Authors: Amy Cross
"Wakey wakey!" Fenroc shouts, standing on the edge of the precipice and watching as Sam's body disappears into the darkness below. "Rise and shine, old chap! I've sent you a spot of breakfast. Now it's time to wake up and start a new world!"
The Last Gardener
Prologue
Nine months ago
"I don't get it!" Nadia shouts through the letterbox. "What's wrong, Sam? Are you losing your fucking mind?"
Sitting on the stairs, just out of sight, Sam tries to keep her cool. The last thing she wanted was a big argument, and she's spent the past few weeks carefully avoiding Nadia's calls and emails. Just when she'd let her guard down, however, Nadia's come storming up to the front door, demanding to know what's wrong, and there's no force in the world stronger than a pissed-off, self-righteously angry Nadia.
Sighing, Sam sits back and places a hand on her swollen belly.
"Did I do something?" Nadia calls out. "Fuck, Sam, I don't remember what I said last time we were out, but if I said or did anything that pissed you off, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean it!" She waits for an answer. "Can't you at least tell me? I wanna apologize properly! Come on, bitch, let me in!"
Sam opens her mouth to reply, but no words come out. She doesn't want an argument. All she wants is to be left alone so she can deal with the problem alone. She doesn't need help or sympathy or compassion. She knows Nadia would fuss around her and make her go to see a doctor, and while she knows that technically those are the things she
should
be doing, she's determined to make her own way instead.
"I miss you," Nadia continues. "No-one else is so up for a night out. Everyone's getting boring, Sam. They're getting older and doing stupid shit like getting jobs and families. Please don't be like that! I don't get why you're suddenly treating me like I'm some kind of piece of crap on the sole of your shoe!"
With tears in her eyes, Sam tries to stay calm. She and Nadia have been friends for years, and the last thing she wants is to make her best friend feel as if she's done something wrong. The problem, however, is that Sam can't bear to start talking about her pregnancy. Ever since she found out about the baby, she's been careful to avoid bumping into anyone she knows. She spends her days sitting around in her late grandmother's apartment, watching daytime TV, and then she goes out at night to get food, waddling through the dark streets. Although she doesn't have much money left, she figures she's just about got enough to last until the baby's born, and then...
And then...
And then she doesn't have a clue what she's going to do.
"Fine!" Nadia shouts, sounding annoyed. "I know you're in there, Sam! I know you can hear me! Whatever's up with you, I don't give a shit! Fuck you!" She pauses. "I thought we were friends. That's all. I thought you could talk to me. Obviously you think you've met a bunch of better people and you don't want anything to do with me anymore. That's your call. I'm not gonna beg you for anything. Just remember that I don't let people treat me like shit, okay? I won't forget this, so don't come crawling back and asking to hang out again. This is it. We're not friends anymore. Got it?"
Sam takes a deep breath as tears rolls down her cheeks.
"Fuck it," Nadia mutters.
Sitting alone, Sam listens as Nadia walks away from the front door.
After a few minutes, once she's certain that Nadia isn't lurking in the corridor, Sam hauls herself up and makes her way to the bathroom. Switching on the light, she does the same thing she does most evenings: she stares at herself in the mirror. The baby bump is barely showing, but Nadia would definitely notice. Soon, the bump'll get bigger and bigger, until eventually it'll be impossible to ignore. She's been wearing baggy clothes for the past few weeks, but she knows that Nadia would pick up on the bump immediately. In order to get through this crisis, she figures she needs to push her best friend away.
Although she knows she should go and see a doctor, Sam figures she can just get through the pregnancy alone. A doctor would just check on the baby and confirm that it's doing okay, but Sam's come to the conclusion that she can carry and give birth to the kid all by herself. After all, she figures, people managed to have babies in the old days, before expensive hospitals and midwives and all that stuff. Running her hand over the bump again, she tries to imagine a child growing inside her body, but the whole thing just seems so insane. A doctor wouldn't be able to help, so she's told herself that she can just get on with things and deal with the baby when it arrives. She doesn't need anyone. She doesn't need people treating her like she's delicate, and she doesn't need baby-showers or prams or any of that stuff. All she needs to do is get through the next few months, and then when the baby comes, she'll...
She pauses, still staring at her reflection, and that's when she makes the decision she's been avoiding for so long.
She'll give the baby away.
Although the idea breaks her heart, she knows it's the only right thing to do. She doesn't feel ready to be a mother, and she knows she lacks the kind of support network that she'd need in order to raise the child. She has no family, and now that Nadia's gone she doesn't really have any proper friends. On top of that, she has no money, no job, no prospects, and soon she won't even have a home. The thought of trying to bring a child into the world is overwhelming, and she figures that if she gives it away, someone else will take care of its upbringing. The last thing she wants to do is to ruin a child's life, and she's certain there must be plenty of families who'd love to adopt her child.
"Okay," she says firmly, taking a deep breath and trying to stop crying. "Okay, it's settled." She stares at her belly. "I promise, you're better off without me."
After a moment, she bursts into loud, wailing sobs. Unable to control herself, she slowly slides down the wall until she's sitting on the bathroom floor, at which point she puts her head in her hands and finally stops trying to keep it all in. Despite all her plans and schemes, at this particular moments she feels as if she's falling, tumbling out of control with no hope of ever being saved. There's a part of her that thinks she should have let Nadia see the truth, and asked her for help, but at the same time she's desperate to avoid having people judge her and look down on her for letting herself get pregnant so easily. With tears streaming from her eyes, she eventually lets out a cry of frustration, but there's no-one around to listen. All she can do is focus on the future, and hope that one day things will get better, for her
and
for the baby.
Chapter One
Today
As she falls, she tries to focus on the good things: the times when she was happy; the times when she was with people she loved; the times before her life fell apart. She thinks of her parents, and of the holidays they spent together before the day, many years ago, when a car accident took them away forever. She thinks of the early years living with her grandparents, when her grandfather used to play with her and encourage her to think big. And then she runs out of good things and she's left with just the bad things: life alone with her grandmother after her grandfather died; being bullied at school; finally making friends with Nadia, only to end up being drawn into a non-stop riot of drinking and partying. Random guys. Sketchy evenings. The pregnancy.
Eventually, all these messy memories start to crystallize into one form, one smiling little face.
Henry.
When she lands, she lands hard, slamming into the bottom of the pit with such speed that she's momentarily knocked unconscious. As she rolls down a sharp incline, she barely has time to notice that she's landed not on rock or stone, but on something soft and warm. Eventually she comes to a halt in what seems to be some kind of crease or fold, but she doesn't have the energy to get up. At first, she assumes she must be dead. She figures there's no way she could possibly have survived a knife to the brain followed by a big fall, but eventually she realizes that her lungs are still working, her heart is still beating, and her head is still hurting.
Beneath her, the ground is starting to move.
She doesn't notice it at first. Not really. With a knife in her brain, she can barely notice anything at all. After a moment, however, she realizes that everything around her seems to be in motion, as if she's on top of some vast leathery ocean. She tries to get to her feet, but her legs are weak and her mind is fractured. Every time she opens her eyes, all she sees are jagged shards of bright light, piercing her vision and flickering in the center of her consciousness. It's as if she can see the knife in the center of her brain, slicing through her mind.
The worst part is, she can actually feel the blade. She barely had a chance to see how big it was before Fenroc drove it into her head, but she knows that the tip has gone deep, maybe even to the center. When she landed, she felt the cold steel shudder, pressing against her brain and sending flashes and impulses racing through her mind. Almost without thinking, she reaches up and fumbles to find the handle, and soon her fingers are wrapped around the base of the knife, ready to pull it out.
"Three," she whispers, her voice trembling, "two, one..."
She waits, but she can't bring herself to do it.
"Okay," she continues, taking a deep breath. "Three... two... one..."
Again she waits, but again she finds that she can't quite go all the way.
She pauses, taking another deep breath. There's blood in her mouth, and in her nose. She knows she should be dead already, but she's not about to give up without a fight.
"Three," she says again, "two... one..."
Slowly, she starts to pull the knife from her head.
The pain is like an electric shock, lighting up her body and dropping her instantly to the ground. She gasps as she lets go of the knife's handle and, for what feels like an eternity, she cries out while the pain flashes like lightning through her head. Finally, as the pain starts to die down, she realizes that her options are severely limited. Whatever else happens, she knows she can't afford to try that again. At least, she reminds herself, she probably doesn't have long left. She still expects to die at any moment.
Blinking a couple of times, she sees the same jagged patterns as before, but this time she forces herself to focus. After a moment, the lights seems to shift and change, and finally she can see properly again. There's nothing around her except darkness, but when she looks up she realizes she can see the edge of the precipice, high above. She must have fallen almost a hundred meters, which means she was only saved by a soft landing. Reaching down, she tries to work out what she's kneeling against, and slowly she realizes that it feels like leather, or some other kind of skin, or maybe something smoother, like plastic or rubber. No, it's skin. She's sure it feels like skin.
Seconds later, her hands brush against something else. It feels like... hair...
Wobbling slightly, she tries to get to her feet. She keeps expecting her life to end; any second, the tip of the knife could cause one final injury that brings everything to a crashing halt. So far, however, she seems to be managing to stay conscious, despite the massive damage that she knows the blade must have caused. She spits out some more blood and takes another deep breath, trying to force herself to remain calm. Her mind is reeling, but all she can think about is the fact that she might still have a chance to escape this torment, and there's a single name still resting on her lips.
"Henry," she whispers, turning around in the dark. It's only the second time she's ever said the name out loud, even though she's heard it a thousand times in her mind.
Taking a couple of steps forward, she feels the soft ground starting to give way a little. It's almost as if she's walking on some huge mass of rubber. She can't help thinking that the knife in her head must be preventing her from properly understanding what's happened. After all, a metal blade has to be causing
some
kind of interruption, so she figures she'd have a much better idea if her brain hadn't, basically, been divided in two. Still, she tries to force herself to make the necessary connections, to understand what's happening and to come up with some kind of plan. She knows she doesn't have long, and even though everything seems to be going to hell, she's determined to keep pushing until the very last moment, until...
Suddenly an idea starts to take form in her mind. She stops dead in her tracks, and although she wants to dismiss such a thought, she eventually realizes that it's the only possible explanation. Leaning down, she runs her hands on the ground again, and as her hands brush through a few more long, thick hairs, she understands
exactly
where she's landed and why the surface seems to be slowly rising and falling beneath her feet.
Starting to tremble with fear, she takes a step back as she realizes that she's standing directly on the Devil's huge chest.
Chapter Two
"They can't hurt us, right?" Anna shouts, staring out the window and watching as more and more dead bodies rise from their graves and start approaching the cottage. "They're... They're just dead people. I mean, they're moving so slowly, they're falling apart, they can't do anything to us, they can't..."
She pauses, watching as some of the bodies lumber closer to the cottage. With rotten flesh and dead, hollow eyes, they make for a terrifying sight under the moonlight, and the horror is only exacerbated by the fact that Anna recognizes some of them from her childhood. There's Davey, the kid who fell off his bike into the path of a lorry, and there's Mrs. Hawthorne, who died mid-tombola at the village fete, and there's even Uncle Bernie, still missing the part of his head that was crushed by a welding machine.
"They can't do anything," she continues, as if she's trying to convince herself. "Can they?"
Still trying to get to his feet, Sparky lets out a grunt of pain.
"Say something!" Anna shouts again, starting to panic as she turns to him. "Tell me they can't hurt us!"
"They can't hurt us," Sparky replies, finally managing to stand, even though he's unsteady on his feet.
"Is that true?" Anna asks.
"No."
Before Anna can say anything else, there's a banging sound on the door. At the last moment, she notices that the latch is open; she manages to slide it back across just in time, as one of the zombies tries to turn the handle. Moments later, there are more bumps from the other side, as other zombies try to force their way through.
"What do they want?" Anna continues, her voice trembling. "Why are they like this? I mean,
I've
got my normal mind, so why are the rest of them being like this?" She pauses for a moment. "And why did I wake up so much earlier than the rest?"
"That's something I'd like to know too," Sparky says, limping over toward the door. "Watch out!" he shouts, grabbing Anna and pulling her away from the window just as one of the zombies smashes the glass. "When you came back," Sparky continues, "the cemetery was holy ground. Since Fenroc came through the gate, it's been de-sanctified. That explains where they came from, but I still don't know why you were resurrected before the rest. Is there anything different or unusual about you?"
"Like what?" Anna asks defensively.
"You can't just be a normal girl," Sparky continues, staring deep into her eyes. "There has to be something."
"I'm normal," she replies, before turning in horror to watch as three of the zombies try to force their way through the broken window. "I'm the most normal person in the world. I'm not some kind of freak."
"Let's not dwell on such things," Sparky says firmly. "We can work out the details later. Right now, we need to focus on getting out of here."
"We can go down the hatch," Anna points out.
"That's what Fenroc expects us to do," Sparky replies, "and he'll have put something in place to stop us. I've got a better idea, but it's a little tricky." He pauses for a moment, as more zombies start attacking the window. Swarming like mindless drones, they're getting in one another's way as they try to climb into the cottage, but it's clear that they'll get inside sooner rather than later. "There's another way down," Sparky continues. "There's another entrance, and I'm hoping Fenroc doesn't know about it."
"Where?" Anna asks.
"In the mausoleum."
"The mausoleum?" Anna replies, before realizing what he means. "That's
outside
!"
"I
said
it was tricky."
"Are you serious?" Anna shouts. "We can't go out there!"
"They won't attack
you
," Sparky points out. "You're one of them, at least as far as they're concerned. They'll look at you and they won't see you as a threat. They won't go after me, either, because I'm just a stone angel. Basically, you're too dry and I'm too crunchy. They want fresh, live human flesh, which means they're after Sam and the others." He pauses for a moment. "We can just open the door."
"No way!" Anna yells at him.
"Why are you scared of them?" Sparky asks. "They're no different to you."
"They're zombies!" Anna shouts.
Sparky stares at her.
"I'm not a zombie!" she replies, with a hint of uncertainty in her voice. "I'm just a..." She pauses for a moment, as a maggot crawls out of her forehead, takes a quick look around, and then disappears back inside her head. "Wait. I felt that.
Am
I a zombie?"
"Don't forget to bring your arm," Sparky says.
"My arm?" Anna looks over at the kitchen table and sees her dismembered arm resting where she left it. "Is there any point? I mean, once it's off, it can't go back on, can it? Isn't it off forever?"
"We'll worry about that later," Sparky says, undoing the latch and letting the door open. Stepping back, he watches as the zombies push and shove against one another, forcing their way inside and stumbling slowly across the kitchen. Just as Sparky predicted, they start making their way straight for the bathroom. It's as if they're driven mindlessly toward a common target, united by a desire to track down the humans and, as a result, ignoring everything and everyone else.
"I don't like this," Anna whimpers as the zombies shuffle past her. "I don't like this at all!"
"You don't have to like it," Sparky replies. "Come on, we need to get to the mausoleum."
"Excuse me," Anna says, grabbing her dismembered arm before trying to find a way past the line of zombies as they make their way slowly across the kitchen. No matter what she says, however, they all seems to be completely ignoring her. For a moment, Anna's reminded of the days when she used to try cutting past the line at the Christmas sales. "Coming through," she continues hesitantly. "Can I just get by you for a moment?" After a few seconds, she spots another familiar figure among the ranks of the dead. "Mrs. Mayberry!" she shouts out.
Slowly, the rotten old woman turns to face Anna and stares at her for a moment. With her skin having mostly fallen away and maggots wriggling in her eyeballs, she takes a step toward Anna and finally opens her mouth to let out a dark hiss, which immediately attracts the attention of some of the other corpses. Taking a step back, Anna finds half a dozen zombies slowly changing direction and advancing toward her.
"It's okay," she splutters. "Carry on. Ignore me"
Still moving toward her, Mrs. Mayberry reaches out and tries to grab her with a bony, rotten hand. As she does so, the old lady's autopsy scar begins to rupture, and one of her lungs slops out, landing with a splat on the floor.
"Come on!" Sparky shouts, pushing his way past the creatures, grabbing Anna, and dragging her toward the door.
"I thought you said they wouldn't be interested in us!" Anna replies.
"I didn't expect you to start shouting their names at them," he mutters as they get outside. "Some of the fresher ones still have parts of their brains intact."
Turning to look back into the cottage, Anna sees that the creatures seem to have already forgotten her. They're swarming around the bathroom door, trying desperately to find a way through. Even Mrs. Mayberry, who just a few weeks ago was a little old lady who shuffled about town and complained about noisy children, has become part of the horde of undead creatures.
"I went to her funeral," Anna whispers, before spotting another familiar figure in the zombie crowd. "Dean," she whispers, before realizing that her can't hear her. He's just like the rest: mindless and undead.
"They can smell live humans," Sparky explains. "They're driven by a need to consume flesh. It's all very primal, but if they get hold of a living person, they'll tear the body to pieces. They know they don't have long left before their bodies rot and they fall apart."
"They can't get through the door, can they?" Anna replies, turning to him. "Sam's safe down there, right?"
"Of course she's not safe," Sparky says, "but those creatures are the least of her concerns." Still holding Anna by her remaining arm, he leads her across the grass. They have to step around several damaged graves before they finally reach the mausoleum. "I don't suppose you happen to have the key, do you?" he asks.
Anna looks up at the skeletal statue resting on top of the mausoleum. She's noticed it before, of course, but she's never really looked at it properly. Now, with the end of the world potentially taking place all around her, she finds herself staring at the skull's two dark eye sockets, and she can't shake the feeling that deep in those hypnotic black voids, there's some kind of consciousness that's staring back at her. The worst part is that the bony statue seems to have its hand stretched out directly toward Anna, which only serves to remind her that technically she's already dead.
"How much longer do I have?" she asks eventually. "Am I going to fall apart?"
"Stand back," Sparky shouts, as he grabs hold of the door and starts trying to rip it off its hinges.
"What
is
that thing?" Anna mutters, almost spellbound as she continues to stare up at the bony stone face of the mausoleum statue. She wants to look away, but somehow she can't. "It's like it's looking straight at me. It's like it's looking
through
me."
"It might be," Sparky says, as he finally manages to get the door out of the way. "Death is probably a little confused by you, Anna. As far as he's concerned, he should have claimed you long ago. To him, you're an abomination, half alive and half dead, existing in a state of perpetual grace. Things are a little crazy right now, but if everything goes back to normal, you should probably try not to attract his attention."
"That's Death?" Anna asks, still looking at the statue. "You mean the real Death? Here? In Rippon?"
"This next part," Sparky continues, sidestepping the question, “is very dangerous. If you just stay up here, you'll be safe. Well, unless the world ends, in which case you won't be safe anywhere. But there's no need for you to come any further. It's not as if there's much you can do to help. I don't even know if
I
can do anything."
"So what am I supposed to do instead?" Anna asks. "Sit up here and chat with Death while I wait to see if the world's gonna end? Go and hang out with the zombies and compare skin discoloration? There's no point hiding. I might as well be right in the middle of everything."
"As long as you know what you're getting yourself into," Sparky replies, before turning and heading into the mausoleum. "If things get bad, I don't want you to start blaming me."
Following him inside, Anna's immediately shocked to see three cloth-bound bodies suspended from the ceiling, like cocoons trapped in some kind of web. Each of the bodies has dark patches of blood that seem to have soaked through from the eyes and mouth, and Anna can't help but feel as if in some way they might not be quite as dead as they seem. Sure enough, as if to confirm her fears, one of them starts to wriggle, and soon all three are moving.
"Um," she says, staring up in horror. "I think... Dude, I think..."
"Guards," Sparky says calmly from the other end of the mausoleum.
"Guards?"
"Guards," he says again, before leaning down and taking hold of a large stone slab that covers part of the floor. "That's all they are. They were left here to make sure that no unauthorized access was granted to this part of the cemetery. If anyone had found out about the second entrance, there might have been significant problems." Pulling on the slab, he's able to slide it out of the way, revealing an opening that seems to lead deep underground. "The Devil's grave was only supposed to have one entrance, in the cottage, but it's always wise to avoid a system with a single point of failure. Faraday and I decided to create a back-door, so we set up the mausoleum as a kind of defense mechanism. We needed to make sure that no-one could stumble down to the grave."
"You brought them back to life so they could be, like, guard dogs?" Anna says, shocked at such cruelty.
"Are you sure you want to come down with me?" Sparky asks. "I can't guarantee that it'll be pleasant."
"Let's just get this over with," Anna says, taking a deep breath and immediately feeling the air escape through a hole in her rotten neck. Shivering a little at such a strange sensation, she smiles politely before pushing past Sparky and leading the way down the steps that lead into the darkness below the cemetery.