CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

 

 

IT SEEMED LIKE months had passed since they’d been on the canal, and yet Rick didn’t want the journey to end.

“It’s just over here,” said Rohmer, easing the barge towards a short bank overgrown with ferns and hanging flora. Their leaves kissed the water, causing tiny ripples to disturb the stillness beneath the gravel towpath.

Rotting timber boards made up most of the old jetty. It looked unsafe, but Rohmer promised them that it was fit to walk on. “It never gets used,” he’d said. “Except by me. There’s nothing near here but my cottage.”

The barge drifted inward, cutting a calm line through the water. Rick had brought up the M16 from below. Rohmer kept the second Glock pistol close to hand.

The heavily thatched roof of a thick-walled stone cottage rose suddenly into his eye line. It sat on a rise, which made it easier to defend if it came to that, and Rick guessed that the cottage probably lay a few hundred yards from the bank.

“I think your wife is trying to get up.” Tabby’s head popped up from below. Her eyes were startled, too wide, like those of a shocked cartoon character.

“Thanks,” he said, ducking down and passing her on the tiny set of wooden steps. He headed towards the rear of the barge, noting a nasty smell that hadn’t been there before. Was Sally the source? He thought of her decaying flesh, the hideous dry wounds beneath the dressings.

He approached the bunk and lowered the rifle. She was sitting up, her hands twitching on the thin mattress. She was making a low sighing sound, air escaping through dead lungs, slashed lips.

“Hush, baby. It’s me. It’s Rick.” He sat on the edge of the bed, no longer quite knowing how to touch her. She was like a stranger, another woman whose quirks and habits he was forced to learn.

Are we there yet?

“No. Not yet. But almost.” He already had the syringe in his hand. He introduced the morphine by the other eye, taking turns so that he didn’t ruin whatever matter was left in the sockets. He knew he’d have to change her dressings again before long, and his mind withdrew from the thought of what she might now look like under there.

That’s better.

Her body slumped; the tension went out of her limbs. Could a dead person even become tense? Did their bodies react in the same way, even though there was no blood being pumped, no oxygen fuelling them? Perhaps they could explain everything on Rohmer’s island. When they got there it would all be put in some kind of order.

But did he really believe that, or was he simply clinging to an old man’s second-hand hope of salvation?

It’ll be all right. We can be together like we used to be. Once we get there, you can undress me and love me again.

Undress… did she mean the bandages, or was there something sexual to the invitation? He felt like an adulterer: his wife was dead, and this was his lover, his easy, queasy lover.

He giggled, and then quickly cut off the reaction. A shudder passed through his body, not of fear but of loneliness; a deep, almost supernatural loneliness which knew no bounds, not even death.

Sleepy. So sleepy.

He watched as her body slumped even further down onto the bunk. Her hands relaxed; her skin was white as new, unmarked paper. He bent down and hoisted her across his shoulder. Her body was as light as a sack of bones dumped in a bin outside a fried chicken joint. It scared him to feel her fragile body under his fingers, her delicate skin against his shoulder.

Back on deck, Rohmer was slowly pulling in towards the jetty. Rick’s breath misted white in front of his face. In a few days, if the temperature drop continued, the water at the sides of the canal would begin to ice over. He picked up his bag, held the M16 at the ready. Sally was still draped around his shoulders like a human stole. He could barely even feel her weight.

The barge nudged the bank, scraping against the loose dirt and stones.

“Keep an eye out.” Rohmer gritted his teeth as he brought the Queen Anne around to berth, her nose pushing into the long grass that grew in the shallows. Then, nimble as a man half his age, he leaped ashore and tethered the barge to the moorings – a series of short wooden uprights, each lopsided and not looking even capable of the task for which they’d been driven into the ground.

“Come on, now. Let’s be quick.”

The cottage was no longer visible from the jetty, but Rick was heartened that they didn’t have far to run. Despite Sally’s negligible weight on his back, he didn’t feel safe enough to make a long trek inland.

“We ready for this?” he glanced at Rohmer, then into Tabby’s wide eyes. They both nodded, silent and watchful.

Rohmer looked back at the Queen Anne, his right hand drifting unconsciously to rest above his heart, and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again there was steel in his gaze. “Let’s go.”

Rick took the lead, tapping like he was back in basic training. His legs adjusted quickly to the familiar pace, the muscles flexing as if in recognition of the labour ahead. He climbed the slight incline and stood on the gravel path. Now the cottage was visible again: its rough-crafted roof poked up teasingly above a thin line of trees.

Rohmer and Tabby came up behind; they were both breathing heavily. Rick made a mental note to remember that his travelling companions were an old man and a small child. He would have to restrict his pace if he wanted to keep them with him. And he did, he admitted to himself at last, want them with him. He wanted that more than anything else.

This was his family now: a ragtag pair of strangers and a dead wife hanging like a hideous neck scarf across his battle-broad shoulders. A family unit forged in the fires of hell.

Rohmer held the gun like a pro. The man obviously adapted quickly, and this trait made Rick respect him even more. Tabby was in good hands here; even if Rick hadn’t stumbled across them, he suspected that her beloved grandfather would be doing a sterling job of keeping her alive.

“Okay,” he told them, ducking down out of sight. “This is how we do it. I’ll run ahead and check the area for strays. You two stay here and watch my back. Let’s not mess this up.”

“I hear you loud and clear, son.” Rohmer tensed his jaw. He was serious, ready to do what was necessary. If anyone else had called Rick son in the easy manner of this old codger, he’d have put them on their arse. But it felt natural coming from Rohmer; he was the father Rick had never known.

The realisation shocked him. Was it really this easy to accept someone?

“Be careful,” said Tabby. “All of us, just be careful.”

Rick straightened with tears in his eyes. Pretending to adjust Sally’s position on his back, he winced to clear his vision. “She keeps wriggling.” The lie burned his tongue. He wished that he could be honest with these people above all others, yet knew that it simply wasn’t possible.

He turned and jogged along the towpath, gravel crunching underfoot. The rifle kept him company, and he knew it would never fail him. This rifle had blown off the heads of enemies, punctured holes through doors behind which dwelled those who meant him harm. It was a good friend, a valued servant.

Don’t drop me.

“I won’t. I’ll carry you forever.” He knew it was true. This burden would remain his and his alone until their journey was done, wherever the darkened road might lead.

There was a dark blue Volvo estate parked beside a small outbuilding near the cottage. The car’s headlights had been left on, but the light was weak, the battery running low but not quite dead.

He recalled that Rohmer had mentioned a family who sometimes rented out the cottage. They must have come here seeking refuge.

Shit. He didn’t think he could carry any more baggage. He gripped the rifle, wondering...

When the gun went off he knew exactly what had happened, and his heart sank through his body and deep into the earth. Nothing lasts, he thought. It all goes away in the end. Then he dropped Sally onto the ground and ran back along the towpath, not even pausing to assess the situation.

Don’t leave me.

He took it all in as he ran, looking for a shot.

Unfortunately, there was no shot available.

Tabby was moving in a low crouch, trying to gain her feet as she hurried away from what was happening immediately behind her. Because of Rick’s position in relation to her and Rohmer, she was blocking his direct line of vision, making it impossible to squeeze off a few rounds while he was running.

So he dropped to his knees, the gravel grazing his kneecaps, and carefully took aim along the length of the assault rifle.

Rohmer was panicking and grabbing at the gun; because of his unfamiliarity with firearms, he was unable to act quickly in a crisis. Rick suspected that the gun had jammed – something he’d be able to resolve in an instant but a novice would struggle to deal with. Again, the shot was blocked because of the old man’s position.

It was another of Rohmer’s shamblers. In all honesty, it wasn’t fit to be much else: there wasn’t enough left of it to do anything but shamble. And eat.

The thing moving slowly towards the old man had at one time been human, but now it looked to Rick bizarrely like a tree. That was the image his racing mind grabbed onto: a fucked-up mobile sapling; bonsai of the living dead.

Below the beltline, the thing was intact, with thick legs clad in bloodstained jeans. It tottered on those sturdy legs, understandably unable to find a centre of balance.

Above the waist was the spine, a long, white segmented tube that had been picked clean of flesh. The naked spinal column moved like a serpent, swaying from side to side in a hypnotic fashion. The splintered ribcage retained a covering of meat, but it had been shredded and mostly flayed. The odd red mass looked like the branches of a tree, spindly appendages stuck out at odd angles and festooned with dangling leaves of shredded skin.

The neck, like the lower torso, had been stripped of flesh; the shocking white bone glinted in the weak daylight. The bottom jaw was missing completely – perhaps torn off when the thing had been created. A top row of teeth lined the area above this, and the tongue lolled insanely long from the crimson cavity.

The top of the head, from a line level with the eyebrows, had been scalped. Runnels and tears in the pate; vague tufts of fuzzy hair left to cover the area like random bristles.

It was the most bizarre sight Rick had yet seen, and again the image of a tree snagged in his mind. That burst ribcage was the foliage, balanced atop a skinny trunk of spinal chord.

“Move!” he yelled, trying to get the thing in his sights. “Get out of the way!”

Tabby finally got to her feet, but instead of running towards Rick she turned to help her grandfather.

Rick jumped to his feet and thundered towards them, screaming sounds no one would have recognised as words.

The tree-thing reached Rohmer in what seemed like slow-motion. It reached out its grasping hands, took hold of his shoulders, and drew him into a weird embrace, that juddering upper mandible gearing up to scoop out his throat.

Rick, acting on instinct, shot the old man through the meat of his upper shoulder, hoping that the exit wound would be in the right place. The dead thing twitched backwards, and thankfully Rohmer stepped back, giving Rick a single clear shot at the gaping jaw.

He took off its head whilst running at speed. It was the best shot he had ever pulled off, and there was nobody there to admire his skill.

“I’m okay,” Rohmer was saying, trying to calm down Tabby, who was almost strangling him as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Did it bite you?” There was no time for niceties. Rick still held the M16 at waist level, not yet ready to lower it fully.

“No bite. It was a close thing, though.” Rohmer’s face was drained of blood; it was a paper mask, a child’s sketch of an incredibly ancient man.

“You sure?” Rick lowered the rifle.

“That was good shooting, son. A one in a million shot. Gave me a nice flesh wound.”

“What happened?” Rick nodded at the gun, still gripped in Rohmer’s hand. His other hand clutched at his wounded shoulder.

“I dunno. It just seized up in my hand.”

He stepped inside, reaching past the still sobbing Tabby, and took the pistol. Aiming it up, he pulled the trigger, letting off two shots. “It’s fine now.” He handed Rohmer the gun.

Rohmer’s face was whiter still; as if he’d only just realised how close to death, or something worse, he’d been.

“If it happens again,” said Rick, “remain calm. Here.” He took the hunting knife from his belt and handed it to Rohmer, who took it gratefully. “A back-up plan.”

Rick turned away and headed back along the towpath, towards Sally. His hands were shaking but he didn’t want anyone to see. “Follow me,” he ordered. “And for Christ’s sake, keep close. We don’t want any more accidents.”

They reached Sally together, and Rick picked her up like she was a bundle of dirty rags. “Who are they?” he said, motioning towards the Volvo.

“The Kendalls,” said Rohmer, one hand resting on top of Tabby’s head. She seemed unwilling to let him go. “The family who come here when I’m not. They must’ve fled town and thought they could hide out here, until all this is over.”

Rick resisted the urge to comment on that final remark. “We tread carefully.” He glanced at Rohmer, saw the new fear in the man’s old, old eyes. “I don’t want to lose either of you, not when we’ve only just become friends.” He smiled.

Rohmer nodded, unable to speak. He gripped his wound, blood squeezing through his fingers.

“I’ll sort that out once we’re safe,” said Rick.

Rohmer nodded. His lips were tight and bloodless.

Rick walked towards the cottage, making sure that they stayed close. He didn’t know what he was going to find in there, but for the first time in over a day the terrible Dead Rooms of Leeds crossed his mind, and he prayed that after his scare Rohmer would be quicker to react.

What remained of their future might depend on it.