Not Dead Yet: A British Zombie Apocalypse Series - Books 1-3, page 75
It was gloomy, the stone slabs that led down were scratchy and the cobwebs large and annoying. Once or twice I had to bob beneath lintels but it was only a short descent revealing exactly what one might have expected. Several wooden chairs were stacked one on top of the other, tools lay on a workbench and yet more wood was heaped in the corner. Sawdust lay scattered about the floor and the air smelled of the same. No, it wasn’t what I expected, some out of the way hole to store your broken rubbish but a workshop and closer inspection of the chairs and benches and even a bookshelf showed they’d been competently crafted.
The cellar extended into the gloom and possibly encompassed the entire length of the abode. Further down more lanterns hung from the wall. I ignited them and was gifted a better sight of another worktable and the boxes stacked close. Opening a lid, the familiar and pleasant aroma of cheese wafted out and I removed one of the wheels and sank my teeth into the goodness. There was more. Strung up from the beams were about three dozen legs of curing venison and about double that in sausages. Against the far wall was an extensive wine rack and of course, I removed a bottle at random, tugged out the cork and closed my eyes as I allowed the heavenly scent to furnish my senses.
A crash from above interrupted the pleasant diversion and so I rushed back through the cellar, up the steps and into the pantry where I yanked open the door to find Baird had blundered through the crates stacked outside his room. He thrashed about, kicking utensils and hard tack across the floor as he struggled to stand, his countenance twisted with rage upon seeing me yet ultimately, being unable to gain a purchase to do anything about it. Still, even squatting on his arse, Baird cut an impressive figure as a zombie, high ranking as he was, with a VC to boot and a wooden spoon still grasped in a clam.
Naturally, by this point, I was already dragging sacks of coal within my fastness, even as the major managed to scramble to his feet. He took a half step towards the pantry and stopped, which was when the panicked screams came from the other room.
“Captain? Help me!” Savage screeched. There were all kinds of crashes, thuds and smacks coming from in there, which had to have been either Willie, Metcalfe or both.
Well, lad, you were welcome to them and I was edging backwards and closing the door on myself before I even had chance to see which direction Baird decided to take, though if he had any sense, he’d be going after the easier pickings.
After setting the door in its hinge, I stacked the weighty sacks one on top of the other, which damn near snagged my back reaching up but even I was satisfied by my hurried precautions. Aye, they’d do.
And whilst Savage battled for his life mere feet above where I stretched out and relaxed, what better way was there to pass the time than to feast on meat, cheese and getting tanked up on wine?
The whole world hurt.
The room, wherever it was, was dark save for a brace of flickering lamps that cast strange shapes upon the walls and stung my eyes something fiendish. I was lying supine across four chairs that ached my ribs terribly. The floor was strewn with cheese paper, meat skins and one, two, three wine bottles. A fourth and fifth were smashed to bits and the red fluid had spread out across the ground to mingle with what had to be vomit. My bluejacket was also soiled by projectile, as was the shirt beneath and several buttons were missing. The workbench had been defaced and one of the legs had been sawn off.
Oh, but my aching head.
I knew not how I came to be here or for how long but it was an eerie place and one not suitable for the likes of Captain Jack Strapper. Still, it was some time later when I could finally bring myself to stir, clinging to the wall as I staggered to find the door. There were steps, of all things, high and made from stone which forced a sigh as I braced for the strain. I dragged myself up, only to find a wall of carefully stacked coal for some ungodly reason blocking the exit. How drunk must I have been to do such a thing?
Carefully removing them one by one would require too much effort to even contemplate. Instead, I tugged at the strap of one of the supporting sacks and had to deal with the head pain when the whole lot cascaded down the steps. I strained to open the door and then the daylight assaulted my eyes with a stinging venom.
When finally my eyes were able to tolerate the sun pouring in through the skylight it was easier to appreciate the beautiful day. From above the cottage birds tweeted their song, though the stench that came drifting through my sinuses I couldn’t explain, thick and mucid like a festering animal carcass left to rot behind the sofa.
There were other questions, the silence for one and the disorder, and it was only whilst I staggered around heaps of broken boxes and obscene amounts of soggy hard tack crawling with maggots scattered all across the foyer did certain details begin to take form in my mind.
Baird had died, which was a shame, he’d been a likeable chap, and there was the faintest recollection of digging a hole. I kicked a quantity of clutter away from the front door and yanked it inwards, the fresh air struck and I immediately vomited across the threshold. My mouth tasted like sin. More wine wouldn’t be unwelcome.
I held onto the wall as I continued into the house. The bedroom was empty, though the bed had been slept in. “Have they left me here alone?” It came out as a croak and hurt my throat. They wouldn’t have left me, would they?
The floorboards groaned and seemed to move as I staggered forth towards the main room. “Ugh, the mess.” Strewn papers, tables tipped over, broken chairs, pots, pans, an arm or two, as well as other appendages. I progressed with caution now, plainly something was not quite right, as evidenced by the pair of boots protruding from beneath a blanket in the corner. The bones of what had to be a hare sat discarded on a large platter. Had I eaten that?
The door slammed shut and as I spun around the draught wafted against my face.
“You!”
Oh, shit.
I lunged back and almost slipped on the floor that was slick with blood and piss and faeces. “Mister Savage…what…?” Ah, now I remembered.
But this was not the same Savage, for sure, something was missing or perhaps there was now something there that had never before been present. Yes, indeed that’s exactly what it was, and it took the form of the kitchen cabinet, that great, almighty large heap of carpentry, which during my convalescence had been dragged into position on the inside of the door, no doubt lying in wait for this very moment and then I watched, horror-stricken, as Savage thrust his shoulder into the width of the thing and, inch by inch, the huge bulk of the object shifted and scraped across the floor to slowly block the only way out. “I’m still alive, you bastard! Happy to see me?” His dark and evil eyes were clamped on me the whole time, his sabre close by and no doubt primed should I lose my mind and decide to act, which was unlikely, his teeth clenching from the strain. Bigad but he was shifting the thing without the use of his legs. It was a monster of a unit, doubtless handcrafted by the aspiring carpenter of an owner himself, reached from floor to roof and was wider than a horse’s rump. While I’d been aslumber, he’d somehow, and for some wicked reason, managed to move it all the way from the other side of the room and now that I had chance to take in the particulars it was clear to see where the high decorative display had been bust off on account of the low beam dividing kitchen and lounge, half the plaster had also been wrenched away from where it had been bolted to the wall. The fellow had been to some trouble, aye. Well, it was beginning to look like Mister Savage had a bone to pick with me and there was not a damned thing I could do about it. He persisted to groan with each thrust as the sweat poured from his countenance and the demon did not stop until the far end of the cabinet butted against the wall to confine me in the room with him.
I’d long since assumed my customary begging position, even though I knew it to be worthless. “I…I…I think the homeowner may take issue with this.”
“Bugger the homeowner.” Sabre clutched in mitt, he adeptly hauled himself in front of the cabinet as though that weren’t obstacle enough. “You absolute bastard!” He roared, sounding the same as always which, under the circumstances, came as a strange relief. “They come back to life?”
I gave him a funny look and almost laughed, which just went to show how surreal my life had become. “And you’re blaming me for that now?”
Savage had seriously let himself go, with his naked, twisted legs wrapped in filthy bloodstained rags, wearing only a shirt that was so damp it almost seemed to phase in with his skin.
In the kitchen, Metcalfe was sprawled out with a fire iron through the eyeball and that I was only noticing such a thing now spoke volumes of my terror.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He inched forwards.
I shifted back. “To the blazes with it, man, where the bloody hell did you think they came from?”
He wasn’t heeding my words and the gap in his teeth showed as he hauled himself closer. “You didn’t come. I called for help and you didn’t come.” Seriously, what had the rogue been expecting? “I’ll kill you.” And then he transferred the blade to his mouth so he could better haul himself closer.
Well, this was the last thing I wanted, I can tell you, and in a half moment of drunken madness I was on my feet and even considered stealthily skirting around the cripple, which could only hope to buy me a moment’s respite, but regardless, his body was large, his sword arm a very real threat and one slip in my still inebriated state would mean the end of Old Strappy. Just as bad, to the left my retreat was impeded by an upturned table and then I saw that the bastard had condensed the room for just this very purpose, to trap me the moment I entered like a cat cornered by a mouse, deviously channelling my retreat to precisely where he wanted me, into the small space at the back of the room. There was a little viable space to the right, where Willie’s entrails were spilling out from beneath a tablecloth, though I suspected he wanted me to go in that direction and would be ready to move fast, cutting me off. Backwards was the only real option though I’d eventually run out of room there, to be cornered anyway.
He was grinning and laughing, so sure was he that I was trapped, which indeed I was, weaponless and all … all, that is, but for one thing and if ever there was a moment to reach for my trusty crop, it was now, by Jove.
He slowly pulled himself closer, keen to prolong his premeditated moment of vengeance, as well as my misery, and as I unleashed the leather he snorted with contempt, little did he know. Well, sir, if there was a man alive more adept at causing damage with a small coil of leather atop a flexible shaft of wrapped bamboo then I’d sure like to meet him and quicker than he could react, the first stinging cut was across his cheek, leaving the only colour upon his blood drained flesh.
He jerked back, such was his surprise. “You bastard.”
I struck him again and again and again, aiming for his face, neck, shoulders but to my complete horror, he took each thrash almost with immunity, squished up his face and came at me again with renewed vigour.
I struck him again, this time on the ear, but during my retreat, I stumbled over Baird’s boot and came to land beside my brother’s severed head.
I thumped the ground hard and immediately something scrambled across the floor and before I could react, Savage had leapt upon me, his hand pinning my head down by the hair as he removed the blade from his mouth with t’other.
“You didn’t tell me,” he growled into my face with breath like a coal miner’s armpit.
I glared up wide-eyed, expecting at any moment to have my throat sliced. “I…I’m s…sorry, I forgot.”
His face clenched up. “How can you forget someone resurrecting after they die?” It was a strange thing to call it.
My entire body was trembling beneath his. “Oh, I don’t know, I just did, how was I to know you didn’t know about it? Everybody does.”
“Because I hadn’t seen daylight since the day I met you lot, you bastard,” that evil sabre point was wickedly close to my eye, “but don’t worry, I’ll just have to kill you twice and by Jove, I will.”
“No, please, don’t,” I descended into palpitations and prayed he’d take pity, useless as I knew it to be.
“What…” he sniffed, “have you been…” he sniffed again, “you smell like a vineyard.”
“Oh, no, please.”
“Were you really getting blasted in your little hiding place while I was here in a desperate fight for my very life?”
I shook my head and hummed, tried not to breathe.
“You were!” Even now he was good, best keep mum about the grub. “It’s too much, I declare, too much, everything, I’ve had enough of it, you, the injustice, it won’t do, England, Britannia, this whole bloody world. It ends right now, you understand me?” The blade trembled above my eye, any second he’d bring it down. So why didn’t he? “You ruined it, you bastard.”
“What?” I hissed.
“After everything I’ve been through, all I wanted was to prove myself to the nation, show I wasn’t the evil man they all made me out to be, that I loved my country and maybe, just maybe have the chance of a life after it.” He thumped me on the shoulder almost with every word. “My friend Lord Marlborough fought to help me, gave me the perfect opportunity, a chance at redemption I didn’t deserve. I wanted to do it for him as well, for the risks he took on my behalf. One day I’d have paid him back for all the kindness but then you showed up and ruined it. You ruined everything. Why, why, why?” He was thumping me again and again on the chest and arms but it was the point, always the point I couldn’t take my eye off. “I even had a woman all set up, my woman, and my life was set to be perfect, even after everything, and you ruined it.” He thumped me again. “You fucking ruined it all.”
I might have made one forlorn effort at turning the situation around but he had an obscene hold on my hair and I suspected the moment I raised my head from the ground that point would be casually inserted through my eye socket. No, had it been one of the others then maybe I’d have had a chance, but not Savage, from the start he’d been the best of the lot of them, even now, without the use of his legs, he was a damned sight better than I and in recognition of my wretched situation, all I could do was whimper pathetically.
The blade’s edge moved down against my throat, where it pressed against my windpipe and just when I knew he was about to do what neither Lynch nor Skinner could and end my wretched existence, he said, “I just want to hear it from you.”
“Wh…what?”
The blade pulsed. “I want to hear it from your own mouth. Tell me I was right, that all along I was right about you, that it’s all lies and you’re an absolute coward, that I’m not the one around here who’s lost his mind.”
Was it all that mad a request?
And it wasn’t like I’d give two hoots about any lost legacy once it was done, not that I expected Savage to survive long enough to tell anyone regardless but there were other reasons to give him what he desired, in this final moment. I wasn’t sure if it was knowing I was dead or that I’d watched this man suffer and on some level felt he deserved an explanation. Maybe, just as Baird had, I wanted to tell somebody, somebody more deserving than a randy barrister beneath a table, to offload the burden from myself but in the moment the tears poured down my cheeks as I heaved for breath. “It’s true, Mister Savage, you’re right, it’s all true. I’m a fraud, a cad and a worthless coward.”
His eyes widened, though whether because I’d surprised him by confirming what he’d suspected for a while and that in some perverse new world certain things mattered more than what truly ought to, or because finally, in my death moment I was showing some humility, I couldn’t say. “I was right?”
I closed my eyes, unwilling to look at him and nodded, “I really wish I could tell you the half of it but I’d only be stalling for time, time I don’t deserve in this cruel world and it’s odds on you wouldn’t believe me anyway.” The blade eased from my throat. “What are you doing, put it back, I deserve it and I’m happy it’s by your hand. Mister Savage, you were right about the river, I saw the dead through my glass and at any cost, all I wanted was to avoid them. I reasoned that I was protecting us all but all I truly cared about was saving myself.”
The blade was fully away from my throat by this point. “But…but you’ve killed so many of them, haven’t you?”
I shook my head. “Not a one … several of my comrades, yes, freak accidents and incompetence, mostly, they seem to perish wherever I go, but a zombie? No, never. You were very right about all that. I’d like to be a better man but not if it means giving up that which I’ve become accustomed, it all comes so easy. I know, I know, I’m weak and so scared of those evil monsters. I swear they follow me everywhere.” I wiped a sleeve across my nose, a hand across my eyes and tugged at the air as I struggled to breathe. “Whatever it is they say about you, I’m just as bad, worse even, at least you’re trying to be a better man.”
“Captain, I…” he let go of my hair and using his hands, positioned himself upright and leant against the wall, “you do understand why I get so upset, don’t you? It’s the injustice of it all, the whole world, I try so hard but life just contrives against me and then I look at people like you and…”
“I know and I feel such terrible guilt.” I pushed myself up to lean against the same wall as I came to face him and I don’t know for how long we spoke about this crazy world, events, women and life in general. He was interested in knowing about Ireland, as he’d never been, and I told him to camp out on a rock, eat nothing but turnip and engage in frequent bouts of fisticuffs with the locals and he’d have the general gist of it. “By rights, I shouldn’t even be here but for being caught rogering my CO’s wife. You know Colonel Fitzgibbon, no? You’re lucky, awful rogue, but when you stick that thing in my neck you’ll be saving him the bother, all right, and the humiliation of having all my friends and people who thought so much of me watch as I beg for my life, as I know I will…” I sighed, “would have, anyway, but much better you end it all here instead. This way, at least there’ll be some who’ll remember me with fondness.”
