Fear the Dead 2 Read online

  “Shut it.”

  I walked to the table and stood inches away from him. So many things were going through my head. Was Harlowe telling the truth? How would I prove it? If he was, what the hell were we going to do?

  I needed time.

  I leant my face into his, so close I smelt the grime. “You say nothing. You understand me? Nothing.”

  Harlowe nodded. “Are you letting me go?”

  I knew that I shouldn’t. Letting him go sent a message, and if people knew I’d done it, they’d think I was an easy touch. He could have others out there waiting for him, and he’d seen enough of Vasey that he could come back with them and cause real trouble. By all rights, Harlowe had to die.

  Harlowe reminded me of myself. The thick beard, dirty skin. Clothes that had never seen a wash. A face that had never been creased by a smile or a frown, instead left as a blank canvas. In the Wilds, there was no point feeling anything. You just had to stay alive.

  I lowered my voice. “You leave as soon as it gets dark. Once you’re outside of Vasey, you turn your back on it and start walking. If I ever see you look in the direction of these walls again, I’ll slit your throat myself.”

  Harlow picked up his wallet and put it in his pocket. “Thank you,” he said, “You won't regret it.”

  I wished I could believe him.

  3

  I dropped the tip of the shovel and worked it through the dirt. My busted leg ached, so I rested a few seconds and let the throbbing subside. After days of working so hard that I went home covered in sweat, the majority of the land was still untouched. We would never be ready in time.

  The fields were big enough to grow the food we’d need to get through the winter, but there wasn’t enough people working them. Across from me, two women worked on the carrot patch. I was getting the potatoes ready, and a heavyset man did his best on the onions, stopping every few minutes to wipe the sweat off his forehead. A handful of people trying to grow enough food to sustain a population. It wasn’t enough.

  I leant on my shovel and caught my breath. This was my fault. I was the leader; I should have ordered people to help. My mistake was giving people too much freedom. I’d allocated jobs to those who wanted work, but I’d let those looking for an easy life get by without having to work up a sweat.

  A thick cloud loomed above us, as though the sky was angry at our pathetic attempts at growing food and had decided to punish us with rain. The smell of manure pinched at my nostrils. Sometimes I wondered if it was better in the Wilds. No. This has to work. Vasey is our only chance.

  There were footsteps behind me on the paving. Faizel walked toward me. He was six foot three with a black goatee beard that he somehow kept tidy despite the lack of grooming products. His skin was tan and his bones were wrapped in muscle. He gave off a calm aura, as though he kept himself in a peaceful place that the world couldn’t touch. Faizel was one of Moe’s scouts, but I doubted his loyalty to him. He was the opposite of Moe; he thought before he spoke, treated every word as if it was precious.

  “Kyle,” he said, nodding his head.

  I stuck the shovel deeper into the earth so that it stood on its own. I stepped out of the mud and tapped my boot on the floor, letting the dirt spill out.

  “Looking for work?” I said.

  He shook his head. He pointed behind me at the fields. “You should work in rotation. Four of you on the carrots until they’re done. Then the potatoes. You need to plan for the season – some things fare better than others in the winter.”

  “Feels like it’s going to be a harsh one this year.”

  “Nature adapts.”

  The cloud spat drips of rain. Lately it seemed like that was all it ever did, and it made for messy field work. We needed a couple of days of dry weather.

  “What can I do for you?” I said.

  “Moe needs you in town.”

  I took my watch from my pocket. The strap was broken, so I couldn’t wear it, but the mechanism still ticked. The clock showed three pm. Still a few hours of day light left, and I needed them.

  “Let me finish up here and then I’ll head over.”

  Faizel shook his head. Rain dotted onto his face, but he didn’t seem to mind. His black hair was tied back into a ponytail and a small star-shaped tattoo was cut into his neck.

  “He needs you now,” he said.

  “Is it urgent?”

  “Yep.”

  Faizel’s face didn’t convey urgency. It didn’t crease or break, it was a slate devoid of emotion. I needed some of the training he’d had to make himself a rock.

  I heaved the shovel out of the field, spraying mud everywhere. I looked at what I’d achieved with my day’s labour, and my shoulders sagged. Only a quarter done. I shouted over to the others working the fields.

  “Gotta go guys. Emergency in town. Keep up the hard work.”

  The chubby man waved his hand in the air, the round skin of his cheeks flushed red.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  ***

  We got to the town square. This time there was a larger crowd of people than before, and a ripple of anger ran through their faces. In the middle of the crowd, the scene was the same as it had been a few days ago.

  Harlowe was on his knees. His face was swollen, and a purple bump stuck out underneath his eyes.

  I pushed past two people and got into the centre of the ring. Moe stood behind Harlowe. His face was red, and his hands were white from where he gripped the man’s collar.

  “This is your fucking fault, Kyle,” said Moe.

  Harlowe looked at me, his eyes vacant.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  Moe shook Harlowe by the collar. His body jerked, but he didn’t do anything to stop it.

  “I told you not to let him go, but you did it anyway. And look what’s happened. This is on you.”

  He pushed Harlowe to the ground and kicked him in the ribs. Harlowe flinched, but didn’t move to protect himself.

  I put myself between him and Moe. I pulled Harlowe to his knees, but Moe snatched his collar.

  “What’s happened?” I said.

  “He came back and tried it again,” said Moe. He slapped Harlowe on the back of the head. “Only this time, he’s killed someone.”

  The words winded me. Harlowe’s face looked like a swollen tomato, and his body sagged in Moe’s grip. His eyes were half-closed, and he looked at the ground as though he were resigned to his punishment. There was no fear in his face now. He didn’t look like the same man who had shown me the picture of his wife and kid, the one who had convinced me not to kill him. I had made a massive mistake.

  Guilt started to flood my stomach, but I could suffer that later. I needed to know what had happened. “Who did he kill?” I said.

  Moe rubbed his face with his free hand. “Does it matter who’s dead? Do you really need to know his name, or is the fact that he murdered someone enough?”

  “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  A man shoved his way through the crowd. He was short and squat. Beady pupils rolled in the whites of his eyes, and below them a swollen-looking nose flushed red. His chest spread wide and his gut stuck out.

  It was Dan, one of Moe’s scouts. He was one of the people who had never come to me for work, instead helping Moe with whatever he wanted doing. Wherever Moe pointed, Dan jumped. When hard work needed doing, Dan ran.

  He looked down on Harlowe, his pink face twisted in contempt. The contempt didn’t leave him when he looked at me.

  “Sam’s dead,” he said, his words slipping through gritted teeth. “His wife’s a fucking widow because you didn’t follow the law. What’s gonna have to happen before you realise that we know best? Things were working well before you showed up.”

  That wasn’t true. Things had been turning to crap before I got here. They were running out of food because hardly any of the tinned stuff was remotely edible, and they hadn’t made any effort to grow their own. They had no direction in life, survi
ving for the present by borrowing from the future. Dan was wrong, but I couldn’t say shit because he was on the mark about one thing; my mercy had gotten someone killed.

  My throat thickened, and I got a sinking feeling as self-loathing slid through my body like bad medicine. I was going to have to go see Sam’s widow. I didn’t know what it was going to take, but I would make this right.

  Moe grabbed hold of Harlowe’s hair and pulled his head back. He took out his knife and pressed it to his throat. Harlowe’s Adam’s apple bulged out of place as he gulped.

  “Who wants to see justice?” he said.

  The crowd murmured and a few people spoke in the affirmative. Their features were covered in shadows, twisted into positons that only anger could make. They had seen one of their own killed by an outsider, and now they wanted revenge. And there was nothing I was going to be able to do to stop it. I didn’t know if I wanted to; Harlowe and his quivering chin were a pathetic reflection of my mistake.

  I crouched in front of Harlowe. I took his chin, made him look at me.

  “What about your wife and boy? “I asked. “They’re not worth living for?”

  I don’t know what I expected from him. Did I want him to say sorry? Plead for his life? It wouldn’t have made a difference at this point. I was looking at a dead man.

  The edges of his lips curled and his face tightened into a grin. “Can’t believe you bought that shit.”

  I gritted my teeth. “What?”

  He leant in as far as Moe’s grip would allow him. His words were a whisper, his breath hot. “I took the wallet off a guy I killed. There never was a wife and kid. You gullible fucking moron.”

  My body tensed up. I tightened my hands into fists and tried to keep them at my side as they shook.

  Harlowe leaned in further. He spoke so quietly that nobody could hear him but me. “Think your friends would like to know what I told you yesterday. About the wave of infected that’s going to kill them all.”

  After lying to me about his wife and kid, why should I believe him about this? I’d trusted his word once, and I wouldn’t do it again.

  Even so, if he told everyone about the wave, Moe wouldn’t think about it objectively. He’d use it as a reason to leave Vasey straight away, and he’d take half the town with him. Vasey was on a knife edge, and I had to stop it cutting itself.

  I took a deep breath and held it in my chest. My arms and legs felt tight, my stomach fluttery. Was I really going to do this?

  I slipped my knife into my hand. The blade caught Harlowe’s eye, and his face sagged. I moved my arm back ready to swing at his throat, but I stopped myself at the last second. I couldn’t do it.

  Moe threw Harlowe to the ground. He looked at my knife and grinned. “Glad you’re coming round to my way of thinking, Kyle, but this one’s mine. And I’ve got a few questions before we let him bleed.”

  Harlowe stayed on the ground. A trickle of blood ran from a graze on his forehead. He rubbed at it, leaving a red smear across his skin.

  Moe addressed the crowd. “Who wants justice today?”

  They answered in the affirmative.

  Moe paced across the square as he spoke, an orator in his element.

  “Is it the will of the people that this man dies?”

  A chorus of yesses.

  “Harlowe”, said Moe. “I’ve got one last question before I bleed you dry.”

  Harlowe looked up, a man resigned to his fate. In death he wasn’t the coward I thought he’d be.

  Moe held his knife in his hand, span it by the blade. “Why were you stupid enough to try and steal the same car twice? You’re no genius, but you must have a pretty good reason.”

  Harlowe dragged himself into a sitting position. The strain of it drained his face white. The angry faces of the crowd stared down at him, a throng of furious men and women looking for revenge.

  All I could do was watch. This had gone beyond me now, beyond what any leader could do. Harlowe was in the hands of the crowd.

  He cleared his throat. As he took his last breaths, he looked the crowd in the eyes and spoke clearly. “They’re coming for you,” he said. “And you’re all going to die.”

  And then he told everyone about the wave of infected.

  Panic seeped into the faces of the crowd. They believed him, and the thought of it terrified them. Soon their panic would turn to anger and then there would be no reasoning, no examining of the facts. They would take action, and Moe would guide them into it. Vasey was done.

  4

  Sam Henderson lay under a bedsheet on the ground. He left behind two girls, four and six years old, and a wife. He also left a girlfriend and a string of casual one night stands, having made it his mission to work through as many of the women of Vasey as he could. But nobody was going to tell the crying widow about that.

  I lifted the shovel up high and heaved it down, breaking through the crust of the soil. The top layer was cracked with cold and hadn’t been touched for a long time, so breaking through took a lot of strain.

  Weak rays of sun shone over the wall and illuminated this little-visited part of Vasey, but they weren’t warm enough to cut through the frosted autumn air. The clouds above me were plump and tinged concrete-grey.

  I turned the shovel and let more mud fall onto the pile next to me. The hole wasn’t big enough yet, and I wanted to get this done by sundown. Despite the burning that ran through my muscles, I lifted the shovel again.

  Boots trod on the ground behind me. I dropped the shovel and turned. It was Moe. He wore a scarf round his neck that reached up his wrinkled mouth. He planted his heavy boots in the ground and uncovered his lips.

  “This doesn’t make it right,” he said.

  I let the shovel fall. I put my hands in my pockets so that Moe wouldn’t see them tighten.

  “’Scuse me?”

  Moe walked over to Sam’s body. He knelt down and took hold of a corner of the bedsheet. He peeled it back and revealed the man’s dead body, which we had dressed in the nicest suit we could find. The pale blue shirt covered up the stab wound on his left pectoral muscle, but nothing could be done about the hole in his temple. Harlowe hadn’t made that wound; I’d done it to make sure that Sam never came back. Moe moved Sam’s sleeve and put a finger to his grey wrist.

  “Freezing,” he said.

  “Yeah, he’s dead.”

  Moe straightened up and his knees cracked. He looked at me with a flash of anger. “And who do you think they blame for that?”

  Everyone knew that Harlowe had stabbed Sam, but was it completely his fault? Did you blame the invention of the nuclear bomb on the guy who pressed the button? I’d made the decision to let him go. If I’d followed the law of the town and killed him, then he wouldn’t have been able to do this.

  A man was dead because of my stupidity, and now the whole damn town had heard Harlowe talking about the five hundred thousand infected heading our way. I was going to talk, but Moe cut in.

  “I’ve made my decision Kyle. I’m leaving in two weeks.”

  “Look, Moe – “

  He shook his head. “It’s done. I’m a stubborn old bastard, surely you gotta recognise that by now.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, scratched the back of my head. He was right. Once he made a decision, that was it.

  A snap of wind blew past us. The few leaves that still clung onto the autumn trees rattled, and a chill brushed against my skin. The body heat I'd built up by digging seeped out of me, so I picked up my coat from the floor and slid it on.

  Moe put his hand on my shoulder. Strong grip for an old guy.

  “Town meeting’s tonight, ain’t it?”

  I nodded.

  Every three weeks we met in an old theatre and discussed the town’s issues. I tried to make it a forum for ideas and opinions. I wanted to explain the direction we were heading in and to get the people excited about it. Instead, it usually descended into a bunch of petty squabbles, into ‘he did this, ‘she did that’ b
ullshit.

  Moe put his hands back into his pockets. “Tonight I’m gonna tell everyone what I’m doing. I’ll be honest with you now, Kyle. I don’t agree with you but I respect you, so I owe you that much.”

  He held my stare, and for a few seconds we didn’t say anything. The wind whispered around us. “Spit it out,” I said.

  He gave a slight nod, closed his eyes a little. “I’m gonna tell every single person in there that they ought to come with me. Vasey is finished, and it’s time for pastures new.”