Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland (Alice, No. 5) (3 page)

After a few seconds, the Biters moved on in search of prey
elsewhere, but one remained, continuing to scan the area. She came so close
that a fallen leaf brushed against Alice's leg when the Biter's legs kicked it
away. Alice involuntarily shuddered and opened her eyes and found herself
looking up at a female Biter. She was wearing the tattered remains of a dress,
and her skin was gouged open on the right side of her torso. Blood was still
seeping out from the wound, indicating that she had turned recently. Alice
remembered what her daddy had told her, that if you were bitten by a Biter, you
became like them. Anyone bitten by a Biter seemed to die, but then came back as
one of them. She looked at the ghoul in front of her and wanted to scream out
aloud that she never wanted to be like it. She had heard some of the older kids
repeat something they had been told in their training.

Better dead than undead.

Alice had no idea what that meant, and she had asked Jane
what undead meant. If it meant looking like the monster she saw in front of
her, then it was very, very scary. Much scarier than even what she had imagined
Biters to be.

The Biter was now with a couple of feet of where Alice lay
huddled and despite her best efforts, Alice began sobbing. Whenever she had
been scared, for example after hearing the repeated volleys of gunfire during
an attack, or the moans and growls of passing Biter hordes, her Daddy had told
her that she was his brave little girl and that he would be there to keep her
safe. Now her Daddy was nowhere near her, and she did not feel brave at all.

The Biter stopped on hearing the sob, and looked down. Her
eyes widened at the unexpected prey and she opened her mouth, revealing teeth
that were already stained with blood from a recent kill at a settlement her
horde had torn through half an hour ago. Alice looked at her and gasped in
horror, her childish mind yet unable to come to grips with the fact that death,
or worse, could be mere seconds away.

Alice was not the only one watching the imminent danger. The
puppy smelled and felt that his master was intensely fearful and in danger, and
the little dog bared his own small teeth. He shook himself free of Alice's
grasp and with a loud bark, launched himself at the creature who was
threatening his master.

***

'Bob, I've looked everywhere and I can't find her.'

Ten minutes had passed since Gladwell had issued the order
to extinguish all lights in the settlement. They had heard the Biter horde
passing and indeed had smelled them, but so far it seemed that the Biters were
passing them by. However, that had been scant consolation for Gladwell.

Alice had gone missing.

He had been hoping that she had been hiding somewhere in the
darkness, but Jo had swept the settlement, passing on word that their little
girl was missing. Her report that she was nowhere to be found hit him hard.

'Remember once she hid inside a large pot in the kitchen.
That girl is always up to some mischief. Look some more and we'll find her.'

Jo's hand covered his and he knew that there was no such
hopeful news. 'Bob, she's not in the settlement. Jane told me she was playing
with some puppy they had taken in, and the puppy's nowhere to be seen either.'

Gladwell just looked ahead, trying to wish away the
possibility that his little girl was out there in the middle of a huge Biter
horde. More to himself than to Jo, he whispered, 'Maybe we should look for
her.'

Jo just stood there, holding his hand, fully conscious of
the terrible burden that fell on him and their family. She knew that turning on
the lights and mounting a search for Alice might well lead to her discovery,
but one thing was for certain—it would attract the Biters that were on the
march outside. Above all, she was a mother, and she wanted to scream out that
people should look for Alice, that Bob should send out a search party. But she
also knew that their survival had depended on putting the interests of the
group above that of any one person.

One girl versus the safety of the more than one hundred
people at the settlement.

Their little Alice versus the others in the settlement, all
of whom had come to accept and depend on Gladwell as their leader.

Gladwell just looked straight ahead, weighing the decision
he had to make. Finally, he got up and went into their home, coming back
outside after a minute with an axe in his left hand and a large, serrated knife
in his right. Jo knew what her husband had in mind, and her own heart was torn
apart at the decision he was making. For her, it was not just Alice versus the
settlement, but also the fact that the man she loved was now venturing out into
what might be a certain death. Gladwell looked at her.

'I can't ask anyone else to risk their lives, but I can't
live with the possibility that Alice is out there alone.'

He walked towards the gate, but soon found that he was not
alone. Jones and Sunil had joined him, walking a step behind, armed as he was,
with a knife and an axe. He turned to say something but Jones shook his head.

'Sir, we've got your back.'

As the gates opened and he stepped out, Gladwell paused for
a second. He had not even got a gun with him because opening fire would mean
attracting Biters for miles around. It would come down to close combat with the
axe and knife. He had killed men and Biters before, indeed anyone who had
survived four years after The Rising would likely have blood, of the living or
the undead, on their hands. Still, going out into the darkness with an unknown
number of Biters around was something that he would never ordinarily consider
doing.

Of course, having his little girl out there in the middle of
the Biters was not something that he had counted on either.

Something pressed into his back. Jones passed on a silenced
pistol—the only one they had at the settlement.

'Sir, leave the dirty work to me. You take this in case you
need it.'

Jones was the armorer and the unarmed combat instructor at
the settlement, bringing with him combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq
before The Rising, and Gladwell felt good that he had him and Sunil behind him
as they proceeded.

They walked out into the darkness, the sounds of Biters
carrying in the wind all around them. Their settlement had been chosen in part
because it was at an elevation, which gave them the advantage of terrain, and
they had over the years cut down most of the trees around it to give a clearer
line of sight. All except a small clump of trees directly ahead of the gates
about a couple of hundred meters away. Gladwell made his way towards the trees,
all his senses heightened by the imminent danger of the Biters around and also
the anxiety he felt about Alice. He tried to wish away the images of Alice
lying bloodied and torn, or worse, as a Biter after having been bitten.

They were walking cautiously, trying to make as little noise
as possible, when a puppy barked directly up ahead. He threw caution to the
wind and ran towards the trees.

***

The Biter grabbed at the puppy who had sunk his little teeth
into her legs. The Biter clumsily clawed at it and then lost her balance and
fell to the ground. All the while, the puppy was growling, fighting, trying to
keep his master safe.

Alice sat rooted to the spot for a few seconds, paralyzed by
fear, unable to move a muscle. Then the Biter grabbed Doggie by a leg, and the
puppy squealed in pain. She had heard from the older kids that Biters normally
tried to bite people so that they would become like them, but if anyone tried
to fight back, they would go berserk and tear their opponents to pieces. With
all the courage her little heart could muster, she shouted out.

'Leave my Doggie alone!'

The Biter turned to look at her, teeth bared and eyes
widening in anticipation of a larger and better quarry than the troublesome
animal that had latched onto her leg. She threw Doggie to the side, where he
landed with a yelp, and then she got up and began coming towards Alice.

Alice felt around her for something she could use as a
weapon, and her little hands closed around a rock. As the Biter closed in on
her, she flung the rock with all the strength she could put into the throw. The
rock bounced off the Biter's head, and she roared in fury at the little human
who had dared to resist her. She bore in on Alice, who had her back to the tree
and was now shouting for her Daddy.

The Biter was no more than a couple of feet away from Alice
when her head was split open by an axe. Jones kicked the body off the axe and
stood guard as Gladwell took Alice in his arms. She was crying now, her body
racked with uncontrollable sobs.

'Shh, sweetheart. Daddy's here.'

Jones gave a low whistle and Gladwell heard the shuffling
sounds of Biters approaching. He saw the shadows in the moonlight and while the
main body of the Biter horde seemed to have passed them by, several of them had
heard the barks and cries and were now coming in towards them, growling in
anticipation of a kill. Gladwell held Alice by the shoulder and steadied her
with a tight grip.

'You've been very brave, now I need you to be brave a little
bit longer. Remember how we used to play piggy-back?'

Alice nodded, trying to blink away the tears.

'I need you to ride piggy-back on me. Grab on as tightly as
you can and whatever happens, don't let go. Can you do that for me?'

Alice nodded again and Gladwell hoisted his daughter onto
his back. She suddenly spoke out.

'Doggie. I can't leave Doggie. He tried to save me.'

Jones whispered in the darkness.

'I see him. Alice, we can't carry him. We need both our
hands to fight these Biters.'

Alice began to protest when Gladwell shushed her.

'I'll get him.'

He picked up the puppy and placed him in the bag hanging on
his left side, where he had placed a flare and an extra clip for the pistol.

'Guys, close ranks.'

With the practiced precision of men who had fought several
battles together, Jones and Sunil took up position. They had their backs to
each other, forming a triangle so that no attacker could get to any of them
from behind, or indeed get to Alice unless one of them fell.

Gladwell saw that they were up against perhaps a dozen
Biters. Part of him wanted to make a run for the settlement. Taking out a dozen
Biters with gunfire from the safety of the settlement's walls was like shooting
fish in a barrel, but he knew that would risk attracting more Biters, and if
the patrol had been right, and there were thousands of Biters moving through
the Deadland, it could mean the settlement being overrun by sheer numbers.

No, they would have to make their stand here, and go back to
the settlement when they were sure there were no Biters around. As the Biters
closed in, Gladwell took out the silenced pistol from his belt, where he had
hung it. He aimed and fired and the night was punctuated by a slight popping
noise as a Biter took a bullet straight to the head and went down. He moved his
aim left, at another Biter who was coming at him, and the Biter's roar was cut
short by a bullet that entered the side of his forehead. A third shot brought
down another Biter and while Gladwell had successfully thinned the odds against
them to some extent, now it would have to come down to hand-to-hand combat.
Gladwell tucked the pistol back in and took the knife in one hand and axe in
the other.

'Alice, close your eyes, dear. You don't have to see this.'

But Alice couldn't keep her eyes closed. She watched as the
first Biter came towards her Daddy—a tall creature who was naked except for a
loincloth around his waist, his chest and stomach torn open when he had been
turned. She watched as her daddy stabbed out, the knife going in through the
Biter's cheek, and brought the knife out in a rapid motion as the axe swung
down, cutting through the Biter's scalp as he went down. She watched as her Daddy
then swung down with the axe again and heard the peculiar sound of a sharp
weapon rending apart human skin and bone.

Next to Gladwell, Jones had kicked down a Biter and then
sliced the throat open of the next one before smashing his skull with the axe.
Sunil was busy as well—he was not as fast or skilled as Jones was with knives,
but he was big, a large hulking giant of a man who stood well over six feet tall,
and had supposedly been a bouncer or bodyguard before The Rising. He had his
axe in a two-handed grip and decapitated the first Biter that came towards him
with a single blow. Blood sprayed across his face as the next one lunged at
him. He broke the Biter's leg with a single, well-placed kick. Biters could be
put down permanently only with a shot or severe trauma to the head, but a
broken leg meant the Biter lost his balance and fell down to one knee, and
within a couple of seconds, his head was lying next to the rest of his body.

Gladwell was going about his task in grim silence. Stab,
slash, cut, kick. Turn to face the next Biter. Kick him down, slash across the
neck, axe across the top of the head. His arms were moving as if of their own
will, and Alice was watching every single kill, every spray of blood, every
decapitated head.

Finally, Jones whispered, 'It's done. There's no more
coming.'

There were bodies and body parts scattered all around them,
and they were all drenched in the blood of the enemies they had slain. Alice
had not said a single word, not cried out once. She could feel her father as he
breathed hard through the exertions of the battle, she could feel his shoulders
move as he swung his arms and she could feel the sweat that rolled down his
neck as she clung to him. She could feel the wetness of the blood that had
sprayed onto her face when her daddy had cut a Biter's head off.

Gladwell lowered his hands down by his side, his shoulders
burning. He spoke in a hoarse whisper.