Aftermath

48

Over the months the castle had been completely encircled with dead flesh. The thought of having to hike back across it had filled both Michael and Harte with dread, but the reality had proved to be less of an ordeal than they’d expected, certainly no worse than what they’d just been through underneath the castle. That had actually proved to be good preparation for trudging through the ankle-deep, frost-encrusted, once-human slime outside. It was somehow easier the second time around.

They felt strangely invisible—a good thing if Jas did decide to come looking for them. In the low light of early morning, the living were hard to distinguish from the decayed remains they were walking through. And they were all still soaked with decay from their castle escape too. All they needed to do, should Jas or any of his cronies appear, was stand still and wait until they disappeared again.

Michael looked back over his shoulder at the castle they’d somehow managed to escape from, then at the ragtag group of people who were following him, picking their way through the carnage. He could tell a lot about each of them by the way they were dealing with what they were walking through tonight. Harte and Kieran ere stomping through the slime, exhausted and just desperate to get across to the other side in the shortest time possible. Howard was constantly grumbling. Seriously unfit, he spent more time looking for a dog he’d told Michael he’d lost than he did trying to get away from the remains of the dead. He placed the two women at opposite extremes. Caron was infuriating; the slowest of all, she was constantly moaning about the dirt under her nails and asking how long they had left to go, like an irritating kid stuck in the back seat of the family car. Lorna, on the other hand, was strong and unflappable and kept Caron in check. She was clearly tough, so much so that he wouldn’t have fancied his chances against her in a fistfight.

Michael caught her eye, then looked away. He turned back when he realized she’d stopped. Something had caught her attention. Her head was raised and she remained perfectly still, like an animal sniffing the air for a scent.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Don’t think so.”

“What, then?”

“See that house over there?”

Michael squinted into the dark. It took him a few seconds to spot the building she was referring to. In the predawn gloom, it was just another dark shape among many. He was soon able to make out its walls and roof. Harte was too.

“I see it,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

“Oh, there’s no problem,” she casually replied. “There’s a light on in one of the windows, that’s all.”

* * *

Suddenly revitalized, the group moved at speed toward the house in the distance. The nearer they got, the clearer the light in the downstairs window became.

Caron was still complaining as they approached it.

“These bloody bodies,” she said. “Are we ever going to get away from them? You said we only had to walk a mile or so and we’d be through them.”

Michael stopped and looked down at his feet, thinking about what she’d just said. “We are through them.”

“But how can we be? There are still loads of them around—look.”

She was right, there was still an unexpectedly high number of corpses nearby. More to the point, most of them were on their feet, and some were still moving—an indication that, perhaps, these creatures had never made it as far as the crowd around the castle. The ground they were now walking over was clear, and they’d long since made it through most of the sea of decay which had surrounded the castle.

“This is something else, isn’t it?” Lorna said, clearly coming to the same conclusion as Michael. “These bodies are here because of whatever’s in that house.”

She star running toward the building. Harte called for her to be careful, but she wasn’t listening. The front lawn was overgrown, and the windows were covered in thick curtains of cobwebs and dust. Before she’d made it even halfway down the garden path, the front door opened inwards.

“Hello, you,” said Hollis.