Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel (9 page)

‘It means hungry, Peter,’ said Dave, biting into the soft ripe flesh of a golden pear that Fran had given him. ‘Just keep it and eat it when you feel like it, okay?’

‘Yes, Mr Dave,’ Peter nodded, returning his face to the comfort of Bella’s furry solitude.

‘Mr Dave?’ mouthed Fran, her brows creasing questioningly.

‘Oh, when we first met up with Peter and… and his… family,’ Jane whispered, her words suddenly stalling as she realised Peter was effectively now on his own in the world. ‘Well, he found it confusing calling Dave and Max by the same surname, so instead of calling them both Mr Harper he decided to call them by their first names but… well, it got a little mixed up along the way and now he calls them Mr Dave and Mr Max instead.’

‘Oh,’ said Fran, a soft smile twitching at her lips. ‘But he calls you Jane and Riley, Riley?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jane, shrugging her shoulders as she instinctively looked down at the huddled figure of her nine year old son, sleeping next to her.

By the time Tom had joined the others back at the cart, Dave, Jane and Max were getting to know Fran and Kai, each surreptitiously keeping one eye out for the Dead, while Riley sat safely in the cart trying in vain to cheer up his physically older but mentally younger friend.

Dave told them that his family had spent much of the last five years as part of a travelling caravan of survivors. Moving from place to place they had scavenged what supplies they could from the remains of their dying world and although life had been hard they had just about managed to get by; that was until one day they had the misfortune to stumble upon a large group of raiders. These men, intent on taking whatever they wanted from those unlucky enough to cross their path, had tortured, raped and eventually slaughtered most of the caravan, cruelly leave those left behind alive wishing they had been granted a swifter death. But luckily Dave, his wife and their son had all been spared this and truth be told it was purely down to his brother, Max’s, quick thinking. Always shrewd, if a little overly judgemental, Max had sensed within seconds exactly which way the wind was about to blow and after making sure his brother and his family had slipped unobserved to the tail end of the caravan, they all hid beneath the charred remains of a burnt out van awaiting the inevitable nightmare to pass. With their eyes closed and faces pressed against the hard cold tarmac, they had endured the pitiful screams and cries of their companions as the gang began their merciless attack and with nothing to keep them company but their shame they had simply lain in silence, praying to be spared a similar fate. But by some miracle Dave and his family had gone unnoticed and hours later as the gang finally departed, leaving only death and the dying in their wake, they had emerged feeling shamefully grateful that the terrors about them had befallen someone else rather than themselves.

Dave then went on to tell them how months later, just as the harsh winter had begun to set in, they had come across Sharon, Peter, their grandfather and a man called Dan who had all taken refuge in a small salvage yard. With the boarded-over high fences enclosing a good sized area, just right for turning into garden allotments come spring, they seemed to have found a perfect respite from the world and the horrors that had become so commonplace. For almost eight months the small band had survived there and had even dared to believe they had miraculously found a way to live in this world of the Dead; that was until this morning, when they discovered the wild corpse of Sharon’s grandfather. The old man had passed away in his sleep and just as with all those that died, he had risen minutes later, a starving and wild abomination. His hungry corpse had come across Dan and with a strength and swiftness, alien to his body when alive, he had quickly rendered his victim to a bloody mess. If not for Sharon’s self-sacrifice, Peter too would have undoubtedly joined Dan in his conscription into the army of the Dead and as it was, she had felt her grandfather’s teeth hungrily tearing into her own flesh; dooming her with his single bite.

With the new additions to their group showing them a way around the crashed bus, they made a brief detour to their salvage yard home to collect some meagre belongings and then set off again on their achingly slow journey along the coast towards Marazion and the possibility of a new and safe home.

‘And you think your friends may be already at this island place?’ asked Jane, her voice the usual cautious whisper.

‘We certainly hope so,’ replied Fran, unscrewing the cap on a bottle of water to pour a little into a bowl for Bella to drink. ‘Tom says it was discussed as an option anyway.’

‘And just how many of them where there?’ mumbled Max, opening a spy hole next to him to look out at the passing countryside.

‘Ermm,’ Fran began to say, trying to remember just who else she was sure had managed to escape from Kai’s school alive.

‘I mean, whoever’s already on this island might not be too keen on opening their doors to yet more strangers,’ Max continued, glancing back from the spyhole to look at Fran. ‘I’m sure resources are just as tight there as everywhere else, what makes you think they’re going to welcome us with open arms… seems a bit of a one sided deal to me. What incentive do they have to help us, anyway?’

‘You’re sat in it,’ replied Tom, glancing over his shoulder at his squashed passengers. ‘With Star and this cart we can go on scavenging trips up and down the coast for them… and if Charlie and the others are already there then we’ll be doubling their resources.’  

‘And…and what if they’re not there?’ asked Riley, wondering if their new travelling companions would stay with them on the island or continue onward in their search for their friends.

Fran looked over at the young boy now sat awake next to his mother, his questioning eyes haunted by things a child should never see.

‘Well, we’ll just have to…’ Fran began to say, her words abruptly cut off as Bella sprung to her feet, a low growl building in her throat.

Jane quickly reached over to place two fingers on the Bella’s nose, immediately silencing the beast.

‘What was?’ Fran started to whisper, confused as to what had just happened.

But the look Jane gave her told her all she needed to know, this was clearly Bella’s way of warning them of the Dead and if she had any doubt a glance at Peter with his hand clamped over his mouth as if to hold in any sounds that may try to escape, confirmed her suspicions.

‘Tom,’ she whispered, placing her hand on the man’s shoulder as she watched Jane pull a tiny piece of dried meat from a pouch to reward to Bella for her alertness.

‘I see them,’ he replied, slowly pulling Star to a halt.

‘How many?’ she asked, moving to look over his shoulder through the viewing slit.

‘Too many for us to handle,’ he replied, scanning the thirty strong crowd that had appeared shambling from around the corner. ‘I know… I can’t… I do…’ he continued to say, dropping his voice to barely a mutter as the voices in his head began to demand to be heard.  

‘Where… where did they all come from?’ Fran continued, trying to ignore the fact that Tom had started a mumbled conversation with the ghosts of his family.

Waiting for a reply directed at her, Fran glanced nervously at Kai and saw her own concerns mirrored back at her.

‘Tom!’ she hissed, her eyes flicking to Max who had a look of growing curiosity on his face.

‘That turning leads direct to Marazion,’ he whispered, turning briefly to look at her; his attention suddenly back with those in the cart.

‘And…and there’s no way to go round them?’ asked Dave, his arm instinctively moving to rest protectively around Riley’s back while his extended fingers brushed lightly against Jane’s shoulder.

‘N… Not really,’ said Kai, doing his best to either be succinct in what he said or control his stammer the best he could.

Tilting the folded map towards Dave, Kai traced the line that indicated the road they were on and its path through Marazion to the causeway.

‘Can we get through them, Tom?’ whispered Fran, eying the shambling crowd as they lurched or dragged themselves one painful step at a time along the road, seemingly oblivious to each other’s presence.

Even as Tom leant forward to get a better look, Fran watched the cadaver of a young boy, his emaciated body a patchwork of mould and decay, get carelessly knocked to the ground by two Dead men. She found herself unable to tear her gaze away from the Dead child; watching transfixed as he tried to use the twisted shell of a crashed car to pull himself back upright.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ she said realising she had missed Tom’s hushed reply; forcing herself to look away from the Dead boy and his pitiful movements which caused pus and decaying skin to catch and streak across the car’s crumpled bodywork. 

‘We don’t have much choice,’ he mumbled again, giving Star’s reins a sharp flick to urge her onward into the putrid melee. ‘We’ll slowly nudge them aside as we pass them… they’ll barely even notice.’

‘Now, get ready some bumps and knocks,’ he continued, looking back at Peter; the young man’s eyes wide with fear and apprehension as they peered at him through a curtain of dark curls.

‘As long as we all keep quiet we’ll be alright… Okay, Peter?’ added Fran, giving Peter a reassuring smile and receiving a slow nod of understanding for her efforts in response.

‘Better close the spy holes,’ she continued, whispering to Dave and Max as she nodded toward the many disks that needed to be slipped back into place.

‘Oh, right,’ Dave muttered, slowly plunging the interior of the cart into an oppressive gloom as the criss-crossing beams of afternoon sunlight were extinguished, one covered hole at a time.

Within a few tentative steps Star soon found herself amid the cadaverous throng, their rotting limbs and bodies brushing harmlessly against her as they jostled past. As always the miracle that the Dead were somehow oblivious to the beast’s presence or that their brains simply couldn’t register her as ‘food’ the way they did for other farm animals, still held true and as Star made her way into the crowd the Dead were pushed and knocked aside as if by the passing of a giant snow plough. One after another the corpses bumped against the side of the cart as they were buffeted out of Star’s path. Their stiff shoulders and flailing arms banged impotently against the wooden walls and with each thump or knock those inside would hold their breath and pray for the moment to pass; but pass it did and soon enough the next cadaver would amble by to take its place. Yet not all of the Dead were so lucky as to be simply pushed out of the way, some fell beneath the heavy turning wheels; their bones broken or bodies rupturing like rotting balloons of pus in the process. A few times, those inside would hear ominous scratching from beneath them as those pulled under their wheels clawed and scrabbled desperately with blackened hands to find purchase on the underside of the cart. For a while the sound would continue only finally ceasing when another of the unfortunate cadavers would also fall and using the body of its already clinging comrade-in-death as an anchor would latch on and inadvertently pull both of them free, sending them tumbling back down to the road.

‘Wonder what got them all riled up?’ mused Max, once Star had finally pulled the cart past the bulk of the wandering horde that had become bottlenecked at the road junction.

‘This isn’t really the part of the country for cattle… could be a pig or sheep, I suppose,’ Tom began, briefly looking back at Max, ‘or…’

‘Or something else,’ interrupted Fran, her eyes flaring in annoyance as she flicked her gaze in Peter’s direction.

‘It’s alright now, Peter,’ Jane was saying softly as she gently tried to pry the young man’s hand away from his mouth, ‘we’re past the worst of them now.’

‘Yeah, just a few dotted about the road now, Son,’ added Tom, giving the man-child a friendly smile and wink before turning back to concentrate on the road ahead. ‘Nothing to worry about at all.’      

Yet even as he said the words Tom’s eyes narrowed, his calculating gaze taking in each detail of the road ahead and the Dead upon it. Tom had survived far too long among the Dead for it to be his over confidence that actually brought about his final demise. He knew all too well that nothing was a certainty now, nothing was easy and unless you had eyes in the back of your head, even the simplest of tasks could go wrong; and in a world where the Dead walked, ‘wrong’ could mean a terrible but temporary death sentence. So he looked from one rotting cadaver to the next, breaking down the threat, if any, that each of them posed. He peered into the ransacked and abandoned shops of Marazion, their sad dark interiors now little more than shadowy tombs threatening to spill forth a rotting plague upon them and he scoured the crashed and rusting vehicles, whose twisted wrecks could so easily hide a hundred and one nightmares waiting to crawl forth and greet them. But for once luck seemed to be with them, for the desolate streets of Marazion held none of these hidden horrors and as they made their way along one street after another, each transformed by the Dead and their passing, all they found were the decrepit and decaying cadavers desperately following in the wake of their more agile brethren.

‘Christ, it’s like a scene from the Pied Piper of Hamlin,’ muttered Tom,  slowly shaking his head as he watched the corpse of an old woman pull herself hand over fist along the cracked and littered road, her limp body trailing behind her like a slab of rotting meat.

‘What?’ whispered Fran, looking over his shoulder, a look of confusion on her face.