CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

 

 

IT WAS THE fire that woke Daryl, or at least the reflection of it behind his closed eyelids. He stirred, bringing up his arms and feeling like he was restrained somehow, as if someone had tied him up while he dozed.

His limbs ached. The air was freezing; the chill had slipped between his layers of clothing to caress his skin and cool his blood. It was dark, daylight was still a couple of hours away.

He was sitting within the desiccated branches of a stout bush, half-hidden by the grasping twigs and the thickened roots showing above the soil. For some reason he’d felt the spot was a good vantage point – like a hide used by birdwatchers – and had positioned himself there hours ago.

The fire flickered in the distance, catching his attention from behind the trees on the other size of the canal. Because of his elevated position, he could clearly see the cottage and the two vehicles parked outside. One, he knew, was the ex-army jeep that had been stored in one of the outbuildings. He’d watched Nutman drive it into the open during the night, scrutinising him through the binoculars. The man had looked intense as he worked; his face a mask of concentration, his hands steady as he manoeuvred the jeep across the uneven ground.

Nutman had spent a few moments looking up at the dark sky before returning inside, and the look on his face had been unreadable. Daryl had been unable to work out if it was fear or longing or both...

Not long after that, Daryl must have fallen asleep.

He watched the flames as they licked at the side of the barn, clasping the structure from beneath like a giant demonic hand. Nutman stood nearby, staring at the conflagration. Daryl raised the binoculars and examined him close-up; his eyes were like stones in his unmoving face.

Daryl wondered if the man had finally lost his mind.

“Join the fucking club,” he said, easing his arse off a particularly tough root.

He used the binoculars to glance along the edge of the canal, a few miles east of where Nutman was setting fire to the outbuildings. Off in the distance, a group of dead people wandered in a field. He watched, fascinated, as they pulled apart an old scarecrow, as if thinking it might contain some meat. One of the group was not much more than a skeleton with drapes of flesh hanging from its bones; the rest were in good condition, apart from the usual bloodless bite marks, death-wounds and missing bits and pieces. One of them sported gunshots; large holes peppered its torso and half the biceps on its right arm had been vaporised.

It was fascinating. No matter how they died, they came back... unless, of course, that death involved destruction of the brain. Otherwise they returned, picking themselves up and running, shambling, even crawling across the landscape in search of prey. Daryl mused about their hunger for human flesh. Just why did they need to consume human meat? Was there something in the warm flesh, or maybe in the fresh blood, that eased the pain of being dead – or was it simply a natural desire, repressed by eons of evolution, which awoke after these things were revived?

So many questions... and Daryl doubted that anyone had an answer. Not the absent media, the surviving dregs of the government, or whatever doctors and scientists had managed to escape to secret think-tanks buried under the streets of the major cities.

All we have is faith. That was something Mother had always believed in, even near the end. She swore that society was constantly on the brink of coming apart, and rather than rely upon politicians or scientists we should all be putting our faith in God.

Daryl thought she might have had a point. Not about God – no, he could never believe in that bullshit. But perhaps her ideas regarding faith were pretty much correct. When everything else slips away, and the world becomes a battleground of the dead, faith is all that remains: faith in oneself, faith that good will triumph, and enough faith that before your end arrives you’ll have one bullet left to put in your brain.

Faith.

The fire had almost consumed the barn when he swung the binoculars back in the direction of the cottage. Nutman was nowhere in sight.

Daryl struggled to his feet and crossed the dirt to the moped. He could barely believe that such a ridiculous vehicle had served him so well. He’d had ample opportunities to trade it for something bigger and better – a real motorcycle, or a fast car – but for some reason he’d kept the moped. It seemed fitting somehow that the world’s greatest serial killer, the only man ever to kill the same woman twice, should possess such an idiosyncratic chariot.

“Hello?”

Daryl tensed at the sound of the voice behind him. Then, taking a breath, he continued fastening his bag to the moped.

“Oh, God. I’m so glad to see you...”

He slowly turned, pasting a smile onto his face, and confronted the owner of the voice.

A tall man stood there, framed by the distant flames and the black smoke. He was slim, narrow of build, and was leaning on a thick branch to support his weight. Daryl glanced at the man’s leg and saw that it was strapped up with rags, probably broken by the look if it.

“I never thought I’d see another... well, living person again. Everyone’s gone, out of the city and into the countryside. I haven’t seen a live one for at least two days.” The man was smiling. He seemed on the verge of genuine joy.

“Where have you come from?” Daryl took a step forward, keeping his hands behind his back.

“Leeds,” said the man, stumbling forward a few steps. “The whole place has crumbled. Buildings on fire, looters running wild, what few police left on the streets killing people on sight. By the time I got out of there, there was hardly anyone normal left. Just dead people and crazy coppers. It’s carnage.” His eyes were wide and wild; his teeth were black and his lips split and swollen.

“I’m Daryl.”

“Alan. Alan Harley. It really is good to meet you, Daryl. I had some trouble about a mile back, came off my bike when I ran into some of those dead bastards in the road. They nearly got me...” he glanced at his leg. “It smashed when I hit the deck. Hurt like hell, but still I managed to get up and run.”

Daryl nodded, pretending that he was interested. Then, swiftly, he brought out the camera from behind his back.

“I’m making a sort of documentary, Alan. Filming people I meet; capturing their stories in digital media. It might be useful once everything goes back to normal. A kind of document of events from ground level.”

“Uh-huh.” Alan did not look convinced. He was too tired to even attempt to hide his frown.

“Care to participate?” Daryl switched on the camera and began to circle Alan, viewing him through the lens. Everything looked different through the lens: it looked better than reality.

“I... I’m not sure, Daryl. I mean, isn’t this a little crazy? I kind of need some help here, you know.”

“Oh,” said Daryl, lowering the camera. “I see. You don’t want to play.”

Alan’s confused smile hung on his lips; his eyes were wet.

Daryl took the gun from the waistband of his trousers, bringing it around to point the barrel at Alan. The other man did not at first register the weapon, and then when he finally saw it he sighed heavily. That was all: just a sigh.

“Goodbye, Alan.” Daryl pulled the trigger. The first shot missed its target, pinging off into the air somewhere to Alan’s left. Alan stupidly turned his head to follow the round, as if trying to catch sight of it in mid flight.

Daryl pulled the trigger again.

This time blood spattered from Alan’s left arm, high up near the shoulder. The man pitched backwards, his balance lost.

The third shot caught him in the face, smashing his nose and cheekbones and turning the grey air around his head a bright powdery red.

Daryl did not even watch him fall.

He returned his attention to the burning barn, filming it with the camera. Soon Nutman came out of the cottage, carrying the young girl in his arms. He held her close to his chest, like a baby, and stared into her upturned face. It took him several minutes to lay her down in the rear of the jeep and cover her with blankets. Then, after reaching down to muss her hair, he turned back and once again entered the cottage.

This time he was carrying Sally. Her bandaged head looked bright white in the darkness and her limbs hung stiffly as he carried her to the vehicle. He placed her in the passenger seat, pressing her legs into the foot well.

Daryl alternated between camera and binoculars, caught between viewing and filming.

Nutman watched the blaze for a little while longer and then climbed into the jeep. The rear tyres spat up dust as he drove away.

Daryl turned around to climb aboard the moped, and was mildly shocked to see Alan standing behind him, his shattered nose not much more than a hole in the centre of his face.

“Oh, my,” he said, aware how stupid that sounded. “My, oh my. What do we have here, then?”

Alan opened his mouth and bared his blackened teeth. He hissed like a cat; spittle erupted into the air. His eyeballs were red, filled with blood from the damage, and Daryl was fascinated by the aura of menace the corpse wore.

“Come on, then. Let’s be having you.” He felt no fear. All that was well behind him now, back in his old life; fear had died with Mother, and any lingering traces which may have been left behind had gone with Claire into that pit under the dilapidated power station.

Daryl was now a man without fear, a breed apart from other men.

Alan sidestepped, then lumbered forward. If it were not for the broken leg, he would have moved a lot faster: freshly dead, with no damage to his brain, he should have been quick and nimble. The shattered limb meant that Daryl had time to watch.

He lifted the camera to his eye and did just that, grinning at the silly dead bastard. “Action!” he said, trying not to laugh.

Alan pushed off his back leg, lurching towards Daryl. His hands were quick, and his jaws snapped at the air. Daryl jumped to the side and jogged around his attacker, entertained by the developing scenario.

He continued this mad dance for a few minutes, but soon grew bored. Alan slashed at the air with his hands, moaned and made other decidedly inhuman sounds, and continued to fail at every attempt to capture Daryl.

The dead man was teaching Daryl nothing; all he demonstrated was that once a human being was dead whatever intelligence he or she had possessed simply left the scene. These things were like idiot animals, absurd creatures existing only to feed. They had no reasoning, no sense of the world around them. They were simply eating machines.

“God, you dead people are dumb. It’s all very disappointing.” He pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. There was no boom or recoil; either the gun was jammed or it had run out of ammunition. Daryl knew absolutely nothing about firearms, so made no attempt to examine the weapon. Instead he threw it to the ground, annoyed and impatient.

“Fucking hell! You are bothersome, aren’t you, Alan?”

He moved in close, dodging Alan’s clutching hands, and kicked the broken leg out from under the corpse. Alan fell to the ground, his red eyes wide and panicked. He clawed at the earth, grabbed at bushes and the bases of trees.

Daryl looked around, and when his gaze fell upon a long stick with a pointed end, he smiled.

“This shouldn’t take long,” he said, and moved in for the kill.

He stabbed Alan through the right eye and twisted the branch as it went in, grinding it thorough the gristle and deep into the brain. Alan’s hands stopped clutching; his jaw dropped open; his eyes sunk into their sockets. The pointed end of the stick penetrated Alan’s skull, emerging out of the back to sink into the soil. Daryl leaned on it, pressing it down until he was bent over at the waist. Alan’s mouth snapped open and closed like the beak of a demented turtle.

Daryl left the corpse and climbed onto the moped, lamenting the loss of the handgun. He had not had anywhere near enough fun with it. Perhaps he’d get lucky and come across another; next time he might even stumble across something bigger. If he’d been thinking straight back at the power station, he could have taken the rest of the guns. But it was too late now to regret the omission. He could never go back, only keep moving forward and into the third act of the motion picture of his life.

He patted the bag, feeling the bulge of the camera through a side pocket.

Then he started the moped and headed east, towards the coast. He had worked out by now that must be where Nutman was heading. It was a good idea: most other people seemed to be going in-country, trying for the woods and the open fields. The coast was a sensible option; it presented opportunities for crossing the ocean, if suitable passage could be found.

He thought of Alan as he rode towards the rising sun. What a pathetic excuse for a being. Even the dead, it seemed, were useless. Daryl had briefly hoped for more – that they might exhibit more potential than the living. But that was not to be. Meat was meat and dead was dead boring.

His story was the only interesting one left; all it lacked was an appreciative audience.

He hit the road and kept an eye out for danger, expecting attackers from all sides. Empty cars littered the roads, bodies were scattered here and there, a lot of them partially eaten. Smears of red marked the blacktop.

Daryl stopped at a petrol station and filled the moped’s tank to the brim. He also filled two plastic containers and strapped them to the side of the vehicle. This was one reason he should have upgraded to a bigger machine: the moped hardly held much fuel, and if he failed to keep an eye on the level he risked being stranded.

He passed a family laid out neatly in the road – mother, father, son, daughter, their bellies opened and cleaned out, their faces gnawed off, their limbs stripped clean. It struck him as odd that their positioning was so tidy. Rather than sprawling like broken dolls, their corpses were set in a row, each facing the same way.

Beyond the disturbing familial frieze, a small roadside house was in flames. Daryl stopped the moped to watch it burn, and he was perversely pleased to hear the windows shatter and pop from the intensity of the heat. The fire must not have been going for long.

A naked woman ran out of the front door, her hair aflame. Her hands were raised above her kindling head, clutching at the heavens, and as she ran by him she did not even notice Daryl. She passed by so close that he could feel the heat of the flames and smell her burning hair. Her screams were thrilling, a polymorphous perversion.

The woman made it a few hundred yards along the road before she went down, thrashing at the asphalt with her fists. Eventually she grew still. Then, after something like five minutes, she calmly stood up and kept walking in the same direction, hair smouldering, the skin of her neck and back blackened from the flames.

The time between life and death was but a fraction, a sliver; a journey so brief that it was barely consequential. Daryl wondered if she had remained sentient as she had passed between states, or if the transformation had been like a switch first flicking off and then turning on again, but with something missing.

“What are you?” he whispered, awed by the sight. He watched the woman as she padded into the distance, vanishing over the brow of a hill. The molten flesh on her shoulders had looked like a shawl.

Was she still alive in some way or truly dead? What powered these corpses when they returned? He refused to believe in the fairytale of the soul, but could think of no alternative theory.

Mind. Body. Soul. Surely they were all the same thing; and the living brain was a filter for the body’s interaction with the world in which it existed. The human machine, as Daryl had come to understand it, was a combination of all these elements, and they were merely a function of the body reacting in and to the world.

But what did that theory mean when you applied it to the walking dead?

“What are we?”

Nothing answered. So he rode on, perplexed by his own inadequacies and his inability to understand the subtleties of this damned entertaining apocalypse.

 

 

DARYL JOURNEYED THROUGH a landscape that Mother might have referred to as Hell: small villages and towns either taken over completely by the dead or populated by only a handful of survivors, the rest having fled to the imagined safety of the countryside. He passed wan faces at boarded windows, peering out through narrow gaps and pleading for aid.

If this were a movie, he thought these images might be part of some lengthy slow-motion montage. Classical music playing on the soundtrack. The dead plodding through empty streets, looking up as he motored by, reaching out for him...

He saw the occasional police or army vehicle, usually parked at the kerb or pulled up on the verge. None of the officials he caught sight of looked sane; each of them had a look in their eyes that was a glimpse of madness. He passed through unmolested. The atrocities being committed – people dragged out of burning houses, the dead used as target practice, women and children raped on the front lawns of country houses – were enough to keep these bastions of a dying civilisation busy for now.

Daryl knew that if he ever stopped at one of these places he would become a victim, just like all those others he saw kneeling before uniformed madmen, screaming at the sky, or staring blankly at the moped as he roared through the epicentre of their agony.

Often he raised the camera to one eye as he rode, logging countless images of bloodshed: a pack of dead men and women bringing down and tearing apart a small boy; two men in uniform raping a teenage girl while a uniformed woman leaned across the bonnet of a police car smoking a joint; a dead schoolgirl, still dressed in her pleated skirt and blazer, walking along the footpath holding onto a severed head by its hair.

None of this stirred him; it did not move him at all. Daryl remained intrigued yet distant. It was all background to his story, secondary characters crossing the scene. He was the focus.

Then, after what seemed like years of travel, he began to near the coast. Seagulls flew overhead, the salty air stung his nostrils, the horizon flattened out and turned a shade of grey which held a sullen dash of blue.

Figures moved in the fields to his left and right, their ragged silhouettes giving away nothing about their state. Alive or dead, it didn’t really matter, not to Daryl. He had begun to realise that everyone was dead; it was simply a question of how far along the process each individual was. A line from an old song crossed his mind: born to die. Yes, that was exactly the truth of the human condition.

Humanity was a dead species, a race born into instant obsolescence. Only those who stepped to one side and abandoned the herd were ever truly alive. Men like the killers Daryl had once idolised and now only looked upon with a form of pity, as even they had not completely realised the essence of what it is to live, to be alive, to exist.

Daryl was the first of a new breed. Once he had killed Sally Nutman for the second time, he could accept his crown and rule as king of the dead. His entire life had been but a preamble to that moment, every step along the way bringing him closer to what he had always been meant to do.

The sun glimmered behind a sheet of grey. The flat fields stretched into forever. Daryl roared ahead into a world he was busy recreating with every mile he travelled, every piece of black road that unfurled before him.

It was a world of infinite possibilities.