Chapter 3, The old man
More time passed, decisions weighed heavily upon me. Sue wanted to move, to find help for Ellie who grew paler by the day and whose cough grew into a spectre more threatening than any cadaver. I wanted to go and find help also, but there was nowhere to go, after seeing the world fall to pieces I could not responsibly believe that it had sewn itself back together in such a short space of time.
Everyday I scanned the radio waves, finding nothing but that strange station with the question repeated over and over, mixed in with occasional bursts of manic laughter and the sound of blade on blade. I kept that discovery of the station to myself, it seemed the kind of revelation that would only add to the worry.
My sons were restless. They bickered, the fought for attention, they fought to prove themselves despite having already done so many, many times. We were all restless. It exacts a heavy toll when the totality of your life comes down to sitting around waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I took to ranging, further and further afield, I found a boat moored nearby, I rowed around the lake, as much to vent the some pent up frustration as to explore. Time was running out...
Lungs were burning, old lungs which had seen better days many years ago.
Then, about a week after the fight with the freak of the many arms I went on a wide range over the hills to see what I could see, I took Mac with me, usually I took Zachary but my younger son was becoming jealous, besides, he need to learn what was out there just as much as his older sibling. It was high summer and the green and pleasant land had become just that, bathed in light and teeming with life.
The trees were the cadavers of nature, except they had the good grace to die and decay away before being resurrected in a different form and a different time, unlike the victims of the Deathwalker Virus, dead who did not know they were so, who clung to life with lifeless fingers, driven by a dark purpose that even they did not know.
Despite the heat and the sun I could not help but note the hazy field in the sky, a grey tinge to the glorious blue of the before times. I'd watched plenty of documentaries and disaster movies which talked about a nuclear winter, but a nightmare described and not witnessed is a nightmare that is hard to recognise for what it is. Is this as they had described? Would this be the last summer as the heavens slowly filled with the ash and dust of the world. I had no idea, it could go on the list of such.
Stretched and stringy muscles filled with acid. He was not built for this kind of punishment. But he must keep going. He must survive for just a few moments more, because each moment is valuable, though moment is a footstep which exacts a heavy toll on the life span of he who runs.
I didn't know it when I got up this morning but today would be the day when an event would come to pass. Life is not a straight line, life is a memory which we are forgetting even as we live it. Events occur which sent us spinning this way and that, they are not so much stepping stones, for they trip us as often as they aid us along the way.
Walking along with Mac I was reminded of many walks which we'd taken when he was a young boy, I used to take them out alone sometimes for I wanted my children to know that though we were whole as a family, each of them had my love and my time as individuals. As we gazed over the Lake District national park I caught hold of such a thread of recollection, I closed my eyes and followed it back in time, I breathed deep the warm air of the Summer and I almost forgot, I came so close to peace, then I heard the cry for help and the horror descended, the grey film of dust that hung above us choked off the blue sky of memory.
From what have I escaped? I have traded one nightmare for another. My heart beats as if to deafen me. Ah, and I am done, the last of my strength fades from me. Even as I collapse down into the shelter of the shade I can hear their slavering maws coming for me. But alas, it seems I have a few moments more to treasure, for a few rays of determined light do pierce down through the ceiling of the trees, and through them I see the living, a man and a boy, a father and a son.
We are insane. This is a very bad move. The arrogant part of me thinks that we are driven by nobility, some desire to preserve life. The realistic part of me knows that I am doing this out of combination of bloodlust and desperation. The anger which was unleashed during Greg's demise has not abated, it rests sometimes but it has been born and will be denied life by no will that I possess. Also, you never know who you might end up saving in this kind of world.
There are about a dozen cadavers in all bearing down on the old man who has collapsed into a sweating gasping heap on the floor. It is a group that we would normally have hidden from, too big to handle with just the two of us. What kind of idiot would endanger his son like this?
“Circle around, hit them from behind, don't put yourself in the middle” I shout to Mac as we rush towards the scene of unfolding violence. The seconds are whizzing by with unseemly haste. I am saddened to see that we will not be in time to fully save the old man's life, one of the cadavers has already reached him and has sunk its teeth into the flesh of the old timers calf. There is a weak scream in response, judging from the condition of the victim the bite will only serve to hasten the inevitable conclusion, but perhaps we can buy him a few more breaths.
Mrs Robinson had an old hatchet for chopping wood which judging from the rust on it when I found had not been used for many years. But after some vigorous cleaning and my developing skill with a whetstone it was now a razor sharp implement of cadaver destruction. In my left hand it complimented the old faithful machete in my right very nicely indeed. The dance began.
It was cooler here in the shade of the trees which covered the foothills around Windermere, though I think the goosebumps are very little to do with the temperature. The first cadaver I took was busy chewing on pieces of the old man's leg to notice me, not that it would have defended itself if it had, they were empty of any intellect that might pertain to a desire for self preservation.
The hatchet took off half of its head, my exultation was brief for I was now surrounded by a sea of growls and outstretched arms. In such a remote area it was odd to see this many cadavers gathered together in the wild. Some had thick grey fingers and short stubby nails, others had long sharp nails which had once held pretty pictures and an array of garish colours.
I slashed here and there like a madman, they painted me with blood so dark that it was more black then red. They lost hands and arms but they still shuffled in. I would equate fighting cadavers to what it must be like to fight a maddened dog which has moved beyond the ability to feel pain. Attacks to the knees, the groin, the chest, these are largely ineffective, a heart that does not beat will not burst with enthusiasm for causing death in its host.
Taking the head, destroying the brain is the only way to ensure victory. But in these circumstances, with eleven of the things crowded around me, I take what I can get. Severed fingers can no longer claw at me, the kneecaps shorn off by the sweeping arcs of my machete cause their owners to at least fall to the floor where they are forced to crawl towards their prey.
Despite my furious slashing I can still feel my will being undone. I trip over the old man who I've almost forgotten about behind me. The shadows of the cadavers loom over me, mixing in the shade of the trees which loom over us all, looking down from their lofty boughs in revulsion at the bloody mortal madness that has become this world.
Then he is there, my son. Mac favours hammers. He has two, salvaged from Mrs Robinsons old tool box, the tools had once belonged to her husband Reg, who had used them to tend to the home of his lady wife, and more often than not fix damage to his model boats which he sailed on the lake in his retirement. They passed from him to her and now they had passed to my son who used them for a very different but still entirely worthwhile purpose.
We were not warriors before, but have become so through necessity, I have seen him practising this deadly dance in the garden, now implemented with devastating effect. For a few moments I lay in awe at my boys martial prowess. Cadaver heads explode like me
lons, steel claws crush long dead skulls, pulling them apart as if they were eggshells. But he is in amongst them and is in need of my help. I surge to my feet with blades in hand, together we paint the woodland red, gore and grey matter splatter across the trunks of trees who have never seen such vile slaughter in all their long years of looking down upon the savagery of nature.
It is over quick enough, the maws have been sated in their lust by the blood of their own bodies, they will not feast again, they will join the earth as they were meant to. I look at Mac, once I have assessed him from head to toe for any hint of a bite or scratch then I allow the pride to show in my smile. “Well done” he returns the smile and the compliment with a nod of recognition at my own violent endeavours.
Then I remember the old man, the purpose of our heroism. He is of an age, which would explain why such slow shuffling enemies had been able to keep up with him. Where he had come from I could not guess, his clothes were soiled tatters, flecked with as much dirt as blood.
“Can you hear me?” I ask him. He is struggling to breath and I fear it unlikely that he has the energy for words. I roll him onto his back with his head resting on my knees, I give him some water from my canteen before questioning him again.
“Does that feel better?” Wrong question. I cannot think why but asking him that seems to have terrified him, what little strength he has left is wasted as he thrashes on the floor. I shush and calm him as best as I can. I look up at Mac. A look of acknowledgement passes between us, this man is at the end of his path. But as his breaths become shallow and intermittent he manages once last interaction with the world. The old man reaches up a calloused hand to my head and pulls it closer to him.
He smells almost as bad as the decayed ones, his defeat at the harshness of the world is embedded in every bloody contour of his old wrinkled face. With my own face but inches from his own he whispers his last words, words which struggle to escape him, words which threaten to be carried away without a recipient even by the calm air on a day like this. “Ravensburg, the hospital at Ravensburg, it is...”
Whatever it is I will not find out from him. The sentence remains unfinished. The last breath and the last words rattle from him entwined in one another and never to reveal what may have come after.
We did not bury the body, nor did we set it alight for we had not the tools to dig or burn. We left him there, leaning against the trunk of an old oak tree, there he may lay still, or maybe he is walking by now. The fate of the old man's corpse is less of a concern to me than his final words, as we walk home in silence I dwell upon them, examining them from this way and that.
Back at out requisitioned homestead Sue can tell that something is amiss, as if the blood on our clothes is not enough of a give away the darkness in our eyes speaks volumes. But I have not the time for lengthy explanations, I ask the family to gather around the kitchen table. As Mac regales them with the story of what happened I am hunting through the pages of Mrs Robinsons old map of the UK.
They are so gathered and as Mac finishes his recollections I stride into the room. Zaks eyes are brown like mine, Mac has the green gaze of her mother, but it is to my blue eyed girl that I look, my pale Ellie, wrapped up in one of Mrs Robinsons hand sewn blankets, it is for her that this must be done. I put that map book down on the table and point at a circled place upon the old yellowed pages. “We are going to Ravensburg”