Five More Days With The Dead (Lanherne Chronicles Book 2) (35 page)

‘One down
,’ he said quietly to himself, pushing himself back up.

He had taken a step away from Clarkes when he had second thoughts and turned back to kneel back down to the unconscious man.

‘This is for Steve, you bastard,’ he said, taking a knife from his belt and slicing the black band that held the pulse detector to the man’s neck.

Dropping the now flashing pulse detector by the man’s side, Matt left him to his fate and went to check out the Jackals. He decided if they wanted a realistic chance of escape, then taking one of the Jackals was going to be their best option.
Silently, he walked past the row of tents the off watch soldiers would be sleeping in. Thankful to be met with the sounds of snoring and farting that usually came from the men as they slept, Matt edged his way to the first of the large Jackal assault vehicles.

‘Knock, knock
,’ he said quietly, approaching the front of the vehicle.

Matt smiled to himself when he saw the two men slumped in their seats. Dr Avery’s anaesthetic had done the
trick; the two soldiers were out cold. Knowing that the position of this vehicle, facing the overgrown golf course as it was, ruled it out as the one he would take, Matt decided to move onto the two other Jackals. He knew they had been parked to guard the road approach and one of these would be the one they would be using to escape. Making his way around to the front of the camp, Matt found a few other men slumped where they had fallen, unable to fight the effects of the barbiturate coursing through their bodies. With his confidence growing that their plan had worked, Matt increased his speed. Running up to the second Jackal, he was met by two more unconscious men again.

‘Mind if I take catch a ride, lads?’ he asked, grabbing the first man by his collar to pull him from the vehicle.

After a struggle and more than a bit of swearing, Matt finally managed to pull the two men from the vehicle.

‘Time to even things up a bit,’ Matt said softly to the two prone soldiers
, ‘nothing personal.’

Pulling aside each of their collars, Matt then cut away their pulse detectors, just like he had done with Clarkes and tossed the flashing devices over into a nearby bush. This time though, he also removed their
rifles. Turning, he placed them back into the Jackal. Any firepower they could take with them would be a godsend in the future and any advantage he could take from Blackmore and his men could only be one more thing in their favour in the long run.

Leaving his chosen escape vehicle, Matt then jogged over the last remaining Jackal. Just as
before, the soldiers sat slumped in their seats and after a bit of tugging at their prone bodies, Matt relieved them of both their weapons and pulse detectors. It was then that Matt had a flash of inspiration and reaching again into the Jackal past the driver, he pulled a small lever under the dashboard. With a click, the Jackal’s bonnet sprung open as the catch was released. Dashing to the front of the vehicle, Matt began to pull at various parts of the engine. It wouldn’t hold them for long but every minute he could stall Blackmore was a minute they could get further away.

After dropping the second set of rifles back at the Jackal he was taking, Matt decided to continue his raid on the sleeping soldiers. Moving from tent to
tent, weaponry was taken to add to his stash and as he left each tent, a small red light began to flash its count down. He was just dropping off the last of the acquired rifles and ammunition back at the Jackal when Matt heard the scraping sound of approaching footsteps. Turning to locate the source, Matt swore under his breath. There, dragging their decaying corpses into the camp was three of the Dead.

‘Time to go
,’ he mumbled to himself, crouching out of sight.

He had only made it part of the way back to the Med lab when the first wet tearing sounds drifted through the camp. The Dead had found the helpless soldiers and already they were ripping at their flesh and stuffing lumps of stolen flesh greedily into their mouths.

‘Shit. Shit. Shit!’ Mat whispered as he approached the Med lab.

Behind
him, the sounds of gorging continued. They were in real trouble and he knew it.

‘Time to go people,’ Matt said, bursting through the Med lab
door. ‘Oh, crap!’

There, clutching her stomach with Dr Avery holding her arm for
support was Alice with a pained look on her face. This was more than a simple twinge, Mat could tell. With the large wet patch down the front of her trousers an obvious sign, he dreaded the words Avery was surely about to say.

‘Her
water has broken,’ Avery said, looking up at Matt as he ran through the door.

‘No time for that,’ Matt said grabbing the bag of medical supplies
. ‘The Dead are in the camp and they’re eating the soldiers, so we’ve got to go, now.’

‘But.
..’ Avery began.

‘Alice, can you walk?’ Matt interrupted
. ‘We’ve got to get to the front of the camp and we’ve got to go now.’

Alice gritted her teeth through the pain and nodded. She was not going to let her baby die in this place. If she had to crawl on her hands and
knees, she would get out of this camp and dead or not, the soldiers would not stop her.

‘Let’s go
,’ she said, pushing herself away from Avery.

‘Here,’ Matt said passing to Alice and Avery each a handgun he had lifted from the more than likely now Dead soldiers
. ‘Keep close and keep low. It’s not far… We’ll make it, okay?’

‘You’re fucking right we will,’ Alice said, steadying herself against a table for a moment, before stepping towards Matt
. ‘Let’s do this.’

Matt gave the ballsy woman a smile and looking beyond her to see that Dr Avery was also ready, he turned and stepped back out into the cold death filled night.

Crouching directly outside the Med lab door, Matt lifted his rifle to provide cover for Alice and Dr Avery, ready for the cannibalistic attack that was sure to be only moments away. Matt could see the reflected moonlight flashing off of Avery’s gun as it shook in his hands. Just like everyone on the base, Avery had a basic knowledge of firearms, but knowing ‘how to’ and actually ‘doing’ were two completely different scenarios. Up until now, the Dead had been something secured to a bench, studied, dissected and under his control. This was an alien world for Avery and the horror of the Dead had now become a terrifying and deadly reality. Matt looked at Avery, his wild eyes darting from one shadow to the next and prayed the doctor could keep it together long enough to get the Jackal. If the man panicked and started shooting, the Dead would be on them like a pack of wolves.

Mat pulled Avery and Alice down to a crouch and pointed
out the direction they would need to go. When they both nodded their understanding, Matt began to edge them forward, leaving the safety of the Med lab behind. He had barely gone three paces when there was a crash to his left. Holding his hand up abruptly as a sign, Avery and Alice froze mid-step. In the shadows created by the row of tents, Matt could see movement. Suddenly, standing to his full height, the silhouette of a man could be seen.  There was no doubt in Matt’s mind that this man was now one of Dead and as it turned its head left and right looking for prey, even the night could not hide the horror of the man’s death. The moonlight soon caught the side of his face, or rather what was left of it, throwing the gouged and torn flesh into stark relief. Matt heard a sharp intake of breath from Avery behind him and watched in dread as the Dead man slowly turned his head in their direction. Whether it was the Dead man’s film covered eyes unable to see them in the dark or that he simply hadn’t noticed them, Matt didn’t know, but he watched with bated breath as the Dead man’s gaze passed back and forth over them. Then with a sudden jerk, the Dead man threw himself at the tent next to him, tearing at the fabric to get to the unconscious body he knew lay hidden inside. Within seconds, the Dead man had ripped his way through the tent opening and was clawing his way up the prone body to get to the expose flesh of the man’s neck and face. Sooner than he had expected, Matt began to hear ripping and slurping sounds coming from the tent. Knowing now was their chance to move, while the Dead man gorged himself on the living flesh that had been so kindly laid out for him, Matt began to edge forwards again. They crept past more of the tents, some already ripped and dripping with spilt blood, while others still housed the drugged soldiers unknowingly awaiting their own deaths. Matt was surprised how quickly the Dead had overrun the camp. Like locust, they moved from body to body, increasing their number with every lump of flesh torn from their victims.

Each growl, stumbling footstep and crash they heard coming from the shadows, promised a bloody death for Matt, Avery and
Alice, but with easier meat for the Dead to claim, their luck seemed to be holding out. The rear of the Jackal was tantalisingly close now and with only one more tent to creep by, they hoped their thin run of luck would last them these last few meters to safety.  However, when Matt heard movement from the other side of the canvas, he realised they were to be sadly disappointed. Matt briefly closed his eyes and held his breath, praying whoever the creature inside was feasting on would keep them occupied long enough for the three of them to pass undetected. Then, without warning, Alice’s hand shot forward to grab his, making him jump. Surprised, Matt turned to look at her and knew immediately what was wrong. Alice’s face was contorted with pain and with her eyes screwed tightly closed. She bit down forcefully on her lip. As the pressure from her grip increased, the pain from the growing contraction visibly shot through Alice. Her teeth broke through the skin on her lip as she fought the urge to cry out, knowing it could mean death for all of them and blood began to run down her chin. Matt knew the time for stealth was at an end. They needed to get Alice to the Jackal and away from here. Surely, she could only hold back the pain for so long before crying out and each step they could get closer to the Jackal was one step closer to getting out of there alive. The moment, Matt felt the tension on his hand begin to lessen, he pulled Alice up into a standing position and tugged her forwards.

‘Just get to Jackal,’ Matt whispered urgently to Alice and Avery
. ‘Move!’

The moment he
spoke, the blood chilling noises from the tent paused.

‘Go!’ he said, urgently pushing Avery behind him, readying himself to fire on whatever was to pull itself from the tent.

Backing up slowly, step by step, all Matt could hear was the hammering of his heart and the sounds of other feasting Dead around him. With a dull click, the door to the Jackal opened and closed behind him, telling him Alice had made it. Taking another step backwards, Matt froze. A bloody hand, stripped of much of its flesh and a few fingers, pushed aside the tent opening to reveal a vision of death with nothing but hunger in its eyes. Matt had known the soldier the Dead man had once been. A single patch of his gore encrusted hair the only thing that made him identifiable. He might not have considered the man a friend in life but he had not wished such visible butchery of the man in death. With nearly all of the skin ripped from his face and the flesh torn from his cheeks and neck, it had been a mercy he had been unconscious during his attack. With no eyelids left to speak of, the Dead man had a wide penetrating stare and as he locked his eyes onto Matt, a flash of menacing glee flitted across them.  Matt took another shaky step backwards, knowing the creature would charge him at any moment, but then a second animated corpse began to push itself out of the tent eager to follow the thing whose teeth had helped it cross over into a world of the hungry Dead.

‘Shit!’ Matt said realising things had just got twice as bad.

However, the Dead hadn’t finished playing their hand just yet and as Matt turned to join Avery to sprint the last few meters to the Jackal, he watched as an unnoticed Dead solider suddenly appeared from his right. With a hungry moan escaping its savaged lips, the Dead man barrelled into Avery, pulling him to the ground. With a cry of basic animalistic terror, Avery began to fight for his life. With his hands slipping on the soldiers blood soaked chest, Avery fought to keep the Dead man’s snapping jaw away from him. But even in death, Avery was no match for the large muscular soldier on top of him and he knew his moment had come. When a dribble of blood filled drool began to fall from the tongue that writhed only a hair’s breadth from his face, all he could feel was a deep sense of regret. He simply hadn’t been given the time to make amends for the horrors he had been forced to participate in and he knew that this stain on his soul would now follow him forever.

‘Doc!’ Matt cried, jabbing the butt of his rifle at the Dead man’s head.

With a crack, the cadaver’s head snapped to the left, taking his jaws mercifully further away from Avery’s flesh and giving him the slimmest of chances now to save his life. Seeing what might be his only opportunity, Avery thrust his hands up under the soldier’s jaw and with a strength fuelled by fear, he yanked the soldier’s head further to the side, smashing it hard against the metal bumper of the Jackal.

‘Let go,
now!’ shouted Matt,

Trusting the man who had already saved his life once, Avery did as he was told. For a split second, with its head wedged against the metal frame of the vehicle, the Dead soldier was still. Then, as it began to turn its head back to Dr Avery’s living flesh, Matt brought his boot forcefully down on the creature’s neck. With an audible snap
, the neck vertebrae shattered and cartilage tore. Matt once again pulled his knife quickly from his belt to stab down on the crown of cadaver’s skull.