CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

 

THEY SPOTTED THE human immediately, rooting amidst the rubble, seemingly oblivious to the danger that he was in. He was working his way through a short parade of blackened shops, pulling away soot-stained planks of wood and charred furniture to find something worth salvaging. The stores themselves had been nothing of note before they'd been put to the torch - a downmarket carpet warehouse, a bookmaker's, a laundrette, a newsagent and a Chinese takeaway, situated on a sombre stretch of dual carriageway and bracketed by a pair of high-rise flats - and it appeared unlikely on first inspection that anyone would find anything of value within their crumbling walls. Indeed, there was an air of desperation to the figure as he tossed debris over his shoulder, scrabbling on hands and knees sifting the ash, and hammering at the warped filing cabinets and desk drawers in a bid to open them. He was so intent on his task, and taking so little care in attracting attention through the noise he was making, that they wondered if the balance of his mind was disturbed. Maybe one of these buildings had been a business of his and he was trying to restore what was once his. Surely no one sane would continue with such a fruitless endeavour?

Still, loss of wits or not, he possessed a beating heart and warm, rich blood flowing through pulsing veins, and that was enough for them to stop. The din he was creating was enough to cover the sound of the truck coming to a halt, and they stepped down from the cab, pausing to glance at each other. The human had not looked up from his toil, utterly focused on the detritus surrounding him. Each blow of the hammer resounded down the empty thoroughfare like a distress signal, almost as if he was willingly provoking interest. As one, they walked towards him, unsheathing their truncheons from their belts; this would not take a great deal of effort. Stragglers such as these - the mad, those cast out from their human communities, the foolhardy - were easy pickings.

As they approached, still he did not turn. Only when they were within a couple of feet of him, their shadows stretching either side of him like a pair of dark jaws, did he cock his head to one side as if he had finally sensed he was not alone. He gazed up at the two Returners grinning fixedly down at him, seeming strangely unperturbed at their arrival, as if he'd been expecting them.

"Come with us," one of them said, brandishing its weapon. "Or else, trouble."

The human appraised them for a moment. "I don't think so," he replied finally.

They glanced at one another again, bemused. They had never encountered one so unconcerned by their presence; most would beg for mercy, or attempt to flee. "Come now," the first ghoul reiterated, reaching out to grab the young man by the shoulder.

But before he could make contact, the human lashed out and grasped its wrist tightly, pulling himself up to eye level. They locked stares for a second, his palm still wrapped around its forearm, refusing to relinquish it. "No," he said simply. "Not any more." With that, he released his grip and nodded over its shoulder.

The two Returners were too confused by this sudden display of defiance to fully acknowledge what happened next. They half turned to see what was behind them and were battered in the faces with machete blades. The first swing opened a rift in the nearest's forehead from brow to cheek, the knife lodging in the skull for a second before wrenching free with an audible crack. The next blow was brought down on the second zombie's cranium with enough force to cave in the left-hand side of its head entirely. It crumpled under the power of the strike, its features flattened. The first was still standing somehow, raising its baton in a half-hearted attempt at a counter-attack, its right eyeball poking comically at ninety degrees to the rest of its face. Gabe strode up to it while it was trying to get its bearings and rammed his blade up under its chin till the tip broke the surface of its scalp. The two halves of its head parted like a flower opening its petals to the rays of the sun.

Mitch watched Gabe yank the machete free, a little taken aback by the brutality of the assault. "When they said destroy the brain, you weren't going to take any chances, were you?" he remarked.

"Pays not to use half measures when you're dealing with the undead," he answered. "Nature of the beast means you're never sure when the damn things are down and out."

Mitch guessed that made sense, but he couldn't help but detect something personal in the vicious glee with which the zombies had been dispatched. He wondered if Gabe loathed them more than humans did; indeed, whether there was some self-hatred in those explosions of violence, a disgust at what he had become directed towards his cousins. Maybe there was an element of catharsis too. Whatever, Mitch was glad the full brunt of it was coming the deadheads' way, and not his.

"Success?" Liz asked as she and the five other members of the group (one of the older women had stayed behind to look after Rosa, the little girl) emerged from their hiding place on the other side of the road to meet them. They were carrying between them every weapon they had been able to lay their hands upon - knives, cudgels, baseball bats - and looked every inch the ragtag army. They were no soldiers, certainly, and seemed ill equipped for what lay ahead of them; but their grim, determined faces gave some indication of the spark that still resided inside them, despite the gaunt features and frail bodies. They congregated around the truck parked in the centre of the dual carriageway.

"The old bait and switch," Gabe replied. "Whether the mark's dead or alive, it's a reliable standby."

"The voice of experience," Liz said sardonically, folding her arms.

"You're talking to someone who spent five years of his life hijacking shipments. Be grateful it's an area of expertise, 'cause it's going to be our way in."

Mitch swung up into the cab and cast an eye over the interior. "Been simplified," he called down to them. "Looks like it runs off a battery, like a milk float."

"Like I said," Gabe told him, "the smart zombs have only learnt the basics. Flowers has probably taught them just enough so they can get themselves around in these things, and transport livestock."

"Can't have much power, either."

"Doesn't need to. We're going through the front door, not smashing our way in."

"What if we need to make a quick getaway?"

"In which case, you're better off scattering on foot. Give them multiple targets to go after. But listen," Gabe looked around at the group, "I'm not going to lie to you: chances are, we don't pull this off, we're not going to have the opportunity to escape. We go in, we go in with one intention, and that's destroying every Returner in there. Anything less than that and we're going to fail. Understand?"

The humans nodded slowly.

"OK." Gabe pulled down the tailgate at the back of the truck. "Climb aboard. Let's move out."

 

 

STANDING FACE TO face on the truck bed, the humans held onto each other for support as it rattled its way through the fringes of the city. The back of the vehicle was roofed by a tarpaulin and wooden slats ran the length of the sides, so they only got brief glimpses of the landscape outside. Mitch had put an eye to a gap to get a better view, and had seen other intelligent zombs watching the truck move past with expressions of hungry expectation. He knew he had imagined them licking their thin, dry lips, but the image stayed in his head nevertheless, and he turned away from the world outside, preferring to wait in the dark like an animal anticipating its trip to the slaughterhouse. The others stared at their feet, swaying with the motion of the vehicle, deep in contemplation.

The truck hit a pothole and all seven of the survivors clattered into one another, breaking the reverie. The longhair, Phillips, slammed his hand against the wall separating the bed from the cab, and looked round at the others, adjusting his glasses.

"We must be mad trusting this... thing," he hissed.

"None of us trust him," Liz said, then corrected herself. "It." She glanced at each of her colleagues in turn. "But we all know this is a chance we can't afford not to take. Imagine the repercussions if we can pull this off. Imagine what could be possible. We're talking about finally fighting back against the dead, about having the chance to reclaim our lives."

"That's a pretty bloody big 'if'," Phillips sneered. "For all you know, it could be offering us up on a plate. You heard its story: it's an ex-criminal who fell out of favour with its boss. Who's to say that it's not using us as an opportunity to curry favour with this Flowers guy? Deliver some fresh meat into the body shops as a means to weasel his way back into the old man's good books."

"That's enough," another member of the group said sternly. Tendry was a former theatre actor in his fifties. "There's no need for such talk."

"All the same, I agree with him," John remarked. "This thing - Gabriel - was prepared to sell out its boss. It pretty much said so itself. It won't think twice about betraying us if it suits it." He swept his arms either side of him. "It took the weapons off us, stored them in the cab. We're defenceless. If the pusbags come for us, we won't have a chance."

"It was just a precaution," Mitch piped up. "Just in case any of the stiffs check the back of the truck."

Liz turned to him. "You've spent the most amount of time with it, Mitch. What do you make of it?"

"I know that Gabe saved me, and would've done the same for Donna if he'd been able to. Everything he's said so far has been straight down the line. I think we've got to give him the benefit of the doubt. There's only so far you can get without trusting anyone."

"He?" Phillips barked a laugh. "I think you better remind yourself exactly what this thing is, before you start forgetting what side of the grave it's on."

"He's more human that some I could mention." Mitch turned back to Liz. "I genuinely think he wants to bring Flowers down, with our help. He's got his own agenda, and his own axe to grind, but I don't think it's in his interests to turn on us." He paused. "But that doesn't mean I'm not wary of him. There was something I sensed on our return trip; he tried to hide it, tried to act like it wasn't there, but all the same... There're some elements of his undead nature that he's still subject to."

"What do you mean?"

Mitch sighed. "He's still highly carnivorous. You can see it sometimes in his eyes - he's still got the hunger."

"Christ," John breathed. "And we're putting our lives in the hands of this fucking flesh-eater?"

Nobody answered, and the rest of the journey was spent in silence.

 

 

WITH A BUMP the truck came to a halt, and seconds later the tailgate was opened, the humans squinting in the daylight at Gabe standing below them. He motioned for them to stay quiet, and looked off to the side, beckoning to someone out of sight. Mitch craned his head around the edge of the vehicle and saw half a dozen Returners emerge from a side alley. Like Gabe they bore little signs of their zombie status - they could walk at a steady pace, and few carried extravagant wounds, though one was missing an arm and another had had his jaw wrenched at an odd angle - but they were unmistakably dead. Common to them all was the greenish, stretched complexion of their skin, the milky cast to their eyes, and the slow, almost languorous manner with which they regarded the living. Mitch had seen more repellent stiffs in his time, but few were as creepy as this bunch; it was their collected awareness of their own cadaverous state that gave them a chilling air of poised menace.

"OK, I've rounded up these guys on my travels," Gabe said. "They've pledged to help us." It was unclear which group he was specifically referring to.

"This the bait?" asked one of the Returners, a tall blond woman with a livid scar running from her ear to her chin.

"They're going to help us get in, yes."

"You think they're up to it?"

"Don't worry about us," John replied, the disdain undisguised in his voice. "We'll be ready to fight, as long as our weapons are returned." He glanced at Gabe.

"You'll get them back once we're through the gates and they're not expecting trouble. They," Gabe indicated the other ghouls, "are going to be providing support. The important thing is we get inside without arousing suspicion, OK? To that end, I need one of you humans to walk alongside the truck, acting as a sample. Flowers' dead are quite picky about the meat they consume, and they like to approve what enters their body shops." There were murmurs of disapproval, but he added: "That's just the way they do things. We need this to look like a regular shipment."

Mitch moved forward to volunteer, but Liz held him back. "I'll go." She jumped down onto the road before anyone could argue.

"Factory is just about half a mile away," Gabe told them, raising the tailgate. "So get ready." He turned to the blond zombie. "Alice, can you drive? I'll be escorting Liz here."

The Returners formed an arrowhead around the truck as it rumbled onwards, Liz trudging alongside with Gabe's hand on the small of her back. She knew it was for appearances' sake only, but still she bristled, feeling uncomfortably exposed and unhappy at having to trust these stiffs. She'd taught herself to hate the things, to paint a clear delineation between the living and the dead; in the early days, it had been simple, you were either one or the other, and if you stank of tomb-rot then you deserved nothing more than a bullet in the brain. But despite the straightforward battle-lines, it hadn't made the fight against them any easier, and the truth of the matter was that the dead were winning. Before this self-aware ghoul had turned up at their door, she had been fast losing hope, although she had said nothing to the group. She couldn't see how they could've survived much longer. Now, though, there was a slim chance they could change the situation; it was unbelievably risky, but it was one more chance than they had a few days before. And it was through trusting the enemy, the one thing she imagined she would never do.

"So who are they? Your friends, I mean," she asked Gabe.

"Other dead souls that I came across on my wanderings, of a similar level to me. They were just the same: frightened at what they'd become, still human enough to want to stop the mass extinction of the living, but ultimately undead and therefore now another species. In the eyes of groups like yours, at least."

"Can you blame us? We've spent years fighting the zombs. It was them or us. That kind of mentality is hard to shake, even if you wanted to."

"Things are a bit more complicated now."

"Tell me about it." She looked at the Returners either side of her. "How did this happen? How are you able to retain so much of your life and personality? Why you?"

Gabe shrugged. "I guess you could call us the next generation. There seems to be no rhyme or reason why any of these people -" he gestured to the others - "should've resurrected differently, and yet here we are, the anomalies. I'm sure there're others still, all over the country, growing in number. It must be the virus, I'm convinced of that. It's almost like it's developed into an entirely different strain over the course of the past decade."

"All over the country," Liz mused quietly. "You think this thing is everywhere?"

"Don't doubt it. This isn't confined to London. I've heard rumours that it's global." He turned to her. "You lost family too?"

She shook her head. "No one close. My folks were living up in Newcastle, and I haven't heard from them since the outbreak. But I must be one of the few that hasn't got a spouse or kids to worry about - guess that was why I could take charge of this bunch; I wasn't quite as shell-shocked as the others. Used to just doing things, I suppose."

"They've survived, thanks to you."

"I got them this far. Nothing's guaranteed, though, is it? Not these days."

They came within sight of the body shop, the requisitioned school. The high brick walls concealed much of what was going on behind them, but there were at least eight Returners on sentry duty, guarding the short driveway into the car park. They spotted the truck and its entourage heading towards them, and several peeled off from the main group and strode out to meet it.

"Flesh?" the lead ghoul asked Gabe, peering past him at the vehicle.

"Yes. Resistance humans," he replied, modulating his speech to that of the typical collector stiff. "More in truck like this one." He pinched Liz's upper arm and held it up for the creature to see. She winced, holding her breath.

It looked her over and ran its bony fingers through her hair. It made a noise of approval. "How many?"

"Another six in back."

It nodded at a pair of its colleagues, who sauntered round to the rear of the truck. Then it turned its attention back to Gabe. "Don't recognise you. Where all come from?"

"Across the river. Heard foodstocks running low. That true?"

"Boss demanding more, but living scarce. Avoiding patrols. Can't make quota."

"We might be able to help food situation. Bring in more like this, work for boss?"

The zomb narrowed its eyes. "What makes you think you can find humans?"

"Got this flesh to talk," Gabe replied, motioning to Liz. "Knows where we can find more. Bring them in for processing?"

The two deadheads came back from inspecting the truck. "Good batch," one said.

The leader nodded. "OK. Bring them in," he called, and stepped back to allow the procession to pass by. "Show them where to take the meat," it added to its assistants.

They entered the car park, and brought the truck to a stop by a line of similar vehicles standing empty. It looked like there hadn't been a delivery for a while. The humans were ordered to leave the truck bed and hustled into a tight knot, Returners on each side. Over to the left was a large green expanse of playing fields, netted goal posts strung at either end, and a fenced-off cricket strip next to them. Further away was a cement yard, with a trio of outbuildings circling it. As ever, it was eerily quiet; given the setting, it was especially unnerving. Once upon a time there would've been thousands of young voices echoing across this area, but now it was as silent as a tomb.

"Processing in main hall," one of the body shop's guards told Gabe. "Follow us."

"Got their weapons," Alice said, emerging from the cab, a set of canvas bags in her hands.

"Bring them to armoury on way," it answered.

They marched down some steps and into the school's quadrangle, heading towards a pair of double doors. Once inside, they gestured for them to continue down a corridor lined with lockers. Despite the silence outside, now they were within the building's walls they could hear cries drifting in the distance. They grew louder with each step they took.

"The sound of flesh," one of the ghouls said, grinning.

Gabe didn't reply, merely cast an eye over his shoulder. There was no one else in the corridor; it seemed as good a place as any. He nonchalantly stuck his foot in front of Liz and gave her a gentle push, sending her sprawling. The group splintered as she fell, the two stiff escorts looking back in confusion. Gabe drew his machete. "She trying to escape," he warned.

As they moved forwards to grab hold of her, he beheaded one with a swift swing of his blade. Before the disembodied skull had even hit the parquet floor, he speared the other one through the mouth, the machete tip embedding itself in a locker door; it hung there, an expression of surprise etched on its features. He yanked his weapon free, allowing the zomb to fall to the ground.

Alice opened the bags and tossed the humans and the other Returners their weapons. John greedily snatched his shotgun, and thumbed in some shells that he had stowed in his pockets. Gabe leaned down and offered his hand to Liz, who looked up at him with a mixture of fury and mistrust; but she grasped his palm and allowed him to pull her up.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Needed a diversion." He handed her a knife.

She took it. "Let's just get this done."

"Kill every deadhead in here," Gabe called as the group hurried up the corridor, the groans from the hall luring them forward. "No mercy."

Mitch hefted the baseball bat in his hand, slippery with sweat. He prayed they were in time to save Donna. He passed a classroom and glanced in, noting the overturned desks, trampled books and bloody footprints. He could feel anger building up inside him, for everything the zombs had done to them. He felt like smashing skulls for every ounce of hurt they had been responsible for.

The doorway to the hall opened and a stiff wandered out, a scream bellowing in its wake, cut short as the door flapped shut behind it. It glanced up, uncomprehending, at the group of figures charging towards it. A second later there was an explosion of fire as John discharged his shotgun, catching it in the belly, severing it in two; its lower half stood stationary while its upper torso flailed around in a mess of entrails, trying to squirm its way back to where it had come from. Gabe shouted a caution, but John ignored it. He quickly chambered another round and put the barrels to the back of its head, blasting a hole in it the size of his fist.

"You were saying?" John asked Gabe.

"Guess there goes our element of surprise," the Returner muttered in answer. He glanced at the group, nodded, then pulled open the door to the hall.

"Christ," Mitch whispered as he crossed the threshold, shock at what he saw bringing him to a standstill.