Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) (39 page)

What he heard there made a smile creep slowly across his face, a heartbeat, slow but steady, pounded in her chest. Moving over to
Alex, he was relieved to find the small child was also only unconscious. What made all of them lapse into this fairy tale slumber at the same time was beyond him, but at least they were all alive and safe.

‘They’re all
okay,’ Imran whispered, turning to Patrick. ‘They seem to be knocked out but…’

Imran’s words faltered. There, standing in the doorway
, was a soldier with a rifle pointed at him.

‘Well, what the fuck do we got here?’ said Hills, casually targeting a point on the young man’s head
. ‘Drop it, Raghead.’

With that one word, Imran knew they were in trouble. If this was the sort of man who still bothered to pass judgement in a world where the Dead walked and life was so fragile, he didn’t hold out much hope for getting out of this with just a discussion.
Slowly, Imran lowered his bow to the floor. From the disturbed look in the man’s eye, he could tell this man was just waiting for an excuse to blow his head off.

‘Outside, Robin Hood
,’ Hills snapped, jerking his rifle towards Imran.

With his hands behind his head, Imran walked past the soldier and back out through the door. As he had expected, there was another soldier with a rifle pointed at Patrick who was on his knees in front of him. Surprisingly, there was also a woman in torn clothes hanging back slightly behind the second soldier. Imran glanced at her, catching her eye. She had been badly beaten and it didn’t take a genius to guess by whom. As their eyes locked, she pulled the tattered remains of a sweatshirt tighter about her and Imran saw a strange mix of shame and rage dancing behind her eyes.

‘What the fuck have you two cunts done?’ Streiber spat, forcing the muzzle of his rifle under Patrick’s chin. ‘You think you can just waltz in here and shit all over her Majesty’s forces? Well?’

‘We’re just getting our friends back,’ said Patrick, trying to tilt his head away from cold metal of the rifle
. ‘The Dead were already in the camp when we got here.’

Like Imran, Patrick knew a man who revelled in the dark pleasures of life when he saw one. These men were unhinged in a dangerously sick way, their grasp on sanity dancing precariously on a
knife’s edge. He would put nothing past them.

‘Now, that’s where I think we’ve got a bit of a problem,’ Streiber began, glancing over at
Hills with a strange smile on his face. ‘See, in that truck there is some fine pussy and we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find it, you understand me?  Now you calmly say you’re here to take it back? I don’t think so, you fucking pair of shits!’

With the last word, Streiber swung his rifle round and slammed the butt hard into Patrick’s face. With a flash of pain, Patrick’s head jerked backwards and he tasted his own blood in his mouth. Spitting a mouthful of blood onto the snow, Patrick looked up at
blankly the man who held his life in his hands. He knew no matter what he did or didn’t say, this man had already decided his fate.

‘You’re in for a world of hurt, boy
,’ said Hills, ripping off Imran’s Kufie cap and chucking it into the darkness. Leaning in close so he could whisper in Imran’s ear, he continued, ‘Streiber and I cut our teeth dealing with the likes of you over in Afghanistan. I know lots of fun games we can play. Believe me, you’ll wish you were dead by the time I’ve finished with you.’

Suddenly out of the
darkness, a streak of silver flashed through the air. Catching the movement out the corner of his eye just in time, Hills jumped aside.  However, his reaction had been a fraction too slow and Leon’s knife sliced through his left cheek.

‘Fuck!’ he said, his free hand clasping the side of his face, where already his blood was flowing freely.

Now was the moment Marie had been waiting for. She did not know who these two men the soldiers had at gunpoint were and did not care. All she knew was that now was the time for her to reap her revenge. She would see them pay for what they had subjected her and her husband to and even if it cost her life, she would have their blood.

With a wild scream, Marie threw herself onto the back of Strieber. Shocked that the broken woman had dared attack him, Strieber reached behind him to pull her off.
However, with a strength borne of bloodlust and hysteria, Maria held tight.  As he tried to shake her off, Strieber turned his head to look back at the wild banshee latched onto him, as he did so, his eyes widened in fear. Held tightly in her fist was a small tube looking blade and it was flying towards him. With a satisfying pop, the potato peeler sunk into the flesh of Streiber’s neck but Marie was not finished and even as the man cried out and twisted beneath her, she yanked the blade free and plunged it in again. Again and again, her arm rose and fell and as Streiber’s blood sprayed over her, she turned the flesh on his neck to a bloody pulp. Finally, his body could take no more abuse and he collapsed to the ground. Even now, Marie was unable to stop her rampage and she simply transferred her attention to his back, stabbing his already dead body over and over again.

Finally,
a single shot rang out and Marie was thrown from Streiber’s back to land in a tangle of limbs beside the man she had just killed.

‘Move and you’re as dead as that bitch
,’ Hills snapped to Patrick and Imran.

Slowly walking over to Marie, Hills kicked her body so she rolled over onto her back.

‘Fucking bitch!’ he spat, levelling his rifle on her head.

He knew she would come back and her hungry corpse was just one more problem he could do without right now. Pulling the trigger again, Hills sent a single bullet through the woman’s head and already dismissing her from his concerns, he turned back to the men he still had to deal with. It was then that he noticed two more men running towards him from the direction of the Med lab. Torn between targets, Hills brought his rifle up to fire at the two approaching men. Because of
this, he was not aware of the large man throwing himself from the roof of the holding truck until it was almost too late. Swinging back just in the nick of time, Hills lifted his weapon to fire on the falling man and as the man’s heavy body collided with his own, he managed to get off a single shot.

‘No!’ shouted Imran rushing forward with Patrick.

Without thinking, Imran grabbed for the dropped weapon Marie had used and with an animalistic cry, he launched himself at the soldier. Before Hills could fully pull himself clear of the man on top of him, Imran was on him. With a punch, Imran’s hand connected hard with Hills’ chest.

Suddenly,
a tight sensation began to spread across Hills’ chest and for some reason, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. The young man’s punch hadn’t been that powerful… something was wrong, something was very wrong, he just knew it. Looking down, he simply couldn’t understand what he was seeing. A circle of red was seemed to be spreading across his chest and at its centre was the wooden handle of the potato peeler. The kitchen utensil had been buried in his chest up to the hilt and as his lungs began to fill with blood and his sliced heart began to fail, Hills wondered what would happen, if he pulled it out. However, he would never find out, because seconds later, his heart stopped beating and one more monster was consigned to the darkness.

‘Imran
,’ said Patrick.

He was looking at the hand he had used to roll Phil over onto his back
gently. It was wet and covered in Phil’s blood.

‘
Well, don’t just sit there,’ Steve said running over with Leon at his side. ‘Pick up his legs and we’ll get him to the Med lab. We need to stop the bleeding.’

With Steve’s
words, Imran and Patrick snapped in to action. Imran was about to reach down for his legs when Patrick moved him aside.

‘No time,’ he grunted, pulling Phil’s large body up into a fireman’s lift
. ‘Just watch for the Dead, and close the door to the truck. No one else is dying tonight.’

Taking a deep breath, Patrick gripped tightly onto Phil’s hand and legs and walked purposefully, if a little shakily to the Med
lab. Even through his jacket, Patrick could feel a growing wet patch of Phil’s blood on his shoulder and hoped there was something they could do to save the brave foolish oaf.

‘Here,’ said Steve, ripping a sheet from one of the beds to cover the gore splattered examination
table. ‘Lay him down. Leon, Imran, start looking for something to stop the bleeding, a sewing kit… anything.’

No sooner had Patrick lowered Phil’s head down onto the bed, than Steve had ripped open the injured man’s jacket to see how bad the wound really was.

‘What do you think?’ Patrick said, looking hopefully at Steve for answers.

‘I’m not sure,’ Steve replied, knowing he held a man’s life in his hand, a man who only a few hours ago had risked his own life to save Steve
. ‘There’s an exit wound on his back, so that means the bullet went right through’

‘And that’s good, yes
?’ Imran asked, thrusting some sterilized wadding into Steve’s hand.

‘Depends
on what damage it did on its way through, I guess,’ answered Steve, dividing the wadding and applying half to each bullet wound. ‘That’s where my medical knowledge ends. I guess we’ll have to sew him up and just hope for the best.’

‘We can’t just hope for the best,’ Imran said, looking at the pale and drawn face of his friend
. ‘We can’t let him die.’

‘
Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ came the cold voice of Sergeant Blackmore standing in the doorway, his rifle pointed at them.

Immediately, everyone in the room froze.

‘Thought I’d gotten rid of you already, boy,’ Blackmore said, glaring at his son.

‘Sorry to disappoint you
,’ answered Steve, quickly glancing down to make sure he was still keeping the pressure on Phil’s bullet wound.

‘Nothing that I haven’t come to expect from you,’ Sergeant Blackmore continued, contempt dripping from his words
. ‘Since the day your useless mother brought you into this world, you’ve been one big disappointment to me…’

Steve looked at his father, hate rolling off
him, as he tried to find one good memory of the man, but he couldn’t.

‘You
know, when the Death Walker plague came I was actually pleased,’ Sergeant Blackmore continued. ‘Humanity finally had a chance to rid itself of the useless, the crippled and the weak. I even thought it would make a man of you, but I was wrong. You’re weak… I should have left you on the mainland like that pathetic mother of yours.’

‘Oh, go fuck yourself!’ Steve spat.

With the words, Steve had always wanted to say to his father finally spoken, he knew the circle was complete. His own father, who had given him life, was now going to take it away again and he could do nothing about it. Sure enough, Sergeant Blackmore raised his rifle and his finger began to apply pressure to the trigger.

Suddenly,
Sergeant Blackmore took a sharp intake of breath and made a small stumbling step forward. With a ragged cough flecking blood on his lips, he looked down in surprise at the long blood smeared blade that appeared through the front of his chest. With a grunt, Liz kicked the Sergeant’s heavy body forwards, letting him fall to his knees. While he fell, the end of her sword slowly disappeared from his chest as he slipped down its length.

‘I hope for Penny’s sake
that you’re nicer than he was,’ Liz said, smiling as she stepped over Sergeant Blackmore’s still body. Her smile dropped when she noticed Phil.

‘How bad?’ she asked no one in particular, pushing past Leon to take Phil’s hand.

‘We don’t know,’ Imran replied, seeing her tears that threatened to fall. ‘There might be damage inside, but we just don’t know how bad.’

‘Right,’ Liz said, wiping a tearful sniff on the back of her sleeve
. ‘Get him to the holding truck and we’re getting out of here.’

‘But Liz
, that doesn’t help Phil. We don’t know what’s going on inside,’ Patrick calmly added, placing a hand on her back.

‘It does if there’s a doctor half a mile down the road with Alice and her baby
,’ Liz replied, looking from one stunned face to the next. ‘Come on, let’s move, people, we’ve got a friend to save.’

‘Man, your woman is fierce
,’ Leon said to Imran, shaking his head with a smile.

‘You should see her when she’s not pregnant,’ Imran replied
. ‘She’s fucking unbelievable!’ 

***

EPILOGUE

FIVE MONTHS LATER

‘Oh, stop being such a baby,’ Avery said, his fingers gently feeling the swollen glands in Phil’s neck. ‘I’ve told you, it’s just the flu. Everyone else has had it, so now it’s your turn.’

With the examination done and prognosis given, Avery’s hands fell from Phil’s neck to rest on his shoulders, one of his thumbs working a soft circle on Phil’s exposed skin.

Liz looked over at the two men sitting at one of the long refectory tables, one who she loved and one whose kind nature had already begun to work its way into her affections. That the two men had found in each other something they had been searching for made a soppy smile spread over her lips. She glanced over to catch Alice, who had paused in her folding of laundry to watch the two men, smiling also.

‘Aww, sweet
,’ Alice mouthed silently to Liz, pouting her lips and nodding in Avery and Phil’s direction.

Liz was glad Phil had finally found someone to share his life with, the way she shared hers with
Imran, and now of course, with Saleana too.

When she found Phil, pale and bleeding in the Med lab she feared they would lose him and even as the thought came to her, she thought her heart would break. It wasn’t until she almost lost him that she realised just how important Phil was to her. Not just because like all those at the Lanherne, she looked to Phil for strength and guidance,
but also because she had so few friends left in this world she simply couldn’t bear to lose another. Getting Phil back to the holding truck had been tricky and even now, the short journey was still a blur of swinging clubs, flashing blades and the falling Dead. Only moments before, she managed to sneak through, unmolested by the Dead, to deal with Sergeant Blackmore. Minutes later, the Dead converged on the camp en mass, drawn to sounds of the living. She remembered Patrick lifting Phil’s body back up onto his shoulders while the others formed a circle of protection around him. Countless arrows had flown through the moonlit camp and sliver knives spun with deadly accuracy to find their unholy targets. She herself let her blade slash and flit through the air with desperate abandon, sending any of the Dead that came too close back to the oblivion that nature demanded. They had made it to the holding truck unscathed, unbitten and alive. Steve had jumped up into the cab and as soon as he knew all were on board, the mechanical goliath roared into life, crushing any of the Dead in its path under its powerful wheels.

For a while, it
had been touch and go for Phil. Avery, although managing to stop the internal bleeding, knew the operation had certainly been conducted in less than ideal circumstances and was afraid of complications and infection. He stayed by Phil’s side in the holding truck the whole journey back to Lanherne, watching over him day and night, administering constant care for a man he didn’t even know. When Phil finally woke, Avery’s smiling face full of relief was what greeted him back to the world of the living.

‘Earth to Liz,’ Imran said, snapping her back to the present
. ‘Someone wants a feed.’

Looking up at Imran, the memories of darker times disappearing like smoke from her mind, she smiled. Held protectively in his arms was an unhappy looking Saleana.

‘Who’s on watch?’ she asked.

Since having Saleana, she seemed even more determined they would never again be caught out by the living or the Dead. Never again would anyone breach the walls of Lanherne, even if it meant more on watch
than they strictly needed.

‘Patrick, Gabe and William
,’ Imran replied. ‘Leon and Cam are watching Damien and the others are in the field.’ 

‘
Okay,’ she replied, with a nod, satisfied all was well.

‘Come to
Mummy, darling,’ she then cooed to her daughter, opening her arms to receive the precious cargo. ‘I know, I know… isn’t Daddy terrible, eh?’

‘
Hey, don’t gang up on me,’ Imran said, reaching forward to kiss Liz on the forehead as she began to breastfeed Saleana.

‘Get used to
it, buddy,’ she replied with a wink. ‘mothers and daughters… special bond… us against the world…’

‘I thought that was supposed to be mothers and sons
,’ said Alice, resuming the mammoth task of sorting the huge pile of washed clothes.

‘Ignore her
, Imran,’ said Liz, shifting Saleana’s position slightly. ‘She’s saying that because she’s only got a boy. What does she know.’

‘Only a boy?’ Alice replied arching her eyebrows
. ‘Look at him, he’s gorgeous.’

Alice nodded over to Charlie, angelically asleep in Sister Josephine’s arms, who was also dozing.

The invasion of Lanherne had hit the Mother Superior hard and even though everyone managed to get back safely, the whole experience left her somehow frailer for it. Avery assured her that is was perfectly natural for a woman of her age to feel the way she did and that the best advice he could give her was that she should just listen to her body. If it was telling her to slow down and rest more, then that’s exactly what she should do. There were now enough people at Lanherne that she didn’t have to worry about keeping on top of every detail. She should sit back and try enjoying life for a change. As soon as he said it, Liz knew he might as well ask the sun not to rise than ask the feisty Mother Superior to slow things down. So it was nice to see her relaxed for a change and able to take an afternoon nap when she needed it.

‘Yeah,
okay,’ replied Liz rolling her eyes, ‘he’s gorgeous.’

‘Ladies, ladies
,’ Steve said, walking into the refectory his hand around Penny’s shoulder as she carried a distant looking Danny, lost in his own world of his making. ‘I’m taken… sorry.’

‘Dump him, Penny,’ said Alice with a grin
, ‘you can do better.’

‘Yeah, I’m thinking about it
,’ she replied, letting Danny down to the floor and waving a small stuffed giraffe in front of him, trying to engage his interest.

Immediately, the small boy ignored the stuffed toy and waddled over to Sister Josephine and Charlie.

‘No, Danny,’ Penny said softly, ‘don’t touch, you’ll wake them up.’

‘Oh, he’s alright,’ said Alice, waving off Penny’s concern
. ‘You’re just curious, aren’t you, Danny, eh?’

Surprisingly, Danny
turned, looking blankly at Alice when she said his name, but he soon returned to looking at the sleeping baby that lay in Sister Josephine’s arms.

Shrugging her shoulders, Alice raised her eyebrows in surprise. Any reaction from Danny was so rare that even the slightest recognition of those around him was noteworthy.

‘Still no sign of Matt and his sister?’ Alice asked Steve, reaching for a pair of socks that had fallen from the pile of clothes onto the floor.

‘No
, nothing yet,’ Steve replied, shaking his head.

After everyone had collected in the holding truck, ready for the off, Matt surprised them by saying he wouldn’t be going with them. He promised himself he would return to the island base to get his sister, Karen. With no other survivors from the squadron to contradict him, he could his spin any story he like
d about what happened, and he assured them he would make it clear that Alice’s baby had not survived the rampaging Dead that had wiped out the rest of the camp. Therefore, after emptying the Jackal of the weapons, he bid farewell to Matt and the Lanherne group and left them with the promise he would return to the mainland one day and seek out the sanctuary they had built for themselves. Alice certainly hoped so, because she owed the man more than words could ever express and he deserved to live out his life in a community held together by trust and love, rather than one bound by fear.

‘Well, the base will be down on manpower since losing our squadron and the one sent to the power
station, he might be finding it difficult to  get away,’ Steve continued, pictures of the cold steel corridors with their CCTV cameras watching every corner of the base, coming to mind.

‘He’ll find a way,’ said Penny
, stroking Steve’s arm reassuringly. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Hmmm,
’ mumbled Steve, lost in his thoughts before snapping back and giving Penny a weak smile and a quick kiss.

Alice and Liz exchanged glances once again, each knowing what the other was thinking and smiled. With the smile still on her face, Liz let her eyes roam over the group in the Refectory. It was when her eyes fell on Danny, that it started to falter. Something was niggling at the back of her
mind, and then small boy slowly reached up to touch Sister Josephine’s arm. As his small fingers touched her sleeve, her arm fell limply to side. Then Liz knew.

‘Alice!’ Liz whispered, horrified at what could be happening.

Almost as if in slow motion, a smiling Alice turned to look follow Liz’s wide-eyed stare and in a split second, she could see her world falling apart.

‘Charlie!
’ She screamed, throwing herself over the table to get to her son before the unthinkable happened.

Shocked into action, Penny darted forward to pull Danny away just as Alice plucked Charlie from Sister Josephine’s arms and spun away with a startled Charlie crying in her arms. A heavy silence enveloped the adults in the Refectory as each of them realised Sister Josephine had finally
been taken from them. She had died peacefully in her sleep.

‘I’ll do it,’ Phil said
, solemnly stepping forward as he pulled a long knife from his belt. ‘Before she comes back… she deserves better.’

‘No wait!’ Avery said, reaching for Phil’s arm.

Phil turned back to Avery, looking quizzically down at the hand holding him back.

‘Avery?’ he asked.

‘Just a few minutes,’ Avery replied. ‘Please Phil… please trust me.’

‘What is
it, Avery?’ Phil said knowing it must be important.

‘I don’t think she’s coming back…
,’ Avery replied softly.

‘What do you mean, Avery?’ Phil said taking the man’s hand in his.

‘It’s the flu,’ he began, looking from one questioning face to the next, ‘I think the anti-virus given to Charlie may have mutated. I think it became air-born and I think we’ve all been infected. The flu we’ve all had was actually the new virus battling with the Death Walker virus that was already in our bodies and I think it won, Phil. Don’t you see, if she doesn’t come back, none of us will and we’ll be free... it’ll be over.’

As the meaning of Avery’s words sunk in, Imran instinctively reached his out his arm and pulled Liz and his daughter to him. He could feel her heart pounding in her
chest, and when she turned her head to look up at him with tears of loss in her eyes, Imran lent forward to kiss her softly on the forehead.

‘It’ll be alright,’ he whispered
. ‘Whatever happens, it’ll be alright.’

Then
as one, everyone in the room turned to look at the still body of Sister Josephine and waited for nothing to happen…

The End

Last Days With The Dead: Book 3 of the Lanherne Chronicles is out now on Amazon.