Fear the Dead (Book 4) (7 page)

The circle took in Reggie’s words.
Coming from a man who had lost everything, they seemed to carry weight. I
thought of my role in the fall of Reggie’s world, and I felt guilt weigh down
on me until I thought I would crumple to the ground. I didn’t deserve his
support, but I needed it.

Finally Stacey broke the silence. Her
blonde curls swirled in the gust.

“I vote to stay,” she said.

There were murmurs of assent, nods of
agreement. Within ten minutes all the votes were cast. Seven voted to stay in
camp, and only three voted to leave. I had won. I knew that I should have felt
relief, but instead I was tense. It was a hollow victory.

“Fine,” said Darla. “It’s on your
heads. I want you to all remember this day. When you’re lying on the floor
spitting blood. When the infected tear apart your families. Remember what you
did today.”

It was a victory, but not one I would
celebrate. I knew deep down that we had to stay here. For now at least, it was
the safest place we could be. After today though, I was aware that my power was
slipping. It would only take one thing to go wrong, one more person to die, and
everything would crumble.

If we travelled, then we’d die. The
cities and towns were full of infected. The food in the supermarkets was
rotting, and the water systems were corrupted years ago. Out here, nestled in
the greens of nature, we had a chance. Yet if something were to go wrong, the
knife edge would turn and it was me who it would cut first. Some people needed
only the tiniest excuse to start following Darla.

I wouldn’t give it to them. This had
to work.

We saw Lou walking toward us from
across camp as we were about to leave. She took strong strides across the
grass. Her face looked troubled. When she finally stood in front of us,
everyone in the circle looked at her. Lou took a deep breath.

“There’s been another body,” she
said.

The group murmured. Some of them
looked to Darla, others to me. A wave of nausea hit me.

Lou carried on.

“It’s a kid this time.”

Chapter
10

Over the next two days we did what
came natural in the face of a crisis. We turned our heads from it. I kept
myself occupied with the organisation of camp. The morning after the body was
found, I rounded up as many people as I could who weren’t sick and we spent
hours chopping the grass in the fields. I liked the protection that overgrown
grass gave, because it helped shield the camp from passing eyes. The problem
was that strange eyes rarely came near by camp, and even if they did, most Wild
dwellers avoided large crowds. It seemed better all round that we cut the
overgrowth. If stalkers were to blame for the killings, it made little sense to
give them thick patches of grass to sneak through.

 In the absence of the necessary
equipment -there weren’t many lawnmowers to be found – we were forced to use
scythes. Reggie, Lou, Mel and I worked our way along the outskirts of camp with
scythes that someone had found in a nearby barn, swinging at the grass as it
bristled in the breeze.

At one point I stopped. I put my hand
to my head, and when I pulled it away my index finger was coated in sweat. I
watched the others wield their scythes under the shadow of the trees and I felt
a cold shiver run through me. In the dim light, under an unfriendly sky, my
friends worked with the tool of the Reaper, and their faces were grim and
heavy.

The camp started to recover from
illness. Tents doors were unzipped and people stepped out and stared into
daylight, sometimes for the first time in days. There was just one death
through sickness, and that had been because he had a heart condition before he
even got ill. It was one death too many, but privately some believed that we
were lucky that the number didn’t grow.

***

“You look like you’re about to drop,”
said Mel.

Later on, we were all sat in my tent.
The door flap was shut but it was still cold inside. Every so often the green
fabric billowed from the force of the wind. Dawn hadn’t long rose over the
third morning after the newest body, and despite the early hour, my tent was
full.

For once each chair was occupied, but
this wasn’t one of our usual meetings. Mel sat across from me. She wore a green
khaki shirt with the German national flag sewn into the right sleeve just below
the arm. Her hair was tied back and her face was clean, but some of her
fingernails hid flecks of dried blood.

Next to her was Lou. Her hair was
greased, and she wore a thick black jumper. The neck of it rose up to her chin,
covering her tattoos and threatening to swallow her face. It was the thickest
piece of clothing I’d ever seen her wear, and I wondered where she had gotten
it. Maybe a fashion boutique had somehow opened up without me realising. I’d
always suspected that capitalism could even withstand the apocalypse.

Charlie and Reggie filled the other
chairs. Reggie had a faraway look in his eyes, though the skin around his left eye
was healing, with the blue tint making way for a rosy pink. Charlie glanced at
the tent door from time to time as if he couldn’t wait to get back to his room
so that he could carry on his work.

The last member of our meeting was
Ben. The boy sat in the corner on my bed playing with his necklace, twisting
the beads back and forth along the string. His shoes were lined up on the floor
below him and his legs were crossed. On his right foot, there was a hole in his
sock and his big toe poked out. His toenail was nearly an inch longer than it
should have been, and I made a mental note to make sure they were cut. With
Alice gone there was nobody to tell him about this kind of thing, and I was
left  feeling inadequate about my role as protector.

A gust of wind hit the tent and made
it bulge inwards. It looked as though some unseen force was pressing against
the side and trying to push its way in. I wondered if the weather ever
brightened here, or if the valley was just a trap for cold gusts and clouds
full of rain.

“We need to talk about the body,” I
said.

Mel glanced over at Ben.

“Go wait outside,” she told him.

Even though it was daylight, I didn’t
feel comfortable having Ben out of my sight. I had left my responsibilities to
others for too long, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. The
latest body meant that everyone was on high alert. I didn’t want to take part
in the panic that was rising around camp, but I felt paranoia settle over me.

“He might as well stay,” said
Charlie. “He’s seen worse things than some of the adults around here.”

I leaned forward. I spoke in a quiet voice
because I didn’t want my words to leave the tent.

“I’m beginning to think it isn’t
stalkers. I mean, I can’t be certain. But there sure as hell isn’t a nest
within ten miles of here, and I’m not willing to believe that stalkers get up
in the night and commute to camp.”

Charlie sat with his hand cupping his
chin. “We simply don’t know enough about them to ascertain that. For all we
know, stalkers could travel across the whole country for their kills. This
isn’t a known species, they’re a mystery. And their behaviour is just as
mysterious.”

Lou sat forward. She crossed her arms
in front of her chest in a posture that looked defensive.

“If not stalkers, then what?”

There was silence as we all
considered the question. The wind seemed to die down until it was just a breeze
gently blowing on the sides of the tent. Charlie glanced over at the door and
then back at the floor.

The only sound was a gentle
murmuring. I looked across the tent at Ben on my bed. With his index finger and
thumb he slowly moved beads from one side of the necklace to the other. As he
did so, his lips moved and made faint words that I couldn’t hear. I leaned
forward and listened.

“….Dead God…with you I take….”

I snapped my head toward him. I stood
up so quickly that the chair nearly fell behind me. Ben looked up and his eyes
widened. He grabbed his necklace in his right hand and closed his fingers
tightly around it.

“What did you say?” I asked.

Ben gulped.

“Nothing Kyle.”

Mel coughed.

“We gotta talk about the kid,” she
said.

I looked at her. She’d put on weight.
Not fat, but muscle. Being a butcher’s apprentice agreed with her.

“Spill it,” I said.

My heart was beating. There was
something about Ben that was disconcerting. I felt that there were unspoken
words that the people in my tent were holding back from me. I looked at them,
meeting all of their eyes in turn. My heart began to pound.

“You don’t look too good,” said Lou.
“Sit down before you have a heart attack.”

What was happening to me? I suddenly
felt as if my forehead was drenched in sweat. It pooled on my skin and then
poured down my face, but it was cold like ice water. My skin buzzed, and my
vision blurred as if I was looking at everything cross-eyed.

A hand touched my shoulder and guided
me a few steps back until I felt the hard seat of the chair under me.

“I’m okay,” I said, as my sight
cleared. “Just tell me about Ben.”

“What do you mean?” said Mel.

“You said we have to talk about the
kid.”

Mel leaned forward.

“I didn’t mean about him. I mean the
body. This one was worse than the rest. The way it was opened up, I mean. 
Christ, it was worse than some of the animal carcasses after Gregor’s finished
with them. There’s been a lot of talk about….”

As Mel talked I felt my vision start
to blur again. My ears rang, as though someone had shot a gun next to me and
the blast had shattered my ear drums. Cold hands slipped up and down my spine.
Was this a heart attack? Lou had joked about my age, but maybe this kind of
life was enough to kill me.

“I can’t breathe,” I said.

My throat felt as though it was
closing. There were hands on my back, rubbing up and down. They moved around
and settled on my shoulders. I twisted my head and saw Mel above me, staring at
me through eyes shot with concern.

“Kyle?”

I took deep breaths. My hearing
started to return, my vision corrected itself. I felt my throat open up again.
After a few seconds my pulse had settled until it was approaching a normal
pace.
What the hell just happened?

Charlie stood up out of his seat. He
grabbed his chair and dragged it over to the side of the tent.

“We better go,” he said. “Kyle needs
sleep.”

“It’s morning. I’m not going to
sleep.”

Hands squeezed my shoulder muscles in
what I assumed was meant to be a relaxing way. From somewhere, Mel had
developed a hell of a grip.

“It might be morning, but you’re an
insomniac’s worst nightmare. Stop being action man and get some shut eye. Don’t
worry Kyle; the camp will still be here when you wake up.”

The idea of sleep was a nice one, and
I knew I needed it, but I couldn’t let myself believe the second part of Mel’s
sentence. A big part of me worried that one day I would wake up, unzip my tent
and then step outside to find an empty field. I worried that people would leave
me in the night, and that I would be left with nothing but the barren Wilds.

I became aware of a shadow outside
the tent.

“Better get the door,” I said.

Charlie looked at me with confused
eyes. A second later, the tent started to open from the outside. The zipper
traced its way around the door until finally the light of the day streamed in
through the entrance. A familiar face stood there.

“Darla, what a horrible surprise,”
said Lou.

It wasn’t just Darla. When we all
left the tent and stepped outside, it seemed like half the camp was stood with
her. Darla positioned herself at the front, a General with a mean face and
crossed arms. The people behind her stood hesitantly, and most had pale skin.
Some would not long have recovered from illness, so I was surprised to see them
stood there as though they were an army.

“I won’t waste words,” said Darla.

“Good,” said Lou. “Your voice grates
on me.”

Darla ignored Lou, instead focusing
on me. I felt unsteady under her glare. The last thing I needed was to have
another dizzy spell, especially not in front of Darla. That would have just
proved what she already thought. It would have shown her how weak I was.

Mel stood beside me. She grabbed my
shoulder, and I was glad of the contact. For a flicker of a second I remembered
meeting her more than a year ago and saw flashes of how shy she had been back
then. In the time that had passed it seemed she had grown in strength, while
mine was beginning to ebb.

“This is it Kyle,” said Darla. Miles
behind her, cast against an angry sky, were the jagged hills of an unwelcoming
countryside. “I want change. Everyone else wants change. It’s time you accepted
it.”

“Let’s talk about this,” said Reggie.

Darla shook her head.

“We’ve wasted too much time, and
we’ve made our decision. Nobody will follow you, Kyle. And more importantly, we
won’t stay. Today we’re going to prepare, and come first light the camp will
disband.”

There was finality to her words, and
I knew that everything was done. I felt cold all over and knew that I should do
something, but at the same time I was aware how pointless it would be. I only
had to look at the people stood behind Darla to know that they had all cast
their lots with her.