Last Days With the Dead (4 page)

Phil gingerly lowered himself onto one of the benches and looked down at the tiny baby that suddenly looked even smaller in his large arms.

‘You’re beautiful, aren’t you, eh, just like your mummy,’ Phil whispered, softly stroking the fine dark hair of the sleeping child, ‘and your daddy’s a looker too. So you’re going to break a few hearts when you get older, you mark Uncle Phil’s words.’

Looking up, Phil noticed the adults in the room had all turned to watch his heartfelt exchange with the oblivious sleeping baby.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Nothing
,’ smiled Liz, leaning forward to kiss Phil on the forehead.

‘Oh good, you’re here, Phil
,’ said Patrick, walking into the room with Imran and damp looking Cam behind him. ‘Did Gabe find you?’

‘Yep, and he was carrying something that stunk to high heaven
,’ Phil whispered, afraid to rouse Saleana from her sleep. ‘He told me he was to come out with me to shift the bodies later.’

‘Yes
, and don’t go easy on him,’ Patrick continued, ‘he’s got a lesson to learn.’

‘Suits me
,’ Phil said, turning his attention back to the baby in his arms.

‘Now, come on you two, spill
,’ Liz said, stopping Leon’s spoonful of scrambled eggs half way to his mouth, ‘why are you back so early?’

‘Well, first off, the Penhaligan house is now the Penhaligan ruin
,’ Leon started, ducking his head down to meet the halted spoon.

‘What do you mean?’ Patrick asked, sitting down.

‘When we got there, the house was nothing but a burnt out shell,’ Cam replied, swiftly running a comb through his damp hair before turning his attention to the plate of food in front of him. ‘It must’ve blazed for days to reduce a building that sturdy to the smoking shell that greeted us.’

‘But how?’ Liz asked
. ‘How does a building that huge just suddenly burn to the ground?’

‘Could’ve been a lightning strike or sunlight catching a shard of glass at just the right angle,’ commented Phil
, ‘but it’s not as if it’s the middle of summer and everything is tinder dry.’

‘What about the grounds?’ Patrick asked, leaning forward
. ‘Any sign someone had been there before you?’

‘Hard to tell, there was a lot of fallen debris from the house all over the front
, and the crops growing out the back of the house,’ Leon replied.

‘That’s why we only got a few sacks worth,’ Cam added
, reaching for a glass of goat’s milk. ‘We couldn’t shift a lot of rubble, not with just the two of us. The orchard is fine though, the fire didn’t touch it, so at least we’ll still get a fruit harvest come autumn.’

Patrick rested his chin in the palm of his hand
, and absentmindedly ran his thumb along the scar that ran from just above his left eyebrow and down most of his cheek. As he did so, he mulled over Leon’s news. He knew that without further information, they would ultimately just have to accept this had just been a freak accident. Just because they hadn’t had any thunder storms here, didn’t mean that there hadn’t been one forty miles away. 

‘That’s not all
,’ Leon continued.

‘Well?’ Patrick asked, the movement of his thumb suddenly stopping.

‘It’s the Dead,’ said Cam, ‘there was an awful lot of them, a lot more than usual.’

‘But that’s not the main thing,’ Leon butted in
, ‘it was the type of Dead we ran into.’

‘New?’ asked Phil
.

‘No,’ continued Leon, waving away the concern
, ‘they’d been dead for years. The thing is, you could just tell from what they were wearing that these people hadn’t been living in the countryside when they died. They were from a city.’

With the mention of ‘cities’
, all of those present knew what that could mean.

The towns and cities had been terrifying places those eight years ago when the Death-walker virus had first struck. Initial outbreaks had been scattered at first. A heart attack victim in one part of town, the passing of an elderly patient in a care home
, or road traffic accident in another, but as the Dead then went on the rampage, their numbers increased at a wild and alarming rate, until the living soon found themselves hemmed in with the Dead on all sides.  The Dead had then swept through the populated areas like a wave of destruction, leaving only bloodshed and more of the hungry Dead in their wake.  Because of this, whole areas of the country were now considered ‘no-go’ areas. Of course, by now, the Dead would be nothing but slow moving decaying shells, but their sheer numbers alone, made it pure insanity to venture into these deadly zones.

‘Hmmm
,’ Patrick mumbled, getting up to look at the large map of Cornwall on the wall.

Just like the smaller maps that they took with them whenever they left Lanherne, this large map was covered in a myriad of red patches and small black crosses. The red zones indicated the areas now solely populated by the Dead and
they were avoided at all costs. The crosses marked any road made impassable by flooding, fallen trees too large for them to move, landslides, or even too far eroded to be useable.

‘Well, here’s the Penhaligan home,’ Patrick began, his finger pointing to a small blue dot, ‘so that means the Dead have either come from Newquay or St Austall.’

‘Newquay was more of a fishing town or holiday destination wasn’t it,’ said Cam, placing the now empty glass back down on the table. ‘The Dead we saw didn’t look like they had been involved in either, really. It’s difficult to pin down , but  I think, and I know it makes me sound like a snob, but I think some of the Dead we saw weren’t dressed like the sort of people I’d have expected to come from Newquay for a weekend away.’

‘So they weren’t dressed like working class tourists, is what you’re saying
,’ said Phil, giving Cam a roll of his eyes.

‘Erm
, yes,’ replied Cam, sheepishly.

Even though things like ‘class’ were now a thing of the past, even the Dead couldn’t totally eradicate a life time of being able to read class and social indicators.

‘Oh, don’t get your old school tie in a knot, Cam,’ Phil continued, jokingly. ‘So what you’re saying is, the Dead you saw were neither fishermen nor chavs dressed in long shorts, flip-flops and England strip T-shirts. Don’t worry, I think after all I’ve been through, a bit of class stereotyping isn’t going to offend me.’

‘So we’re basically talking about middle class corpses,’ Patrick said, trying to hide his smile
, ‘business types and well-dressed families, yes?’   

‘Yes
,’ replied Cam.

‘Hang on,’ came Nadine’s voice suddenly from the other side of the room, ‘St Austall?
That name rings a bell.’

Nadine had a remarkable memory
, and even as the rest of the group paused to wait for her to speak again, they could almost visibly see her sifting through the information stored in her head, looking for just the right reference she needed.

‘The Eden project
,’ she said triumphantly, ‘St Austall is where they built the Eden project.’

‘Oh yeah
.’ said Patrick, remembering why the town had sounded familiar.

‘Eden project? What’s that?’ asked Leon.

‘The Eden project was the world largest set of greenhouses open to the public,’ Patrick began, surprising Nadine by his knowledge. ‘It had been built over a reclaimed mining pit just a few miles outside of St Austall, and was a collection of vast bio-domes type things that were made into various environments, you know, a tropical dome, a desert dome, that sort of thing.  It was basically an ecology and conservation place. Quite impressive.’

‘Oh
,’ replied Leon.

‘I was roped in on a school trip, back when I was a P.E. teacher
,’ Patrick said to Nadine, noticing her look.

‘So
, looks like that’s where our nice middle class tourists came from then,’ said Leon, giving Phil a grin.

Like Phil, Leon’s upbringing had been far from middle class
, and he knew his mother had at times even struggled to pay the rent on their small council flat on the estate.

‘Leon,’ said Jen, slightly shocked by his attitude
, ‘middle class or working class, they were still people, and they died horribly.’

‘Sorry
,’ he replied, realising Jen probably came from one of the types of families he had just casually written off.

‘Can we drop the social commentary,’ said Patrick, leaning against one of the long tables, ‘none of that matters now. What matters
, is why the Dead are on the move after all this time, and if they’re coming this way.’

Silence descended on the Refectory, broken only by the sounds of the younger children whispering to each other as they played.

‘So assuming there’s an exodus from St Austall, and as the Dead only move when they see something worth following,’ Liz finally said, taking Saleana, who was starting to wake up, from Phil’s arms, ‘who or what are they following?’

‘Could there have still been survivors living in the domes after are all these years
,’ Imran asked. ‘And for some reason, they had to leave and now the Dead are following them.’

‘It’s a possibility
,’ replied Patrick, absentmindedly chewing on the inside of his mouth, as he contemplated the likelihood that people could have been living in the domes all this time.

‘Look, there’s nothing we can do about the Dead,’ said Phil, pushing himself up from the bench
, now that he was free of his tiny burden and walking over to look at the large map. ‘We can increase patrols and clear them as often as we can, but if they’re coming this way, they’re coming. All we can do is to make sure we’re ready for them.’

‘Phil’s right,’ Patrick agreed
, ‘we just have to be vigilant for now and hope the bulk of them passes us by. We should have a proper meeting this evening to fill everyone else in on what’s happening.’

‘Right, now that’s settled
, I’m going to clear the corpses from outside. I’ll spread the word about the meeting as I go,’ said Phil, turning to leave. ‘Oh, if it’s okay with you, Patrick, I think Gabe’s punishment should wait until we’ve got a better handle on things. There’s no point in us both being out there, not now.’

Patrick thought about it for a second and then nodded. As enthusiastic and as proficient at dispatching the Dead as Gabe was, there was no point in putting him in danger unnecessarily. Not
now, they knew they could be swamped by the Dead at any moment.

Phil’s hand was hovering just over the door handle when the door was suddenly pushed open from the other side with some urgency, banging into his hand.

‘Ouch,’ said Phil, automatically lifting his fingers to his mouth.

‘Oh
, my God, sorry, Phil,’ said Chloe, her face flushed as if she had been running.

‘No problem,’ replied Phil not very convincingly through a mouthful of his fingers
, ‘what’s your rush anyway?’

‘It’s William and Damien, they say they’ve seen something from the walkway,’ she said, catching her breath
, ‘you’ve got to come.’

Instantly forgetting his banged fingers, Phil pushed himself past Chloe and began to run down the corridor. With the sound of multiple feet echoing off the
stonewalls behind him, Phil could tell that at least Patrick and Imran were following close on his heels. He was halfway down the corridor when he passed a surprised looking Alice holding a large pile of washed nappies in her arms.

‘Whoa
,’ she called, turning abruptly so Phil didn’t inadvertently barrel into her, ‘what’s going on, Phil?’

But Phil had already disappeared round a corner and her question was left hanging unanswered.

‘Trouble,’ she managed to ask, as Imran sped past her, closely followed by Patrick and Liz.

‘When isn’t it
,’ was all Imran could say, already reaching for an arrow from his quiver as he ran.

Speeding through the Convent’s shadowy corridors, it took Phil less than thirty seconds before he burst through the large main doors
, and out into the courtyard bathed in the bright spring sunshine. For a second, he blinked at the brightness, as his eyes adjusted to the light, but he knew the layout of the courtyard like the back of his hand and carried on moving regardless. With a flurry of mottled feathers and a riot of disapproving clucks, Phil ran through and scattered a dozen of their hens that had been merrily pecking away at the dirt, searching for something to eat. Jumping over one particularly stubborn hen that had refused to move, Phil made it to the ladder that led up to the walkway. Glancing up, he could see Damien and William standing in the southwest corner of the Convents walkway, both of them looking out and over to some specific point in the countryside.

With a thunder of boots on the planks of the walkway, Phil reached the two men on watch.

‘What,’ he said, barely out of breath, ‘what is it?’

Silently
, William handed Phil a battered looking pair of binoculars and pointed out to the west. Lifting the binoculars to his eyes, Phil adjusted the focus slightly and saw what the two men on watch had been observant enough to notice.