The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Line (5 page)

'He'll be fucked by the time we leave,' Marla said, giggling childishly through her hand. 'That pack might be mine, after all.'

Shane picked it up and launched it towards her. Instinctively, she plucked it from the air about an inch before it hit her in the chest. She almost dropped it as its full weight became apparent.

'Second thoughts,' she said, carefully lowering it to the ground. 'The old man can have it.'

Shane nodded, hoisted his pack onto his shoulder, and said, 'He'll be happy to hear it.'

As he made his way towards the door, his muscles bulging beneath his tee-shirt from the strain of the pack, Marla wondered how serious he had been about the massage.

She couldn't help hoping that he would take her up on it sometime in the near future.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nightfall came with very little in the way of danger. A few lurkers had decided to attempt entry to the museum through the rear-doors, but the weighty Tutankhamen statuette that had been dragged in front of it was enough to keep them out. Shane and Terry had stood watching as the door rattled in its frame; the woeful groans from the creatures on the other side were quite satisfying to listen to.

Forget your whale-music and those stupid CDs of thunderstorms you could buy down at the local hippie-shop. Lurker-speak was enough to lull anyone into a peaceful sleep, so long as there was no chance of it penetrating the safety of a double-fortified door and a solid-bronze Egyptian Pharaoh.

When the lurkers finally ceded, Terry and Shane made their way back to the dinosaur-room to find Marla and River asleep beneath a silk, ceremonial textile. It was definitely the most expensive bedding either of them had slept beneath, though now it was nothing more than an old object, something with no classification other than the fact it had probably been used to dry one of the apostles' sodden feet.

'I don't know how they can sleep,' Terry whispered, the jealousy in his voice was by no means noxious.

'It's good that they are,' Shane said, opening a bottle of water and sipping. 'We've got a tough few days ahead of us.'

Terry sighed. 'I know it was partly my idea,' he said, 'but do you think we're doing the right thing? I mean, going out there, chasing after those planes?'

Shane swallowed a mouthful of water. 'That's not really the question you need to be asking. The real dilemma is, what good is staying here, exhausting these few little rations? I never did see myself as starving to death.'

Shane was right. It wasn't an option. 'We could go without them,' he said, though he had to force it out as if it was too taboo to even suggest.

Shane didn't react; he'd already thought about it. It would be a lot easier to leave the girls safe in the museum, come back for them later with help, if they ever found it. 'It's a one-way trip,' he finally said. 'You know as well as I do that we're not coming back this way. It doesn't matter if we find what we're looking for. It doesn't matter if those jets are parked up on some military runway where there are other survivors. We head south, we stay south.'

'That's what I thought,' Terry said. He glanced across the room to where Marla and River slept soundly with the sepia blanket draped across both of them. 'Not that they would let us entertain such a thing.'

Shane shook his head in dissent. 'Not a chance. Marla would hunt us down and kick both of our asses, and I don't think River is one with whom to fuck, either.'

Terry smiled at the thought of being chased by the girls. 'No, I'd rather take my chances with the fucking
lurkers
,' he said, scratching at his silver beard with roughly-gnawed fingernails.

'River seems to like you,' Shane said as he screwed the lid back onto his water-bottle.

'
Like
me. She practically cut me up this afternoon. Even my bruises have got bruises. I'll tell you, she's feisty. I don't know how she got to be so good, but I almost had a coronary just trying to keep up with her.'

'Blame her dad,' Shane said. 'If he were still alive, I think we'd owe him some gratitude. I don't know who needs who more.'

'I'm just glad she's on our side,' Terry said, considering the alternatives. He hated himself for picturing River as one of the undead, but he had to wonder whether the girl would remain just as knowledgeable about fighting if she were a lurker. Some of them certainly showed signs of past-life recollection. Only a few days ago, Terry had watched a traffic-cop stamp a bloody palm on a Ford Focus windscreen. Instead of a ticket, all that was left behind was a crimson smear, but it only further fuelled his belief that, though the lurkers were just empty shells, their brains retained certain attributes from before they became that way. If River had been a lurker when they ran across her, they would have stood very little chance of getting by her without losing limbs, or far worse . . .

'You're a man of faith,' Shane said, as if from nowhere.

Terry shrugged. 'What's left of it. Look, Shane, I'm just an old fart who believed in God for so long, it's too late for me to change my mind. Don't want to be an old fart that wasted his entire life on something that wasn't real.'

'But you still believe?' It wasn't a question, not really.

'I still
have
to.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out his bible. Jabbing at the cover, the gilt-edged cross that took up the majority of the book's front, he said, 'I don't want to be the guy to admit that I was wrong. If I do that, I might as well have been reading
Lord Of The Rings
all this time. So I
accept
. I accept that this is what I have to believe in. When we were in that prison, this little thing got me through some tough times. Did I always believe that what I was reading was true, that it all happened verbatim? No. Did I trust myself not to take it too literally and take from it the message instead? You're damn
right
I did.' He held the book aloft; Shane couldn't stop staring at the golden cross on its cover. It was hypnotising. 'So whether I believe is not important. What's important is that without this, I would have died in that cell years before you even came along, before
any
of this shit happened. Divinity comes in many forms, Shane Bridge.' He lowered the bible, signalling an end to his little speech.

Shane wanted to believe. He had never been overly religious, but things had changed him; Megan being turned had changed him.

Really, what he wanted to ask was if Terry thought there was an afterlife, somewhere for expired souls to go. If Heaven was more than just some fucking idiot's idea of a practical joke. How all of those ghost pictures and Youtube videos could possibly be fake or just trickery of the light.

There had to be some truth to it all. Shane had heard once that all myths stem from somewhere, that mermaids , and Bigfoot, and El-Chupacabra had to, in some form, have existed. People didn't just sit down, draw a few pictures and start a rumour – at least not before the age of the internet. Those ancient mythologies were based on something, and ghosts, spirits, the afterlife and Heaven, in all its glory, were as real as those bastard dead things howling up at the moon right now.

'I'm going to get some rest upstairs,' Shane said, tossing his water-bottle into the air and catching it. 'See how many are out there.'

It didn't matter, really. The ones that were out there now would have moved on by morning, and there could be a helluva lot less or a shit-load more by first light.

'See you in the morning.' Terry gave Shane a three-finger salute that would have been comical under other circumstances.

Shane headed up, hoping that sleep would grab him and pull him down into its welcome embrace.

He could only hope.

CHAPTER SIX

The stench of putrefaction lingering in the air didn't bother the lurkers shambling about out front. It was a fetor that belonged to them, a result of their rotting flesh and gaping wounds. Several of them were gathered around the half-devoured corpse of an unfortunate white-tailed deer. It had stumbled into the horde at just after midnight, and by one it had been reduced to a hollowed-out shape that would have been indeterminable if it wasn't for the unmistakeable architecture of its antlers up near the faceless remains. One of the lurkers had been stupid enough to impale its face upon the jagged horns, but not enough to kill it. It had spent the majority of the morning flailing around, trying to unhook its eye-socket from the right antler and now, with one false move, it accidentally slipped and fell forward onto the horn, which penetrated right through to the calamitous lurker's brain and put an end to its misery.

The lurkers eating from the deer's wide-open belly didn't even flinch; they were too busy feasting on strings of intestines that had been pulled out. Everything else was gone, but the intestine took a lot longer to get through.

The sun was above the trees now and by the end of the day it would melt the remaining slush and ice from the previous week's blizzard. It was cold, but nowhere near as inclement as it had been. Trees dripped as the thaw continued; occasionally, an icicle would drop from the edge of the museum-roof and shatter on the path below. Lurkers would turn in hungry anticipation, then return to whatever aimless business they were embroiled in, disappointed that the promise of fresh flesh had been so short-lived.

Birds chirruped up in their nests; it was almost as if they were aware of their own private sanctuary amongst the branches. Lurkers couldn't climb trees, and even if they were able to, birds simply wouldn't cut it as a satisfactory meal. Sure, if one was injured or fell out of its nest, a creature would waste no time at all in chawing through its tiny broken form, but they wouldn't actively pursue a bird for its flesh.

Bigger animals, like the white-tailed deer strewn out on the museum lawn, were a different story altogether. Lurker numbers were integral to the hunt, and ten or a dozen of them was more than enough to corner and mortally wound a large beast.

And once they had it down, it was pretty much all over.

The horde didn't see the attack coming; the ones that were eating were way too busy to notice the four people emerging from the double-doors at the front of the museum.

River, who had been psyching herself up all morning for the battle, came charging out like a bull from a trap. The deer would have taken some solace in the knowledge that its devourers had been dispatched so violently. Despite the speed with which she moved, she didn't make a sound; yet another quirk as a result of such intense training which paid off. She sliced the machete through the air; the first head flew off, slammed against a tree on the other side of the railings surrounding the lawn. The lurker's decapitated body remained on its knees, bloody entrails slipping through its fingers. The two creatures feeding alongside the first victim were so engrossed in their repast that neither of them saw the blade as it removed their own heads. It all happened in less than five seconds, and three twitching bodies slumped to the side.

The one impaled upon the deer's horn had been fortunate.

'
River
,' Shane half-whispered, half-snapped. She turned to find him staring
through
her, his face the epitome of displeased. He pointed to his side, which was where he wanted her to be. She rolled her eyes before heading back to the rest of the group, who were shuffling furtively against the museum's façade. When she reached them, Shane whispered, 'What was that? That wasn't what we talked about this morning.'

The conversation had been composed of rules, lots of rules that River found both patronising and, in all honesty, boring. 'Sorry,' she said. 'I like deer.'

Shane shook his head. 'No more. We need to stay as quiet as possible. We're lucky your little stunt didn't draw any more of them.'

River smiled; it was an adolescent grin that melted Shane's heart. It was impossible to stay angry at her, though she would probably give him ample opportunity to try over the coming days.

Terry was at the front of the group. The samurai-sword which River had been teaching him to use was strapped to his waist , making him look like one of the seven samurai's grandfathers, though not in a bad way. River had told Shane that the “old guy” was getting quite good with it, which allayed Shane's initial apprehensions of Terry using something so dangerous. He no longer feared Terry fortuitously swinging the blade only to sever something on his own body, though he was keeping a safe distance for the time being, in case he was mistaken.

There were only two lurkers in sight. One – a female who was, for reasons unknown, naked – was scratching at the bark of a tree; her bloodied fingers had all but stripped the crust from the entire left side of the oak. God knows how long she had been doing it. The main thing was: she wasn't a threat.

The second one – a male who could easily have been a successful banker or stockbroker before the infection took hold, at least that's what his shirt and still-attached tie would suggest – was picking the bones of a corpse that hadn't seen flesh for some time. The skeletal remains were in the middle of the path leading across to the main road; they would have stepped right over it when they arrived at the museum only a week earlier. The snow had utterly concealed it from them, and the banker/stockbroker who was going at it, fruitlessly, had probably only stumbled across it for the first time this morning.

A lot of things were going to turn up now that the snow had dissipated.

Shane untucked the pistol from his belt and pulled the hammer back.

'Is that wise?'

It was Marla. She signalled to the pistol.

Shane glared across to where the smartly-dressed lurker – apart from the blood and meaty chunks clinging to its collar – chewed at a femur. 'We need to get past it,' Shane told her, keeping his voice at a bare minimum. 'The road's that way, and I don't think we ought to be trying to outrun it.'