Class Four: Those Who Survive (20 page)

The cannibal ran a finger around his gums, he fished out a nugget of clotted vein from his teeth and flicked it behind him. After reverently placing the hunk of digestive organ on the old fella’s shirt, he rubbed his hand against the dead man’s trousers before holding it out to Francis, gibbering, “Wait, don’t hit me. Oh you haven’t. This isn’t what it
looks
like.

“Honest.”

“So, erm, yeah, this is going to sound a little crazy, but I kinda found him here like this, so…I…erm, well, you know…”

“You ate him?” Zena finished, glaring at the man with a look that suggested she was about to stove his head in.

You know the look.

That
one.

“Well, not at first. I’m not a savage. I stuck the screwdriver in his ear first.” The man elicited a nervous high-pitched laugh. “Look.” With a grip usually reserved for shoddy care home workers, he cranked the dead man’s head ninety degrees to the side.

The shaft of a long reach screwdriver protruded from the old timer’s large flappy ear. A skin of dried blood like the kind you find formed on the top of cooling rice pudding, split, releasing a tidal wave of crimson liquid over the dead man’s liver-spotted face.

“Oops.”

“I didn’t want him coming back, so, you know, took the necessary steps to stop him doing so and eating me.”

Francis interjected, “Whilst you were eating
him
?”

The man wrung his hands and let out another nervous laugh. “So, I guess I’ll just be on my way…” he said, and peered behind the group looking for the exit.

Francis crossed his arms over his formidable chest. Even with the apocalypse, he still possessed an imposing demeanour. “I don’t think so, slim. Let me ask you something. How did you know he was dead? Did you check?”

“Ha ha ha, of course I did. I did that thing, you know? With the pulse. And the breathing check, that one too, nothing. I think. My fingers are pretty cold. So I…”

“Rammed a screwdriver into his head, tore his clothes open and started eating him,” Zena growled. She took another step forward; the wrench wavered in time with her anger-infused body.

“Look. If it’s any consolation, there’s still some good stuff left. I haven’t gotten down to the gristle and bone yet. Urgh, who wants that, eh? No? I’m not getting the cannibal vibe from you guys, to be honest. You’re not…you’re not
straighters
are you? You know, those people that only eat food from the last age, before the fall of man. Shit. Well, okay, how about I take this one with me? He’s only going to stink the place up and I’ll just go, no harm, no foul, yeah?” The man gave them a salesman’s grin, even going so far as the wink and the dual-finger pistols.

“I’ll give you to the count of ten. If you’re still here after that, I’m going to introduce your head to your insides, via your rectum.” Zena spoke with a Zen calmness. The wrench, however, added a violent undercurrent.

“Well, hold on a minute, that’s not fa—”

“One…”

The man gulped and looked from face to face, hoping for a dissenting opinion he could play on.

“…two…”

A hand grabbed the screwdriver handle and twisted out of the ear canal it had violated. As the stem was retracted it pulled a wad of wax, brain, and drying blood with it. “Oops.”

“…three…”

“Fine, fine, but you crossed the Ralston-a-tron tonight. What goes around, comes around, you feel me?”

“…four…”

The man slid the screwdriver into the hoodie pouch and barged his way past the group and out of the door, casting one last hungry look at the carcass as the door closed behind him.

Zena sighed and the adrenaline, held back in reserve, flushed itself from her blood stream. “Man, that guy was an arsehole. We should really take care of him. Who’s to say he won’t come back and ‘check to see if we’re dead’ in the night?”

Francis knelt down by the dead body and started to push the spilled offal back into the body cavity it had until recently resided in. With as much shoved in as his bile duct could muster, he buttoned the shirt up. The blood soaked into the thin cotton shirt; red bloomed across it like a well-played game of Plague Inc.

“He won’t come back. We’ll keep a watch out tonight anyway. Let’s take him outside, clean this place up a bit, get summat to eat and rest. It’s your big day tomorrow, sister. You need your zeds,” Francis said as he worked. Russ appeared at the feet of the cannibalized body, waiting to help take it outside.

Chapter Twenty-One

“STOP”

The RV door swung open as if it contained a tempest. Malky’s gigantic form jumped out of the cab and landed on the cracked tarmac. He shot an acidic look at the driver. “You’re going too fast. If you go too fast, we’ll lose them. We are too close now for some idiot to fuck this up.”

The driver’s brain instantly sent his sweat glands into overdrive. A sheet of salt water coruscated down his forehead; his armpits turned a deep crimson. “S…s…s…sorry, Malky,” he stuttered. His words were met with a barely noticeable shake of the head. The door thundered closed, and the driver’s sphincter released slightly.

Malky walked to the back of the blocky vehicle. The latest cage-dweller was a sullen mass of tears, blood, and faecal matter. “Shhh, have some self-respect. Go out like a man. Not a mewling pathetic worm.”

Devin appeared from the other side of the vehicle. “They’re not too far behind. They will catch up shortly. We are still on target, see how Her flock has swollen over the last few days. There will be more than enough to overwhelm the non-believers. This could be the biggest one we’ve created yet.”

A few hundred feet away ambled a sea of grey, interspersed with the odd flash of colour from disintegrating clothing or gore-stained limbs. The collective moan rumbled across the distance to them, chopping through the trio like a jacked up sub-woofer. A pitter patter from between them signalled further loosening of their captive’s bowels.

“Six more days. This is the moment where we need to exercise caution. The other chapters being where we need them to be are vital in order for this to work,” Devin lisped.

“They have not let us down yet, your Grace,” Malky replied flatly.

Devin looked back at him and held up his fiery charcoal red arm. “I think they let me down once, wouldn’t you say?” he countered.

Malky nodded. “Of course. I meant no disrespect. I still hold myself to account for that day. Just say the word and I will offer you my heart and swell the flock.”

“Don’t be so dramatic my friend. If it weren’t for you, then
he
would have made sure there wasn’t anything left of me for you to find. I am grateful to you. Your single mindedness showed me my weakness, and granted Ishtar the chance to guide me anew.”

“I hear the words, your Grace. But they do not make me feel less remiss in my duty.”

A fingerless blob of a hand rested on Malky’s shoulder. “Fret not, we are here today, and we are ready to continue with the purge. As long as everyone does their duty, we will…we
cannot
fail.”

“Y…y...you’re
mad
, both of you,” a gentle voice ventured.

Devin and Malky turned to regard the source of the words. The half-naked man was slumped in the gently swinging cage, his skin growing paler with the steady loss of blood from his slashed feet.

“What will you do when there’s no-one left? Kill yourselves and join this f...fl...flock of yours?”

Another moan resonated around the two stopped vehicles.

“Thought not. You are worse than those monsters. They’re purer than you will ever be. They were created the same way that we were. You two are b...bastards of evil. Mummy and Daddy never show you any love? You d...d…dis…disgust me. You’ll get yours, make my words, y...you’ll get yours.”

Malky swatted the cage with a balled fist, causing the contraption to move backwards. The man receded into the depths as far as he could; the goliath’s hands caught it on the back swing. “Good. You do have some fight left in you.”

Devin peered at the man, who seemed repulsed by the fearsome visage in front of him. “You know nothing of what you speak, penitent. We have been chosen by
Her
, she foresaw this day, only we had planned for it, only we were—”

“Bullshit,” the man rocked forwards in the cage and launched a wad of thick pasty spit. It hit Devin in the ruin of his sliced up eyeball.

“This isn’t a prophecy you fucking fruitcake. It was the probe that came back, the thing that
we
built, everyone knows that. The stuff it brought back from that meteor caused this, not some fucking bullshit text or whatever the h...h…hell you’re basing your madness on.”

Devin let the ball of bubbled saliva slide down over his split iris. It paused slightly on the lip of his eyelid before dripping onto his boot. His mouth curled in one corner.

“Don’t you remember that night? When the sky went red? This is just shit luck, that’s all, nothing else. But no, you fucking nutjobs u…u…use it as a basis for this? What sick fucks are you? You’re scared little men, and one day, people will stand against you, and no matter what you do, they will prevail, and your light will go out of this world.”

Devin’s remaining fully-functioning hand slid slowly around his back.

“And when it does, I hope to fuck they let you come back. Just so they can kill you again. I hope they c…c…cu…cut you up into pieces and leave your diseased, fucked-up brain till last. Cos once you go, it’ll be a symbol that evil fucks like you are nothing but—”

The curved knife whistled through the bars and slammed deep into the man’s right lung. The force pushed him back against the frame of the cage. The man’s fading eyes looked from the hilt of the buried knife and back into Devin’s face. His face creased in agony as Devin slowly rotated the blade. A cruel smile had birthed into life; the crease of it met the face-long scar which gave him the appearance that his skin had cracked into three.

Clammy hands slapped against Devin’s. With the last reserves of strength, the man hauled himself towards Devin, whose hand sunk further within the man’s chest. Blood-flecked lips pulsed, desperate to force out one last thing.

“—cowards.”

His body shuddered. Viscera-covered hands fell slack and rapped the side of the cage. His eyes rolled upwards into the recesses of his sockets. With some trouble, Devin dragged his hand back out through the man’s ribcage. A broken bone sliced through the webbing between thumb and forefinger.

Another moan, seemingly in mourning, bounced down the road; the distance from sender to recipient had been greatly reduced.

“Get him out of there, Malky. See to it that he does not violate the flock with his seditious soul. We’ll drive a little further and prepare the next penitent. We’ll save the bleeding until the sun falls.”

Malky nodded, unlocked the cage, and slung the lifeless body to the ground. As undead claws sought to gain purchase on the ground, Malky brought a steel-toe-capped boot arcing down through the temple and into the parietal lobe. The scrabbling ceased. The foot raised and fell like a piston, spreading pieces of brain and shards of skull across the road.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Man, today is full on slow, eh? Guess we’ll be out on a run tomorrow, though. Better than sitting around here on sentry duty. No wonder people fall asleep eh, Deano?” Paul said, punctuating with a bored sigh.

Dean flicked his wrist and the seven of hearts spun through the air and hit the rim of the bucket. “Bollocks.”

Paul walked over to the receptacle and picked up the cards which littered the roof. “Three nil, mate. Looks like I’ll be keeping my crown for another night. What did you make of the other day?”

“Tristan?”

“Yeah, bit odd, huh? How he just changed like that. Still, figure we’re better off with The Gaffer than without. Remember what life was like before we found this place?” Paul reminisced, he trotted back to his fold-up chair and passed a handful of cards back to Dean.

“Mate, don’t even get me started. We did alright for the first few months, but we were having too many close calls. Do you remember Dunstable? Fuck, barely got out of that church with both testicles attached,” Deano agreed.

“Well, to be fair, we were being dicks. No way we should’ve gone into a town that size; we were bloody lucky when you think about it.”

Dean turned the card over to reveal the Jack of spades. He aimed and flicked the card at the target. “Take a bow my son. True, but we were getting desperate. You know what those times called for mate.”

Paul spun the three of spades through the air. “Balls, pretty close though. Yep, just glad we found the poster. Dread to think where we’d be now if we hadn’t.”

“Shh, did you hear that?” Dean asked. He jumped up and grabbed the rifle which was resting against his chair. The two men looked in the direction of a clatter.

Paul gestured to Dean and slunk off into the murk. The corrugated iron roof clanked and popped, even with his careful steps.

“Whoever is there, best tell me now before I fucking shoot ya,” Dean hissed.

“Woah there, tiger. It’s me, Thomas.”

Dean squinted through the darkness of night and recognised the man they had saved. “Paul, it’s alright. It’s Tommy. Can I call you Tommy?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“What the hell are you doing, Thomas? It’s the middle of the night, you should be in bed, not creeping around up here,” Paul said angrily. He could feel his heart-rate slowing back to normal.

The two sentries walked back to their seats and set down their weapons. “Whose turn is it?” Dean asked.

“Bet you can see for miles if it was a bit lighter. Never been up here. Couldn’t sleep so thought I’d have a look. Don’t mind, do ya lads?” Thomas asked.

“Knock yourself out, mate. My turn, Pauly. Watch as the comeback kid kicks your ass,” Dean said, safely bunkered in his chair.

Thomas walked to the corner of the rectangular plateau of the roof, before it fell away to a steep fall down to the guttering.

“Fuck, the
wind
. That one was going in when it took it away,” Dean whinged.

“Shut up, mate. My turn now. Just need to…YES, get in! One all, everything to play for,” Paul wooted.

“Guys…” Thomas said softly.

“And…it’s….fuck, that card was bent, you’ve given me the shit cards here, Paul.”

“A poor workman always blames his tools. That’s what your missus used to say anyway.
Zing
, I went there.”

“
Guys
, look over there,” Thomas hissed, finally managing to get the mens’ attention. They reluctantly shuffled their way over to him. “Look, just over there. One o’clock. That light keeps flickering; must be going through the trees.” Thomas pointed to the gloom and took a few steps back.

“Where? I can’t see any—” Paul started to say.

Thomas edged forwards quietly, his hands rubbing together.

“Ah, there it is. Good spot, man,” Dean finished.

Thomas blew warm, stale breath into his hands. “No bother. Wonder who it is?”

Paul walked back to his chair and grabbed his weapon. “Let’s go have a look. Dean you stay up here. Me and Thomas will go check it out, cool?” Dean nodded and continued to peer into the night.

“I can’t see anything now. Where were they?” Paul asked. He was scanning the horizon through his rifle’s scope. The barrel was resting on the links of the gate. With no moon and no light, he couldn’t see much at all.

Thomas was kneeling by the middle of both gates. He saw the coal scuttle, but beyond that it was all a blanket of black and grey. A glint of light stuck out like a football fan in the wrong end. “There Paul, right hand side, near to where you found me.”

“Oh yeah. Only looks like one person. They’re being cautious, could be injured?” Paul ventured.

“Or they could be scouting this place out, seeing what the defences are, sizing us up, working out our—”

“Oh, he’s waving to us. Yep. Hi mate. Okay, so that answers that then.” Thomas waved back limply. “Keep an eye out, yeah? I’m going out.”

Thomas pushed the rusting gate open, checked the area, and cautiously walked towards the still waving man. As he got closer he could see that the man was in pretty good shape. He was wearing army fatigues, and had a rather hefty backpack, which he seemed to bear with little to no consternation. When he got to within ten feet or so, the man ceased his waving and walked towards him.

“Tom.”

“Tom?”

“Thompson.”

“Tom Thompson?”

The two men were now within poking distance. “Yes, my name is Tom Thompson. How do you do? Was going to hold off introductions till the morning. Most people don’t really appreciate doing this at night, but once I saw you, thought it best. You know, in case you thought I was a muncher, or a scout or something for some big, bad war band,” the militarily-dressed man said.

“Well, are you?”

“Am I what? Tom? Yes, that’s my name, I—”

Thomas massaged the bridge of his nose,
this is going to be a long night
. “No, I know your name, you told me. Twice. I meant are you a scout for a big, bad war band?”

Tom laughed. “Ha, no. Mind you, if I was, I think it unlikely I would divulge this information to you so willingly, eh?”

“True. I’m Thomas. We might have to call you something else with you having a similar name. Tom Two or…I dunno, Duane or something? And Tom Thompson? Your parents didn’t like you very much, huh?”

Tom laughed louder. “I get that a lot. So are you the Big Cheese here?”

“No, not in the slightest. Only got here myself a few weeks back. Tell ya what. Let me check you for weapons and let’s continue this discussion the other side of this fence, yeah?” Thomas said, conscious of the fact they were stood on a road, with a dark, sinister forest just beyond their visual range.

“Sure thing, Thomas. I’ve got my Glock and this hammer. You’re welcome to check me if you want, but…”

“What?”

“Well, just be careful. I’m pretty ticklish.”