Remains of the Dead (2 page)

Unable to escape the dismay overwhelming his consciousness, Cahz purposefully switched back to his military mindset, preoccupying himself with the practical aspects of his mission.

He toggled his radio. “Angel, what’s your situation?”

“Secure and in position,” Angel answered in her thick Russian accent. “I have eyes on Bate and field of fire is good.”

“Bates, how’s your position?” Cahz asked.

Bates’ voice crackled over the short range radio, “A-okay. Area is clear. Capture net is set. Activity is high but I’m ready when you are.”

Cahz re-examined the terrain below. Raggedy figures shambled their way towards his man on the ground.

There were more than he’d expected. Normally their quarry was thinly spread out from their aimless wanderings, but here they looked more concentrated.

Still, it might make things go quicker
, Cahz thought as he cast his gaze out at the dead city.

He craned round, trying to take in as much of the terrain as possible when he caught the eye of the last member of his team. Cannon was a giant of a man and had to cock his head slightly to fit in the cabin. His broad muscular chest wouldn’t have looked out of place on a power lifter. And now he was wedged into the back of the tiny chopper.

At least I get to ride shotgun
, Cahz reminded himself.

Even though the other two team members were on the ground, Cannon filled the back seats. His only relief was the half hour or so when they set up and executed the collection. As soon as Bates and Angel were back in the cabin Cannon spent his time crushed up against the door.

The whole nine hours or so the round trip took, Cannon and Idris wouldn’t leave their seats.

“Your biggest risk,” Bates had once joked, “is getting deep vein thrombosis from sitting on your ass.”

Cannon had quipped back, “And your biggest risk is me.”

“I don’t know why you insist on coming along,” Cahz had commented long ago. “Let French or one of the Marines come in country.”

Cannon had pouted ever so slightly in disdain, “And who’d look after your ass?”

That was all the dissuasion there would be. Cannon just sat there quietly waiting for his commander to take the lead.

It always amazed Cahz that even in this shattered world the logistics corps had produced body armour large enough to fit his frame. It had proven impossible to supply one small part for a helicopter and yet extra-extra large tactical vests were common fare.

“How’s it look to you?” Cahz asked.

“Looks risky boss,” Cannon said, “but that’s what they pay us for.”

Cahz gave a chortle. “When did you last get paid? You got a Cayman Island account I don’t know about?”

Cannon gave a wry smile.

“Quicker we get this done the quicker we go home,” Cahz said, turning back round. He shifted the carbine and fidgeted to get back into a semi-comfortable position before pulling his mission map from a pouch on his body armour.

He stared at the map. The paper was crisp and new but it might as well be a century’s old piece of parchment. It may have been printed only six or seven years ago but the land below bore little resemblance. The sweeping roads were broken and incomplete, the sprawling cities crumbling to rubble and the place names lost to human awareness.

The city below looked anything but familiar underneath the grime and feral vegetation—a terrain more hostile and more deadly than any map could indicate.

After the loss of a chopper and its crew the ship’s captain had argued for reducing the complement on specimen runs. The captain had wanted to reduce risk exposure. In theory a collection crew could consist of just two men. The pilot was a given but the capture net only needed one man to set it. Maybe the team size would have been cut if it hadn’t been for Cahz’s arguments. The extra manpower was an insurance policy in case of the unexpected. If anything did go wrong out here Cahz knew the only chance for survival was to work as a team.

Like the map the mission plan was not the reality. On paper things weren’t as messy.

Cahz toggled his radio again. “Okay people, let’s make this clean and quick. Bates, call them in.”

He let his thumb slip off the send button and looked out over the crumbling city.

Things were certainly a mess out here.

* * *

“Get up, Ali!”

Ali was wrenched out of his sleep. He swallowed deep in his parched throat, trying to move the sticky mucus from his mouth.

People were shouting and rushing around. Doors slamming and lights blazing.

The warehouse was alive with the sounds of panic.

Ali opened his eyes but the bright lights made him blink and turn away.

More tentatively Ali peaked out from behind his eyelids, hand against his brow fending off the worst of the light. The hollering in the warehouse pressed in and he felt the panic gash a hole through his grogginess.

The main lights were on and Ali knew that was significant. The trickle of power the survivors got from their rooftop solar cells wasn’t enough to feed the lights. Power must be getting drawn from the batteries. He knew that electricity was precious. To use it for the lights meant there’d be no power left for the microwave oven or the hot plate or any of the other atavistic appliances they relied upon.

He unzipped his sleeping bag and tussled with its embrace to get his feet free. As he kicked it loose he glanced around. His fellow inmates were bounding to their feet. They shouted and clamoured but Ali couldn’t hear the tell-tale moans or see any shambling figures.

“Where?!” Ali barked out, pulling himself upright.

“On the roof!” Ryan, dressed in just his underwear, called back as he disappeared towards the stairwell.

Ali was standing now, alert and solid. Straight backed, adrenaline coursing through him, scanning the room for danger. Ali was a big man but he wasn’t a youth like Ryan. His body wasn’t as taut as the younger man’s but he was still powerful. He knew that even after months of emaciation he could still put up a fight against the ghouls.

Ali looked at the stair door as it swung shut and mumbled to himself, “How could they be on the roof?”

If the zombies outside ever broke through he’d anticipated one of the fire doors or the main entrance would be the source. The roof didn’t make sense. How could zombies get up there?

With a flicker of insight Ali surmised the roof must be where his fellow survivors were retreating. Glancing round, there was no immediate threat. He looked down at his bare feet. He had been sleeping in a vest and threadbare underpants. He knew his long black beard would be wild and unruly, his hair just as untamed. He knew he looked a sight. Hastily, Ali pulled his jeans on and slipped his feet into his shoes.

“Where are they coming from?” George asked no one in particular as he bumbled through the door.

“Don’t know,” Elspeth admitted, scurrying after him, cradling a baby in her arms.

The warehouse was strangely still. He was the last of the group to leave for the roof and now he stood alone in the threatening silence. As he pulled his thick and well worn shirt on, Ali listened for the moans of the zombies drawing closer. All he could hear were the footfalls in the stairwell and beyond that...

Ail focused carefully and tuned in. There it was like an unending incantation. The incessant droning of a thousand coarse voices conveyed in the air as background noise.

The whole situation confused him. There were no hordes of undead pressing into the warehouse, yet his companions had run off to the roof.

Still no less confused, Ali left his bedside and made his way up. He was perplexed by what was going on but no longer fearful of imminent attack.

His head pounded. He wasn’t sure if it was the startled wakening or the lack of coffee. His knees creaked almost as loudly as the heavy fire door he barged open to access the stairs. His big frame, greatly reduced by the starvation rations, had taken its toll on his joints. There had been a pallet of cod liver oil tablets in the warehouse and for years he’d taken a capsule every day. One day he’d opened a tub to find the gelatine had spoiled, leaving the contents to ooze to the bottom of the container. That marked the end of his self-medication and his joints had started aching ever the more.

With each step his joints eased off. It was always hard for Ali to get going in the morning these days. He would shuffle around much like the undead outside until his ligaments and muscles had eased off.

Only in his mid-forties and Ali felt that every morning he awoke he was on the steep slope to old age. The cold metal handrail made his stiff fingers tingle unpleasantly. He let out a shallow cough that echoed off the rough brick walls in the empty stairwell.

If I feel so bad just waking up
, he thought,
how must those dead fucks outside feel?

Ali spoke to the empty walls as he hauled himself onto the last step, “Maybe that’s why you moan.”

At the top of the stairs he swung the door open, flooding the stairwell with natural light. It took a few seconds to adjust to the brightness and when he did he saw the whole group there.

Sarah, her light brown hair whipping in the wind, stood shoulder to shoulder with Ryan at the edge of the roof. Ryan looked cold. He stood there bare footed, wearing only his flimsy boxer shorts. Slightly behind them was Nathan, arms folded close to his chest and appearing as cold as Ryan despite wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Behind them Ray stood with the elf-like eight year old Jennifer, now the second youngest of the group since Samantha’s baby had been born. At the back George and Elspeth stood not far from the door.

Elspeth cradled her granddaughter in her arms. Her dull grey hair and the weathered lines around her eyes and lips seemed to disappear when she held the girl. She held her tight to her chest the way she’d held the infant’s dying mother not so long ago. No doubt these past few months had been the hardest she’d faced since settling here, the newborn girl a constant link with the daughter she had lost.

It struck Ali that the sweet infant in her arms must stir a conflicting bundle of emotions for her—the joy of a granddaughter and a reminder of the cost of her birth.

Elspeth’s daughter, Samantha, had hooked up with Ryan. Ali had never used any romantic terms to define their relationship. Ryan, Samantha, Sarah and Nathan were all a similar age. It was inevitable than in such close proximity, with youthful hormones brewing, that there would be a pairing. Nathan had hit on Sarah, unsuccessfully as far as Ali could tell, but Ryan and Samantha had come together. He had heard them in the echoing warehouse even when they’d tried to conceal their trysts. The warehouse was big but there were few private spots.

“What’s going on, George?” Ali asked the old man next to him.

“Sarah’s seen a helicopter.” George flashed a smile that showed he’d taken the time to put in his false teeth.

“There’s music playing,” Elspeth helpfully added.

Ali was taken aback. “A helicopter?”

He cocked his head slightly and listened. He took a few paces further onto the roof and stopped by the water butts. His long black beard bobbed in the gusts of wind. With his thick hands he stroked the hair tame. As he stood there holding the point of his beard he picked up the music drifting on the wind.

The army of corpses below also heard it. From their besieging positions around the warehouse, some of the undead had started wandering towards the noise.

Nathan stood slightly hunched against the cold. He asked, “So what do we do? Light a signal fire or something?”

“They might think it was just an accidental fire,” Ryan pointed out.

Nathan turned round, running his gaze over the rest of the roof. “Maybe we could use the solar panels like signal mirrors?”

“They’re not looking for us—they’re not looking for
anyone
,” Sarah said, her voice carrying a note of dismay. “They’re not expecting anyone left alive.”

“So what are they here for?” Ray asked, speaking up for the first time.

Ray was a logical man. Happier working out problems on paper than engaging in the practicalities. Ali remembered when they’d first arrived here Ray had spent the best part of a week cataloguing the pallets of supplies within.

With his index finger Ray shoved his glasses further up his nose, as much a habit as a necessity. “If they’re scavengers they’re shit out of luck,” he said. “There’s nothing left. We’ve picked this place clean.”

“Wasn’t much to pick,” Nathan complained.

Ryan shrugged his heavyset shoulders. “So how do we signal them?”

Sarah was stolid. “We don’t. We go to them.”

“
Go to them
, girl?” George’s overly loud interjection startled Ali. The power behind that old voice was stronger than Ali had heard in some time. George shook his head, nodding in the direction of the music. “We don’t even know who they are.”

“He’s got a point,” Ryan agreed. “They could be worse than those things.”

“They might shoot us as soon as help us,” Elspeth added.

Sarah turned her attention away from the ruined city to look at her comrades. “It’s been years since we’ve seen any marauders and none of them were in helicopters. Anyway, they’re advertising their presence with the music. It’s like they want to cause a commotion to shake the place up.” Sarah paused and pressed her tongue to her bottom lip in contemplation. Finally she said, “No. This has been our only chance of escape in years and it may be our last.”

“Sarah, think about it,” George said, taking a half step forward, “We’re safe in here.” With an arm carpeted in grey hair he gestured back at the warehouse door. “The moment we open the shutters there’ll be no turning back. They’ll be in here and there won’t be no way of stoppin’ ‘em.”

Sarah shook her head slightly. “How much longer will we be safe in here?”

No one answered. No one wanted to confront the truth.

Ali wasn’t the smartest of men but he’d picked up on whispered conversations over the past couple of months. He’d watched as the gaunt bespectacled man had scurried around the warehouse with his clipboard in hand.

“Tell them straight, Ray,” Sarah demanded, breaking the silence.