Six Days With the Dead Read Online Free Page B

the wall a rope ladder. Liz hooking her leg over the top of the wall, removed her sword in one smooth motion. At this sign Alice started shouting and waving her arms to gain the attention of the Dead below. Once Liz had reached the bottom, she too then began to shout to draw their attention allowing Alice to descend her ladder.
    The creature that had once been a man turned towards Alice. He raised his claw like hands to her as he let out a low dry moan. Pai nfully dragging one foot after another, he moved toward her, his stiff dead limbs, fighting against their unnatural movement. At such close range the smell was appalling. Rancid and cloying it had become a foul taste in her mouth. Alice spat as she tested the weight and balance of her bat in her hands. Once he was within an arm’s reach she prepared herself to strike. Her bat held back and high, she swung forward with as much power as she could. At that precise moment the man lost his footing, slipping slightly on the gravelly earth. The bat still in motion, missed the desired skull shot and instead impacted with force on what was left of his jaw. Bone and dried skin splintered and broke. Hanging there at a grotesque angle his jaw, attached now by only a few strips of ligament on one side, moved as the Dead man rocked back and forth re-gaining his balance. Seemingly unaware that the lower half of his face was all but gone, he still reached for Alice desperate to bite into her living flesh. Alice, pushing against his chest with the end of her bat, gave herself the room she needed to swing again. This time using an overhand motion, she brought the bat smashing down on the front of his head. With a dull ‘thunk’ his skull shattered, as the bat destroyed the front section of the brain. To be sure Alice pulled back preparing to hit him again but she had been fortunate this time, with his arms falling to his sides finally motionless, the Dead man slumped first to his knees and then fell face forward on the ground. Satisfied he was no more, Alice glanced over at Liz.
    Kicking her legs from under her, Liz had also knocked the small girl to the floor. Flipping her onto her stomach so she wouldn ’t have to look into its dead eyes, she sat on its back pinning it beneath her. The child moaned pitifully and struggled to turn its head to get to Liz. With its jaw snapping hopefully for a mouthful of blood and flesh, Liz held her sword with the point above the child skull. She looked up at Alice.
    ‘ God, this is a shitty way to live.’ She said.
    ‘ I know.’ Alice replied, with sadness in her voice.
    Liz looked back down at what had once been an innocent child, now just a Dead thing, forever tormented by hunger.
    ‘ I’m sorry,’ she said, as her sword plunged into the back of the girl’s skull and brain.
    Instantl y the struggles stopped and the Dead child was still. Letting out a shuddering breath Liz slowly stood up.
    ‘ Everything OK?’ Damian called from the walkway.
    ‘ No, not really.’ Liz said, quietly to herself. Her eyes going back to the small tarnished ladybird clip now caked in dark dead blood.
    ‘ I’ll find out who’s on clean-up to take them over to the fire pit.’ Damian said, disappearing from view.
    They would store the corpses in a pit they had dug some distance away from the convent. Once a month , one of the nuns would come out with a few of the refugees for protection and pray for the passing of the Dead. They would then set the pit alight, the fire consuming all of the decayed flesh within a few hours. This way they only had to deal with the smell of burning bodies monthly rather than whenever the need actually arose.
    Liz cleaned off her blade on some grass and slid it back into its sheath until it clicke d home.
    ‘ Great way to start a day.’ she said, while she and Alice climbed back up the rope ladder, over the high wall and back onto the walkway. Sally had followed Damian into the main area of the convent leaving Alice and Liz to