Richard agreed. He banked right, taking them back toward the ocean. Michael looked out at the endless expanse of water again—the deceptive stillness, the sunlight glinting off the gently rolling waves—and wished they were anywhere but here. He wanted to be home again.
* * *
They set down in the next decent-sized port they reached, Richard skilfully maneuvering the helicopter and landing in a small patch of space on the open roof of a multistory car park, not wanting to risk leaving the precious machine down at ground level. Harry continued to look around as they descended, ticking boxes on his mental checklist: compact but decent-sized shopping area—check; easily accessible marinas with plenty of boats still moored there—check; a safe, remote place to land—check; no vast crowds of bodies baying for their blood—check.
“Nice day for it,” he said as he got out of the helicopter. It was cold, but nowhere near as harsh as it had been recently. He stretched his back, yawned, then did up his jacket, thankful for the several layers of thin, insulated sports clothing he was wearing underneath. The air quality wasn’t too bad up here. Not as good as they’d been used to on the island, but bearable nonetheless. He caught the odd trace of the immediately familiar stench of death they’d all become used to, but it was less prevalent than he remembered. The sea breeze carried it away before it outstayed its welcome.
Michael walked to the edge of the car park and peered over the wall, down into what, he presumed, had been the town’s main shopping street. He’d once spent a couple of days hiding out on the roof of a car park like this with Emma. That had been right at the beginning of their nightmare—one of the worst days of the worst times, just after they’d lost their farmhouse hideout and their friend Carl Henshawe. He tried not to dwell on those memories. They’d been completely lost and directionless back then, not knowing how they were going to survive or even if they wanted to.
“Everything okay, Mike?” Cooper asked, disturbing his thoughts. He was glad of the interruption.
“Fine,” he replied. “Just checking out the locals.”
Cooper looked down. There was some stilted movement in the streets below, but nothing in comparison to what they’d been used to. There were just a few of the dead left here now, still restless and animated but moving with very little speed.
“Instead of just looking we could actually go down there and get this done,” Harry sarcastically suggested. Michael looked back over his shoulder and saw the other man leaning up against the helicopter, casually cleaning his sword with a piece of cloth. The crazy bugger had made no secret of the fact he’d been itching for a chance to use it again. Michael had often seen him standing in the middle of a field just outside Danver’s Lye—the small village at the heart of Cormansey life—practising his swordsmanship like a frustrated martial arts master without any pupils. Jack Baxter liked to wind Harry up, asking him if he cut hedges as well, because his needed a trim.
“What do we reckon, then?” Richard asked, returning from the far side of the car park roof, his hands buried deep in his pockets. “There’s a decent-looking marina back there. Should find something suitable there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Donna agreed. “Find ourselves a couple of boats, get them loaded up, then get out of here and get back home.”
* * *
The five of them walked together down the access ramp which led down to ground level, pausing only to clamber over the wreck of a plum-colored Mini with a black-and-white-checked roof which had crashed into a barrier and blocked the way, midway down the corkscrew-like road. Michael rounded the final corner and stepped out onto the street, his pulse racing, feeling an uncomfortably familiar unease he’d not felt since he was last on the mainland. He gripped a crowbar tight, ready to fight, anticipating an attack. Nothing immediately came at him, but the tension didn’t reduce. This didn’t feel right. The living were conditioned to expect a battle with the dead now.
“Here we go,” Harry said, quickening his pace and taking the lead, sword in hand. Up ahead, at he far end of a long, straight street otherwise devoid of all movement, a single corpse approached. He walked toward it purposefully but stopped a short distance away, feeling both curious and disgusted. The deterioration of the dead was remarkable.
In the months since this had all begun, everyone who’d survived had seen more than their fair share of horrific sights. Harry himself remembered several—like the time he’d found a still-moving man who’d been virtually cut in two by a broken plate-glass window, or that child he’d found trapped under the roof of an overturned car, its legs crushed but its arms still thrashing. Those grotesque memories paled in comparison to the creature stumbling toward him now. From some angles he questioned whether or not it had ever been human, such was the extent of its deformity and decay. This was the stuff of nightmares, like nothing he’d ever seen before.
The reanimation of any of the dead was a bizarre impossibility, but it beggared belief that this thing was still able to keep moving. The clothing had been stripped from the bottom half of its body, leaving its spindly legs looking like brittle tree branches and its shrivelled penis and balls exposed. The color of the dead man’s flesh was almost uniformly dark: greens and browns save for a few lighter blotches. The skin had been worn from the bottom of his feet because he no longer lifted them, rather he just dragged them along. Harry could see the bones of the foul thing’s toes sticking out through what was left of the skin in the same way he could feel his own big toe poking through a hole in his sock. He wished the dead man would stop, because the closer he got, the more sickening detail was revealed and the more grotesque he became. His face was horrific. His nose had been eaten away, and decay and insect infestations had combined to alter the shape of his drooling mouth so it now looked like an uneven zigzag rip; a ghastly caricature of a long-gone smile. One of his eyes was completely missing, a hint of a trail of fibers and blood on his discolored cheek the only clue it had ever been there. His other eye still moved slightly, looking around but never seeming to settle on anything in particular, just doing enough to leave Harry in no doubt that the corpse knew he was there. The man’s skull was covered in bald patches where much of his hair had simply fallen away in gooey clumps. The few remaining greasy strands were glued to his pock-marked scalp.
Harry took a step forward, but then stopped again, unnerved. He could see several more creatures in the distance now. While their appearance unsettled him, he forced himself to remember that that as foul as they were, they seemed to be mere shadows now of the vicious enemy he and the others had faced previously.
Without warning, the dead man took another step forward and lunged at Harry, who shoved him away with a single gloved hand, surprised by its lack of strength and weight. The corpse staggered back, then slowly came forward again. Each movement took it an age. Harry stood his ground, counting the seconds before it was close enough to attack again. Christ, he thought, we don’t even have to run from these things any longer. We can walk away fast enough to escape.
“What’s the hold up?” Cooper shouted.
“They’re completely fucked,” he yelled back. On hearing Harry’s voice, the dead man became even more animated, desperately trying to move faster. Harry had had enough. He lifted his sword and flashed iting in front of the corpse at neck height. Its head dropped from its shoulders and hit the ground with a wet thump. The rest of the man’s diseased frame appeared about to take a final step forward, but it simply collapsed at Harry’s feet. Normally he’d have immediately charged at the other corpses still moving closer, but he didn’t bother. He was filled with a sudden newfound confidence.