin putrid skin. Then in an instant, time sped up again and she was throwing her arms up to fend off the deadly snapping teeth rushing towards her.

Even as she fought to push away the Dead man, she feared she could not win
this fight. Already she could feel the strength draining from her arms, her muscles protesting against what was suddenly demanded of them. Then with a dull thud, the Dead man’s head was knocked sideways by a fist-sized rock bouncing off his skull. Over the struggling Dead man’s shoulder, Jen could see Anne pounding at his skull with a second rock. However, Jen could tell Anne’s efforts, though admirable, would be wasted. The small girl simply didn’t have the power to crack the Dead man’s skull enough to save her and she prayed the children would have the sense to flee the moment the Dead man bit into her. Nevertheless, she had survived the Dead for almost eight years with her brother and for him alone she would not give up her life so easily. Therefore, with determination she slipped her hands up to lodge under his chin to keep his snapping jaws away from her as long as she could. Her fingers dug deeply into the rotten flesh of his throat and she could feel the cartilage of his trachea crunch beneath her grasp. Tearing her eyes from the Dead man for a split second, she noticed Justin had pulled his pulse detector from his neck and had rushed past Anne to press it against the Dead man’s head. Remembering what the soldiers had said would happen if someone died wearing one of the small metal boxes, Justin had obviously had a flash of inspiration and already Jen could see a tiny red light flashing on the small box, the rate of flashes increasing as its counter thankfully ran down. Knowing that now she only had to hold the Dead man at bay for a short while longer, she found within her a hidden compulsion to survive that burned at her very core. As the flashing increased and the seconds passed, Jen held onto this need to live, this need never to give up and then finally the moment came. One moment the small red light was flashing and then it was a constant red glowing dot. Suddenly, there was a small snapping sound and the pressure explosive sent a single metal bolt into the Dead man’s skull to end his unnatural existence. With a sob of relief, Jen pushed the now still corpse away from her, allowing it to flop lifelessly to the ground by her side.

‘Th
...Thanks,’ she whispered, her voice still shaky as she pulled the two children to her.

‘We should go
,’ Justin said, releasing Jen to help her to her feet.

***

‘So he’s going to help get our people back?’ Phil said after Liz had told them about Steven Blackmore. ‘But can we trust him?’


Well, he had more than one opportunity to hand me over to his father the Sergeant and perhaps seeing Penny and Lars again after all these years reminded him of how life used to be,’ she replied softly, as she checked through one of the spy holes to watch the Dead ambling pass.

After Phil had secured Samson to the back of the
cart, they had used a layby to wait for the bulk of the following Dead to pass them by. Now, twenty minutes later, the decaying crowd had thinned down enough for their pursuit of the convoy to begin again. They made their way back to junction and started their slow trek along the road the Private told Liz to follow, when they heard the distant rumble of engines starting up.

‘Sounds like they’re on the move again,’ Patrick whispered
. ‘I’m surprised they’ve hung around this long. Would’ve thought they’d have left at first light.’

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