The Risen Read online

  The Risen

  Copyright 2016 Adam J Smith

  Published by Adam J Smith at CreateSpace

  What Parts There Are

  3: Prologue

  6: Part One: Death

  33: Part Two: Union

  125: Part Three: Roadkill

  191: Part Four: Descent

  239: Part Five: Ascension

  Prologue

  An early morning mist shielded Nate from any eyes watching through boarded windows, as he crouched from car to car down the residential street. It was still relatively dark, but hard not to be conspicuous as the only sign of life, like two betraying, pearlescent cat-eyes staring from the shadows. Luckily, his night-clothes helped in this regard. Stooped, with his back to hedges and intermittent low-brick walls, he made his way forward; past broken glass from shattered windscreens – or melted Molotov-shards – that crunched beneath the soles of his shoes. Why must everything sound louder in the dark, he thought, holding his breath.

  Where once the Graysons had spent a whole summer seemingly camped in their front garden, gate permanently open and accepting, with a paddling pool for the kids and camping stools for the adults – cigarettes in hand and cider in the belly – there was now a pile of forgotten rubble, and a gaping space where the house had stood. The deep purple of dawn bled between dark bookends.

  Cautiously, he turned towards the pile of rubble and found the path that he was looking for. Displaced bricks and unusable remnants, like warped saucepans, twisted spoons, congealed and solidified children’s toys – cinder-black – moved under-foot. To keep steady, his gloved hands fumbled along the tender walls of the blockade, until he was standing in the foundations of their neighbour’s destroyed house.

  He knelt for a second and listened, removing his backpack to find his torch.

  He noticed how the faint acrid scent that had once seeped into their house was now either gone, or was being compressed by the mist.

  A far-off scream made him jump and pause his rummaging. It hadn’t lasted long; piercing and female and then only quiet, like so many.

  Heart suddenly pounding again, Nate closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breathing, listening to his long exhales and hoping he wasn’t masking someone else’s. As he regained composure, he inhaled as much air as he could and then held it.

  Momentary, guttural groans and what sounded like dogs growling carried through the mist to him, but sounded a way off, three or four streets perhaps.

  He dared to move, crouch-walking to the edge of the foundations and sitting against the side of his house. With the solid brick wall against his back he felt safer. He clutched his backpack to his front and waited. The torch could remain. He unsheathed a bloodied knife from the holster on his belt and sat in silence.

  Inside the backpack were the supplies he had ventured out for; one-and-a-half miles away was Wigley’s, a hardware store that sold a variety of household basics; from paint to paving slabs, kitchen scales to plumbing essentials. Importantly, it also sold cheap food goods, tins and dried goods of the cracker variety. Not an obvious place for food, so it had been agreed that there might still be something salvageable, as long as the building was still standing.

  Part One: Death

  A few hours ago, and a couple of hours after darkness had fallen, Nate said goodbye and set off, for all the world looking like the schoolboy he had still been a few months ago, only now his backpack empty and his clothes black – black jeans, two black jumpers (for it was February-cold) and black gloves. Two large knives dangled from a belt and rubbed his thighs – one for each – as he crouch-walked through the rubble and onto the street.

  Once on the street, he paused. Everything looked much the same as last time, but still it did nothing to quell his fear. Only until he had been silent for five minutes did he straighten his back so that his head appeared over the roofs of the burnt-out or abandoned cars. Without electricity, streetlamps stood like totems that no longer bore witness to the mundane, their heads creating black holes in a star-filled darkness; blinded house-fronts no longer cast their muted yellow glow into the world, or televised the lives within as families with their feet up stared at screens. Boards now vainly made houses faceless; or those without boards were mausoleums and ransacked opportunities.

  These, Nate could barely make out. The moon was waning and could not help.

  “Add to checklist; night-vision goggles,” he whispered, and set off.

  His breath condensed in front of his face, but he could not see it. He walked upright with the hedges and walls of front gardens to his left, passing the cars that stood unmoved. None blocked his path. He knew the layout, however; had scavenged what he could from the glove and otherwise hidden compartments of undamaged cars, until no longer useful.

  He walked the streets in the direction of school; his sixth-form stay so nearly over, until it was over for good. Paths he had walked before with headphones in ears. Now he walked wishing he’d never even worn headphones in his life. He strained his ears as he walked, so much his eyes began to ache, listening for the quietest sounds.

  The path lead on to the main road and started to wind its way down towards the river Severn. This road was clear of vehicles; people’s cars had been mostly locked up tight in garages, or at least lined up outside houses, when things started to get bad. Avoiding exposure, Nate again kept the verge to his back as he walked, this time a wooded area where deer had sometimes accidentally found themselves too close to civilisation.

  On an earlier expedition, Nate had come across the tattered bones of a deer in the middle of the main road, heading south, away from the river. It was The Smell that first alerted him; ringing bells as it sometimes did looking for houses open to scavenging. He’d briefly flashed his torch on a barren, flesh-torn ribcage, and quickly left the scene.

  At the river now, the once-blockaded bridge was thankfully the same. Cars had been lined up across the crest, two or three deep, but at some point someone in a lorry had hurtled into them at 80-miles an hour and forged a page through the middle. Some of those cars now glinted in the starlight, twisted metal straining for attention.

  Nate had crossed to the other side only once, a few weeks ago, desperate for food. On the other side, shops lined the street and it had not taken long to take a fill of goods from one of them. As this was a bottleneck for whatever pedestrian traffic there may still be, he had watched the bridge for an hour before satisfying himself that there was no one waiting. This time, he didn’t have that luxury.

  Exposed, he started up the bridge. He wanted to stick to one side, but those paths were blocked.

  Streaks of oil and god knows what else trailed down from the crest, and The Smell rose up. Nate halted. He listened. He drew out a knife and held it in a reverse grip.

  After a while he continued forward until cars began to flank him, their insides dark, windows smashed, ready for arms to extend out and grab him. He pulled out his other knife so he was prepared to slash left, or right. As he continued, The Smell grew stronger, and there was the source; lying just over the crest but across a white dotted line, face down, was a decapitated corpse. The head had rolled away slightly, but it was enough to see the dead one had been male.

  Nate crouched; anyone watching would see him like a lone tree on the horizon, even in this darkness, as the river seemed to reflect back what little starlight there was. Crouching helped him feel secure, safe, maybe because he was at least poised to pounce. He listened intently but heard nothing but the river below snaking onwards to the Severn estuary miles and miles downstream.

  The presence of the body proved one thing; that there couldn’t be any of the zombie-like things out there, for they would right now be devouring it. Still, someone had to have chopped that head of, and that someone
will be around here still, somewhere – you don’t travel far very quickly anymore. The presence of The Smell proved another; that the body had been there a while, and it was likely that the chopper of heads wasn’t hiding in a car – that smell was nauseating, and would possibly draw unwanted attention.

  Satisfied with his reasoning, Nate edged to the left, towards the cars that he somehow felt were ‘safer’. He continued over the bridge, keeping the cars and then the bridge parapet to his back.

  To his right, the silhouette of the town’s riverside fair loomed: a spinless waltzer; a frozen big-wheel with the legs of a well-dressed manikin dangling from a motionless seat; colourless bulbs spelling words that had no meaning anymore; the helter skelter giving rides to whirling gales and autumn leaves.

  Memories of playing in the arcade on tuppence drop-machines, and leaning left and right on arcade motorcycles, flashed briefly in Nate’s mind; then chasing friends on the bumper cars, trying to give whiplash to David, or Karl – where are you? – or accidentally on purpose nudging Leeann – would you notice me!

  Breathing brought Nate back to reality – that smell! He tried not to gag.

  Safely across, the fair gave way to The Manor pub on the right, while on the left, The Riverside Inn, or what was left of it, stood crumbling and cold. Up ahead, darkness encroached once more as the road rose towards the High Street. The Smell was only now beginning to dissipate.

  By starlight he navigated his way towards Wigley’s, passing hollowed shop-fronts (which he dared not enter), ever-listening for sounds that he was not alone. Here, no effort had been made to board-up first- and second-storey windows, and some were still intact with curtain-drawn fascias staring down onto the street. No faint candlelight could be discerned though. And where Nate and Leeann, hockey captain and headmaster’s daughter from nearby Mountbatten All Girl’s school – had such a place really still used to exist? – once took shelter from a sudden downpour in the recesses of a charity shop, and kissed, there was now only blood. It shone, tackily, in pools across the entranceway floor, glistening on the window frames and a door hanging on one loose hinge.

  Nate quickly moved on, towards the basin of Stourport's canal system that fed into the river; here, a low-lying mist was beginning to swell above the water, so that the darkness ruled. He took care not to get too close to the edge – or where he knew it to be – walking with controlled steps. On anxious legs that wanted to run, he crossed a narrow bridge lined with iron railings and entered a riverside field that only last spring had hosted picnics and parties, barbecues and Frisbee competitions; dogs chasing the swans and pigeons and geese and ducks on the scrounge for bread-bits and leftover chips.

  Where once his greatest fear may have been stepping in dog-shit, any such befoulments strewn across the grass now were hardened lumps and coal-like, their once-hosts near-obliterated.

  The field was free of danger, free of anything but unkempt grass, and Nate was soon safely back on the tarmac and able to put a surface to his back. He dared to pick up his pace and walked forward briskly, house-fronts to his right and a clear pathway in front. Each doorway, black with hidden depth, caused his heart to race as he approached them; the street seemed to go on and on. Every now and then he'd pass an entrance that was accompanied by a slight breeze, as though all the doors and windows in the house were open, desperately expelling The Smell that came from inside; it was like being on a merry-go-round and focusing on one point in the distance and inevitably having to swivel your head around in one quick movement to catch it again, gulping down that nausea as you did so.

  At last he arrived at the end of the street and the outskirts of the residential area. Just a ten-minute walk remained – at normal pace – to get to the industrial estate where Wigley's was situated. Turning right on to the main road, he followed the road markings, glowing slightly in the starlight. There was nothing to put his back to here; distant houses to his right and Habberley Valley to the left, a dog-walkers paradise. Whose paradise is it now?

  An overturned car with all the doors open lay prostrate in a thick of brambles to the left. It was hard to make out the details, but Nate saw, on both sides, shapes and shadows he couldn't decipher, and faintly smelled the sour, putrefying scent of decay, though he couldn't be sure if it was merely a memory, something nearby, or if it was now on his clothes.

  The road was straight, he knew that much. The only obstruction, if you could call it that, was the ragged remains of some breed of some species of animal, making an exclamation mark of a road marking. Nate stopped briefly, as the sight of death would cause, and took stock, listening. Even with darkness as an amplifier; nothing.

  He reached the industrial estate and turned onto it, sticking to the middle of the road. There was potential to his left in an off-license and small grocery store, which he could check out on his way back if necessary. Now that he was nearer his goal, the urge to rush had dissipated. Factory walls loomed on the left, so he targeted these. Thankfully, there were no doorways.

  Finally, he turned onto the road for Wigley's; it looked undisturbed, business as usual. Its driveway ramps were still pot-holed, and the top speed was still 5 miles per hour. Out front and on display were empty racks; all the timber they had for sale, or for theft, was gone; the outstretched shelf-brackets had provided, and now they pleaded.

  Nate looked at this and sighed. "Catch a break..." he muttered, though somehow he was not surprised. He walked up to the front entrance and tried the door, which didn’t budge.

  With his ear against the door, he listened for movement, talking, or at this time of night, snoring. As he did so, his breath condensed on the glass.

  After a minute he satisfied himself and stepped back. There must be a trade entrance, or a work entrance, or something, he thought. Following the building around, he passed garden furniture and gnomes that would never fish, and piles of bagged up building sand and dry cement.

  “If we can ever get back on track there’ll be plenty to build with,” he said quietly, and then, with a laugh, realised how ridiculous that was. “Not so much a housing shortage as a people shortage.”

  At the far end of the building was a fork-lift entrance, but it was rolled down and immovable. However, to the side was a viewing window that had been smashed. He quickly checked the frame to confirm there was no glass left, and then listened for movement inside. It was black.

  From his backpack he pulled out a torch and aimed it through the window. He cupped the end with his hand and turned it on, revealing the useless fork-lift and box upon box of goods. Confident, he removed his hand entirely to reveal the rest of the storage room. At the back, he could see that it lead around a corner.

  He turned off the torch and put it back inside the backpack, took a deep breath and leaped up onto the sill of the window. Straining, he pulled himself up until he could swing his legs over, and then dropped, and crouched.

  He noticed there was no smell, nothing rotting anyway, to accompany the silence and darkness. Standing again, he made his way through the darkness to the corridor at the back. His shoes made quiet steps until the steel-toed ends clunked on a trolley, knocking it over. The resounding crash sent Nate’s heart into overdrive; he bit his lip until it bled.

  Against his side, his knives felt reassuringly present. He grappled the hilt of each and listened, eyes closed.

  The man-who-was-not-a-man vaulted the gate and bull-charged the door before they could close it behind them. The man-who-was-not-a-man collapsed into their hallway and knocked them all down like human skittles. The man-who-was-not-a-man scrambled for the nearest pulse, the nearest artery, and clamped his teeth into the inner thigh of the-man-who-was-a-father. The boy-who-was-a-son shot to his feet and kicked the head of the man-who-was-not-a-man, again and again, until the head was no longer a head.

  He opened his eyes, paused, then grabbed his bag. On the balance of things, now that he had announced himself, he may as well use his torch, he reasoned. Better to reduce the risk of causing
another clatter. He pulled it out and cupped the end again, before turning it on. The shadow of the collapsed trolley stretched out towards the far end of the room, beyond the prongs of the fork-lift, aimed at the corridor, and ended at the two-booted feet of a stranger.

  “Can I help you, nigger?” he said.

  *****

  Shocked, Nate stood still, processing two things: he was thankful that the stranger was still capable of speech, that much was certain; however, nigger? Had he really just called him that? No-one had ever called him that before, at least not to his face.

  “Well, nigger, still got your tongue?”

  Nate removed his hand from the end of the torch, revealing a man in army fatigues with a utility belt across his chest adorned with at least two knives that he could see, and other bulging pockets.

  “Yep, thought so,” said the man.

  “You just called me ‘nigger’.”

  “Well done, boy.”

  “What the actual fuck?”

  “Aww, hurt your feelings?” From behind his back, the man pulled what looked like a spanner. “What you gonna do, call the police?”

  Nate switched the torch to his left hand and pulled out the knife from the right sheath.

  “Don’t try anything stupid,” said the man. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya. Name’s Wallace.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Putting his hands up, Wallace said, “No harm, no foul.”

  “No harm? You racist fuck.”

  “The world’s gone to shit and you’re worryin’ about being called names?”

  “I’m worrying there’s no decent people left.”

  “Well, the strongest survive, boy.”

  Nate shone the torch around the room; with the roller-door closed and presumably locked, it was the window or Wallace.

  “What you plannin’ on?” asked Wallace.