Deader Lands (After the Fall Book 4) Read online

  Deader Lands

  After the Fall 4

  by Stephen Cross

  Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Cross

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  By the same author, find out how the apocalypse began in

  SURVIVING THE FALL

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KBPYRFM

  How England died. The story of the first few days of the zombie apocalypse, of those who lived, and those who died.

  Surviving the Fall collects eight non-stop terror tales in one action packed volume, which together tell of the panic filled dawn of a new, undead world.

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KBPYRFM

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 1

  Harriet woke with a start, the sound of the opening zip of her tent mixing with her dreams. She gasped as a zombie pulled open the nylon flaps.

  But zombies couldn’t use zips.

  “Come on Harriet, Adam, we need to go,” said the zombie.

  They couldn’t speak either.

  Harriet rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and shook off the sleep from her mind. It was Arthur. The whites of his eyes shone bright from within his black skin. “Come on, we must be quick,” he said in his thick French accent, urgency creeping into his voice.

  Harriet didn’t ask any questions. When one of them said run, they ran, when one said hide, they hid. Trust was what had kept the trio alive in the past three months since the Fall.

  “Come on Adam,” she whispered to the young ten year old boy in the sleeping bag beside hers. The ruffles of his blond hair shook like a small furry animal before his face emerged from the bag. He always slept with his head in the bag. He said he didn’t want to see the shadows at night.

  “What is it?” he asked, also in a whisper. It was the default volume once darkness came.

  “Arthur says we have to go.”

  Harriet climbed out of the tent. Arthur was rolling up his sleeping bag and tent into his backpack.

  “Do we have time?” she said.

  Arthur nodded. “I think so. Let’s be quick.”

  Adam climbed out of the tent and the three of them went about taking down the tents and stowing their belongings into their backpacks. They practised this every few days and had it down to two minutes. It seemed like an age in the night.

  The moon was half a silver disk in the sky, like a clipped coin at the bottom of a dark pool. They had camped by a tall hedge in a large field, their dark tents invisible from more than ten feet away. Across the other side of the wide field, Harriet saw motion; dull shapes only just visible due to their erratic, clumsy movements. Maybe ten, twenty. A mid sized group, on its way to being a hoard, being truly dangerous.

  Arthur, rushing to help Harriet pack, suddenly fell, all six foot four of him. He let out a cry as he hit the ground.

  Tentative moans from across the field soaked into the night.

  “They’ve seen us,” said Adam. He didn’t stop packing though. He merely looked up and, satisfied they were still far enough away, continued to roll up his sleeping bag.

  “Are you ok?” said Harriet, rushing over to Arthur’s side. She made a show of helping him up, but in reality she had no chance of shifting his bulky frame.

  “I’m good,” he said, looking to the other side of the field. “I tripped on something, banged my head. Let’s hurry.”

  Harriet noticed a thin trail of blood dripping from just beyond his hairline. But he had said he was ok, she took him on his word.

  “Ok ready,” said Adam, hoisting his small backpack onto his shoulders. “We’ve got about a minute.”

  Harriet looked across the field. The shadows were stumbling slowly towards them, their moaning more pronounced now they saw their prey.

  Harriet stuffed her sleeping bag into her backpack. Arthur finished rolling up the tent and the two of them pressed it in on top of the sleeping bag.

  Arthur put the backpack on his wide shoulders.

  “Let’s go,” said Adam, his voice still bereft of fear or anxiety. Could it be that his young malleable brain had accepted this world as normal by now? Three months being all it took for his mind to accept that this was the world, and these were the things one had to do to survive. No need for fear, for anxiety. It’s just the same as going to school, climbing a tree, riding a bike. Scary at first, but once done a few times, perfectly acceptable and normal.

  She knew he missed his Mum and Dad though. Especially his Dad.

  The three of them dipped down into the ditch that ran along side the hedge and crawled through the gap into the next field.

  They set off at a light jog, the frustrated moans of the group of undead fading into the night, back into the dreams of the sleeping.

  Safe for now.

  Chapter 2

  The following day they woke late. Harriet had no watch, but she knew it was late; there was no dew on the grass, and the sun was peaking over a nearby tree line.

  She climbed out of the tent and stretched. A gentle breeze waved across the field they had camped in. There had been no more zombie alerts, either during her or Arthur’s second watch. He was sitting over a small fire, cooking the bacon they had found in a farmhouse a few days ago. It had been hard, but Arthur assured them cured meat lasted a lot longer than they promised on the packets.

  “It’ll last for months,” he said.

  The smell was enticing. Adam stuck his head out of the tent and sniffed in the air.

  “You think the dead heads will be after that?” said Adam. “Got to be tastier than eating someone’s brain.”

  Arthur and Harriet laughed. She gave Adam a quick kiss. “Morning. Did you sleep ok?”

  He nodded.

  “Don’t worry,” said Arthur. “We’ll be quick. It’s ready now, just a few rashers each.”

  They sat around and bit into the bacon. It was devoured within less than a minute. Just two small and crusty rashers each.

  “You sure this is ok? We’re not going to get poisoned?” asked Adam.

  “No problem,” said Arthur. “In my fifteen years as a nurse I have never seen anyone with acute bacon poisoning.” He wiped down their plastic plates.

  “Let’s pack up,” said Harriet. “I think we should go.” That strange anxiety she had only noticed since the Fall was back again. It gnawed slowly at the back of her brain.

  No-one questioned her. Arthur packed the cooking equipment back in his rucksack. Harriet and Adam began their practised routine of putting the tent down.

  Harriet cast anxious looks into the forest at the far edge of the field. A solid brown and green wall, promising darkness beyond. Everything seemed so silent in this new world. The birds still tweeted and the wind still blew through the trees, but her mind had so much space to move. The narcissistic electronica that had sucked so much of her attention with alerts and likes and notifications was gone. The traffic that hummed in the background like a constant mechanical artery was silent. No planes buzzing gently above. No shouts of nearby children and joyful cries of families - the only one she missed.

  In i
ts space, the real world crept in. The rustling of small animals with their squeaks and scurries. She could feel the age of trees, just by resting against their trunks. She knew what the weather was going to do for the next few days without need for a TV report or an app update; she just knew.

  And she knew, or thought she knew, when they were close, the undead. A twitching in the depth of her spine, like her soul was kicking out in fear. Her antenna.

  Packed up, ready to go.

  “Let’s go this way,” she said, pointing away from the wood. It was back the way they had come last night, but the others didn’t mind. Backtracking had become a way of life. What else did they have to do anyway, but walk, from one place to the next? Their final destination was still a good hundred or so miles away. Weeks, yet.

  A few hours later, they crossed a hedge into a flat overgrown field. They stood on top of a gentle slope. About two acres in size, the field dropped to a modern farmhouse, next to a large dark wood barn.

  “Targets,” said Adam, a smile on his face.

  Along the span of the top of the field, were a number of circular thick disks resting on what looked like artist’s easels. The circles were painted in decreasing concentric circles in bright alternating white, red and blue.

  Archery targets.

  “You ever fired a bow?” said Arthur.

  “‘Course,” said Adam. “Let’s go have a look. Maybe we can find some.”

  “Ok,” said Arthur, “but not so fast.” He smiled at Harriet, and she rolled her eyes, also smiling. It was a constant battle to keep Adam from charging into every situation, his enthusiasm not dulled by the end of the world.

  They approached slowly along the side of the field. There was no movement from the house, but that didn’t mean anything. There could be someone hiding, watching. Zombies could be jammed behind a door, trapped in a vehicle. Everywhere new required a careful, furtive approach, like a feral cat stealing food from inside a stranger’s cat flap.

  They reached the barn first. A large construction with an open side. Bales of hay lined the inside walls. On the walls hung more targets along with bows and arrows of all lengths, widths and construction.

  “Bingo!” said Adam, his eyes lighting up.

  “Careful,” said Harriet in hushed tones as he ran ahead into the barn.

  “You go and watch him, I’ll have a look around out here,” said Arthur turning and casting a steady eye over the farmhouse, only twenty or so yards away.

  Harriet followed Adam into the barn. He was picking up a number of bows from the wall, testing their weight and studying their construction with what looked like an expert eye.

  “Did you used to do archery with your Dad?” asked Harriet. She was careful when to mention Adam’s Dad, sometimes he would get upset. Although, she had a gut feel for when he wanted to talk about him. This felt like one of those times.

  Adam smiled, “Yeah, all the time. Started about a year ago. He was really good, he learnt in the army. He says I’m good too. Wow, look at this one!” He put down the long thin bow he was holding and lifted a stubby short one off the wall. To Harriet’s eyes it didn’t look very impressive.

  “That’s a pretty small bow?” she said.

  “It’s a cross bow. Way more powerful than the others. Fire this at a dead head and it will totally nail its brain.”

  It was a good idea, though Harriet. All they had at the moment where hammers, a baseball bat, and an empty gun they’d salvaged during the escape from the military base. She felt nervous when Adam got close to the zombies. If he could shoot them from afar, all the better.

  “Can you fire that one?”

  Adam nodded his head, “I’ve fired them a few times. I’m better with a bow, but some practice with this, and no problem.”

  “Are there any arrows for it?” said Harriet sitting on a bale of hay.

  “They’re called bolts, for crossbows. There’s a few,” he said, digging around in a large bucket at the base of the wall. “Awesome, there’s a few proper sharp ones here.”

  Adam started to pull at the cross bow, fixing the bolt into the shaft.

  “Are you doing that right?” said Harriet, visions of the bolt embedding itself in his stomach.

  Adam rolled his eyes in that infuriatingly lovely way he did. “I’ve told you Harriet, I’ve done this before.”

  She wasn’t listening any more. Her head was cocked to the side, like she was a dog trying to catch the sound of a scurrying rabbit. Something was twitching deep inside her. Her antenna was signalling. Gently, but even so it was there.

  “Come with me Adam,” she said.

  “Ok, but first I need to-”

  “Now, Adam.” She held out her hand.

  Adam stopped what he was doing, stared at her for a second and then, without any further back chat took her hand tightly, the loaded bow and a few spare bolts in his other hand.

  Harriet led them out into a wide courtyard that sat in between the barn and the farmhouse. All was still, as quiet as before.

  The farmhouse door was open. Arthur.

  “Come on,” said Harriet. She jogged towards the house with Adam following her.

  She went in through the door that led directly into the kitchen. Not the wooden beamed kitsch farmhouse kitchen she had expected, but a bright modern expensive kitchen, all shiny appliances with a marble topped island in the centre. New units, seemingly repellent to dust and dirt sat like a showroom. Very poor taste, thought Harriet, no character at all.

  “Where’s Arthur?” whispered Adam.

  “I don’t know,” said Harriet. “Let’s go find him.”

  “Should we call him?”

  “No, we don’t know who’s here.”

  Adam nodded, satisfied.

  They walked through the kitchen to the far door and exited into a wide hall, again, decorated in modern tones, with abstract art thrown on the wall in haphazard confusion. Two closed doors, and a flight of stairs.

  “Where now?” said Adam. “How about you search down here, and I’ll take upstairs.”

  “Let’s stick together,” she said.

  “Ok,” said Adam. She was sure she saw some relief on his face behind the bluster.

  There was a thump from upstairs.

  Harriet and Adam looked at each other, and Adam motioned upstairs. They took the stairs softly, but even so a few of the cream carpeted stairs let out a creak as they passed over them.

  They climbed to a well lit landing, a large window at the end of a long and wide hall letting in all the light the day had to offer. Numerous doors led off the landing, before it turned to the right, just by the window.

  The sound of footsteps. Heavy footsteps reduced to damp thuds on the thick carpet. Harriet’s stomach tightened.

  She was expecting, hoping, to see Arthur appear at the end of the hall. She had no idea what she was going to do if it wasn’t him. Should they run back down the stairs, duck into one of the rooms?

  Adam clasped her hand.

  The footsteps became louder, paused, and then, to Harriet’s great relief, Arthur appeared.

  Surprise, and then amusement passed over his face. “Did I scare you?”

  Harriet let out a deep breath that she didn’t realise she had been holding, and it turned into a laugh. “I think it was my brain that scared me, not you.”

  “I wasn’t scared,” said Adam. “I thought it was you.”

  Arthur laughed. A deep booming laugh from the depths of his huge lungs. He didn’t see the hand behind him.

  A rotten hand, with hanging tendrils of flesh flapping like grotesque reptiles.

  “Arthur!” Harriet managed to shout.

  The laughter stopped as the hand touched his shoulder. His eyes opened wide and he turned to face the zombie. The rest of it appeared. A well dressed zombie in a tight fitting suit, its head sunken, nearly green, the eyes popping out in excitement. The suit, however, still presented well.

  Arthur’s hand carrying his sledgehammer was too c
lose for a good swing, but he still tried, only connecting with a weak body shot. The zombie absorbed the shot and fell towards Arthur.

  The two of them struggled, with Arthur falling back to the opposite wall, trying to avoid the gnashing jaws of the zombie.

  The large window behind the fighting pair shattered into a million pieces. No ceremony, just a sudden crack and it was collapsing in a shower of shards with the sound of a celestial car crash.

  “Shit,” said a small voice beside Harriet. She turned to see Adam fighting with his crossbow, desperately struggling to load the next bolt.

  Arthur and the zombie fell backwards. Arthur let out a heavy cry as his head hit the exposed brick of the wall. A picture frame above him fell and hit his face, obscuring his vision. His hands flailed aimlessly, striking the zombie, trying to find the head, trying to grip it.

  The zombie’s teeth chattered like a machine, gnashing at Arthur’s hands, getting so close.

  Harriet ran towards them.

  “Out of the way!” shouted Adam.

  Harriet instinctively threw herself to the left of the corridor.

  A deep thunk from behind signalled the letting of the bolt. A swish in the air passed inches from her face.

  A damp thud from the end of the landing and the zombie was suddenly standing by the hole in the smashed window, a thick crossbow bolt protruding from the side of its ear like an overzealous bluetooth device. Its teeth chattered once, twice, stopped, and then the zombie fell backwards, out of the window.

  Harriet’s twitching antenna stopped.

  She took a deep breath, scanning both ends of the landing, trying to check her men were ok.

  Arthur stood up straight, throwing the picture frame out the window. He glanced outside, then turned back in and smiled at Adam.

  Adam was breathing fast, his eyes wide open. He met Arthur and Harriet’s eyes in turn. “I’ll get them in one shot next time. I promise.”

  Arthur walked over and lifted Adam up. He gave him a quick bear hug, then held him out, so their heads were level. “Don’t be silly, I knew fine well you would get that dead head.” He beamed Adam a huge smile.