Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead (6 page)

‘
Come on, come on,
’ she silently thought, glancing over her shoulder as Kai made a slow but steady descent.

With the rustling of foliage, Fran knew the first of the Dead were upon them.

‘Kai,’ she hissed, slowly reaching down with one hand to retrieve the crowbar from the long grass by her feet.

She was about to say more when a badly burnt corpse slowly pushed itself through the Rhododendron bushes, its head moving back and forth looking for the living flesh it knew had come this way. Just then Kai let himself drop the last few metres, landing with a grunt by her side. Instantly the creature’s head snapped in their direction, zeroing in on them within the wild overgrown garden.

‘I’ll finish this one,’ whispered Fran, somewhat pointlessly considering the noise Tom was making above them. ‘You get the cart back out onto the road… and then wait for me and Tom.’

For a moment Kai’s eyes filled with worry as they danced across the dark stinking blood and gore that was splattered across the woman he loved. But deep down he knew this was her world and, unlike him, she had spent the last five years surviving in it. So despite his reluctance, he pushed aside his need to keep her safe and with a brisk nod followed Fran as she purposefully stomped her way towards the blackened cadaver.

‘When you’re through the other side of the bush,’ she began, her crowbar already clipping the side of the corpse’s head, sloughing a strip of burnt skin and flesh from its skull, ‘just make a run for the cart. There’ll be more of them coming, so don’t hang around.’

‘Okay,’ Kai murmured, watching impotently as Fran kicked out at the charred abomination, knocking it’s legs from beneath it before darting forward; the crowbar held high over her head ready to strike.

It was only as the crowbar fell, ending its unnatural existence with a nauseating wet ‘cracking’ sound, that Kai realised he couldn’t actually tell what sex the creature had been in life; such were the severity of its burns.

‘
God, you poor bastard
,’ thought Kai, shaking his head as imagined images of the unknown soul’s horrific demise played across his mind.

‘Go!’ said Fran, as she gave her weapon a sharp tug to pull it free from the lifeless cadaver’s skull. ‘And remember, don’t stop. Just get to the cart and wait for us.’

Wishing there was time to take her in his arms one more time and tell her how much she meant to him but knowing there wasn’t, Kai simply nodded that he understood what he had to do and after giving the burnt remains one final glance he started to push his way through the bush.

‘I love you,’ Fran called softly to Kai’s disappearing back just as the Rhododendron leaves closed about him; the huge bush seeming to swallow him whole.

For a split second she had to stop herself from following him, such was her compulsion to ensure he was safe. Yes, he was taller, bulkier and physically stronger than her yet she would always hold the upper hand when it came to dealing with the Dead and she knew it. She knew she should not mollycoddle him, this was the way of the world now and if he was to stand any chance of surviving in it he would have to adapt, and quickly. Of course that wasn’t to say he hadn’t already sent many of these sorry creatures back into the welcoming open arms of true death, it was just more a case of that life among them was yet to become instinctive for him; and deep down that worried her. Unlike every other survivor who hadn’t spent the last five years safely shut away behind the stone walls of a vast boarding school, much about this way of life was alien and strange to him. She still remembered the look on his face when she first suggested that he and Tom watch out for each other when the call of nature beckoned. Clearly, despite spending his youth in an all-boy’s school, the thought of evacuating his bowels with an audience was a step too far for Kai to accept. But when Tom had pointed out that Kai could have his privacy or he could have the Dead taking a bite out of his privates when his back was turned, but probably not both, Kai soon relented, if somewhat reluctantly. For privacy, like so much of their old lives, was a thing of the past; what mattered now was survival. Survival was the first thought each morning as they woke and the last as sleep claimed them at night. It dominated their lives and until they found another ‘boarding school’ type sanctuary of their own, it always would.

‘Fuckers!’ she heard suddenly Tom shout from the balcony behind her and instantly the horrific thought that he had finally been bitten rushed through her mind.

‘
No, please… not that!
’ she begged to a God she doubted listened to their prayers anymore; let alone answered them.

As unimaginably horrific as it was to be torn apart by the Dead, at least it was quick. To survive an attack only to suffer for the next few hours or days, depending on your genetic makeup, burdened with the knowledge you were fated to turn; surely that was worse.

Running back to the base of the tree she looked hopefully up at the balcony where she could see Tom still fought the Dead as they crowded dangerously around him.

‘Come on, Tom,’ she muttered, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot, apprehensive about calling up to him just in case she distract him and give the Dead that one window of opportunity they sought, ‘come on, come on…’

‘I know… yes… all of them… I will,’ she heard him saying to himself as he slashed out with his blades, rendering Dead flesh to lumps of lifeless meat.

Even as she watched, desperate for him to give up the fight and flee, a decaying severed hand suddenly spiralled over the balcony; briefly thudding against the tree trunk as it ricocheted from one branch to the next on its journey down through the canopy.

‘Christ, Tom, we haven’t got time for this,’ she continued, barely sparing the detached hand a second glance as it landed with a soft thump amid the long grass to her left.

Tom’s mind was shrouded in his grief-induced fantasy once again, that was clear, but how long he could keep the Dead at bay like this was anybody’s guess. So Fran made a decision. She would have to take a chance and try to break through his mania to get his attention. She was about to call up to him when his movements seemed to become even more manic and frantic than usual, almost as if he knew his time to complete this task was running out. Then without warning Tom disappeared from view; wildly shoving the hungry corpses away from him as he stepped into the room.

‘Tom!’ Fran cried, fearful his delusions had finally got the better of him.

All of sudden there was a crashing sound from above her and after stepping back to get a better view, Fran could just about make out that Tom had violently pulled down the heavy curtains, ripping the pole from the wall in the process.

‘Chew on this, you fuckers!’ he shouted, throwing the curtains at the Dead horde in front of him.

As if a light bulb of realisation had turned on in her mind, Fran understood what Tom had planned and even as she thanked God that he had managed to claw his way back to reality, Tom leapt over the balcony; only just managing to grab a hand hold of the rope at the last moment.

‘Tom!’ she gasped, as he slammed against the wall beneath the balcony, grunting while the air was painfully knocked out of him.

‘Shit,’ he spat, fumbling to keep his grip on the rope.

Above him the first of the Dead, a cadaverous black man whose sallow skin had taken on a sickly ashen hue in death, had freed itself from the tangle of curtain fabric and at first it seemed at a loss as to what had happened to the living flesh so recently within arm’s reach that was until Tom cried out that and the creature slowly tilted its head down to look over the side of the balcony.

‘Tom, we need to hurry!’ warned Fran, looking anxiously over his shoulder just as the Dead black man was joined at the railing by more of the hungry corpses now free of Tom’s inspired but very temporary trap.

Thankfully the very height of the balcony rail was keeping the Dead from simply toppling over but Fran could tell with enough pressure from behind and with no sense of pain, their skin would soon tear and organs would spill free; literally splitting them in two to send the starving cadavers plummeting to the garden below. Already multiple arms reached imploringly down towards them, many of them ending in dark bloodied stumps; a calling card of Tom’s handiwork.

‘Where’s… Kai?’ panted Tom, finally dropping to ground beside her.

‘Getting the cart out front,’ she began to reply, pulling on his arm to get him moving, ‘and if we don’t get out of here soon the shit’s really going to hit the fan.’

‘Arrgghh,’ Tom winced, gripping the side where he had collided with the wall. ‘Fuck!’

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, concern flitting across her face, wondering if perhaps he had been bitten after all. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Oh, it’s…. nothing,’ he replied, waving off her concern even as his gaze drifted back up to the moaning Dead above them; a ghostly whisper already trying to command his attention once again, ‘it’s just… just…’

Fran looked at Tom, his eyes already starting to glaze over as he lost himself to the voices only he could hear.

‘Tom!’ she barked, snapping him back to reality. ‘Have you been bitten?’ she continued cutting straight to the point. ‘Did they get you?’

‘What?’ he answered, the confusion on his face telling her he didn’t understand why she had jumped to that conclusion. ‘No… no, it’s just my ribs. I’ll be black and blue by…’

‘Good,’ she interrupted; deciding as long as he hadn’t been bitten everything else didn’t matter. ‘Come on, we need to get out of here.’

As if to prove her point, there was suddenly a snapping sound from above them as one of the Dead on the balcony, a woman from the length of its matted and bedraggled hair, was crushed against the rail; shattering its lower ribcage and causing the upper torso to lean over the rail at an alarming unnatural angle.

‘Time to go,’ muttered Tom, watching as the Dead woman looking down at them frantically squirmed to get closer.

With the singing of metal against metal, Tom’s curved blades brushed against each other as he retrieved them from the harness on his back; their handles spinning in his fists as he prepared himself to deal with more of the Dead.

‘Now, let’s go find that man of yours,’ he continued, briefly nodding to Fran as he strode past her; a look of determination on his face.

‘
No arguments here
,’ thought Fran, briefly glancing back up at the crowded balcony before adjusting the crowbar in her grip and following him.

***

Kai had only just managed to pull the cart’s side hatch closed after him, sealing himself from sight, when four more corpses ambled around the overgrown garden hedge; drawn to the house by the cries of the Dead already there. Moving through the cart’s dark interior, he silently pushed aside some of the spyhole covers as he went, piercing the darkness with crisscrossing beams of golden light. Then, once at the front, he maneuverer himself into the driver’s seat and reached for Star’s reins. Thankfully the previous evening Tom had left them fed through the horizontal slit cut into the front wall, so he took the leather straps, gathered up the slack and then with a sharp flick, encouraged Star onward.

With a lurch the cart started to move and as Star began to pull it along the driveway Kai noticed that three of the cadavers were dragging themselves through the garden gate; while the fourth, a Dead man with much of the flesh stripped from one arm, that had come from the other direction and was now shambling its way down the weed-choked driveway towards him.

‘
Hurry up, you two,
’ thought Kai, looking from the three corpses stumbling up the garden path and over to the large Rhododendron bush where Fran and Tom would likely emerge from.

With the creaking of wheels turning and the rhythmic clip-clop of Star’s hooves on the driveway, he continued to watch the large expanse of leaves along the side of the house for movement; that was until a sudden thud against the right-hand wall of the cart jolted his attention back to what he was supposed to be doing.

‘
Crap...
’ he silently berated himself, straining his neck to look through one of the nearest spy holes. ‘
Idiot!
’

Seeing nothing, it was only as he looked back through the viewing slit in front of him that he noticed the Dead man that had previously been coming towards him had now vanished. It took a moment for him to realise that Star must have simply barged her way past the cadaver, clipping its rotting carcass with the corner of the moving cart as she went. Dismissing the now absent corpse as dealt with, Kai gave a gentle tug on the reins and edged Star finally back out onto the road to wait for Fran and Tom to appear.

‘Come on, w…where are you?’ he stammered to himself as the seconds ticked by, finally moving to the side of the cart facing the house to look through one of the spyholes.

With his hand resting anxiously on the bolt of the hatch next to him, Kai followed the progress of the three corpses as they slowly made their way to the open front door, all the while keeping an eye on the large bush for any sign of Tom and Fran’s appearance.

‘About time,’ he murmured, just as Tom pushed through the foliage with Fran following closely on his heels.

Tom was a few metres ahead of Fran, his blades out and ready for action as he strode forward to meet the three turning corpses, when Kai saw that behind him Fran had paused to look back. Whatever she saw he knew it couldn’t be good and as she broke into a run, grabbing Tom’s sleeve as she passed him, Kai could just about hear her over the moaning Dead telling him to move.